Vormidable - The Hague

Sculptures appearing on Lange Voorhout, in The Hague are part of Vormidable, this years theme during The Hague Sculpture. The outdoor exposition presents the work of 35 up and coming Flemish artists. The exposition celebrates 20 years of cultural cooperation between the Netherlands and Flanders and is part of the BesteBuren ('Dear Neighbours') manifestation, a project with numerous cultural initiatives between the Netherlands and Flanders.  More information can be found at the Hague website.

The outdoor exposition will be open until the 30th of August.

Read this if you want to take great photogrpahs

A great read authored by Henry Carroll: Read this if you want to take great photographs. Excellent read for those new to photography and a must read for those that need to remind themselves of the basics.  Henry takes you throughout he very basics of how to use your camera and what makes a great photograph drawing from amazing photographers such as Ansel Adams, Elaine Constantine, Bill Brandtto name but a few.

No jargon or technical diagrams just the fundamentals of taking good photographs.  Especially good for new users of DSLR's RRP of £12.95 but available for £8.95 from Amazon.

Also, look out for his next book Read this if you want to take great photographs of people. Available from 7 Sep 2015 on Amazon.

Videos

I was asked where the videos from project 365 (2013) and my trip to Beijing were, I thought it was easier to post them here.

This video is about Project 365 2013. The full set of pictures can be viewed at http://www.flickr.com/photos/willadam/sets/72157632403258373/

Video with photographs taken in and around Beijing, January 2014. All photographs can be seen at http://www.flickr.com/photos/willadam/

Post processing for Instagram

A few people have been asking me what filters and tweaks I use before I post photographs to Instagram. Some people have also suggested that using any kind of post processing is "cheating" which I found surprising as I was not aware that art had any rules.  As I am a bit of a rebel I am ok with breaking the rules ;-)

The application, Instagram, comes with several pre-made filters that can be applied as well as tools that allow you to adjust your photograph.  As powerful as these tools are, for less than the price of a latte you can have a very powerful photo editor on your iPhone: Snapseed (Apple app store download).  The latest version of Snapseed allows the user to make non-destructive edits to photographs.

As you can see from the example below, several changes have been made from the original image on the left.  Snapseed allowed me to take away the shadow that was 'hiding' the buildings and to highlight the trees and water in the foreground.  It also allowed me to add more intensity to the color in the sky. The final version that was posted to Instagram can be seen here.

Similarly, in the images below I decreased the shadow in the buildings, increased the structure and sharpness of the photograph and made the sky 'pop'.

It is worth noting that both these original photographs were taken using the iPhone's HDR mode which takes two photographs, one underexposed and one overexposed. The photo application then merges the highlights and lowlights of the two photographs to create one balanced photograph.

The Hague

I have been choosing to take alternative routes through The Hague when I am out walking to see if I can see other views of buildings or scenes that I may have overlooked before.  This was captured on my iPhone on the way home a few evenings ago.

Taken where Korte Voorhout meets Koningskade.