Category Archives: Travel
Owen and Mitzy Visit the UK Part 3: Inverness, Loch Ness and Fortrose
After a week in England I took an 8 hour train up to Inverness in northern Scotland. Alison and Bobby Massie were wonderful hosts who took me into their home in Fortrose for my 3 day visit. Here are some photos from our day trip to Inverness, Loch Ness and the Clootie Well and my walk from Fairy Glen and along the Firth of Forth back to Fortrose.
Owen and Mitzy Visit the UK Part 2: London
Here are some shots from our four days in London.
Owen and Mitzy Visit the UK Part 1: Cambridge and Brighton
Mitzy and I took a trip to England and Scotland this past May. While Mitzy had arrived a couple of weeks earlier, the first leg of our time together was in Cambridge, along with a jet lagged train ride to Brighton.
Picking the right photo equipment was a tough job but in the end I went with the D700, AF-S 18-35mm f/3.5-4.5 G, Sigma 35mm f/1.4 and AF-S 85mm f/1.8G. Too much weight to carry all together for an outing but not bad if I left a lens or two at the flat.
Visiting TRIUMF, Vancouver – November, 2013
During my trip to Vancouver I spent the day at TRIUMF, BC’s Cyclotron particle accelerator. I’d worked at TRIUMF 10 years ago so it was naturally exciting for me to make my first trip back since moving back to Waterloo… and of course I had to bring my camera along. The main building at TRIUMF (the Meson Hall) houses the Cyloctron, under a stack of concrete blocks, and multiple beam lines feeding experiments. As you’ll see, the magnetic field from the Cyclotron is so strong that paper clips stand on end, aligned to the field.
D700 with Nikon AF-S 18-35mm f/3.5-4.5 G and AF-S 60mm f/2.8 G Micro.
A Trip To Vancouver – November, 2013
I recently visited Vancouver, a city that I lived in 10 years ago while on an 8 month co-op work term. I found the whole trip pretty nostalgic and I took advantage of the excellent weather to check out my old house walk around the waterfront, downtown and Stanley Park. On my last day I joined fellow photographer Ilia for a and hike up Quarry Rock in North Van. Thanks so much to Fern and Dave, Lisa and Marianne and Rebecca and Andrew for the excellent dinners!
I took the D700 with me along with the Nikon AF-S 18-35mm f/3.5-4.5 G and AF-S 60mm f/2.8 G Micro. Here are some of my favourite shots that resulted.
Quarry Rock
HDR of the view from Quarry Rock
A Trip to the Denver Zoo
The day of my cousin Simon’s wedding I took a bike ride to the Denver Zoo. I’m sure people found me pretty nerdy walking alone with a camera, backpack and baseball hat but I didn’t care. The shots here are with the D300s and Sigma 35mm f/1.4 and Nikon 85mm f/1.8.
Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado
During my visit to Colorado in June my aunt Glynis and I took a drive to Rocky Mountain National Park. It’s a magnificent park, spanning a huge mountainous area with very little roads or development. The road we did take (Trail Ridge Road) climbs to 12,000 ft and is the highest continuous paved road in the USA. While we only made it up to 11,000, the altitude was definitely noticeable. Standing up too fast after changing lenses took a few moments of recovery.
I saw my first wild elk and, at the very top, a yellow-bellied marmot. Another first was being truly IN a thunder-storm, with lightning striking the valley far below us. Needless to say, we high-tailed it off the mountain.
The shots here were taken with the D300s and Tokina 11-16/2.8, Sigma 35mm f/1.4 and Nikon AF-S 85mm f/1.8 G. Many are HDR.
Gateway to Estes Park.
View near the entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park.
A pair of elk.
Stanley Hotel in Estes Park (Shining, anyone?)
Even in June, the snowbanks are at least 10 ft. high.
View South towards Estes Park.
- Tundra above the snowline.
Yello-bellied marmot.
Panorama of Long’s Peak.
A sudden and violent storm from high on Trail Ridge Road.
The Chapel on the Rock – First photo from my trip to Denver/Boulder Colorado
This past week I visited Denver and Boulder Colorado for my cousin Simon’s wedding. The trip was fantastic and I’ll have lots and lots of images and stories to share over the next couple of weeks. To start things off, here is a photo of one of the highlights of the trip. My aunt Glynis took me to this church, near Allenspark, after a long drive into the mountains at Rocky Mountain National Park. The Chapel on the Rock deserved a full HDR treatment (otherwise the mountains and sky would have been completely washed out).
I shot this with the D300s and Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 Pro DX. Five shots at f/8, each separated by 1 stop.
Chapel on the Rock near Allenspark, CO
ObG Thursdays – Lincoln Memorial
This week’s Oldie-but-Goodie comes from a trip Mitzy and I took to Washington DC last summer. On a blazing hot day, we took refuge in the Lincoln Memorial where I took this photo with the D300s and Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8.
I used a few photographic tricks to make this image. First was my choice of perspective. I used the Tokina 11-16mm at 11mm to capture the vast interior. The room was also full of people but Mitzy pointed out this excellent vantage point that was completely tourist free! Compare above to the image below. It’s hard to believe that they were taken just a few minutes apart:
To capture the full tonal range of the space I used an HDR technique. I took five images, each separated by 1EV and combined the -2, 0 and +2EV into an HDR image in Photoshop’s HDR Pro tool. Here are the three images that fully encompass the darkest and brightest tones.
The combined image looked like this:
Once the HDR was created I tweaked the brightness/contrast and fixed the vertical perspective in Lightroom.
And that’s it! A unique perspective of a familiar landmark, captured with full tonal range.
Owen Cherry Photography 