Younes Bounhar Photography

Moody Coast

So here I am playing catch-up with my keywording, yet I just can’t help myself but try and play around with some of my unprocessed shots (hours of keyword entry isn’t exactly my definition of fun!). As I mentioned in a recent post, I am also starting to discover Lightroom 2.5. The program doesn’t really do much for me, except for the cataloging and keywording functions which are quite a bit more advanced than bridge. In any case, some of the cool things in LR are the Black and white presets. This is a shot that dates back to almost two years ago, in the Olympic coast of Washington State in Northwestern US. It was quite a dark and grey evening, which made for some moody images of the legendary Ruby Beach. I thought the Selenium look worked quite well with this shot. I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

Posted on November 22nd, 2009 in Post-processing techniques Travel | 4 Comments »

Mountains, where art thou?

I need my mountain fix. Badly. It has been sometime since I have actually had a chance to enjoy in mountains. Man, I do miss them. For a guy who grew up by the ocean, I never really expected mountains to have such a profound effect on me. But ever since I set foot in the Rockies a couple of years back, all I have been thinking of has been mountains and more mountains. I mean, it’s not even funny, I see a mountain shot and I just cringe, not because I don’t like it, but really because I am just dying to be there so badly. I am really considering taking Darwin Wiggett’s winter workshop in february but have to figure a few details out before I know if I can make it. If you have a chance check him out. The guy is one of Canada’s premiere landscape photographer and great guy to boot.

In the meantime, all you get from me is a few shots from my Rockies trip in 2007…

Posted on November 8th, 2009 in Images Travel | 7 Comments »

Postcard from Amsterdam

I am writing this as I have just boarded the TGV from Amsterdam back to Paris. It’s a four hour trip, so I can use the opportunity to catch up on some post-processing and to take care of a few outstanding tasks. The beauty of it is that I have a hi-speed wi-fi connection in the train, hence, the post. Amsterdam was a short but sweet stop. It wasn’t really meant to be a photo destination per se, so I just took the opportunity to catch up with a friend and get some much needed rest. Obviously, I still couldn’t help but drag my gear along with me so that I could take a few snapshots from the city of bikes. Gosh, do they love their bikes over here…I knew ahead of time that cycling was sort of the Dutch transportation mode, but I really hadn’t envisaged the scale of it. I mean, there are bikes ALL OVER THE PLACE, LITERALLY! It’s really an amazing sight. Therefore, I couldn’t send a postcard of the city without including one of these formidable devices .

Posted on September 10th, 2009 in Travel | No Comments »

The City of Lights

Just a quick one from the road. I flew into Paris this past saturday and despite the lack of sleep and extreme fatigue, I couldn’t help but roam around the city in the late afternoon. The pont de l’Alma is probably one of the most stunning bridges in the city and provides a fantastic view over the Seine. This is taken shortly after sunset as the Tour Eiffel lights were turned on. A 10 stop ND filter was used to slow exposure enough to catch the cloud motion.

Now off to my next destination. I’ll try and post something later this week.

À la prochaine.

Posted on September 7th, 2009 in Images Travel | 2 Comments »

Milkin’ it all the Way

It was about 11pm when we arrived back at our car on the way down from Eunice lake (see yesterday’s post here). After a long day, all we were thinking of was the comfort of a bed, yet, when Jay suggested we stop for some star trail shots, I immediately acquiesced! My excitement only grew when I noticed that the Milky Way was out in full force! To add to the magic, a planet (not sure which one, but clearly visible to the left of Rainier) was lined up just at the right spot, and an eerie and barely visible light painted the mountain top.

The following shot was made with a Nikon D700, Nikkor 14-24 at 14mm, f/2.8, iso 2500 for 30s. I used a high iso and wide open lens here to minimise the exposure time so that I could capture the milky way before star motion was visible.

The next one, was with a Nikon D700, 70-300 VR at 70mm, f/5.6, iso 800, 256s. In this one, I went to the complete opposite compared to the previous shot as I wanted to capture as much motion in as little time as possible, hence the longer focal length (an even longer focal length and exposure time would have been better, but I was constrained in this case.

Posted on July 20th, 2009 in Images Photography Tips Travel | 9 Comments »

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