Random Photo Memory: Azore Islands Full Moon Rising
There’s little I like better than fiddling with digital graphics. So for this week’s Wordless Wednesday, I decided to have some fun with a pic I snapped back in the ’90’s (with f.i.l.m) of a bucolic scene amid the Azore Islands.
Btw, it seems few have heard of this idyllic cluster of isles even today – likely because they’re floating in the middle of nowhere, in the mid-Atlantic, about a thousand miles off the coast of Portugal. Which is precisely why I wanted to go there. Indeed, they turned out to be purely pristine – a tiny microcosm of cobbled streets, picturesque countryside fields filled with sheep, all lorded over by towering volcanic peaks shrouded in wispy clouds. Much like I imagine Europe must have been 100 years ago.
Pico Island, original pic – empty sky above Pico volcano vs…
A nice little scene, that I dare say, would seem to need little improvement:
Nonetheless, I couldn’t help but play a bit – by adding a gossamer moon rising above the volcano:
…with bogus moon
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About the Author
Dyanne Off-the-beaten-path travel is my passion,and I’ve always lived life “like-a-kid-in-a-candy-store” – eager to sample as many flavors as I can. Indeed, my life motto has long been: This ain’t a dress rehearsal, folks!
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Off-the-beaten-path travel is my passion, and I’ve always lived life “like a kid in a candy store” – eager to sample as many flavors as I can. Indeed, my life motto has long been:
And when can we expect a post on Dalat? I saw a tempting offer on hotdeal.vn for a nice hotel room for only VND 499,000…
Dalat? Shoot, I’m still trying to catch up with several more posts on my adventures in western Mongolia (you know, the weeks I spent milking yaks). 😉 Plus in less than two weeks, I’ll be off on yet another new adventure (the glory of Uluru and Oz!)
And… 499,000 for a Dalat hotel? Shoot, that’s EXPENSIVE! I know you like the spiffy stuff my dear, but honestly – I think you’d be very happy at the “The Pink House” (where I stayed on two different visits before I got my own place) – for just $15/nt.
And finally, I dare say asking me when I’ll peck a post about this or that – coming from you (who’s uh, shall we say… more than a smidge behind on his own blog) – is kinda like the pot calling the kettle black, no? 😉
Seriously. I miss your unique banter at Fly, Icarus, Fly.
House guests from Cambodia leaving tomorrow (after I take them to the zoo in the morning…) so there’s a chance I might write my first post in two months. But now the pressure is on and I feel it has to be amazingly good. So I might just procrastinate some more and go back to sleep… zzzz
O.k. then… how ’bout just post a video of you SLEEPING! 😉
But seriously, I know all too well the feeling of pressure that it HAS to be AMAIZNG. But that’s really nonsense. Just our own grumpy critic up to mischief. You (like me?) have the gift of gab my dear, so just start blathering, and I’m sure it will be utterly fascinating! 😉
I was supposed to have gone to the Azores last November! But alas, a medicane (Mediterranean hurricane)conspired to keep my cruise ship grounded for an extra day in France so we had to skip it. Thanks for bringing back that ugly memory! (and with digital sorcery, no less)
(kidding)
Oh dear – a hurricane kept you grounded in France? Good thing you weren’t out there in the middle of the Atlantic when it hit, but too bad you missed visiting the Azores. They really are (were, 20 years ago) remarkably pristine, and I’d love to know if they’ve managed to remain so.
Well placed moon, though I find the colors a tad purple for my taste.
This blog sparks ideas, which is one of the reasons I read it. First I wondering how people accomplish the effect where moving the mouse onto the photo toggles between versions. Next thought was to do an animated gif of your second shot where the windmill vanes sprouted a pair of white gloved cartoon hands and batted the moon back and forth.
Yes FLN, tweaking the ambient colors juuust right (given that each monitor will display it slightly different) is surely a challenge. In this case, I agree that the purple cast is a tad heavy-handed. But the original actually was that violet so I didn’t add more – just brightened the whole scene a little.
Re: moon placement: it’s all done easily in the software via a dual screen, with options for diffusing/flattening/softening the moon, altering the placement, the radius, the halo – even the angle of the moon’s topography! And especially, the ability to match the ambient color so it blends perfectly into that of the entire image.
As for the gloved cartoon battle? I shall leave that for you to play with! Feel free to grab the image and show us what you come up with. 😉
If you hadn’t told me it was a trick, I would have fallen for the second picture. Nice job.
But… I say the less digital trickery the better. (Unless the point is to say, “Hey! Look what I can do!”)
So I vote for the first photo.
Thanks Paul. And I agree that digital trickery can (and sadly, often does) get out of hand these days. Especially when folks don’t admit they’ve fiddled. Yes, I freely admitted that I wanted to show “Hey! Look what I can do!”, but also, I think the subtle moon trick in this case rather makes the original a bit more interesting.
Likewise, in my pics of the wondrous temples at Angkor Wat (Cambodia: http://www.travelnlass.com/search/label/cambodia). It was frustrating that (even after getting up before dawn) the sky didn’t cooperate, and all my pics of those glorious temples turned out uniformly “bleh”. So I (again, freely admitted) that I’d jazzed them up some by adding a dramatic sky. I mean, after all, it’s not like I’m entering them in some National Geographic photo contest. Merely trying to make them a bit prettier.
In any case, thanks for you vote. 1 for #1 it is! 😉