Sea of Glass

Sea of Glass
Sea of Glass in downtown Vancouver                                       Buy a print for your office

This sea of glass is the Coal Harbor Section of Vancouver. In the center sits the Olympic Cauldron and all around are the towers of downtown Vancouver. I came down here for a few minutes as my hotel was just a block away. It had just been raining so it was mostly deserted, the perfect time to capture the architecture of the place without the pressing crowds normally found here.

It’s amazing how many people work in these buildings. But if you get on the subway in the morning you’ll see waves of people coming to work and filling these offices. This time of year the daylight is short, so its possible that you never see the light of day unless you work near a window. If you work standard hours from 8 to 5 you’re lucky to see any daylight during the work week.

I’m used to a little more light and so I found it a little disorienting. I was in my hotel one evening and looked out a window to see a gentleman working late at his desk. I thought it was so strange that he was at work so late in the evening. Then I looked at my watch and it was only a little after six o’clock. For some reason I thought it was much later because I hadn’t seen much light that day and it felt late. I’m sure people in Scandinavian countries deal with it all the time. I’ve heard you can even get light therapy to help supplement sunshine.

Fortunate for me I just go home to Florida.

Other Side of the Rainbow

Other Side of the Rainbow
Other Side of the Rainbow, a scene from Vancouver, BC                                        Purchase a fine art gallery print

For some reason this made me think of the other side of the rainbow. Maybe because we had nothing but rain before I took this, only there was no rainbow afterward, just clouds. The kind of rain they get here in Vancouver in the winter is not conducive to rainbows, the leprechauns get out of town and winter in Florida. It’s too bad, I would love to set the pot. That didn’t come out right.

To create this image I stood on the shoulders of giants. This is an HDR image which means I combined three exposures to get the maximum amount of light, more than I could get with a single shot. I combined the images in AuroraHDR Pro which is one of the latests products from Trey Ratcliff in collaboration with MacPhun. I created four layers with varying degrees of detail, radiance and color enhancement. I then returned the image to Adobe Lightroom where I used one of Trey’s presets. So, final result was a collaboration of sorts with the creative genius of Trey.

When I create images I use a lot of tools to create something beyond the ordinary. Sometimes I have an idea of what that is when I take the picture, other times after. It’s a highly subjective process and I never know where I’ll end up. Sometimes I struggle, other times it just flows. This image is one of the latter. I knew when I took it what I wanted, and then creating the final result was just a matter of sitting down and letting it happen. It just so happened that this time, I used Trey’s software for most of it. It was easy, fun, and I got where I needed to go. Thank you Trey!

Friday at the Park

Another shot of of the sunset at Robert F. Wagner park in lower Manhattan. It was such an idyllic setting that I took a tonne of pictures from every angle. This was one of the last shots as the sun when down and right after this Scott and I turned around and grabbed a table at an Italian restaurant with this very same view.
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Another shot of of the sunset at Robert F. Wagner park in lower Manhattan. It was such an idyllic setting that I took a tonne of pictures from every angle. This was one of the last shots as the sun when down and right after this Scott and I turned around and grabbed a table at an Italian restaurant with this very same view.

Wagner Park Sunset

This is  just north of Battery Park and probably one of the best places in lower Manhattan to watch a sunset. There is a grass lawn, wide benches, and nice little Italian restaurant just below here where you can forget for a minute that you are in a big city. After my friend Scott and I finished taking pictures we had dinner here and then headed up to midtown to check that out as well. There just wasn't enough time in the day to do everything we wanted to do, but this was probably the highlight of what we did manage to see.
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This is just north of Battery Park and probably one of the best places in lower Manhattan to watch a sunset. There is a grass lawn, wide benches, and nice little Italian restaurant just below here where you can forget for a minute that you are in a big city. After my friend Scott and I finished taking pictures we had dinner here and then headed up to midtown to check that out as well. There just wasn’t enough time in the day to do everything we wanted to do, but this was probably the highlight of what we did manage to see.