Mountain fist bump

Another panorama from atop of the Cascade Mountain - this time during the daylight. Well, sort of, because it was already after 7pm and the sun started preparing to set.

Plus, the rock on the top of the mountain looks like a fist ready to bump! 

I rarely do HDRs, because it is always a struggle to make them look natural. This one is close, but still not quite there. I was using the HDR Efex 2, maybe I'll try again with Lightroom 6?

Sony RX100M3, 24mm, hdr @ f/11, iso 80

Morning sun salutation

It looks like I wanted to go back to fetch just one picture and it quickly became an Adirondacks series :) Well, as a non-professional photographer I cannot afford to do my photography all the time (or even as much time as I'd like), so sometimes, after a great shooting day, the photos lie unedited for a very long time... On the other hand, when the weather outside is not good for shooting, I tend to spend more time processing the old files. Life...

This week I found so many good shots from just one summer weekend in Adirondacks Park, I kind of want to go back there and see how it looks in the winter. Maybe next Saturday...

Sony RX100M3, 24mm, 0.8s @ f/11, iso 80

Golden hour

This is another one from the last summer in Adirondacks: a breathtaking view from the Cascade Mountain near Lake Placid, one of 44 High Peaks. Almost nobody stays at the top until the sun set. Those who do, get this sight to admire.

Sony RX100M3, 70mm, 1/6s @ f/11, iso 80

Ethereal sailboat

I wanted to go back to Laos (in virtual sense), but then this picture came up. At first it didn't seem much, but the more I looked at it, the more I saw a sailing ship formed by the fog, reflection and the trees acting as masts. Maybe the photo would have been even better if the sky was more dramatic?

Nikon 7100, 105mm, 1/100s @ f/4.5, iso 1400

Feeling blue

And the picture I was looking for yesterday was this one. It is actually a sibling of that photo, but shot wider, with a different camera (Sony here, Nikon there).

Sony RX100M3, 31mm, 0.6s @ f/11, iso 80

Abstract art by Nature herself

Browsing my collections for something entirely else, I found this shot. Depending on the day I classified it as very bad or very good, but couldn't really make anything of it. Now I gave it a try. 

Given that it was taken at the longer zoom end of a telephoto lens, it wasn't particularly sharp. It isn't even now. But I like the reflecting tiny branches in the fog.

Nikon 7100, 450mm, 1/200s @ f/5.6, iso 100

Crops

And the last (at least for now) picture from the Kong Lor area. Less related to the cave, more how do people live there. It seems like not everybody is into lodging and transport business.

I saw photos of those fields when the crops are fully grown. I wish I could be there at that time...

Sony RX100M3, 24mm, 1/8s @ f/11, iso 80

Morning on Mekong

This is the same longboat as in this picture. The morning was chilly, it was hard to wake up, especially after a long ride from the Thai border in a cold bus. But when I look at the shots taken, I could probably post one daily for another month. Beautiful river.

Sony RX100M3, 24mm, 0.8s @ f/11, iso 80

Going places

Maybe not the best quality pictures of them all, but I like the framing and the story behind them.

Unable to get a bus in Kong Lor, which is a very small village in the mouth of the famous cave, and having a lot of distance to cover to get to Si Phan Don as quickly as possible, I got a songthaew (truck taxi) to ride me to Thakek. Later on, on the junction with north-south Route 13, I had to switch to a more crowder taxi, but this one I had only to myself!

Instead of sitting on a bench, I took the floor, my back against the cab. I had lots of fun listening to the music and watching the landscape pass by...

Sony RX100M3, 57mm, 1/60s @ f/11, iso 125

Sony RX100M3, 60mm, 1/80s @ f/11, iso 160

Mouth of the cave

Sony RX100M3, 24mm, 30s @ f/11, iso 80

And back to Laos, to a marvellous place called the Kong Lor Cave with a wide long-exposed shot of the entrance.

Spaceport Earth

iPhone 5s, auto, default Camera app

This one waited a long time for the edits... I took it at the beginning of my winter escape to Asia and I was so eager to get there I almost missed the chance for this shot. Instead of getting my camera from the backpack, I just used my phone. The result was a very dirty frame, with lots of noise.

Nevertheless, the eerie, artificial feeling (and creeps!) this photo gives me were worth very effort at making it usable. Enjoy!

Lost in winter

Nikon 7100, 75mm, 1/60s @ f/14, iso 125

Choices, choices... 

The moment I imported the photo into Lightroom I knew it has to be black-and-white with a colour accent. Few adjustments later I ended up with the picture #1 (below). The problem was, even though the red is strong, it wasn't enough to make the subject stand out from the background.

I thought blurring with a radial filter was the answer (picture #2). But the blur was looking very artificial, like I tried to fake a DOF very clumsily, as some of the critics noticed. Oh, I posted those two photos to the Street Photography group on 500px looking for tips.

After a bit more pondering, I finally toned down the background a bit, but without blurring it too much. A bit of shadows brightening, a tad of contrast and voila! The end result is exactly, what I was trying to show.

I had two good titles actually three) for this photo:

1. Lost in winter
2. Looking for summer
3. Which way to summer?

Ended up using the first one. What do you think?

Sharp (#1)

Blurred (#2)

The night and the city

Fujifilm X100S, 1/25s @ f/2, iso 3200

This year, save for 2 weeks in Laos, I did not travel that much. But I still have a lot of pictures from the previous winter which were not processed to their full potential. The Hong Kong skyline seen from the mainland is one of them.

Path to enlightenment

Sony RX100M3, 54mm, 1.3s @ f/11, iso 80

Back to Laos. The Kong Lor Cave was nice, but so were the surroundings. The forest path leading to the cave was especially welcoming in the early morning.

Postcard from Krabi

Sony RX100M3, 24mm, 1/40s @ f/11, iso 125

If I wanted to send a postcard from Krabi, it would probably be this picture.

Sidenote: if I could make all the people look in the same direction the boats do, it would be a great photo. Now it's just a nice one.

Green portal

Sony RX100M3, 70mm, 1/80s @ f/11, iso 400

Interesting tree pattern on the natural rubber plantation in Krabi.

Isaan morning

Nikon 7100, 75mm, 1/50s @ f/16, iso 500

Something always has drawn me to Isaan, the eastern part of Thailand, where people speak a mix of Thai and Lao. Maybe it was the influence of my first Thai teacher? Maybe it is because possibly every Isaan-born person I met was extremely nice and always cheerful?

Indeed, when I was planning my trip around Laos, my first idea was to cross from Vientiane to Udon Thani and explore this part of the country from there. Well, it turned out I enjoyed Laos so much that I ended up going all the way to the south. And that's where I crossed back to Thailand, only not to Udon, but Ubon.

And Isaan did not disappoint me. Great people, awesome food and sights like this one. Next year I may be working from there!

Za sałatą

Nikon 7100, 75mm, 1/200s @ f/4, iso 2000

A loose allusion to a commercial popular in Poland. An expression (the English translation would be: behind the lettuce) that was repeated then in various social contexts. Not as big of a hit as "kopytko", but still...

The picture was taken at the Municipal Food Market in Ubon. Very nice and a very busy place in the morning. Vegetables, fruits, meat, fish, cooked food to eat there or take away, but also some clothes and toys. Lots of friendly and genuinely interesting people.

And they had the most spicy papaya salad I have ever eaten.

Shameless autopromotion

Nikon 7100, 75mm, 1/160s @ f/5.6, iso 100

Nikon 7100, 75mm, 1/50s @ f/16, iso 720

I'm not really into selfies, but sometimes I get asked for a (good!) photo of myself and you can use pics from 10 years ago only for so long...

These portraits were actually taken by a friend and then post-processed by me. She did a good job - now I have photos to use for the next 10 years or so! :)

The reason I was asked for these: I was interviewed by Elyse Lévesque for her article on digital nomads. As we weren't able to meet, the pictures had to be taken by myself. The bottom one ended in the article. For the full version you need a tablet (iPad or Android) and the LaPresse+ app. You can read the full text (in French) here (warmly recommend, it is very well written), but there is no photo of me there, just my words.

Buddha Park

Sony RX100M3, 24mm, 1/30s @ f/11, iso 200

If you ask me, Vientiane is not the most interesting place to visit. Night market, Patuxai, Pha That Luang. In the evening few drinks near the fountain and that would be all.

The actual place to go lies 30km from Vientiane and is called Buddha Park. Wonderful spot to chill in the afternoon, provided you paid your song thaew driver to wait.

And of course the widest lens I had was 24mm. Too bad...

It's time

Nikon 7100, 450mm, 1/40s @ f/16, iso 100

I added sunset on a river in Vang Vieng recently, but it seems like people like sunsets. So here's another one - a sea sunset at Ao Nang Beach in Thailand.

I must admit, I had (and still have) mixed feelings about Krabi. It is a nice place, with multitude of good sights and landscape spots. It is not as crazy as Phuket (Patong especially). But it is still a tourist trap. Not many ways to meet and befriend locals. Also - and I am writing this from -20℃ Montreal - a bit too hot for my taste. Granted, I did not go to Koh Lanta, which everybody recommends. Well, there is always the next year.

But back to the picture. Unlike many others, I took this one using a telephoto lens (70-300mm, effectively 105-450mm on my DX Nikon). This gave a bigger than usual sun circle with a nice cloud pattern. You can also see some of the sunspots. I must try it again soon...

Postcard from Mekong

Sony RX100M3, 24mm, 1/50s @ f/11, iso 125

The Mekong River around Luang Prabang is so photogenic that it can be photographed almost at any time of the day. Morning shots yield a veil of mystery, while in the afternoon you can find your ideal postcard shot.

Just lie down and watch... "Friends"

Nikon 7100, 75mm, 1/80s @ f/16, iso 640

iPhone 5s, auto, VSCOCam

Vang Vieng was the place where we stopped to "refuel" after the cold of Luang Prabang. Not so long ago this spot was a serious drug scene, now cleaned up (within reason), is for partying in the night and doing cool stuff during the day. The activities include: hiking, mountain biking, swimming in ponds, kayaking, tubing, rock climbing.

The activity, which seems quite popular there is watching Friends (as in TV series). You go to a restaurant, order food and drinks, lie down on a mat and enjoy the show.

For obvious reasons I was more interested in the view "outside". So I chose to go to restaurants on the river, hunting the sunset. And - oh my gosh - it was a beautiful sight!

We spent total four days in Vang Vieng and - when every restaurant felt the same and the next day wasn't particularly different from the previous one - we left for Vientiane.

Going home

iPhone 5s, auto, VSCOCam

Four things.

First, I am back to cold Montreal, after three months in beautiful and warm - in many aspects - South-East Asia. Last year it was this picture I chose to say my good byes. This year I could not have a better shot than this one.

Second, even though I mostly stayed in one place (Chiang Mai, where else?), it was two weeks of holidays in Laos that were the highlight of this winter. I met many wonderful people, both falangs and locals. And I was blessed with the company of a special friend who travelled with me right from the Thai border up until the last moment before I embarked on this boat. It was a wonderful trip.

Third, another friend recommended VSCOCam app for my iPhone camera. Indeed, it offers a great deal of control when taking quick snapshots - for anything else I have other "real" cameras. Snapseed is the best on-the-device editing app (if you exclude Lightroom Mobile). Camera+ has many advanced shooting and editing options. But when it comes to taking the phone off the pocket and just taking picture, VSCOCam is the best.

Fourth, I still have many photos and I will certainly post them here. Just think of this one as my way of saying:

"Good bye, Asia. See you next winter."