VENICE NIGHT AND DAY

I took these night and day photos of the island of San Giorgio Maggiore from my hotel suite window at the Baglioni Hotel Luna in Venice, Italy. The belltower of the Church of San Giorgio Maggiore has been an iconic landmark of the Venetian lagoon and a focal point of view from the Piazetta. The first photo below was taken right before sunset while the second one was taken at night. Torn on which photo to use as my primary feature for this post, I decided to play with both by merging them together. I thought it amusing to see different times of the day on the same photo. By the way, I took these with my camera handheld so it’s just pure luck that I captured the same spot at almost the same angle. I used a Canon Rebel T6s for these photographs and the app Pixelmator to combine both photos.

LUNA GIBBOSA CRESCENTE DAL COLOSSEO

The title of this post is a literal translation of the phrase “Waxing gibbous moon by the Colosseum” to Italian. I thought the translation sounded sexier than the original English text. LOL! When I took these photographs my intention was to capture the Roman Colosseum in multiple angles until I noticed the moon in one of the arches so I started including it in my compositions. It would have been nicer had it been a full moon but a waxing gibbous moon was just as good, it being the phase prior to a full moon. Thankfully, the sky was still bright enough for me to capture the details on the moon’s surface. Had I taken these an hour later the moon would have been just a pale yellow ball in the sky.

If you visited Rome between 2011 and early 2016, you would have seen the ongoing restoration work on the Colosseum, which was mostly covered in scaffolding. The shoe-and-luxury goods maker Tod’s donated millions for the restoration of this architectural wonder so lucky me to have visited it just as the project culminated. Anyway, it’s good to see the Colosseum in a cleaner state and am glad to know that more restoration work are being done to this day. Maybe the next time I’m in Rome I’ll get to see the additional renovations and when I take new photographs a full moon will be high up in the sky to photobomb this magnificent piece of architecture.

ILLUMINATIONS

This lockdown had me looking at my old travel photos, which sadly gave me some untimely travel itch. Unfortunately, we Americans are currently banned in almost every country in the planet so we’re very much limited to just reliving international travel through our old photographs. I was in Hong Kong last year and really enjoyed that part of my Asian trip as I got to satisfy my intense cravings for authentic dimsum aside from the multiple photography opportunities. The hotel I first stayed at, Hotel InterContinental, was right by the harbour with spectacular views of the Hong Kong Island skyline, which provided me with many panoramic photography opportunities. The photo above was taken at the public square right beside the hotel on my way to the pier to catch a ferry that would take me across the harbour to the island side of the city. I love how I captured this iconic view of Hong Kong at night with the colorful building lights reflected on the water while framed by the architectural roof on top and the crowd of tourists below. The rest of the photos were taken while I was on the ferry and around the neighborhood by the pier on both sides of the harbour. Night photos can be quite a challenge to take especially when you don’t have a tripod or when on board a moving object like a ferry. Thankfully, I’ve learned to keep my hand really steady for a few seconds and also managed to be resourceful using rails, garbage cans and posts for the much needed steadying. When I took these photos, I intentionally framed it in a way that it captured the vibrant, bright, energetic, fast paced and exciting city that Hong Kong is. Hope you sense it too when you look at my photographs.

STEEL CITY LIGHTS

Two years ago I traveled to Pittsburgh to celebrate my partner’s birthday who once called this city home. Pittsburgh was named City of Steel due to the many steel-related businesses that once flourished here. I made reservations at Altius, a fine dining restaurant on top of Mt. Washington offering elevated cuisine and breathtaking views of the city. Thankfully we were given a table by the window so we got to enjoy panoramic views of Pittsburgh from sunset to night lights. I do have to mention that food and service was excellent at this restaurant so I highly recommend a visit if you guys find yourselves in Pittsburgh in the near future. These photos were taken at a viewing area close to the restaurant and I used a DSLR to take them. I had to mount my camera on an iron fence to stabilize it and minimize shaking so the photos won’t come out blurry. The last two photos were taken inside the restaurant using my iPhone 7Plus.


The photos below were taken inside Altius Restaurant using my iPhone 7Plus.

DANCING LIGHTS

The nightly laser light show in Hong Kong always generate a lot of oohs and aaahs both from tourists and locals alike. The show is every eight o’clock in the evening at the Island side of Hong Kong and best viewed at the Kowloon side of the city. For four evenings I was able to enjoy this breathtaking show from my suite at the InterContinental Hong Kong. Unfortunately I was unable to open a window so all these photos were taken behind a glass partition. I used my Canon Rebel T6s for these photos pressing my lens flat into the glass window then turned off all the lights and pulled the curtain behind me to prevent my camera from capturing any reflections. If you plan to visit Hong Kong, stay at the InterContinental and get a room with harbour views to enjoy this nightly show at the comfort of your room.
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