When I was over in Barcelona last September, at the European Photobloggers meetup, I shot a sequence of 19 images from a high point in Park Guell. Each of the 19 images (shot at 57mm at f/8) were used to construct this image, and the final panorama covers a view of around 320°.

From a technical point of view it was relatively straightforward: the 19 images were shot using a Really Right Stuff BH-55 PCL-1 panning clamp (overlapped by around 30-40%), and then the panorama constructed with PTGui. At full resolution then the final image is 43,195px by 3516px: almost 125 megapixels.

The reason I haven't posted it before is because the small version looks rubbish, even at 1030px wide. With that in mind though I've posted a much bigger version here:

.../archives/the_barcelona_skyline.php

This is 7716px by 533px, and weighs in at 1.8MB, so may take a bit of time to load :)

If you were following chromasia last September you will be able to identify some of the landmarks I shot during my trip. From left to right these are: the power station; the exterior of the Sagrada Familia (an interior HDR is here); the communications tower near the Olympic stadium; and the Torre de Collserola communications tower and the Temple de Sagrat Cor.

So, if you've ever wondered what down-town Barcelona looks like from the top of a hill, now you know :)

As I mentioned a few entries ago, my major project for the next few months is a book on HDR Photography. It's provisionally titled 'Practical HDR', was commissioned by Ilex Press, and will be published by Focal Press at some point in the 3rd of 4th quarter of 2009. I'll also be running an HDR course for Aspen Photo Workshops in Tampa, Florida, from the 19th of April until the 23rd, and am continuing to run my online HDR course with PPSOP. With all that in mind, I remembered that I'd shot a sequence of images inside the Sagrada Familia when I was Barcelona last September. I did look at them not long after I got back, but decided against processing them, though can't remember why.

Anyway, I decided to take another look at them today and am pleased with how it turned out. I appreciate that it's a Marmite shot ;– i.e. it's the style of HDR shot that people seem to either love or hate – but it's one that will probably make it into the book. And for those of you who are interested: the HDR image was created in Photoshop and then tone mapped with Photomatix Pro (as described in my 2nd HDR tutorial).

As an aside, one of the odd things about HDR images is that the smaller they get, the worse they look. For example, I think this one works really well as a high res' image, and would look good as a fairly large print, but it doesn't look quite as good at the resolution presented here. I've put some 100% crops from the high res' version here:

.../archives/the_sagrada_familia_hr.php

As you can see, while these are obviously crops from an HDR image, the tone mapping doesn't seem quite as unnatural at this higher resolution. If you're interested, I've also put a 2000px x 1333px version here.

As always, let me know what you think, even if you don't like it :-)

This is the last shot I'll be posting from my recent trip to Barcelona, and it's definitely one of my favourites. It was taken from just across the road from the Olympic Stadium, a few minutes after the sun had dropped below the horizon, but I'm afraid that I can't identify the building on the horizon. Hopefully one of you will be able to enlighten me.

This is a photograph of Nuria, taken at the Friday night meetup of the recent Europe Photobloggers meetup in Barcelona.

I got an email earlier today from a photographer who had stumbled across my beachcombing gallery. He said that he was pleased to have found it because he now felt like less of a nut photographing stuff that got washed up on his own beach :-)

And my reason for mentioning that is because I was working on this shot when his email arrived. It's clearly not a beachcombing shot, but it is a photograph of something damaged, and possibly abandoned. What I like about objects like these is that each of them has a story – normally one of damage or neglect – a trajectory that leads up to the point at which the shutter is pressed.

This is a shot of a reflection in the sloping front of the maremagnum in Barcelona. As you can see from the shot I've linked below, it was an especially strenuous shoot:

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And in case you haven't seen a shot of me before, I'm the slightly less active one on the right, while the guy on the left is Paul :-)

While yesterday's 'reluctant performer' was shot in an open square, today's was taken in a partially underground area of Park Güell in Barcelona. What drew me to this shot, other than the guy himself, was the instrument he was playing ;– as it wasn't one I was familiar with. It turns out that it's a stick, a two-handed tapping instrument originally designed by Emmett Chapman.

In terms of the shot itself: while I liked yesterday's, I much prefer the harsher contrast of this one. If you're interested, the original is here:

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If you've taken a look at my Black and White: part one tutorial you'll probably have already worked out that this was converted to black and white using the Channel Mixer, biased towards the blue channel. My reason for this was that I really wanted to bring out all the detail in his face, but an added bonus was that his shirt became much darker too – emphasising the detail in his face, the 'stick' and his hands.

And finally, a few days ago I mentioned that the 70-200mm f/2.8L IS wasn't ideal for street/candid photography (it's not exactly an unobtrusive item), but in this instance I wouldn't have got the shot without it as a) I wouldn't have been able to get close enough with a shorter lens, and b) without the IS there's now way on earth I'd have been able to handhold at 1/30 using a 200mm lens.

As always, let me know what you think.

While I don't often feel intimidated when shooting people in public, there is one situation that I do find difficult; i.e. when people make eye contact with you and you can't judge how they feel about being photographed. In these circumstances my instinctive reaction is to look away – much as I would if there wasn't a camera between us. However, a street portrait can be a lot stronger when a subject actively engages with the process of being photographed, so it's often worth staying focussed for a few more seconds than you would normally find comfortable to ensure that you get the shot.

In this instance, I'd been photographing this guy for a couple of minutes before he glanced up, and my immediate impression was that either he didn't want to be photographed or he found my presence distracting. Either way, I shot a few more frames before thanking him for his time and moving on.

Not the best dressed tailor's dummy I've ever seen, but certainly one of the more stylish :-)

In case you're wondering: this is a shot of a photograph (of a bird behind the bars) beneath a ceiling (the bars at the top of the image) with a red wire running the bars.

The 70-200 f/2.8 IS is a great lens for street photography – shallow depth-of-field to isolate your subjects, IS for use in low light, and sufficient magnification to allow you to be a reasonable distance away. But, and it's a big but, it's such a large (white) lens that your chances of grabbing a shot without being spotted are quite small – as this shot clearly demonstrates :-)

Of all the shots I took in Barcelona this is the one that Libby likes least but, for some reason that I can't quite explain, it's close to being my favourite from all the ones I'll be putting up.

This one was taken outside Maremagnum – a shopping centre in Barcelona – and beyond that I don't think there's a great deal I can say about this, other than to tell you it was one of about 15 shots. In the other shots the couple are either looking towards one another, or out over the water, but (for reasons that I can't really articulate) this was my favourite of the set.

When I was in Barcelona last month I shot an HDR sequence of these columns. This time, by way of contrast, I shot them at sunset. And I would write more about the meetup this weekend, but I'm wiped out this evening after getting back to Blackpool a couple of hours ago. I'll post some more details tomorrow.

Paul has posted an alternative view here.

Oh, and this one looks much better with the black theme.

I'm not entirely happy with the composition of this one, but there's something about her expression that made me think it was worth posting.

I would be willing to bet that Barcelona has more nice legs than any other city in the world. I may be wrong of course, but it definitely has more than its fair share :-)

I'm back in Barcelona again, for the 2008 Europe Photobloggers meetup which starts this evening. I travelled over yesterday, with Paul Hargreaves, and we took a trip to the Palau Nacional (the home of the National Museum of Catalan Art). I didn't get any particularly good shots, but do like this one – a shot of the waterfall in front of the building.

We have various photo-walks planned for the next couple of days so I should be able to get back to posting a bit more regularly.

I did say that I thought that yesterday's would be the last one from my recent trip to Barcelona, and this one isn't especially striking, but there's something about the shoes under the bench that I like. And in case you're wondering about the location: the building in the background is the leftmost edge of the main building in this shot.

This is probably the last shot I'll be posting from my recent trip to Barcelona, and while I know that this style of HDR image isn't to everyone's taste, there was something about the composition of this one that made me think it was worth posting. I did try to produce a straight shot, but if you take a look at the original you'll see that there wasn't a great deal I could do with it:

.../archives/barcelona_9.php

The eagle-eyed among you may have noticed that all the shots I've posted from my trip to Barcelona were taken with my 24-70 and 5D. This is because I was travelling light and didn't want to take a huge amount of kit with me. One other lens that I did take though was my Holga on a lens cap as it weighs next to nothing and doesn't really take up much room. I didn't use it much, but thought it might work well with this scene. Personally, I'm happy with how it turned out, but would be interested to hear what you think.

And I should probably add that other than a minor bit of colour and contrast tweaking this is pretty much a straight shot.