All hail to Sauron! Stitched panorama

The weather hasn’t been in its most stable form lately in London (hello again British weather, fare thee well summer). On the flip side, thanks to the strong wind and fast moving clouds, we’ve been getting some rather amazing sunsets lately. Last Sunday as I was at home cooking dinner (while fully soaked in end-of-weekend blue) I spotted a hint of orange outside the window – this turned into a 10-minute sprint toward the local high point, Stave Hill. I was lucky (recent workout paid off!) enough to catch the amazing glow when reached at the top of the hill!

The panorama was stitched from 3 photos on a 50mm lens. Very pleased with the level of details preserved in such dark light condition (zoom in to check it out!), however it turned out to be a bit more grainy than I would’ve liked – was too out of breath to realise ISO number was defaulted at a high level (need to keep working out I guess…).

I always joked that the Shard reminds me of the Tower of Isengard from the LOTR. And in this photo in particular, the red tint on the clouds and the shadows really set the mood – all hail to Sauron! 😉

All hail to Sauron! Amazon sunset viewed from Stave Hill, London

Before the US photos, here’s a bit of London Dockland sunset

I’m normally a pretty “in the moment” photo editor – I prefer editing the photos within a relatively short timespan after the shooting them so that I keep the momentum. Also, the sooner I get to work on the photos, the clearer I would remember the vision I had while taking them. But this time with the US trip, this simply didn’t happen. Since I’ve come back I’ve been pretty occupied by other stuff so gradually became lazy in terms of photography.

A few days ago, my parents managed to drag me out of the house to take a break and enjoy the nice (and rare) weather. Knowing the light would be good at that time of the afternoon, both my dad and I took our cameras with us (my mum’s so amazing that she’s never bored of us). Here are a few shots I took on the day:

Looking across the Thames to Canary Wharf

 

Sunset over Greenland Dock and the buildings in Canary Wharf across the Thames

Sunset over Brunswick Quay, Canada Water

Chicago!

A quick update from Chicago –

I arrived in Chicago from SF on Friday, and what a drastic contrast in the weather! *collar up*.

This is my first time in Chicago, but knowing it’s a big metropolitan area I was expecting it to be somewhat similar to NYC – opportunities for beautiful skylines! Prior to my trip I did some research on viewpoints of the city, and stumbled across Virginia’s awesome blog on where to take the best skyline pictures of Chicago and it can’t be more helpful (check out her San Francisco post too!). Following her recommendation, I went to The Signature Lounge today after briefly seeing the butt-like giant bean Cloud Gate (it was actually quite fun to photograph, but it was too touristy to be fun – I’ll leave the rant to another post) in hope of taking some nice sunset photos/night shots.

I was extremely lucky given this is said to be the warmest day in Chicago for weeks (18 Celsius!) and the wind was mild to minimal. I got to the John Hancock Building a little bit later than I hoped, it was 4.30 which was when exactly the sun was setting. Having read Virginia’s blog I decided to go straight up to the bar/lounge on 96th instead of the observatory to avoid queues and waits. And guess what, I was just in time to catch one of the most amazing sunset views of Chicago, in the ladies lavatory! Apparently there’s no secret that this was a great viewpoint of the lounge, by the time I got there the toilet was quite crammed with people taking photos (and very few actually using the toilets). But I’ve managed to find a spot to snap a few photos quickly – the sun went down in just a few minutes, so I was quite satisfied with the decision to come up right here! The post-sunset view was also stunning, many people just ended up standing there and watching the sunset – one of the ladies even pointed out that they really should set up a bar in the toilet instead. :p

Can you imagine this is a view from the loo?

After I was done with the signature lounge, I decided to to take a look at the observatory deck anyway – the bar got a bit too busy and this sunset was too good to miss. So I went back up to the 360 Chicago and got utterly stunned by the view from there. It was not very busy up there and I even managed to find a suitable box to rest my camera on for 10 second exposure shots 🙂 The only annoying bit is that sometimes you can still see the glare of the glass panel – I’ll have to find a way to photoshop them out. But generally, it was a very nice and relaxing time spent looking at the city of Chicago slowly lit up under the dramatic skies.

Post-sunset glow of Chicago city

A quick update from SF

I’m in San Francisco! I have actually been here for a full week now, and what a week! A short summary of the week:

– Bumped into The Giants’ victory parade
– Shopped a lot (SF is colder than expected, and fleece is amazingly effective here)
– Got caught in the rare rain in San Francisco (first in month time apparently)
– Witnessed some crazy halloween scenes in Castro area
– Went to a lovely wedding set on Carmel Valley Ranch
– Stayed on a hill top house in Carmel Valley. Absolutely stunning views. The drive up would’ve been easier with an SUV…
– Experienced some crazy traffic jams on 101 and SF city
– Enjoyed lovely seafood in Carmel-by-the-sea and the beautiful walk near the 17-mile drive, didn’t see the sea otters though, kind of disappointed 😦
– Saw the sparkling SF from the Twin Peaks at night
– Saw the Golden Gate Bridge at night (kind of dark)
– Saw the Golden Gate Bridge again, in daylight, took typical tourist photos while being pretty subtle
– Did an unintended hike in Lands End, went all the way down to the rock beach and then the Eagle Point Labyrinth, witnessed a breathtaking sunset with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background
– Tagged along a friend’s trip to Stanford University, fell in love with Palo Alto
– Saw a stunning sunset skies from Oakland – it was all red, all red!
– Tagged along again to see the Golden State Warriors play. NBA experience: check
– Witnessed another stunning sunset at the Baker Beach (photos below)
– Got completely lost around Baker Beach after dark, almost freaked out as even taxis couldn’t drive in. Saw a police officer and asked the way out, was kindly offered a lift back to the main road. POLICE CAR EXPERIENCE: CHECK.

That was a lot for 1 week, wasn’t it? 🙂

  

A little autumn walk in Cambridge

I’m about to graduate from Cambridge, can’t believe it’s already been 2 years since I moved there from London. I took me a while to settle in my college, Newnham College. But now this city almost feels like a second home to me.

Last week I took a day trip back to Cambridge to work as the photographer for an event hosted at the Cambridge Union Society. Guess what, it was a speech given by Robert Downey Jr and I was lucky enough to met him in person before the event! Generally the encounter worked like this:

Him: “Hi, Robert” *shakes hands with me*
Me: “Hi…” *squeak*

The photos from the event need to be approved by the official media company so I can’t put them up here.

Anyways, before the event I took some time to take a walk around the town for some autumn shots. The weather was not the nicest but the city and the beautiful colleges still didn’t disappoint. Here are some shots I’ve taken during the day.

New Court at St. John’s College, Cambridge

Newnham College garden

Trinity College

Budapest

Dust it up!

Haven’t posted anything for a while now. So a few photos to fill the gap.

Some heavy snow back in January – that was about an hour before I sat my micro exam :S

The O-so-touristy King’s

Newnham Library, where I’m camping on daily basis