theonlyD800inthehameau
Photography by theonlydeadheadinthehameau
Tuesday Photo Challenge: Travel
Posted on May 17, 2017
This week, Frank of Dutch Goes The Photo! has gone off on his holidays so, appropriately, has selected the theme of ‘travel’ for his latest Tuesday Challenge.
It’s a very broad theme, of course; as Frank says, travel could be anything as mundane as a daily commute. However, I’ve selected a rather more exotic image that tries to convey ‘travel’ as the state of being somewhere very different from what you’re used to.
I’ve been very fortunate to have been able to travel quite extensively, for both business and pleasure. The first doesn’t count so much perhaps, but for somewhere very different – in terms of both place and time – one of my all-time favourite places has to be Petra. It’s one of the most photographed locations on the planet, but at least this isn’t a photograph of the iconic Nabatean Treasury (although there are a few photographs of that particular edifice elsewhere on this blog if you care to look).
Weekly Photo Challenge: The Road Taken
Posted on March 2, 2017
It doesn’t matter that you know it’s there. The first sight of the Nabatean treasury at Petra, as the long, narrow path of the Siq opens up to reveal the ‘rose red’ ruined city is almost guaranteed to take your breath away.
The WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge asks for something that conveys “the excitement, surprise, wonder, or amazement of your ‘road taken’.”
I reckon tthis qualifies:
Tuesdays of Texture: Cobbles
Posted on August 30, 2016
For Tuesdays of Texture this week, I’ve chosen an image that I came across again when I was looking through my photographs of Petra, (yet) another of which I used for the latest WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge.
This is a detail of one of the city’s cobbled streets: note the rut worn in the cobbles by the passing of countless wheels thousands of years ago:
Weekly Photo Challenge: Frame
Posted on August 27, 2016
Two frames for the price of one in this photograph, taken from the entrance of one of the tombs at Petra, looking through an archway to the rows of seats in the theatre beyond.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Narrow
Posted on July 31, 2016
This is a view of the long, deep and narrow gorge , called the ‘Siq’, that is the main entrance to the historical site of Petra, in Jordan. The two figures on horseback give a good idea of scale.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Half-Light (Ozymandias)
Posted on March 26, 2016
I don’t matter. Ultimately, nobody does.
And if there’s one poem to keep you focused on your own mortality and complete inconsequentiality in the great scheme of things, it must be Shelley’s ‘Ozymandias’:
In other words, however great or important you may think you are, even your most stupendous monuments will not stand the test of time.
Specifically, ‘Ozymandias’ refers to a massive ruined statue of the Pharoah Rameses II. Unfortunately, I don’t have any images of Egyptian ruins, but I do have quite a few showing the ruins of what must once have been (well, still is, even in its current state) the awe-inspiring city of Petra, in Jordan. Including this one:
No doubt the Nabateans, in constructing their ‘rose-red city’, were out to impress, inviting visitors to ‘Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Thursday Doors: Petra
Posted on January 28, 2016
Since I started participating in Norm’s Thursday Doors challenge, I’ve featured quite a few old and weathered examples, but this one beats them all. It stands in the middle of the Siq, the long narrow path that leads to the main entrance of Petra, and is well over 2,000 years old. I suppose arguably it’s a doorway rather than a door, but it’s still worth looking at.
Thursday Doors 28 January 2016
Before & After: Petra
Posted on January 15, 2016
Petra is arguably one of the most photographed places on Earth (right up there with Venice) and I’ve posted a number of the pictures I took there on this blog. And here’s another, which I’ve used for this latest exercise in ‘before and after’.
Before
The original is a pretty bog-standatd shot of part of the famous al-Khazneh (Treasury) building which is the first thing you see when you enter Petra. As it stands it’s pretty ho-hum – the photo, not the Treasury – but I thought it might be possible to make something a little more arresting with some post-processing.
After
The first thing to do was straighten the image. After that, I cropped out the grey rock on the left, to focus on the juxtaposition of the angular and circular features (which I thought contrasted well with each other).
The original image seemed to me to be a little over-exposed, so I adjusted for that in the whole image. A particular problem area was the dome on top of the circular feature. I brought out some additional detail in that by adding a graduated filter on the right hand side of the image – an innovation for me: I knew Lightroom offered such a thing but had never worked out how to use it. I got it eventually through trial and error.
After that, it was simply a matter of adding some Punch and Sharpening to give the image a bit more ‘presence’. Overall, I think the editing has made for an improvement.
Horizontal Lines
Posted on November 14, 2015
I have to saythat I’m completely in agreement with Cee when it comes not only to horizons but also other horizontal lines actually being horizontal; I use the Straighten Tool in Lightroom to correct my own errors – as far as possible.
Oradour-sur-Glane, with the Monts de Blond in the background.
Some other images featuring strong horizontal lines:
Finally, a couple of other images with multiple horizons:
Cee’s Compose Yourself Photo Challenge: Horizontal Lines and Horizon
Monumental
Posted on July 10, 2015
Large? You want large? Take a look at the human figures at bottom left of this image from Petra and you’ll get some idea of the scale of this monumental work.
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