Craig September 6th, 2007
Built to the same floor plan as Angkor Wat, Beng Mealea was constructed by Suryavarman II (1112-52). A moat measuring 1.2km by 900m once enclosed the site, although this has mostly dried up today. Located 40km (60-80km by road) away from the main Angkor temples, Beng Mealea has been almost totally claimed by the jungle.
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Approached by a four causeways; Beng Mealea appears to be a huge pile of rubble partially hidden in the trees. Once you get closer to the high walls, the ancient Khmer architecture reveals itself. Cloaked in vegetation and with few concessions to tourism; this temple looks like it would have done when the early French explorers found it.
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Care is needed when exploring the temple, as the surrounding jungle still contains land mines leftover from Cambodia’s wars, and the temple itself is slippery and unstable in parts. Local legend has it that as recently as 10 years ago, the temple was home to a tiger. Whether or not that’s true is something I don’t know, but in 2005, a hunter was attacked by two tigers in the nearby jungle.
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Craig August 29th, 2007
Well, here it is. The first featured photographer entry. I’m honored to have Trey Ratcliff, Stuck in Customs, as the first selected photographer in this new category. Trey is an award winning photographer, specialist in HDR, favorite of countless viewers on Flickr and Digg and his websites see over 3 million page views per month. His portfolio can be found at www.treyratcliff.com and his photoblog is at stuckincustoms.com Trey’s awards include winner of the Smithsonian Magazine’s Americana category, exhibitor at the Smithsonian in Washington DC, and 2007 Bloggies nominee for photography.
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Fourth of July on Lake Austin
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Craig August 9th, 2007
A subset of high-dynamic range (HDR) processing, Extended Dynamic Range allows you to apply the same processing techniques, but to a single image file, instead of a series of bracketed exposures as in HDR. Here’s a shot from Lugang using EDR processing.
Craig March 14th, 2007
High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging is a process where a number of bracketed exposures are combined and using a process known as tone mapping, an image with more detail in both the highlights and shadows is produced.
Here’s an example of an HDR image that was created using seven different exposures, each 1 stop apart. Taken in October, 2006 at Angkor Wat, Cambodia at dawn by Craig Ferguson.
HDR photography is becoming more and more popular as digital cameras become widespread and computer hardware and software becomes more advanced and feature rich. Take a look at this HDR group on Flickr for a wide range of examples.
So, all that being said, how do you do it? Well, there are numerous ways, either using Photoshop CS2, or using the popular Photomatix software.
To start, you need the images. A bracketed sequence of 3 at a bare minimum, but generally 5-7 or more images is needed to start. It goes without saying that you’ll want to use a sturdy tripod, remote shutter release and enable mirror lock-up on your camera. Once you’ve taken the photo’s and are back at your desk, you can them bring them into your software of choice and create your HDR image. Most of the basic steps are pretty simple, and there’s always auto-everything to get you started. There’s an excellent page with links to a number of tutorials for HDR, that makes good reading to learn the subtle ins and outs.
How your final image looks is up to you. Some people (myself included) prefer to have the final image look as photographically realistic as possible, while others prefer a more artistic look, and still others go for a cartoony type feel. The Flickr HDR group above should give you a good range of ideas for the different looks that can be achieved.
Enjoy the world of HDR.
