Heavenly Light (and Timing)

I was sitting in the lobby of the Hyatt Regency Embarcadero, San Francisco when the sun's diurnal track across the sky allowed it to quite suddenly shine directly into the vast, towering space, illuminating it beautifully. While very long, the roof skylight isn't very wide so the effect only lasted about 10 minutes but it was cool! I was fortunate to have been in the right place at the right time with a camera and tripod.

Non-Linear

I saw a photo of this atrium on a Washington DC tour book. I showed it to Kathy and she said "I know where that is, National Portrait Gallery." We were staying not too far away so we visited. The evening was really nice, with cool temperatures and the undulating atrium roof was spectacular. The locals seem to hang out here, buying coffee and pastries and chatting one another up. Kathy is sitting on a planter on the left patiently waiting for me to finish shooting some photos and video. The "no tripods" rule is in full force here so to get this shot, I had to hold my camera over my head and press it firmly against a wall while shooting 3 frames for this HDR composite. I was able to hold it perfectly still and it worked just fine. After walking around the nearly empty galleries, we walked to a local restaurant in the fading light and had dinner.

I See Everything

Last June, my niece Alexandra, her boyfriend Josh and I decided to head down to San Diego for the weekend. Neither of them had really spent much time there and I wanted them to see the Midway aircraft carrier museum. We stayed at the Embassy Suites, San Diego Bay which has a spectacular atrium. Since I had my fisheye lens I decided to try a vertorama with it. This consists of 5 HDR sequences each consisting of 3 shots. I didn't really think Photoshop CS6 would be able to stitch it together but it did it without a problem. Pretty amazing!