Khaki F. Dog

Dutch sunset panorama.
Wandering around my home I encountered a hill around sunset, just as a storm was rolling in. Lacking a tripod, I shot a series of photos freehand and later auto-stitched them together in Photoshop. Content-aware fill magically filled in a few chunks of the sky, then I took the resulting 2GB TIFF file into Lightroom for grading. Result: 167 megapixels of rare Dutch beauty.

Wandering around my home I encountered a hill around sunset, just as a storm was rolling in. Lacking a tripod, I shot a series of photos freehand and later auto-stitched them together in Photoshop. Content-aware fill magically filled in a few chunks of the sky, then I took the resulting 2GB TIFF file into Lightroom for grading.

Result: 167 megapixels of rare Dutch beauty.

Spring at the Airport, a set on Flickr.
Almost exactly one year ago I was making my evening commute home via Schiphol Airport and noticed the sun shining through the glass façade. I was struck by its intensity, the shadows cast as people walked by, and crouched down to take some shots with my iPhone. This was the day I truly caught the photography bug, and it set me on the journey I’ve been on for the last year. I bought a proper camera, learned the finnicky science of exposure and composition, the nature and effect of light. I did some research and discovered that the light I saw was very rare; due to the precession of the sun it would take a year for those same conditions to occur. Any other time of year the sun would be blocked by buildings. So I kept my eye out this month, knowing the sun would soon be in the right position again, and yesterday, there it was. A security guard came to ask me what I was doing, taking snaps of passers-by, holding the camera at hip-height. I enthusiastically explained the story to him, and he soon got bored and left me alone. I must have shot four hundred frames, just to get a few that captured the texture and the power of the light. I’m not sure they beat the magic of the original iPhone pics I took last year – but I’m happy I got them. I can try again next year!

Spring at the Airport, a set on Flickr.

Almost exactly one year ago I was making my evening commute home via Schiphol Airport and noticed the sun shining through the glass façade. I was struck by its intensity, the shadows cast as people walked by, and crouched down to take some shots with my iPhone.

This was the day I truly caught the photography bug, and it set me on the journey I’ve been on for the last year. I bought a proper camera, learned the finnicky science of exposure and composition, the nature and effect of light. I did some research and discovered that the light I saw was very rare; due to the precession of the sun it would take a year for those same conditions to occur. Any other time of year the sun would be blocked by buildings.

So I kept my eye out this month, knowing the sun would soon be in the right position again, and yesterday, there it was.

A security guard came to ask me what I was doing, taking snaps of passers-by, holding the camera at hip-height. I enthusiastically explained the story to him, and he soon got bored and left me alone.

I must have shot four hundred frames, just to get a few that captured the texture and the power of the light. I’m not sure they beat the magic of the original iPhone pics I took last year – but I’m happy I got them. I can try again next year!