Photography

Hello, David here with a long overdue post! As Germany legally requires almost everything to close on Sunday, we had a fairly slow day of it yesterday. I began learning new digital photo processing skills and finished the afternoon with a walk around the neighborhood.

My first task was a request from Holly to learn more about High Dynamic Range photo processing. This is usually referred to as simply "HDR" and is trickery using photoshop or other software to blend together multiple pictures or exposures of a scene. When done well the results can be pretty neat, providing somewhat unreal looking photos with more color and tone range then normal. Holly was kind enough to have taken a proper picture to work with, a very underexposed picture of the Porta Nigra in Trier. With a bit of online reading, and a few failed first efforts, I was able to come up with this:



We are both very excited to learn more as it can really save an ordinary (or downright lousy) looking photo. There is much more to learn, but this is so much funner then commuting two hours a day for work!

I kicked off the start of my walk with a visit to one of the strangest looking homes I have ever seen. It has no visible doors or windows at all, giving the impression of no way in. Just the strange stairs coming out midway up and running to the roof. The picture I took during the walk didn't come out so well, so here is another attempt with the HDR stuff:



Certainly is different, but I do like the idea of a patio on the roof. From here I went on towards the river and ran into another strange site of a different sort. How could I pass up taking a photo of Santa hanging to a front door? Particularly when this Santa is lifting a bottle of liquer towards his mouth and holding a riding whip with the other hand. Not quite the Santa I usually envision.



Near Santa I found a couple more things to photograph. This time nothing strange and no HDR, just a good test for the new camera. First was this sign along the river.



And here is the local ferry service crossing the Rhine just south of our home. I couldn't help but include it as it is just like the Canby Ferry, bringing back good childhood memories of crossing the Willamette.



And now for the good stuff... I circled back from the river and ended up in the middle of the field behind our home. This view shows our home just to the right of center. As you scroll down this post there are more pictures to help with identification. I like that you can really see the how close we are to the river as the trees visible in the background are actually growing on an island!



I am still not centered on our place, sorry. It is on the far right this time.



And now much closer, with an added bonus of Holly looking out the window.




Good times for sure! We are really looking forward to better weather and longer days.