BalancedLight (Page 6)

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Apps for Photography

Apps for Photography

My iPhone, and to an extent my iPad, are really important parts of my seascape, landscape and urban photography. The iPhone itself makes for a good scouting camera, a good camera for a sneaky pano and a tool for making images of my image making. Its true power, however, lies

Trevi Fountain

Perhaps the world’s most famous fountain (and certainly the most famous in Rome), the Trevi Fountain is a spectacular baroque masterpiece not far from the Pantheon in the city’s centre. In my other Rome images I have discussed my preference for the pre-dawn blue hour as an opportunity

Stormy Forum

After shooting the Roman Forum one dawn, we visited the site, easily spending a good half day exploring the various Roman ruins. Spectacular. It was a brilliant Rome day, with beautiful weather, but some fairly ominous clouds came over the site, providing quite a spectacular sky. I found a composition

Vatican Night

This is the third in a series of photos made of the Vatican, from Rome’s Ponte Umberto I, down the Tiber River and across the Ponte Sant’Angelo. After staking out a good vantage point , I stayed in place from golden hour, through the sunset and into the late

Castel and Bridge

Castel and Bridge

Castel Sant’Angelo represents the uniqueness of old old Rome. Built originally as a mausoleum by Emperor Hadrian in around 123-139CE, the complex was later used as a Papal residence and fortress and then a prison. It is still in use today as a museum and tourist attraction. In researching

Pantheon Blue

Even with a fairly featureless sky, blue hour is the best time of day to shoot for the clear, balanced light, and for the lack of crowds. To get this image in frame required setting my tripod up on the fountain in the piazza in front of the Pantheon, using

Colosseum

Merry Christmas Wishing visitors a very Merry Christmas. Have a safe and happy holiday. Colosseum The Colosseum is such a large and important part of both the history of the Roman Empire and the City of Rome that it is actually hard to write something new and interesting about it.

Vatican Sunset

After staking out a good vantage point on Rome’s Ponte Umberto I, I stayed there from the late afternoon (golden hour), through the sunset and into the blue hour. The exact same composition can deliver a range of different images. In this image shot in late November, the evening

The Roman Forum

The Roman Forum

Rome is full of history, most of it within an easy walk of the centre of the city. A friend once said something to me along the lines of: For Europeans 200km is a long distance, and for Australians 200 years is a lot of history. There is a lot

Lateran Obelisk & Aqueduct House

Lateran Obelisk & Aqueduct House

Lateran Obelisk The Lateran Obelisk is the largest standing Egyptian Obelisk in the world, and stands prominently in a piazza in Rome, not far from the Colosseum. We kind of stumbled across this monument after visiting some basilicas in the area. I took a look at the Modern Atlas iOS

Bridge of Angels

Bridge of Angels

One of the amazing things, at least to me about Rome is that so many centuries old buildings and structures remain in use today. A great example of this is Ponte Sant’Angelo — a bridge built in 134CE, and still used today as a main pedestrian thoroughfare. Distinguished by its

Vatican Afternoon

Vatican Afternoon

Rome, the eternal city, is an amazing place for photography. The thing about the capital city of Italy is that it a beautiful mix of the old and the new. Buildings that are hundreds, even thousands, of years old are still in daily use in a city that is also

Waking Up in Positano

Waking Up in Positano

t in the blue hour from the eastern overlook of Positano, I decided to go back to the same location for sunrise photos the next morning. The early backlighting from the sun behind cast a really nice light over the township, lighting the surrounding mountains up with a beautiful golden

Atrani by Night

Atrani by Night

One of the many gorgeous townships on Italy’s Amalfi Coast is Atrani, a village literally 10 minutes by foot from Amalfi. Atrani is a pretty town cutting into another gap in the coastal mountain range, quickly rising up from sea level to the heights above. Our day trip to

Cobblestone Passageway

Cobblestone Passageway

Positano in the low season is marked by low numbers of tourists, and with many of the hotel, restaurant and retail workers being employed seasonally, the township is very quiet. There are many opportunities to explore the streets, alleys and stairways without the crowds, and much of the time there

Positano Sunrise

Positano Sunrise

Apart from the lack of crowds, one of the distinctive things about low season in Positano is that the days are quite short. As the late, great photographer, Galen Rowell, once said: “You only get one sunrise and one sunset a day, and you only get so many days on

Sunset Silhouette

Sunset Silhouette

I like a good silhouette, but find this type of photography to be challenging. I think that’s because there needs to be a healthy balance between light and shadow (balanced light), strong features, colour and negative space. After making some sunset photos on the beach during our first evening

Positano Rising

Positano Rising

This series of photos from Positano in Italy have showed different aspects of the town, its stunning coastline and some individual characteristics of the township. This image, shot from the same western overlook from which I shot the image East from Positano shows the scale of the town growing up

East from Positano

East from Positano

The classic view of Positano is from the outlook at the eastern end of the township, near the Sponda bus-stop. This view is very oft the first stop for photographers visiting Positano1. This is exactly why its a good idea to sometimes shoot the opposite view, so after watching Elia

Six Passengers

Famous for its spectacular coastline, seascapes and mountain vistas, life in Positano is literally built around the sea. The township is a year round magnet for tourists, and the crystal blue seas are a way that many get to and from the area, and are a major part of their

Stepping Up in Positano

Stepping Up in Positano

Positano is known for many things – beaches, restaurants, bars, walks, magnificent scenery and more. Perhaps however it is most known for its many, many stairs. The town really has only two roads – the main highway the winds between Sorrento and Amalfi that cuts through the high part of town, and

Looking Up from Positano

Looking Up from Positano

Like the other towns on Italy’s Amalfi Coast, Positano stretches from its beautiful coastline up into the surrounding mountains. Standing on the beach, the signature dome of the church of Santa Maria Assunta is framed between an enclave in the ridge-line of the mountains. Buildings stretch much of the

Friction and mindful blogging

Friction and mindful blogging

In a thought-provoking post called Friction and silo dead-ends Manton Reece discusses the importance of friction in reducing fake news: I believe in a middle-ground solution. Make it easier to post to your blog. and But don’t make thoughtless re-sharing completely frictionless. That’s what leads to fake news

Positano Blue

Positano on Italy’s Amalfi Coast is a spectacularly stunning township, rising up from the sea into the heights of the surrounding mountains. We visited in late Autumn, the low season for tourism, and we loved the fact that we could truly explore the coast, and the whole township without

End-to-End email encryption with ProtonMail

End-to-End email encryption with ProtonMail

I really like ProtonMail for making end-to-end email encryption (relatively) simple. While ProtonMail (currently) requires another ProtonMail user for bi-directional encrypted email, even emails to users of other systems have some level of encryption. There are some interesting ways of encrypting messages to non-ProtonMail users, and the company says ability