Light beams at the Old bridge

Let’s continue with another photo from my archives. This one I took last year at the White night event in Bratislava. If you never heard of the White night, it a night where there are many light installations around the city, just for that night. It’s quite popular here and the streets are full of people that day. The next one is still a bit off, as it’s on the 28th of September.

This shot was taken under the Old bridge, when they had these moving light beams shining from the bridge. Sometimes they have these, sometimes they have color lights inside the bridge instead. I like both. I took multiple photos trying to catch the lights pointing straight up, and almost got all of them. This is a two shot vertorama, each shot from two exposures. Blended and merged in Photoshop.

Across the Danube

I really like this view of Bratislava. The SNP bridge (or also known as the New bridge) spans the Danube and creates a nice contrast between the modern stile on the left and the old on the right. Still, there is a variation on this photo I want to take. Right around the end of the spring, the sun sets right in the middle between the castle and the bridge. So you can imagine how I want to capture it. I been planing a photo like that for years now. But I always forgotten and once I remembered, the sun was already setting at a different location. But maybe this year I finally remember and get the photo I want :)

This one I took late autumn last year. This is a two shot panorama, each shot from 2 exposures. Blended and combined in Photoshop. Btw. almost all of my recent photos have been edited only in Photoshop and only with the basic tools like masks and levels. The more I edit the more I want to go towards simplicity, and this is the result of it right now :)

Under the SNP bridge

I wonder if I noticed things as much, before I became a photographer. Now, when I see a change in a scene I visited before, I see it immediately. I don’t remember it being that way before. I would walk through the city, ignoring everything. I don’t remember ever stopping and just looking at the sunset. Something I do all the time now. Even if I’m not taking photos (and of course, those are the days with best sunset :)). Maybe I just look more for what to take photos off. Probably. Still, I’m glad that I changed. I enjoy every walk through the city that much more.

I took this photo under the SNP bridge few weeks back. There is a new scaffolding there, so looks like they stared a reconstruction on it. A part of the bridge was closed off before, as I think there are building a new cafe/restaurant there. I’m curious what they will do here.

This is a two shot panorama, each shot a blend of three exposures, edited in Photoshop.

And here are few details:

Winter reflection

I used this winter reflection photo as an example in a post few days ago, to show how to do HDR/blended panoramas in Photoshop. And since I never posted the finished edit, here it is.

This is a two shot winter panorama each shot from two exposures. I did minimal edits here, mostly just to correct the overexposed areas, correct contrast and add sharpness. That’s it. Recently I try to keep the shots more realistic, and that goes hand in had with doing less in editing.

And here are few details:

Snow covered

I posted a similar photo last week, but I liked them both so here is another one. As snow is not that common in Bratislava, in the last few years, I had to take as many photos as I could of it. I don’t think there will be much more this year. And snow covered rocks at the Danube make for such a nice foreground subject.

As I mentioned, this is a blend of three exposures. It’s a vertorama where the top part is a blend of two exposures, and the bottom part is a single exposure. I combined them manually in Photoshop. It’s pretty simple, as the middle is a river, so you just blend them using a layer mask and a bit of painting with the brush. You can’t use any panorama software if you want to do a focal blend, as they will not align the photos that way.