Traditional Osaka 大阪

Osaka Castle in HDR

A Japanese colleague visited this blog and was looking for more Osaka pictures when he clicked "Osaka" on the Label section of the blog. Well, here you go. More Osaka pictures.

Taiko Bashi Bridge in Sumiyoshi Taisha Shrine, Osaka

Sometime in March 2010, I had a short assignment in Osaka, Japan. Upon completing the works at site, I returned to the hotel, did a quick search for must see places in Osaka on the internet, grabbed my camera and headed out. It was a very rare occasion to be on the western side of Japan as I am always assigned to sites around Tokyo only.

With a population of 2.5 million people, Osaka is Japan's third largest city. It was formerly known as Naniwa and was once the first known capital city of Japan. Despite visiting the city of Osaka, I had opted for the traditional side of Osaka in this short half day trip.

Narita Airport

I am not the kind of person who likes to take out my camera and shoot when I am in the airport. I just don't get the mood to photograph in such a place.

Yesterday morning, I was in Narita Airport Japan and while I was waiting to board the flight back to Kuala Lumpur for Lunar New Year celebration with the family, I saw this travellator in the airport that was rather empty and got the feeling that a shot with my ultra wide angle lens 10-22mm would make an interesting picture.

And here's what I got, after converting the 3 bracketed shots into a single HDR picture.

Narita Airport Terminal 2: Gate 91

What do you think? Post your comment below.

My HDR Technique Evolution

Due to the limitation of our camera, a regular picture can only present a limited dynamic range of luminance. In other words if you want a certain part of the picture to be correctly exposed, you will lose the exposure of some other section of the picture, either underexposing or overexposing it.

HDR stands for High Dynamic Range. It is a photography post processing technique where one takes several pictures of the same object but with different exposures and combine them into one single picture with greater dynamic range of luminance between the darkest and lightest area in the picture. This way, you get most section of your picture correctly exposed. However, it will also make the picture look fake, not real to people, because this is not how a regular picture is supposed to look like. That is why not everyone appreciate HDR photography.

Putrajaya, HDR Post-Processing in January 2011

Putrajaya, HDR Processing in September 2009

The Original Shot back in September 2009

Lake Placid, NY

Autumn in Lake Placid

A week before I travel to New York City, I headed north, to the mountainous areas of New York State called the Adirondack Mountains. I went hiking with a colleague of mine and his wife to Table Top Mountain and on the following day, I visited Lake Placid.

No, it's not the Lake Placid horror movie that you watched in the cinema. It is a peace and quiet village in the Adirondack Mountains, which is also the host of the Winter Olympics for two times, in 1932 and 1980.

I was there in late September, which was also the starting of the Autumn season in New York. Trees have turned red and yellow and the sceneries were breathtaking.

New York City

Hi, welcome to my photography blog, which i call 'keanpoh Photographer'. Well, keanpoh is my name, and instead of using the usual way of using one's own name (such as Andy's Photography, Sarah's Photography, etc), i figured i might name it a slightly different way. I am very bad at naming things. Cool names just won't come out of my mind. By the way, I am a photographer, so...

Well, here you go, my first photography blog posting. Let me introduce myself a little bit. I am a photographer that likes High Dynamic Range photography. My current job nature (field engineer), requires me to travel quite a bit, so i always take the opportunity to go around and shoot whenever i have spare time, especially weekends. I love sharing my photography works with my friends and family so that everyone can have a share of the excitement to places that i have visited.

One of the places that i have been to is Manhattan/New York City. I have been to this place three (3) times and each of my trips there have been exciting. People called Manhattan "The City That Never Sleeps", "The Big Apple", etc etc but i call it "The City That Has Never Fail to Stun Me". Well, a picture is worth a thousand words. I'll let the pictures do the talking for me.

Seeking perfection in my HDR photography processing technique.
Times Square - New York City