The Patch :: Abstract Lines

I find myself in the middle of the Saudi Arabian Desert this week and there is not an obvious lot to photograph. There is of course the horizon, its a strong line (except in a dust storm) its incredibly flat and feature less. There is the road in, which is very straight and does have some lamp posts near the camp, some of  the lights actually work. There are some low lying scrubby bushes but nothing particularly linear so I went looking for strong shadows and the hot sun here does create strong shades of anything brave enough to stand up.

Seems the building are the one thing brave enough, so I set about taking photos of various different parts of the camp in the morning and/or evening. The sun rise quickly over head here so there are only short periods after dawn and before sunset that you get an decent length to the shadow (dust storms permitting). It the end I found the photo of my own accommodation gave me the best abstract lines (note there are no external windows and very thick walls)

Still elegant

This is the back door of the Royal Exhibition Building. This grand old lady, was only meant to be a temporary structure for the “great” Melbourne international Exhibition in 1880, Victoria was still an English colony back then, with newly acquired wealth thanks to the Gold Rush. The building has survived a few partial demolitions and fires, and has now passed into the hands of the Victorian museum and is also now  a listed World Heritage site. She still hold exhibitions and has had many other uses including the opening of the first Australian Parliament (just the opening!) , a sports venue during the 1956 Olympics and as the main Matriculation examination hall (which I remember all to well) during the 56s 60s & 70s and still used by Melbourne Uni and RMIT for exams (also remember these). Today her biggest event is the Melbourne International flower and garden show.

The stark/strong lighting of the Australian summer gives me another good test for HDR camera on my android phone. 

Vertical stitching

The grey polluted and rain soaked Jakarta afternoon appears to be growing new sky scrapers each hour. It is a very vertical story like the tallest trees in a forest and not something that the normal landscape mode photo with a wide angle lens does any justice to. Even tilting the camera to the portrait mode (long axis running vertical) may not help a lot. Using a stitching program vertically (autostitch does this automatically, but other software may require rotation of the images to be stitched first) can produce a convincing tall image.