Photography: Roma Night Photos

Taking night photos in Rome was my first attempt at HDR night photos.  I really like the effect.   The way you can have a lot more stuff correctly exposed with HDR is really accentuated with night photos.   They look really bright and vibrant.  I'll definitely be doing this again.  

 The Typewriter by night.   The blue streaks were caused by a police car passing in front of it.   The flashing of the light makes interruptions in the streak.  Pretty!

 And again.   Photomatix has a default setting that removes "ghosts", or parts of the photo that appear in one exposure, but not the rest.   This is very useful for automatically removing things like passers-by that wander in front of the camera and traffic and objects moving in the wind.   By turning this setting off I got a lot more streaks of light from passing cars than I otherwise would have.

Fontana di Trevi.   A very famous fountain in Rome.   It's surrounded by tourists day and night.   If you throw a coin in over your shoulder with your back to it it's meant to mean that you'll come back to Rome someday.

Photography: Roman Holiday, Day 1

I've decided to split up my Rome photos by day, seeing as there are so many of them.   Day 1 is mostly HDR, seeing as it was overcast and the light was bad.   The non-HDR photos just looked flat and uninteresting.   We went round the Colosseum and had a bit of a wander around the Palatine Hill as well.   Carrying my equipment round Rome all day for a week certainly took its toll on my shoulders, but I think the results were worth the pain.

 Colosseum, obviously.   I love how the HDR turned boring, grey, overcastness into fierce storm clouds.

Arch of Constantine as seen from the Colosseum.    Also love how the HDR turned mundane tourists-in-the-way to splashes of brilliant colour.

                                                                    Arch of Titus

                                                Colosseum seen from the Palatine Hill

                                                                 Arch of Constantine

 Vittorio Emmanuele monument.   AKA the typewriter.   Most Romans don't like it cos it's so pompous and self-indulgent.  I do though.   The marble glows white in the sunshine.   This was my best attempt to get it without traffic in the way.

      Poppies coming up between the paving slabs in the forum.   The only non-HDR photo from the day that I liked.   There were poppies absolutely everywhere.   It was beautiful.