Category Archives: Travel

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Mississippi Minimalist

Minimalist Panorama - the Mississippi at Memphis
Camera: Panasonic DMC-GX7 | Date: 22-09-2014 17:33 | Resolution: 4956 x 1652 | ISO: 200 | Exp. bias: 0 EV | Exp. Time: 1/640s | Aperture: 5.0 | Focal Length: 12.0mm | Location: Lee Park | State/Province: Tennessee | See map | Lens: LUMIX G VARIO 12-35/F2.8

Not much to say about this one. I’m just catching up with some shots from our USA trip last year (trying to clear the decks a bit before the Bhutan trip which is now less than a week away). I’m quite pleased with the minimalist vibe here.

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The Tail End

In the Smithsonian
Camera: Panasonic DMC-GX7 | Date: 06-10-2014 12:11 | Resolution: 4475 x 3356 | ISO: 250 | Exp. bias: -66/100 EV | Exp. Time: 1/60s | Aperture: 6.3 | Focal Length: 28.0mm | State/Province: Washington, D.C. | See map | Lens: LUMIX G VARIO 12-35/F2.8

Day 16

A much better night’s sleep. Washingtonians obviously follow the "Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting" rule, and cause less trouble on other nights. I’ve also developed a hybrid bath towel and pillow scheme which fares rather better in the head supporting department. Frances resorts to cotton wool in the ears.

Breakfast is taken at a rather unique institution across the road from our hotel, which appears to be a 24 hour political bookshop and cafe. I suppose if such is going to exist anywhere in the world, an area which houses many young people associated with the US administration is a good bet, but we certainly haven’t seen one before.

First stop after breakfast is the obligatory shot of the White House. Today there is almost no visible security activity and we are among a total of about 6 people at the fence. Much easier.

The bulk of the day is spent exploring the National Space and Flight Museum. It’s great seeing such iconic vehicles as the actual Apollo 11 command module, and we get the weight off our feet with a couple of excellent Imax films about astronomy.

We then pop over the road to the Museum of the Native American. This is rather less inspiring, reminding us of some rather less impressive American behaviour, but still interesting.

We finish up back at the bookshop. Oh well…

Day 17

Last day. Sniff…

First order of business is a tour of The Pentagon. This is mainly walking around a very large office building sandwiched between two very smartly dressed military men. In our case the lead is a young sailor who swears he’s over 6ft tall but we’re not convinced. However he certainly has the trick of walking backwards for an hour spouting a string of interesting nuggets and funny stories about the American military and their history.

For the afternoon we go to the Newseum, a museum dedicated to the news media. This substantial establishment deals with all aspects of the news media, including the history, ethics, risks and challenges of getting news to the people over the years. Historic papers go back to the 1500s. Static displays include items such as the antenna from the top of one of the Twin Towers, then used by all the New York media. More interactive displays include a fascinating quiz on how to handle the most challenging ethical publishing dilemmas. I even manage to buy a singlet with the slogan "Exercisin’ my right to bare arms"! Although squeezed into a few hours at the end, this is in some ways one of the highlights of our visit to Washington.

Our journey back takes in the third Washington airport at Baltimore, and uses train, plane, automobile and bus. However everything goes smoothly, and we’re home ahead of schedule.

What Worked And What Didn’t

This was my first trip with just the Panasonic cameras, and they appear to be an excellent solution. The GH4 combined with the two f/2.8 zooms is a first class kit which handles pretty well, although I’m still getting used to some of the button positioning, and I don’t have to worry about the odd bump or drop of rain. However it matches 2.5kg of Canon or Nikon kit while weighing less than a 550D and single lens. Around town I switch to the GX7 and the power zooms which lose little in capability and are so light I have to occasionally check they are still there.

The infrared-converted Panasonic GF3 seems to have produced some very interesting results from the rising clouds and running water of the Smoky Mountains, and the main cameras continue to surprise and delight in unexpected ways. It looks like the GH4 is designed to hunt for focus through each "plane" of a scene in turn, so if you just hold the camera steady and keep refocusing you should be able to capture all the shots required for focus blending. We’ll see how well this has worked in practice.

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Washington – The Monuments

At the Martin Luther King Jnr Monument
Camera: Panasonic DMC-GX7 | Date: 05-10-2014 14:44 | Resolution: 2850 x 2850 | ISO: 200 | Exp. bias: 0 EV | Exp. Time: 1/320s | Aperture: 8.0 | Focal Length: 22.0mm | State/Province: Washington, D.C. | See map | Lens: LUMIX G VARIO 12-35/F2.8

Day 15

A rubbish night’s sleep. Between stupid pillows (of which more later), shouting drunks in the street, private cars beeping horns and the local emergency services insisting on using full sirens and horns throughout the small hours neither of us do very well. Frances is seriously considering shooting the paper seller outside. And apparently I snored, but I’m sure that’s not true.

Morning brings more peaceful conditions, although there’s still a drunk guy shouting for "Liam". After breakfast we move off to explore DC. Our first stop is the National Archives, which have been a target since we saw National Treasure. The display of the American Declaration of Independence etc. is just as good as expected. After that we browse a fascinating display of documents with interesting signatures, such as Einstein’s letter to Roosevelt about The Bomb, or Duke Ellington’s draft card.

Over coffee we watch a motorcade go past. Frances is sure Obama is in the limo, but I can’t be certain. Given the ambulance and fire engine following up his presence seems likely.

The main part of the day is spent wandering around the Washington Mall and the various memorials to key presidents and others. The new WW2 memorial is an impressive surprise, as is the way the space is clearly being used as an active park as well as a tourist centre. We’re entertained by a group of young blacks taking "glamour" photographs at the memorial to Martin Luther King, but mainly just impressed by the scope of memorials. We finish up by trying to view the White House, but for reasons unexplained the Secret Service decide to clear all onlookers out of the public areas just at the wrong time. However we do end up having coffee at The Willard Hotel where King finished his "I have a dream" speech.

We finally get back to the hotel very foot sore. Frances has read an article which suggests that genuine exhaustion is not uncommon among visitors to Washington as it’s easy to do more miles than you think. We may not be quite that bad, but ankles and knees are certainly complaining a bit. However overall it’s been an excellent day.

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The End of the Road

Mustang in Shenandoah NP
Camera: Panasonic DMC-GH4 | Date: 04-10-2014 09:29 | Resolution: 4608 x 3072 | ISO: 500 | Exp. bias: 0 EV | Exp. Time: 1/200s | Aperture: 8.0 | Focal Length: 93.0mm | Location: Moormans River Overlook | State/Province: Virginia | See map | Lens: LUMIX G VARIO 35-100/F2.8

Day 13

A day of odd contrasts. We awake to fog so thick we can’t see Abbot Lake from our room, a distance of about 30m. It’s still thick by the time we’ve had breakfast and checked out, and the first few miles along the Parkway are at about 20mph hugging the yellow lines.

However it also becomes clear that during the night while the fog effect was on someone also turned the "Fall" switch up to 11: there’s suddenly colour everywhere, with leaves falling like snow and forming a thick carpet across the road in some places.

After over an hour’s careful driving we need a coffee break and get off the Parkway. Buena Vista VA is a classic case of "get the problem out of the way in the title". It is – there’s no kind way to put this – a dump. Despite frequent and friendly-looking "welcome" banners all the way up the high street, nothing appears to be open, at 11 on a Friday morning. The only place serving coffee is a dreadful fast food joint where the collective IQ of the staff is probably still in double digits and suggests unkind jokes about Bulgarian policemen and dangerous intellectuals. We finish coffee and beat a hasty retreat back to the Parkway.

Less than 20 miles up the road we try again. "Vesuvius" is equally poorly named, as it turns out to be a very pretty, quiet rural community. We decide against the long waterfall hike, but get some charming photos and a very nice lunch at the Country Store.

I obviously haven’t read the Parkway guide carefully enough, and assume that a second mention of Crabtree Falls in my notes is a mis-print. However a careful read of the book reveals the note "not to be confused with the other Crabtree Falls in North Carolina". So having done both Lynchburgs we now visit a second Crabtree Falls. Not as impressive as the one further south, but worth a quick visit.

A few more miles brings the end of the Parkway, once again shrouded in fog and with rain threatening. Overall we’re extremely impressed by this long, thin National Park.

One oddity at the end of the day. The floor of the hotel bathroom is not slippery to the touch, or even in socks. My Italian shoes stick like glue to most surfaces. Yet they slide freely on the bathroom floor. Go figure…

Day 14

We drive into Shenandoah National Park, which is effectively just a continuation of the Parkway if you are driving South to North, albeit with an entrance fee and more park facilities. We don’t have time for a long hike, but instead focus on enjoying the steadily intensifying Autumn colour on the road and at many of the viewpoints.

It’s another dry and mainly sunny day, but the temperature has dropped markedly and I have to stop asserting my "right to bare arms" and put on more than a T shirt for the first time. Two days ago Lynchburg was 86°F, now we’re seeing just 50°F.

At the end of the Park we hit the freeway back to Washington. The drive is fairly painless, but we’re surprised how heavy the traffic is for a Saturday afternoon, and finding the Dollar return yard at Reagan airport, separate from all the other companies, is a bit of a magical mystery tour.

The Mustang is feeling desperate for a service, with squealing brakes and an increasingly clunky transmission, but the biggest mystery is the odometer. At various times in the trip I’ve used this to track progress to a waypoint without any problem, but subtracting the initial figure from the final one gives a total for the trip of 115 miles…

The Dupont Circle Hotel is elegant and well equipped, although our room would make more sense with one bed rather than trying to squeeze two in. We have dinner at a little Greek restaurant around the corner. We are at least 30 years too old to be drinking in the hotel’s main bar, and my hearing would never cope, but instead we find a small second bar where we have the charming barman to ourselves and enjoy some cocktails and bourbon samples.

Tomorrow we explore the city.

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Continuing the "USA 2014" Travel Blog…

The Peaks of Otter Lodge
Camera: Panasonic DMC-GH4 | Date: 02-10-2014 17:15 | Resolution: 4608 x 2592 | ISO: 500 | Exp. bias: 0 EV | Exp. Time: 1/160s | Aperture: 6.3 | Focal Length: 68.0mm | State/Province: Virginia | See map | Lens: LUMIX G VARIO 35-100/F2.8

I just realised that for some reason I never posted the last few days of our blog from our trip to the USA in 2014. Since I’m shortly going to start another one, I thought I should get my house in order! Hopefully you will have followed so far, but if not please look at www.andrewj.com/blog/usa2014.

Day 11

The next section of the Parkway is relatively empty, winding through North Carolina and Virginia farmland, so today is a day to cover some miles up to the northern section. At about 10 we get off to get coffee, and get trapped in long and complicated roadworks on a side road. However we find a wonderful little Cuban restaurant which makes a great cup of coffee to compensate.

At lunchtime we arrive at the Mabry Mill, which must be the busiest location on the Parkway. This has an excellent restaurant where we actually have to wait for a table, a fascinating park with rangers practicing old folk crafts, including a working blacksmith’s shop, and the mill itself, which must be the single most photogenic site on the road.

After a long lunch break it’s back on the road to The Peaks of Otter, which is home to the only park lodge on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Another excellent restaurant, and we make the tactical error of ordering a prime rib each, and can hardly move when we’re finished. This holiday may be pleasant, but it’s certainly not diet friendly!

Day 12

The Peaks of Otter is a very photogenic location, with the tiny Abbot Lake nestled between three small mountains. A loop around the lake produces shots with wonderful reflections of the Autumnal trees and lodge buildings in the mirror-like waters. The only challenge is that there’s quite a lot of algae in the water and the look changes a bit with the light, so we do two loops, one at each end of the day.

After breakfast and the morning loop we go to explore the "wrong" Lynchburg, the much larger town in Virginia. While this doesn’t have a certain distillery, it does have a lot of Civil War history, and is a shining example of urban regeneration in progress.

The ladies in the visitor centre are charmed to see us – I don’t think they get many British visitors – and deluge us with advice and leaflets, as well as welcoming us to leave the car outside the centre all day, which solves any problem with parking. We decide to follow the Civil War walking tour. This starts with a memorial which spans a long set of steps between two streets, reminiscent of a San Francisco staircase, and honours local dead in all wars up to the first Gulf War. Presumably the Iraq / Afghanistan memorial is being planned.

Lynchburg was mainly a Confederate logistical and medical centre. They did have one short battle, but a wily old Confederate general pulled off a large-scale version of the Beau Geste trick and persuaded the Union that he had many more men than in reality, and after that they were left alone. This means the walking tour is more about hospitals and supply depots, but it does take in the various areas which are being vigorously regenerated in the hope of creating a cosmopolitan, modern café-culture city centre using the shells of old tobacco warehouses and shoe factories.

Lynchburg does go in for the law in a big way. Court Street has five courts, and more legal offices than the Grays Inn Road.

Everyone we meet is charming and welcoming, and hopefully in a few years Lynchburg will be a model of a modern town making full use of its legacy.

On the way out we are reminded that Oscar Wilde was right. One of Lynchburg’s marshal arts centres has the splendid name of Feck’s. Wonderful!

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Morocco Portfolio Uploaded

1113 7D 5736
Photographer: Andrew Johnston | Camera: Canon EOS 7D | Date: 17-11-2013 15:32 | Resolution: 5184 x 2916 | ISO: 800 | Exp. Time: 1/400s | Aperture: 8.0 | Focal Length: 29.0mm (~47.0mm) | Latitude: N 31°6'43.40" | Longitude: W 3°59'14.09" | Altitude: 771 metres | See map | Lens: Canon EF-S 15-85mm f3.5-5.6 IS USM

I’ve just finished processing my shots from Morocco, and have uploaded the portfolio to my album. In addition, there are several new panoramas you should notice at the top of my web pages. Take a look at www.andrewj.com/album/Morocco

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Man at Work

Metalworker in the Marrakech Medina
Camera: Panasonic DMC-GX7 | Date: 11-11-2013 15:15 | Resolution: 3070 x 4093 | ISO: 1600 | Exp. bias: -1 EV | Exp. Time: 1/15s | Aperture: 8.0 | Focal Length: 38.0mm | Location: Museum of Marrakech | See map | Lens: LUMIX G VARIO PZ 14-42/F3.5-5.6

Another low-contrast shot from the Marrakech Medina, which didn’t look promising out of the camera, but I think works well after processing. This was at a much shorter range than the "bread" shot of last week’s post, but the cloud of dust and sparks from the active grinding wheel had much the same effect. I turned Capture One’s clarity slider up almost to maximum to try and cut through the haze a bit, with an almost "painterly" result. I think it works…

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A Laser-Like Focus?

Market Traders, Marrakech
Camera: Panasonic DMC-GX7 | Date: 10-11-2013 17:20 | Resolution: 3067 x 3067 | ISO: 200 | Exp. bias: -66/100 EV | Exp. Time: 1/400s | Aperture: 8.0 | Focal Length: 77.0mm | Location: Djemaa el Fna | State/Province: Marrakech-Tensift-Al Haouz | See map | Lens: LUMIX G VARIO PZ 45-175/F4.0-5.6

I suspect we all have something which can attract our attention, like a missile locking onto a homing beacon, even against significant background noise. With Frances, it’s shoes. With me, it’s bread!

There was a scene in the excellent, but very complicated, Belgian conspiracy thriller, Salamander which demonstrated this. Set in a Belgian monastery, in the foreground the central character is discussing the case with his brother, formerly a policeman but now a monk. They are trying to work out who has covered up doing what to whom, and how. In Flemish, so we’re getting this through subtitles. Even by the standards of the rest of the series it’s very, very complicated.

A monk wheels a trolley through the background, destined for the refectory. I go, "Ooh, that’s nice bread"! That breaks our chain of thought and we have to go back about a minute…

I can’t remember, but I think the same happened here. This was taken across the big square in the Marrakesh Medina, through a lot of cooking smoke and dust. The original has almost no contrast, and is quite indistinct. However Capture One has worked its magic and I think it now works. What attracted my eyes in the first place? Guess…

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Abstract from the Erg Chebbi

Abstract, Erg Chebbi, Sahara
Camera: Canon EOS 7D | Lens: EF-S15-85mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM | Date: 17-11-2013 15:59 | Resolution: 4557 x 3418 | ISO: 200 | Exp. bias: 0 EV | Exp. Time: 1/125s | Aperture: 11.0 | Focal Length: 70.0mm (~113.4mm) | State/Province: Meknès-Tafilalet | See map | Lens: Canon EF-S 15-85mm f3.5-5.6 IS USM
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Dark Shadows

Rock formation in the Dades Gorge, Morocco
Camera: Panasonic DMC-GX7 | Date: 15-11-2013 16:30 | Resolution: 4594 x 2871 | ISO: 1600 | Exp. bias: 0 EV | Exp. Time: 1/320s | Aperture: 8.0 | Focal Length: 175.0mm | See map | Lens: LUMIX G VARIO PZ 45-175/F4.0-5.6

I’m finally getting around to processing the remaining shots from my Morocco trip in 2013!

I had parked a number of shots from the Dades Gorge, because we were shooting almost into the setting sun, and they were either hazy, or very low in contrast and the in-camera JPEGs look almost "blown out". However it was right to hold these back until I could exert the full capability of Capture One on the RAW files. Here is one where to get the best effect I’ve really had to deepen the shadows, but I think it works, bringing out not only the shapes of the rocks, but also their shadows on one another.

Let me know what you think.

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Into the (Infra)Red

From The Crane, Barbados. Taken with the infrared-converted Panasonic GX3
Camera: Panasonic DMC-GF3 | Date: 15-04-2015 14:33 | Resolution: 4202 x 2626 | ISO: 160 | Exp. bias: 0 EV | Exp. Time: 1/4000s | Aperture: 3.5 | Focal Length: 14.0mm | State/Province: Christ Church | See map | Lens: LUMIX G VARIO PZ 14-42/F3.5-5.6

Last Summer I purchased a Panasonic GF3 which had been converted to infrared photography. Like with many gadgets, there’s a period where you play with the funky effects, and I quite like the way you can get a really deep blue sky if you do a "channel swap" on the processed image. However I have now established its milieu, and that’s dramatic black and white shots of either partially cloudy skies, or graphic vegetation.

To help with this, I now have it set up to record RAW+JPG, with the picture style set to monochrome. The in-camera results may be slightly different from where the processed image ends up, but they are a decent guide.

Processing is very simple: you just use the "Color Sensitivity" mode of Capture One’s Black & White tool. This is a classic channel mixer, but one in which the channels have a dramatically different effect to on a full-spectrum original. Red affects sky shadows and midtones. Yellow controls the sky and reflected highlights. Blue controls the tone of foliage with some effect from Cyan. Counter-intuitively the green and magenta mixers have almost no effect whatsoever! I now have a sensible starting point for images like the above set up as a preset, but the sliders will usually need a tweak to get the tonal balance right, and some global levels and curves tweaks may also sometimes be needed.

I’m very pleased with the image quality. The image is lower resolution than some of my others for two practical reasons: the GF3 only has a 12MP sensor, and that an older design, and infrared light simply can’t resolve the same detail as blue with its much shorter wavelengths. In practice, however, neither of these are an issue. I bought the camera after reading an article by Ctein, who complained about "hot spotting" through some Micro Four Thirds lenses. I’ll accept that I’m not as critical as he is, but I’m extremely pleased with the results from the inexpensive Panasonic 14-42mm power zoom lens. There’s slightly more visible vignetting at the widest setting than in a colour picture, but otherwise I can’t see much wrong with this.

Now I just need some more "graphic vegetation"!

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Monochrome, Sort Of…

Flower display at Clifton Hall House, Barbados
Camera: Panasonic DMC-GX7 | Date: 16-04-2014 19:20 | Resolution: 3123 x 3123 | ISO: 3200 | Exp. bias: -66/100 EV | Exp. Time: 1/8s | Aperture: 8.0 | Focal Length: 12.0mm | Lens: LUMIX G VARIO 12-35/F2.8

I’m making use of my new Windows MacBook to catch up with photo processing, including a few shots from our trip to Barbados last year. One of the things I particularly love about the Caribbean are the splashes of colour from the various flora, and I’ve noticed that an increasing proportion of my photos are nice flowers.

This display appealed because it’s all related shades of red, pink and brown. This makes it almost a “monochrome”, even though there’s no black, white or grey in sight!

Barbados has an interesting little tradition that people throw open some of the larger or historically significant private houses to visitors a few days each year. Clifton Hall House had fallen into disrepair, but was recently bought up and renovated by a Massimo Franchi, an international lawyer and sports agent (Scottish, despite the Italian name). He personally made us very welcome, and after our tour of the house we spent a happy hour on the veranda discussing our shared interests, plumbing and DIY with him! Nice bloke, lovely house.

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