A Very Unusual Sunday Walk

I wasn't even expecting to take photographs today, since it was raining intermittently. I was having dinner at my favorite vegetarian restaurant. And when I went out, ready to take the brisk 20 minute walk home, the sun had come out. Out of nowhere.

There nearest place to take advantage of the beautiful light that suddenly came out was the cemetery, Vår Frelsers Gravlund (Our Savior's Cemetery). It sounds like a depressing place to take a walk! But it really wasn't. It was really peaceful. And the sight of gravestones in the different contours and colors gave me a slight boost of photographic inspiration.

The image above I call "Life & Death". I love the contrast of the fresh sprout of buds on the branches amidst the serenity of the background. Life emanating from a place where the dead are laid to rest. What beautiful irony! But I guess the most ironic thing about this image is that I didn't realize the "poetry" until I was almost done with the final processing in Lightroom 4!

All this contrast of shapes, sizes, colors and textures make for good practice in HDR photography. But this photograph is "quasi" HDR, just one photograph where all the detail has been brought out by adjusting exposure, shadows and highlights. For this shot, it actually works far better than the "normal" way of HDR processing. It gives a very detailed yet realistic image. The Panasonic GF3 is so small and light that it is nearly impossible to take the three perfectly aligned shots needed for HDR. I will have to try with a tripod the next time. Luckily the raw files have enough dynamic range (which I lovingly call "oomph") in them that there is still a lot of detail which can be brought out from the shadows.

The weekend has been rather unusual. I didn't feel that I was at the top of my game at all. But I was able to get some pretty decent shots so it was still a productive weekend nonetheless. Going to a graveyard to take pictures is something I would normally not have done, but it really wasn't so bad. As a matter of fact it was quite fun! But now I am waiting for warmer temperatures and more predictable weather so I can practice bird and macro photography as soon as kit upgrade arrives.

I wish everyone a great start to the coming work week. And stay for more articles in the coming days, among them, another "Mixed Feelings" post, and, a special post to celebrate the ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY of this blog!