Kim Engineering Building (b&w)

The Jeong H Kim Engineering Building is one of the showcase buildings of the UMD engineering school. The iconic rotunda is brightly lit after sunset, which is why it is the focus of the following pictures.

Here we go:

 A front shot of the Kim building rotunda

Details of the architecture

My personal favorite: a panorama of the Kim buidling plaza, one wing of the building, and the rotunda

The 60's Chevy C10

For a couple of months a nicely restorated Chevrolet C10 has been standing in front of my office during the day time. One day I had my camera with me and decided to get out during lunch time and try my luck. As the surroundings were not great as a background for a car shot, I tried to focus on the interesting details of the car.

Here we go:

UMD Early Morning (color)

As promised, here are a few HDR pictures taken from the UMD campus early morning in color.
They are mainly the same pictures seen in the last post... in color.

Here we go:

The UMD main gate

The "M" circle

View from the "M" circle towards the main gate

View of the UMD mall fountain towards the administration building.

UMD Early Morning

About one week ago I got up early to take pictures from the University of Maryland entrance and way to the mall during and shortly after sun rise. Although I made some technical mistakes while taking the panorama shots, most of them turned out surprisingly well. The pictures of the current post will be black and white, but I am planning on making a second post soon with a slightly different assortment of color pictures.

Here we go:

The University main gate shortly before sunrise.

A panorama shot of the engineering building on the way from the main gate to the University mall.

Traffic circle with the classical Maryland "M".

A panorama shot back from the traffic circle towards the main gate.

Fountain on the mall and the flight of stairs leading up to McKeldin Library.

Fountain panorama with Administration Building in the background.

McKeldin Library with an eye towards the mall architecture.

Some Flowers (1)

Here are some random shots of flowers from last year, not associated with a specific trip or location. Most were shot handheld with my trusted Tamron lens (why some may not be tack sharp), some were shot with a tripod and the additional help of the Canon Close-up lens. I will post more flower shots in due time.

Here we go:

One of my favorites, because of the beautiful color gradients in the rose petals:

An orchid seen in a conservatory:

A white topped pitcher plant outside in a park:

A wild flower in a forest in Canada. Possibly a daffodil, but I'm not sure:

Great Falls National Park 2012

A few weekends ago I went for a hike in Great Falls National Park with a friend.
We saw a lot of wildlife: snakes, small birds, big birds, todds with suicidal tendencies (long story). There was one animal though who was kind enough to sit still for a couple of seconds to give me a great picture: A couple of five-lined skinks!

The following pictures are some impressions from the path along the old Chesapeake and Ohio Canal which runs parallel to the Potomac great falls. The historic-style boat you see below provides mule-drawn tours on the canal.

There are lots of things one can do in Great Falls: having a barbecue, site seeing of the falls, rock scrambling, or just enjoying a relaxing walk next to the canal.

Harpers Ferry 2011

Wow, another long break since the last post. Below are some photos of a family trip to Harpers Ferry, a town and national historic park in West Virginia. The town and it's history are very interesting, but my personal highlight was the hike up Maryland Heights to a scenic overlook which provides a grand view over the town.

The following is an HDR picture of the entrance to the railroad tunnel through Maryland Heights. There are a few HDR pictures which I like better in black and white, because of the way it makes the additional contrast shine.

Huuh, who is this? We met this little fellow on our way down the mountain. He is a male Eastern Box Turtle who ventured too close to the hiking trail and was spotted by me.

Longwood Gardens B&W

After a long break from posting photos, here comes the first post of the new year!
Last year we visited Longwood Gardens, a beautiful park near Philadelphia PA. Originally purchased from William Penn himself by the Peirce family to be an arboretum, well known industrialist Pierre Du Pont purchased the estate in the early 1900s and extended it greatly. The park is open to public and features beautiful landscaping, a very large and diverse conservatory, as well as herb gardens, ponds with waterlilies and many other highlights. If you haven't been there, give it a try. It is worth it.
To make it more interesting, this post will focus on black and white pictures. I will show two photos from when we visited during daytime, both of which are HDR (High Dynamic Range) images. These mainly go to show that HDRs not only result in saturated and popping colors, but also provide beautiful black and white pictures which feel more alive due to the increased dynamic range. The remaining pictures are night time pictures, mostly taken shortly after sunset on Christmas day.

Here we go:

 This HDR of the italian water garden is one of my favorite B&W HDRs. The added dynamic range results in great detail in the lawn and the surrounding trees, which brings the scene to life. For all engineers out there: you can see copies of the blue prints, drafted by Mr. DuPont himself, in the park's restaurant.

The entrance to arguably one of the most beautiful and diverse conservatories I have seen so far. I really like how HDR allows you to get a clear view trough the windows and see the plants inside the conservatory. The contrast of the scene is further enhanced by darkening the sky (i.e. reducing luminance in the blue spectrum of the original color photo).

Since we visited during Christmas, most of the trees in the park were lit by colorful chains of lights at night. The tree in this picture is a very prominent example.

Another example of lit trees with the shilouette of the conservatory visible on the right.

This photo shows the rose nursery. Christmas lighting in the form of bright stars light the nursery from the inside and make the architecture visible at night.

Going on up inside, the ornamented glass ceiling and lit chandelier in one of the halls piqued my interested.

Look at all these jars full of sweets and candies. Although I really like sweets, they looked too colorful even for me. It really felt much healthier once I took some color out of this picture :-)

Now, how could you have a post with photos you took on Christmas without the picture of a Christmas tree? Although I wasn't quite happy with how this photo came out, the slight lack of sharpness actually combines well with the tree lighting and gives the tree a nice ambience.