Saturday 11th April 2009 - Some of my favourite recent HDR images from European Cities
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In the last 4 months or so I've been lucky enough to visit several of the main cities in Europe and during the visits I've normally had the camera with me to shoot some images of the places, normally always at night after work, so typically these images will be either long exposures or HDR images made up from multiple long exposures.
After sorting out a few updates to the website yesterday and today I found myself looking through some of the folders of images taken and decided that I would put together a new blog entry featuring some of my favourite HDR images shot in the various european cities I've recently visited.
I hope you enjoy looking at these as much as I do...
Image 1 - The Deutches Eck Monument in Koblenz, Germany
This HDR shot was made up of 7 seperate long exposures taken of the Deutsches Eck monument in Koblenz Germany on a cold Winters night. The monument itself is huge and sits on the banks of the River Mosel and River Rhein in the city of Koblenz, in daylight it was already impressive, but I wanted to capture the area at night as there were only the floodlights around the monument itself meaning plenty of darkness to stand in and shoot from.
Location: Koblenz, Germany
Camera: Sony DSC-R1
Date Taken: 3rd January 2009
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Image 2 - Inside Antwerp Central Station, Belgium
This Tone Mapped shot was taken in the main train station of Antwerp in Belgium. The city of Antwerp has many amazing examples of architecture from years gone by, but none impressed me quite as much as the train station did - sheer excellence in architecture, which I tried my best to capture through the images I shot here.
Location: Antwerp, Belgium
Camera: Sony DSC-R1
Date Taken: 14th February 2009
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Image 3 - Stone archway inside Antwerp Central Station, Belgium
Another image from inside the main train station of Antwerp, this time I've tone mapped a single RAW image of one of the many amazing stone archways that take you into other parts of the station.
Location: Antwerp, Belgium
Camera: Sony DSC-R1
Date Taken: 14th February 2009
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Image 4 - Oblivious in Antwerp Central Station, Belgium
My final tone mapped image from inside Antwerp Central Station in Belgium, this time showing people going about their daily life going to and from the trains which lie through the door at the top of the stairs. I could have stayed in the station for hours and never have been bored of shooting picture after picture, whereas everyone in this image seems to be so used to the decor surrounding them that they are able to just get on with life instead.
Location: Antwerp, Belgium
Camera: Sony DSC-R1
Date Taken: 14th February 2009
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Image 5 - Sunlit Buildings in Antwerp Market Square, Belgium
This Tone Mapped image was taken in the market square area of Antwerp in Belgium, the mixture of cobbled streets, old fashioned buildings sporting amazing detail whether it be in the form of the building itself or through the use of statues and gargoyles galore on the rooftops. The rays of sunlight hitting the end of the row of buildings as the afternoon wore on helps to give this image more vibrancy.
Location: Antwerp, Belgium
Camera: Sony DSC-R1
Date Taken: 14th February 2009
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Image 6 - Streetlife in Leuven @ Night, Belgium
Probably one of the most stunning cities I've visited in Belgium has to be Leuven, the number of awesome buildings that seem to have escaped being knocked down to make way for modern equivalents is simple immense. I tried to capture some of the buildings in all their night time glory via composing some HDR images. In this case 6 exposures went into producing a street view which shows one example of such architecture with the street in full view leading to the main town square (two towers are visible in the distance from the town hall).
Location: Leuven, Belgium
Camera: Sony DSC-R1
Date Taken: 11th March 2009
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Image 7 - The Atomium in Brussels, Belgium
This HDR shot was taken of the Atomium structure which is located North of Brussels city centre just inside the ring road which surrounds the city. The structure itself was built in 1958 and even now in 2009 it still looks strangely futuristic in appearance. Shot made up from 7 seperate exposures.
Location: Brussels, Belgium
Camera: Sony DSC-R1
Date Taken: 6th April 2009
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Image 8 - Underneath the Atomium in Brussels, Belgium
This HDR shot was made up from 6 exposures taken while standing underneath the Atomium sculpture in Brussels, Belgium. In this shot I wanted to capture a sort of abstract look to the balls, beams and lights of the sculpture all against the night sky.
Location: Brussels, Belgium
Camera: Sony DSC-R1
Date Taken: 6th April 2009
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Image 9 - The Old Market Square in Leuven, Belgium
This HDR shot was made up from 7 images taken in the old market square area of the Belgian city of Leuven. The market square is home to many bars and restaurants in the heart of the wonderful city, and on any warm sunny evening all of the tables and chairs on view will be crammed full of people soaking up the wonderful architecture which surrounds them.
Location: Leuven, Belgium
Camera: Sony DSC-R1
Date Taken: 11th March 2009
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Image 10 - Interesting & Spooky Building in Leuven, Belgium
This HDR shot was made up from 8 seperate exposures taken once again in the old market square in Leuven, Belgium. Something about this building was drawing me in - it just seemed even more special than every other building around it, through it's different shape to the others coupled with the mysterious shadows that were being produced in almost every window thanks to the lights on the street below.
Location: Leuven, Belgium
Camera: Sony DSC-R1
Date Taken: 11th March 2009
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Image 11 - The Bright Lights of Leuven, Belgium
The market square area of Leuven was somewhere I could have stayed and shot all night long, due to the buildings on display and all of the neon lights that adorned the entrance area to almost all bars, clubs and restaurants which you could see. This particular corner of the old market square area had some of the most vibrant colours on display (mainly due to the blue neon lights inside the takeaway on the corner). I shot around 12 exposures of this scene and selected the best 7 to use in creating the HDR you see here, as being able to balance the lights and darks in the image was quite a difficult task in making a well balanced image.
Location: Leuven, Belgium
Camera: Sony DSC-R1
Date Taken: 11th March 2009
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Image 12 - Coloured Arches in Leuven, Belgium
Another of the Belgian city of Leuven's most amazing pieces of architecture. This image was made from 8 seperate exposures allowing me to capture the building itself being lit up by the various coloured lights underneath the arches of the building. The cold March evening with a little dampness in the air earlier in the evening had left the cobbles on the pedestrian square looking shiny, which helped to reflect some of the lights from around the building itself.
Location: Leuven, Belgium
Camera: Sony DSC-R1
Date Taken: 11th March 2009
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Image 13 - A Closer Look @ Those Coloured Arches in Leuven, Belgium
A closer look at the coloured archways shown in Image 12, from Leuven, Belgium. Made up from 6 seperate exposures to create this single HDR image.
Location: Leuven, Belgium
Camera: Sony DSC-R1
Date Taken: 11th March 2009
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Image 14 - KBC Bank in Leuven, Belgium
One of the more modern buildings in Leuven, Belgium is the KBC Bank building which sits just to the side of the main train station of the city. The mixture of white and blue lights made it somewhat of a magnet for me when out shooting pictures, of which I created two HDR's that I feel capture the atmosphere around here perfectly. This one is made up from 7 seperate exposures.
Location: Leuven, Belgium
Camera: Sony DSC-R1
Date Taken: 11th March 2009
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Image 15 - Another View of the KBC Bank building in Leuven, Belgium
This is the second HDR image of the KBC Bank building in Leuven, Belgium. With this image I framed the shot to get full use of the yellow street lamp in the top right corner to add yet more colour to what was already going to be a very colourful image. Without a doubt one of my favourite images shot in Leuven thus far. Made from 8 seperate exposures.
Location: Leuven, Belgium
Camera: Sony DSC-R1
Date Taken: 11th March 2009
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Image 16 - Sunset Reflections in Brussels, Belgium
While staying in Brussels with business for a couple of days I took the camera out to try and capture some of the buildings and archiecture on show around the city, in particular around the main buildings of the European Commission, which was basically on the doorstep of my hotel. I spent most of the evening in the Parc du Cinquantenaire until the light was beginning to fade, shooting images of the fire-like sky through the arches, and then slowly made my way back towards my hotel. Outside the EU building known as The Berlaymont there is a lot of black marble to be found, which I decided to make work for me by capturing the sunset in the city in clear view and also reflected in the surface of the black marble. The tower crane also helps to show just how much regeneration is currently ongoing in the city of Brussels, with many old buildings either being refurbished or knocked down to make way for something new.
Location: Brussels, Belgium
Camera: Sony DSC-R1
Date Taken: 7th April 2009
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Image 17 - Looking Into Luxembourg City, Luxembourg
My first ever time in Luxembourg City was in the final days of 2008 on a daytrip with my girlfriend Mireille. We didn't really know what to expect from the city, or how much walking up and down stairs/hills would be involved. The different levels on which the city is built only help to make it even more dramatic when you view it from different sides and places. In this case we had walked down from the main city walls area (which you can see in the image istelf) to a small bridge which crosses over the small river at one of the "Rue St-Ulric" in the Southern area of the city centre.
Location: Luxembourg City, Luxembourg
Camera: Sony DSC-R1
Date Taken: 28th December 2008
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I hope you've enjoyed looking through these images as much as I still do, so much so that I've most of these as well as a few others cycling around as my desktop image every few hours.
Barry
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PREVIOUS BLOG ENTRIES
2009-03-14 - Multiple Long Exposure Images and Conversion to HDR
2009-01-06 - Images and Blurb from Luxembourg & Germany
2008-10-27 - Lake Superior & Duluth Day Trip
2008-10-23 - Summer 2008 Photography Tour Blog - Part 2
2008-10-22 - Summer 2008 Photography Tour Blog - Part 1
2008-10-20 - Some photos from Minnesota
2008-09-14 - Monaro On Tour Photographs
2008-06-26 - Integration, Supporting the Nation & Happy Anniversary Irmscher
2008-02-28 - Dr Remington Strikes Again and Life In Germany
2008-02-17 - Have I Just Done A Britney?
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