I guess Jef was right, it will be hard to top this kind of article.
My last real shoot seems like ages ago. This weekend my season kicks off again, it’s looking to be a busy year , I’m psyched, I can’t wait to get back out there.
Meanwhile I’ve (re)started working on our South-America travel book, progress is painstakingly slow (that seems to be the way for me when making albums), I’m experimenting (yet again) with a bunch of border brushes and layout templates.
Fotobuch doesn’t give me the book format I want, Blurb does with the large landscape format (13″x11″) but there I’m limited to the templates in the software. I’ve been testing lightroom print exports, pixelcreatorpro, photojunction … trying to find a way to automate my workflow for this specific book. Pure photoshop is a bit slow for me ….
Hell I probably would have finished the book already if I hadn’t tried out 10 other things first.
If you have any album design software tips, even if it has a different (good) print service, drop ‘em in the comments.
Some impressions of Uyuni
Something totally different from what I normally post. I came across this picture in my way too big library of unprocessed images from our South-America adventure. I took this picture on the 17th of October, a couple of weeks before election day. We were stuck in Miami airport waiting for our next flight and CNN didn’t cover anything else beside the elections. The battle between McCain and Obama was still wide open (if it ever was). Both candidates were attending some benefit event and they both took turns making a speech. When Obama took the stand everybody gathered around the TV’s laughing at every not so funny joke. After the long lines at the customs (where I wasn’t allowed to take a picture) this was our second encounter of what we call “omg is this America” feeling. It was time to find a Burger King…
This picture would probably have more meaning if I had posted it when it was still news…
Filed under: Travel | Tags: bolivia, landscape, pano, photography, uyuni, wide
Without a doubt the highlights of our trip, a 3day jeep tour to & through the Uyuni salt flats.
The variety of landscapes was overwhelming.
Original 9191 x 1850 set can be found here
All pictures where taken with the 400D and the 18-55 kitlens. I didn’t have any ND or polarizing filters so I bracketed all the shots to have a ‘correct’ exposure. Landscapes where stitched from up to 8 portrait pictures with canon’s photostitch. Even with the equipment used I’m still pretty happy with these stitches. Now to find a service to print this format. (tips are welcome)
Well, we are back from our great South American adventure and things are starting to fall into place in our new house. Yes, there are still plenty of little chores to do and on a professional level there are some changes coming as well (more about that soon) but, the important thing is that I’m finding some time to update the blog and process some travel pictures. (and Roosje & Jelle’s wedding album)
Before we set of I set myself the goal to make interesting portraits of the people we meet on vacation.
Yes, there is an old lady with a llama in there but that doesn’t count since after the picture you have to pay them for it … you’ll make that mistake once. The next one you’ll try a sneaky zoom lens approach … yet they still spot you (it’s like a 6th sense they have). The third time you hide the camera and try to ignore the “hey mista, picture with llama?” all together.
So coming back to the real people we’ve met : meet Douglas.
We met with Douglas and his wife Teresa on our trip to Uros, the floating islands and Isla Taquile on lake Titicaca. At 6am in the morning a cab picked us up at our hotel in Puno, I was still nibbling on an unfinished sandwich when I stepped in. “Thanks for bring me breakfast!” was the first thing he said to me 
I think we chatted for the next 3 hours on the boat. And a good couple of hours more after that.
On one of the viewpoints Douglas was taking a rest away from the tourist touts and something about the picture felt ‘out of place’, but on the other side it all connected. I had my portrait.
Douglas & Teresa, it was great meeting you and if you ever visit Europe/Belgium (again), we’ll have the guestroom in use by then 
