Thoughts: Research before photo shoot

Impressive entrance to the cathedral in Montpellier, France.Capturing a good travel or landscape photo is never easy. It requires a lot of skills, a lot of luck and a lot of patience. Well, it requires good equipment too (never believe that you don't need good equipment to capture good photos). With so many factors you have to do something to increase your chances. And what I have in mind is doing a research before arriving on...

Crazy weather in B&W

I shared this photo previously in color. However, I really like the contrast and textures in the b&w version so here it is again :)One more thing you might have noticed. From today I start to add watermarks to the images I upload. The watermark is likely to change because I don't want it to be very distracting as described here. The reason for adding a watermark is that my photos are shared more frequently recently and I...

Stars above the hotel

It'll never cease to amaze me how starry the sky is over Fuerteventura island. Even lights cannot make the stars disappear.For this photo I stood very close to the sea hoping no wave would come and grab my tripod. And believe me I was nervous because I had to stand a few meters away from it as the ground was very wet and soft. Even changing location of feet while standing quite close to a tripod resulted in a completely blurry...

Morskie Oko lake in Winter

Morskie Oko (Eye of the Sea lake) is the largest and fourth deepest lake in Tatra Mountains. When I was going to the mountains at the beginning of February I hoped to get some cool shots with warm winter sun light reflecting in the ice. However, after getting to Zakopane I realized that I will have to change my plans as there was thick layer of snow everywhere. Something between 0.8 and 1 meter of fresh fluffy snow. It became...

HDR from Milan

I love going through my photo archives. I hate most of the photos now for technical reasons - they have so many mistakes, they are often ugly. But at the same time there are a few which I still like and one of the examples is above. Ok, this photo is far from being perfect too. I know. Today I would shoot and process it differently for sure. But there is something in it I lik...

Colourful tram

There are 4 tramlines in Montpellier, France. What I really liked about them is that each of them looks differently but all are pretty colourful. I wanted to show it in the photo above so I use selective colouring technique.Camera: Canon 5D MK IILens: Canon 24-105 f/4 L IS USMFocal length: 47 mmAperture: f/8.0Exposure time: 1/80 sISO: 100Number of exposures: 1E.V. Step: n/aFlash used: noTripod: noFilters: noSoftware: Magic Lantern...

Rain in Montpellier

During my stay in Montpellier, the weather was bad for most of the time. It was windy, rather cold and rainy. That was one of the reasons I didn't take many photos. Above you can see a street scene I photographed soon after rain stopped falling. Although the scene is very busy I quite like reflections in it.One tip: when doing HDRs of scenes with reflection in them remember to remove ghosts in reflections as well.Technical details:Camera:...

Evening fog

This shot is rather simple, however, I really like blues and purples in it.Technical details:Camera: Canon 50DLens: Canon 24-105 f/4 L IS USMFocal length: 45 mmAperture: f/8.0Exposure time: 4 s ("middle" exposure)ISO: 320Number of exposures: 5E.V. Step: 1Flash used: noTripod: noFilters: noSoftware: Magic Lantern 2.3, Photomatix Pro 4.2.6 (Fusion/Natural), Lightroom 4.2, Photoshop CS6Photomatix Pro settings: downlo...

Lightroom Vintage presets

Today I would like to share a bunch of vintage presets for Lightroom 4 (they are also good for Lightroom 5 beta). You can download them here.You can see example of one of the presets in action in the photo above. I took this photo in Montpellier old town. The After version was developed using Vintage6 preset which you will find in the ZIP. No additional editing work was required apart from sharpening using High Pass filter.My...

Carre St. Anne

I'm just back from Montpellier, France. I spent there a few days and I must say I really liked this city. It might be not that impressive as other Mediterranean towns but has very nice atmosphere, beautiful architecture with lovely narrow streets. And fantastic French cuisine around each corner.Today I would like to share a photo of a church in St. Anne's Square (Carre St. Anne). It's a HDR from just 3 exposures and taken without...

Plastic railway station

I'm not a great fan of fake tilt-shift photos but in this case the scene looked so surreal that I just knew I have to create one. This is Atocha Railway Station in Madrid. The building in its current shape was opened in 1892 (the original from 1851 was destroyed in fire). There are many old railway stations but this one is unique - there is a small jungle in the middle of it (you can see it in the photo above). This small tropical...

Fog at sunrise

Shooting morning fogs is one of the landscape photographers Holy Grails. When I was in Koscielisko in Tatra mountains earlier this year I had some amazing fogs to work with. Most of the time they were too dense in fact what limited photography options. But a few sunrises were really beautiful with clouds lurking in the valleys. As my hotel was about 700 meters above I had a really nice perspective.This photo is a single photo...

Follow me

A bit of self-promotion today. As I'm present on a few photography related portals, I would really appreciate it if you could follow me there and comment on my photos. I will try to do the same :)500px: http://500px.com/WojciechTomanTwitter: https://twitter.com/#!/wojtektomanFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/WojciechTomanPhotographyGoogle+: https://plus.google.com/105992256667744265503Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/wtoma...

Colourful umbrellas

Today I would like to share another street photo taken in Madrid. There was very long queue in front of Royal Palace despite the fact it was raining heavily. I took the opportunity to capture some of the colourful umbrellas and their reflection in a puddle.Technical details:Camera: Canon 5D MK IILens: Canon 24-105 f/4 L IS USMFocal length: 80 mmAperture: f/4.0Exposure time: 1/1250 sISO: 800Number of exposures: 1E.V. Step: n/aFlash...

One large bubble

Although I don't take street photos very often, I just had to capture photo of that huge bubble in the middle of Plaza Mayor in Madrid. I wasn't the only one enjoying the show - the kids all around were just crazily excited when they saw it.Technical details:Camera: Canon 5D MK IILens: Canon 24-105 f/4 L IS USMFocal length: 32 mmAperture: f/5.0Exposure time: 1/1250 sISO: 800Number of exposures: 1E.V. Step: n/aFlash used: noTripod:...

Sunset by the palace

I love golden hours in the city. Last rays of ultra warm light on the buildings almost always result in great images. With Madrid it was sort of different. Most of the interesting buildings are facing wrong direction! Royal Palace isn't an exception. So instead of photographing warm light on it during sunset, I decided to capture some of the sky as well as the sun itself.To make this photo I took 7 bracketed exposures, merged...

Have a rest under the stars - redone

Yesterday above photo was Top 1 for a few hours on 500px portal (if you're there make sure to add me to your friends) reaching 99.7 points and about 4000 views! Although this photo isn't new and I uploaded it earlier here, I think I prefer this new version. I really like magenta cast in it as well as more details in the darkest shadows. This version also benefits from deblurring using Topaz InFocus plugin.Changing a subject a...

End of the world

Photographing dramatic skies or light conditions is one of the easiest ways of getting powerful and beautiful image. You just press shutter button, apply a bit of post-processing and you're done :) the only difficult thing is to actually come across such conditions. A lot of patience and a bit of luck is required.I took this HDR photo in Dahab, Egypt last year.Technical details:Camera: Canon 50DLens: Canon 10-22 f/3.5-4.5 USMFocal...

Ski lift

Ski lift might be not the most interesting subject. However, I really liked how it looked in the warm morning light. As you can see there was some fog in the valley.Technical details:Camera: Canon 50DLens: Canon 70-300 f/4-5.6 L IS USMFocal length: 70Aperture: f/8.0Exposure time: 1/400ISO: 100Number of exposures: 1E.V. Step: n/aFlash used: noTripod: noFilters: noSoftware: Magic Lantern 2.3, Lightroom 4.2, Photoshop C...

Thoughts: Think about output not tools

One of the common mistakes is to focus on the tools a bit too much. It's easy because there are so many of them - from hundreds of lenses (both zooms and primes), focal lengths, choices of exposure (both aperture, shutter speed and ISO), filters (neutral density, polarizers, warming or effect filters), tripods etc. during shooting phase. But it gets even worse when you get to the post-processing. Apart from simple tools like...

In the woods

Polish forests are quite dense what makes it quite difficult to get clear landscape shot even with ultra wide-angle lens. However, they are quite good to create shots full of mystery.There was some fog when I was photographing so I decided to go with the latter. In post-processing I manually blended 5 exposures to restore some of the darkest shadows. Besides I greatly decreased image saturation what resulted in a sepia-like look...

Morning on Fuerteventura

Today another photo from Fuerteventura island, this one taken during early morning. I used ND8 neutral density filter to smooth water a little bit. This resulted in a very tranquil and calm scene.Technical details:Camera: Canon 5D MK IILens: Canon 24-105 f/4 L IS USMFocal length: 28 mmAperture: f/8.0Exposure time: 25 s ("middle" exposure)ISO: 100Number of exposures: 5E.V. Step: 1.0 EVFlash used: noTripod: yesFilters: ND8 neutral...

Forest path

I took this photo of a forest path in Masuria, Poland. It's a manual blend of 5 exposures.Technical details:Camera: Canon 50DLens: Canon 24-105 f/4 L IS USMFocal length: 24 mmAperture: f/8.0Exposure time: 1/2 s ("middle" exposure)ISO: 200Number of exposures: 5E.V. Step: 1.5 EVFlash used: noTripod: yesFilters: noSoftware: Magic Lantern 2.3, Lightroom 4.2, Photoshop C...

Apocalypse

I took this photo almost one year ago. Initially I didn't like it but when I was going through the older photos yesterday I thought that it looks sort of cool. The sky was really dramatic, it looked as if some nasty storm was approaching.Technical details:Camera: Canon 50DLens: Canon 10-22 f/3.5-4.5 USMFocal length: 10 mmAperture: f/16.0Exposure time: 1/200ISO: 100Number of exposures: 5E.V. Step: 2Flash used: noTripod: yesFilters:...

Cold morning in Tatra mountains

Another photo from Tatra mountains, Poland. This one was taken during one cold morning. The light was very soft.In this case I decided to compose the image with several layers - sky, mountains, forests, valley and snow in the foreground. I think it works quite nice.Technical details:Camera: Canon 5D MK IILens: Canon 24-105 f/4 L IS USMFocal length: 70 mmAperture: f/8.0Exposure time: 1/200ISO: 100Number of exposures: 1E.V. Step:...