Old Doors
Merchant Mansion Door Odense Denmark 1631
Merchant Mansion, 1631, Odense, Denmark
I actually meant to try the just released beta version of Lightroom 5 last night. But I got a bit side tracked. I started to look through my 2009 image folder, and came across a few images that I thought I could combine and make into a blog post. Doors seems to be a popular collection item on sites likes Pinterest. There is something about doors. Of course every building has them, but not every one is special. I like the old ones. Especially old and worn ones with lots of details such as wood carvings or stained glass like this one.
I was in Odense, Denmark in 2009, participating for the first time in the annual Scott Kelby Worldwide Photowalk. Odense is an old city, it dates way back to the year 988 – yup, long time ago. Some famous people from that city includes Hans Christian Andersen, world-renowned story-teller, poet and writer and Carl Nielsen, classical composer. So this city is very old and the amazing part of it is that many buildings are still standing. When walking down town its like going back in time if it wasn’t for the occasional car or scooter zooming by.
The leading shot right is the bay doors from a Merchant House Mansion, that dates back to 1631 according to the engraving above the door. One can only wonder how life was behind those doors at that time, most likely very tough for the workers, while the owner or merchant would be stinking rich, have a lot of power and be very influential in the city. He would most likely also be a member of the town council. Click the thumbnail to view the “mansion” a bit bigger.
“Our Lady Church” door, 13th century church, Odense, Denmark
Another old door is the church entrance for “Our Lady Church”, a small church built sometime in the 13th century. Renovated a couple of times since then, last time in 1864. Odense also have a cathedral that is from around the same time period.
Door to hall of the local inn, 1683, Odense, Denmark
The Old Inn, 1683, Odense, Denmark
If you had a church in your town/village back then, chances were that there also was a place to get drunk a drink, and Odense’s old watering hole is still there – well, it’s not the only one they have of course but this one dates back to 1683. It’s a restaurant today, and apparently are very nice place to eat. The current name is very creative – it’s called “The Old Inn” – no, I’m not kidding. The text above the old door would translate in to what we would know as a hall – a place to have dinner parties, live music etc.
Private door from 18th century house Odense Denmark
Another private door from 18th century house Odense Denmark
Cobble stone street downtown Odense, Denmark
I’ll finish this long post with a couple of entrance doors to a couple of old private houses in the down town area, that guaranteed dates back from the 18th century or earlier. When the owners want to renovate their house, there are certain rules to follow, permissions to get from the city planning department before any renovation can start. No modern looks here. Notice the old style windows in the street shot. The windows are made of new and modern materials, but the look has to match the age of the building.
As always, your visits and comments are very much appreciated. Also, all images can be viewed large by clicking on the image.
Enjoy.
Going under ground
Nikon D300, Nikkor 18-200mm, 18mm, f/5.6, 6 sec, ISO400
I think an apology is in order. A while back I upgraded varies plugin’s on my blog, and for some reason the commentLuv plugin did not get re-enabled after the upgrade. I just realized yesterday that something was missing from the comments – the link back to the commenter’s own blog.
If you have commented on my images, please know that I appreciate them all, critical or not, and at the very least I should offer a link back to your blog. It didn’t happen, for that I’m really sorry.
Today’s shot is from an old limestone mine in Denmark. The mining ended in 1953, but the kilns were still producing burnt lime from other quarries all the way up to 1978. The mine is now part of a museum. Lots of tourists take the tour underground, guided or not. The constant temperature in the mine is perfect for storage and maturing of cheese, up to 200 tons of it. Just try for a second to imagine the smell… yeah, I know.
Besides being a bat habitat, the mine is also home to an underground concert hall – the acoustics are amazing.
The corner
Nikon D300, Nikkor 18-200mm, 95mm, f/5.3, 1/320sec, ISO200
TGIF! What a long week. I thought I would end this week with another shot from a World Wide Photo walk. This time it’s from 2009 in Odense, Denmark. The walk was in and around the area of Hans Christian Andersen’s birth home, now museum. This shot looks really good in large print. Looking at the screen now, I’m not so sure… I was going for the patterns on the cobble stone and the bricks in the round wall.
Orchids up close
Nikon D300, Nikkor 18-200mm, 200mm, f/13, 1/250sec, ISO200
When I moved to Canada from Denmark about 9 years ago, I left most of my stuff in my parent’s basement. That included my studio strobes which wouldn’t have worked over here anyway, being the standard voltage here is 120 Volt compared to 220 Volts in Europe. So when I’m back home visiting, I like to take the gear out and take it for a drive. Over time the umbrellas has turned yellow and should really be discarded, but the color cast is easily fixed in LR. My studio strobes are very simple and very old – 2 power settings is what I get to play with, but it’s still a lot of fun. My setup is very simple, a strobe on each side of the dining table and I’m using my suitcase as a black back ground.
Like any woman, ( I assume) my mom loves flowers and plants, and it shows her apartment. No fake plants here. She had gotten or bought this orchid awhile back, and it was flowering while I was there, so it became the test subject for the afternoon.
The orchid is a Phalaenopsis orchid. There is many variants in that family, so lets just call it a pink Phalaenopsis before I get into more trouble. At the time I shot this, I did not have my 105mm Macro. I would love to do some really tight shots on this flower. But that’s a project for next time I’m going home.
I have included the a setup shot, and a couple more captures from the afternoon. Click on the thumbnails for a large size view.
Enjoy.
Nikon D300, Nikkor 18-200mm, 65mm, f/27, 1/250sec, ISO200
Nikon D300, Nikkor 18-200mm, 200mm, f/13, 1/250sec, ISO200
ARoS – II
Another very distinctive piece of art that calls the ARoS art museum home is the art work “Boy”, and oh-boy it’s pretty amazing. The sculpture is made of glass fiber, is a whopping 15 feet tall. It is incredible life-like and the artist has put an incredible amount of attention to the small details such as the small veins in the skin, the redness on the knees and feet – it’s just spectacular to look at.
The artist’s name is Ron Mueck and has made several extremely life-like oversized sculptures of men, woman and children. Try and google him, and you’ll see.
The image above is my pick of the series i shot at the museum. Given the huge window behind the sculpture, the lighting was a bit tricky on the shadow side. I attempted a HDR, but it turned out quite soft due to the noise I had to get rid of, (camera operator error of course, ISO was way too high). It’s in the thumbnails below among other details of the “kid”. The sculpture sits on the museum’s lower floor, and walking down the stairs gives you a great first visual of the size of this piece of art when looking over the stair rail. I’m sure several jaws has dropped at this point, including mine. 15 feet tall - imagine the size of pants and shoes….
Please feel free to click on the thumbnails for a full screen view.
In case you missed my first post from the ARoS museum in Aarhus, here’s a link.
ARoS – I
Nikon D300, Nikkor 18-200mm, 18mm, f/11, 1/250sec, ISO200, 5 frames
During my recent trip to Denmark, I had the chance to visit the art museum called ARoS in Aarhus. It’s huge, apparently one of the largest art museum’s in Northern Europe. The museum displays all kinds of art on its 10 storeys and I’m sure it would take several hours to explore the museum in details, so our main target with our visit was the art work called “Your Rainbow Panorama” by Olafur Eliasson, a Danish-Icelandic artist who is known for his large-scale color, lights and water art works. This particular artwork sits on the roof of the museum, and is a 360° view of Aarhus, but viewed through tinted window panels in all the colors of the rainbow. It is truly a spectacular experience. Once inside the ring, the color changes as you walk around the art work, and your perception of colors changes dramatically. It was very weird feeling to see object that you for sure knew what color it was but was shown in a totally different hue. An absolutely spectacular experience – (did I say that already?). Should you be in the neighborhood, take an afternoon and explore this great museum. It is an art piece in it self.
Since the artwork is called a panorama, I attempted to shoot a pano. The pano above is combined from 5 shots through the clear glass of the entrance to the ring, so you might see some reflections in the pano. Below is a view of the art museum from the out side, and a few shots from inside the ring. The images from inside the ring are straight from the camera without any adjustments at all. You can click on the thumbnails for a larger view.
The next couple of posts will be from this, to me, extraordinary museum, which among other things is the home for the largest boy you can imagine. Stay tuned.
Look out
Nikon D300, Nikkor 18-200mm, 95mm, f5.6, 1/160sec, ISO200
I have looked at this image a lot. I don’t know why, but every time I go through my shots, I tend to stop for a second at this one. There is something very simple and pleasing thing about this shot IMO, and that is as close as I can get to explain what is does for me. It is one of those shots that will end up on one of my walls as a gallery wrap at some point.
It was shot during a World Wide Photo walk in Odense, Denmark in 2009.
Just a view…
Nikon D300, Nikkor 18-200mm, 26mm, f/9.5, 1/320sec, ISO200, 17 frames
Today’s image is not really spectacular in itself, just a view from a hill in Denmark, and frankly, it looks like I could have shot this with almost any wide-angle lens. However, this image is a 17 frame panorama stitched together in Photoshop. A bottom row of 8 and a top row of 9 images (don’t ask why the odd number…). I shot two rows to get some more sky in the shot. Every time I make a panorama, it always amazes me, just how well PS photomerge works. Very rarely do I have to do anything at all after Photoshop is done merging the images.
Anyway, after the rendering, the image was cropped, a bit of color contrast enhancement was added and then I desaturated a few selected colors. Mostly the blue and green which was got a bit too hot after the contrast adjustment. Back into LR where I fixed a few highlights.
Btw, to shoot a panorama:
- Hold the camera in portrait mode, your image will be higher after the final crop, you may have to shot more frames to get the scene you want.
- Make sure your exposure is locked so it’s the same throughout the scene.
- Make sure your white balance is locked in as well.
- Focus on the main subject in the scene, switch to manual focusing or use your AF-L button to lock focus, reposition for the first frame and shot.
- If you use a tripod, make sure it’s perfectly level, as well as your camera otherwise you will have to crop out a lot of good pixels in post.
- If you shoot hand hold, get a solid stance with your feet pointing in the direction of the first shot. Take a few shots and re-position your body and feet and shoot again. Don’t over twist your body, because that will actually mimic an un-level tripod. Basically as you move through the scene, your camera will get lower and lower the more you twist your body, and you lose good pixels when you crop.
- Make sure you overlap each frame by min. 20%.
Take a seat…
Nikon D300, Nikkor 18-200mm, 95mm, f/5.3, ISO200, 3 exposures, handheld
…and let me tell you a story. Just kidding.
Last week, Scott Wood had a blog post about keeping old shots that did not make the cut the first time around. It’s an interesting discussion because if you shot a lot, like I would expect a guy like Scott Wood do, you will in the end up with countless of gigabytes of images that will never be edited or printed. And what will you do? Delete or buy more storage? I am afraid I’m one of those guys who just store images. I do of course delete total miss shots, like camera shakes, out of focus etc. But the rest I tend to keep. After reading Scott’s post, it made me think about my collection of images and I decided then that today’s post would be an image that originally wasn’t flagged, rated or had been edited in any way. Just one of those I keep. Turned out to be a fun exercise.
About the image.
Any one familiar with Hans Christian Andersen? Well, he was a Danish poet, writer, a story-teller and famous world-wide for his fairy tales. Had he lived today, he would be 206 years old. His work is published in more that 150 languages. Quite a feat if you ask me.
The images above and below are shot in Odense, Denmark. The place of his birth. You can tell the city is proud of him. There are many references to this guy all over this city. His characteristic silhouette is even featured as the stop/walking guy on the cross walk signs.
As I went through the files from that day, I discovered I had bracket the bench shot so I chose to run with it.
This bench is out side one of the buildings dedicated to H. C. Andersen, and I think it is a part of the statue you see below. It’s like he invites you to sit either next to him or on the bench (above) that would be to his left and slightly in front of him, and listen to one of his many stories.
His fairy tales usually had a moral ending to it – this experience makes me think that I wont start thinning out my collection of images anytime soon. I’ll buy a bigger hard drive first.
Nikon D300, Nikkor 18-200mm, 20mm, f/4, 1/80sec, ISO200
