In February 2011, we found ourselves charging back and forth across Bolivia.  We rushed from the Lake Titicaca region, all the way down to Uyuni, so that we could meet some friends for a tour of the salt flats.  If you saw that video, you’ll know we bailed out on them after we picked up a nasty intestinal parasite.  We eventually returned to Uyuni to do the tour again, but not before going all the way back to La Paz for a week or so.

We self medicated there and, once we were feeling up to it, decided to mountain bike down the World’s Most Dangerous Road – its real name, the North Yungas Road – which connects La Paz, high in the Andes, to the Amazon Basin, thousands of meters below.

We recorded our voice-overs a day or two after the ride, while the memories were fresh.  That painted background was actually the wall of our hotel room in La Paz.  Both Oksana and I had a lot to say; each of us spoke into the camera for more than 20 minutes.  (We really need to be more concise.)  This project was a nightmare to edit down.

The final video runs almost 12 minutes and has a lot of information about the road and why it’s considered the most dangerous in the world.  If you’re interested, here are a few more tidbits that were left on the cutting room floor: (more…)

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While in Cambodia, we made sure to buy a three-day pass for the temples.  Partly that was to have enough time to see all the ruins at a leisurely pace, but I also wanted more than one shot at getting a sunrise photo over Angkor Wat.

On our first morning, we had our tuk tuk driver pick us up at 5am.  He dropped us off at the gates of Angkor Wat and told us to try to set up in front of the northern reflecting pool which, he said, was the best spot to get the sun, the temple’s spires, and their reflections all in one shot… at least in December.

That early, it was still pitch black.  Without our flashlights, I’m sure we would have tripped on the uneven paving stones of the causeway.  By the time we reached the reflecting pool, almost every available spot had been taken.  We set up on the extreme right edge where we could still get some water in the shot, but unfortunately the grassy edge of the pond dominated the frame.  At least the sky was clear.  The best photos we got that morning – when the heavens were still changing from black to purple to red – were well before the sun actually came into view.

We resolved to make another attempt the next day and arranged for our driver to have us at the gates just before the park officially opened at 5am.  Those extra 15 minutes made all the difference.

While other people made it into the complex before we did, Oksana and I were the very first ones to the reflecting pool and we even had about five minutes to choose our spot.  By the time I was extending my tripod’s legs, other people were staking their claims.  This time we were set up on the opposite side of the pool.

The sky was very different that morning.  There was a low cloud cover that was being pushed by the wind.  Clouds came from beyond the Angkor Wat, floated over the temple, then over our spot at the reflecting pool.  It never looked like it was going to rain, but those clouds prevented us from ever seeing the sun directly.

My favorite photo came well before dawn.  I was still playing with the settings on my camera, trying to find the right balance between silhouetting the temple and illuminating the clouds.  Oksana later told me about the Japanese tourist that had leaned in over my shoulder after every shot, trying to read the 5D’s shutter speed and aperture settings so he could dial them into his own DSLR.  (Pointless, because he didn’t have a tripod.  The only way he was going to get a 30-second exposure in focus was if he’d brought Medusa along as his assistant…)

Many, many of the tourists crowding around us were cluelessly taking flash photos with their point-and-shoot cameras.  Most of them were either unaware that their tiny flashes wouldn’t illuminate much beyond 10 feet, or didn’t know how to turn them off.  At any rate, Oksana and I commiserated about how annoying it was to have a hundred strobes going off in the dark every minute.

Later, when we were reviewing our photos on a laptop, we discovered an unintended and wonderful consequence of all that added light.  While even 50 flashes were not enough to lighten the face of the temple, their cumulative brightness was enough to paint the pink water lilies out on the pond with their light.

Canon 5D Mark II
Date: 5:32am, 6 December 2011
Focal Length: 47mm
Shutter: 30 sec
Aperture: F/4
Exposure: +2 step
Flash: No
ISO: 640
Photoshop: Slight rotation and crop, auto color, slight saturation boost, and a lot of tiny patch tool work to get rid of the long-exposure, red and blue “hot pixels.”

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I have a new theory.  The time I spend playing with a picture in Photoshop is inversely proportional to the quality of the original image.  On the face of it, that seems obvious, right?  If the photo sucks, you’re really going to have to work it over in the digital darkroom.  But then, if the picture is good, Photoshop work is more like play, and I can spend hours playing…  Okay, so maybe my new theory doesn’t have a proof.

This is a stitched panorama of the immense Haleakala Crater on Maui Island, Hawaii.  I believe it’s taken from the Kalahaku Overlook, but because Oksana and I stumbled upon this scenic view, I could be mistaken.  I wrote a bit about that day.

The view is awesome, of course, in the true sense of the word.  We spent at least 45 minutes hanging out at the railing, took countless pictures and even a time-lapse video of the clouds boiling below.  And though I like the panoramic photo you see here, I don’t think it’s one of my better pictures.  I wish I could put my thumb on why.

Is there too much sky?  Maybe, but if I crop it out the panorama becomes too thin.  Is it that the depth of the valley doesn’t translate?  We were practically standing on a vertical cliff, but here it looks like you could almost along the dip in the middle until you reached the crater floor below.

I tried a dozen variations of cropping, trying to make things right.  I lightened up some of the foreground elements, trying to create a sense of depth.  I even spent some time cloning out a huge foreground handrail in the lower right corner.  I know the scene is good; I just can’t seem to make the photo do it justice. 

But that doesn’t mean I can’t post it on my blog, now, does it?

It’s hard to see in the small version of this panorama, but the black lava flows and red cinder cones make for some attractive (also in the true sense of the word!) scenery.  I wish we had planned an excursion down into that crater.  As it was, we were only on Haleakala for the sunrise — we didn’t think to bring the hiking gear, extra water, maps, and cabin reservations that would have made a hike down Sliding Sands Trail really worthwhile.  Maybe next time.

Canon Digital Rebet XT
Date: 12 August 2005
Focal Length: 18mm
Shutter: 1/1000 second
Aperture: F/5
ISO: 100
Photoshop: Stitched with Autostitch, cropped, cloned extra rock on right, dodged foreground rocks, auto color adjustment

Continue reading to see the actual detail in the final panorama…

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (5.1MB)

3:15am. That’s how early you have to get up to beat the sunrise to the peak of Maui’s tallest volcano, Haleakala. When you’re staying in Kihei, that is.

We had packed the night before, so we were out the door fifteen minutes later. The roads of Maui are essentially deserted at 3:30am, at least until you start climbing the winding Haleakala Highway up the volcano. Even before dawn, cars group up and ascend in clumps.

Although tired, Oksana and I enjoyed the dark ride up the mountain. Below us were thousands of lights (and what looked to be a large sugarcane fire) illuminating the flat valley between Kahului and Kihei. Above us, the Perseid meteor showers were at their height and even with my attention focused on the steep curves, I couldn’t help but see half a dozen bright shooting stars in the clear mountain air.

The park itself is open 24 hours a day, even though the entrance may not be staffed. We coasted to a stop at a place where the cars lined behind a ticket vending machine. Many drivers had exited their warm cars and were standing in a line with their arms crossed and their shoulders hunched against the cold. Some guy couldn’t get the machine to accept his wrinkly old ten, so to get the line moving again, Oksana traded him a crisp $10 bill. Of course, when her time came, no one would exchange theirs for the dog-eared reject. She came back to the car, grabbed a twenty from my wallet, and soon returned with 10 silver dollars in change.
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