Another shot from the Latin America trip.   I'll leave it to the Spanish speakers among you to interpret the signage!   I liked the geometry that's happening in this scene,  three doors,  three windows, three balconies all of them blue but all of them slightly different.   Generally as part of the digital processing of images I'll use a slight to moderate amount of image sharpening in Photoshop, but in this instance the very closely spaced parallel window shutters looked weird with sharpening so I dispensed with it.   Given the soft late afternoon light and mostly soft colours I'm happy with the image as is anyway.     Enjoy KD   www.kevindowie.com

     Still going through the Latin America shots.   Today's image is of the town of Antigua, Guatemala not far from several volcanoes including Pacaya which I published photos of recently.   The town has many old buildings and cobblestone streets,  some of which have hardly changed in hundreds of years.  I've included this image as I like the detail and the sunglare on the road surface together with the perspective effect with the lines of the road and the buildings disappearing into the distance.    Enjoy KD  www.kevindowie.com

    Another shot from my Latin American trip.   Several of these fumeroles exist at the top of the volcano, spitting out smoke, steam and the sulphur which can be seen as a yellowish crust in the picture.    Some careful contrast control was required in Photoshop (PS) with this image in order to present the scene realistically.  There is a huge exposure difference on the original film negative with the sky being overexposed to the point that detail was washed out and the foreground being heavily underexposed with little detail in the black ash.   The colour negative film fortunately had enough exposure latitude that ultimately both shadow and highlight details could be obtained.   A print such as this could have been achieved in the traditional darkroom of course,  but the messing around with masks to get it right would have been a pain.   With the quick selection tool in PS, making and refining a "digital" mask was fairly straight forward.   Thank goodness for digital technology!    

Website worth visiting:    For those interested in beautiful nature photography check this out;    http://www.hawaiianatolls.org/photos/NWHI.mov

The link is to a QuickTime movie slideshow and looks at both bird and marine species in the north western Hawaiian Islands.  Be warned, it's a 39 meg download and requires QuickTime player but is worthwhile.      KD. 

    I'm still working my way through my Latin America shots.  This is one taken from near the top of Pacaya,  one of the most active volcanoes in the world, in Guatemala and shows the surrounding countryside.  The shot was taken late in the day with active lava flows nearby.   At the time of this shot the volcano was spitting hot rocks into the air, fortunately not too close to where I was standing.  I'm not sure whether it's apparent at this magnification, but the foreground consists of cooled volcanic rock with active lava under the surface.  In some parts the red lava is just visible through cracks in the crust.   I make the point because to the uninitiated it may resemble dust spots or processing errors on the film or scanner,  it's not.    Enjoy KD    www.kevindowie.com

I've updated  the homepage image on my main site.  The image "Sunset,  Annapurna Circuit" is part of the Nepal gallery and as usual there is an accompanying article explaining  "where, when, how and why" I took the image.  I've included a brief discussion about image sharpness and selection of appropriate camera shutter speeds.    The homepage can be accessed via www.kevindowie.com  click on the homepage image to view the explanatory article.    Cheers KD.

From the Egypt-Jordan gallery, a more abstract view of one of the pyramids at Giza.   In ancient times these pyramids were covered in polished white limestone and would have been dazzling, reflecting the sunlight.   Over the years the limestone has weathered away leaving the now familiar stone construction visible.   I have provided a more detailed explanation of one of my pyramid images at my main site at www.kevindowie.com click through to "previous homepage images" for more.    cheers KD.

   I'm currently going through some photos compiled whilst travelling through Latin America including,  the Yucatan Peninsula region of Mexico, Guatemala and Belize.   There are quite a few images to sort through and process,  in time it will result in another photo gallery and slideshow presentation.  It's just a matter of finding the time to do it all!   Whilst I'm going through the process, I thought I'd pause to give you a 'sneak preview'.    The image below is from the historic site of Chichen Itza in Mexico,  part of the once great Mayan civilization, the pyramids and other structures are over a thousand years old.     Enjoy KD.

  Another shot from the Nepal series,  one of the numerous villages in the region dwarfed by the surrounding mountains.  

I wrote in a recent blog entry that I was frustrated by the way images were cropped in the archives.   I figured out a way around the problem, using "live writer" it's a case of reposting the entry with the image resized to a horizontal maximum of 800 pixels.   The repost date is entered as the original date of publication so that the entry doesn't change position in the archive order.   KD.  

Part of the Egypt-Jordan gallery,  this shot was taken from a felucca on the River Nile near Aswan,  I liked the near perfect reflection and the almost metallic golden tone that the water took on.

   On another note,  I continue to be frustrated by the manner in which the blog displays images.  As I've written before,  I don't wish to display a huge number of images on the 'current'  blog page for fear of blowing out download times for visitors,  the failing of this system is that when you go back to the archived entries,  the images are automatically cropped.   This is in my view substandard as a cropping of that nature can completely ruin the image.   It appears the only option for viewers,  unfortunately,  is to click on the image in the archived blog entry to see it uncropped but reduced in size.    If anyone can think of a work around to this shortcoming,  please let me know.  

     cheers KD  www.kevindowie.com

   Another shot from the Egypt-Jordan gallery that I thought I'd give the big treatment.  The shot was taken early morning from a hot air balloon outside the town of Luxor in Egypt.   I won't go into great detail about the image here as I've provided a full description of the circumstances and technical aspects at my main website.   For those who haven't read the article,  it's accessible via www.kevindowie.com click on the homepage image and then the link to "previous homepage images".     cheers KD

Bruno Mercier.  "Light shines in darkness"

A link for lovers of fine black and white imagery.    Bruno Mercier,  is a photographer whom I discovered on the internet just recently and whose work I think is well worth a look.   He lives in the Normandy region of France and works in black and white producing mostly moody landscapes.  His images tend to be high contrast,  dark toned images,  lots of rich, deep blacks.   He lists Eugene Atget among his influences and I think some of the images reflect this.    Worth checking out;     http://www.pixydream.com/