NikonRumors.com Chernobyl Article

Yesterday, NikonRumors.com published an article I wrote about my Chernobyl experience.  I’m honored NikonRumors.com was willing to work with me.  This is the third article of mine they’ve published over the years.  The other two were on shark photography and Detroit abandoned buildings.  You can see the new article HERE.  Of course, you can also see a bunch of my Chernobyl photos in the photo gallery on this website.  I have a special section just for Chernobyl.  Have a great week.

Below is a screen shot of NikonRumors.com’s website with my article.

Siglufjörður Iceland

I am still working my way through all my Iceland pictures trying to get them processed.  At this point, I am part way through the fourth day of the trip.  This has been a lazy Saturday for MJ and I.  The weather outside is terrible and the snow just keeps falling.  So I’ve been working on more Iceland pictures and processed this one today and thought I would share it with you.  I took this near Siglufjörður Iceland on the north side of the country.

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Emily

As all of you know, I don’t take many pictures of people unless they are wearing a football jersey.  But this week I had a great opportunity.  The L Modeling Agency brought their latest model over for a photo shoot.  We got the lights out, setup the studio, and snapped away.  Emily was all business and can hold her own with any professional model.  I had a great time shooting with Michelle and Larry (her parents and our friends).  This specific picture is a collaboration….my light set, Michelle took the picture, Larry and I entertained the model to get that smile, and I post processed the image.  Emily is such a cutie….

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Entrance To Brownsville General Hospital

Today’s photo is of the entrance to the abandoned Brownsville General Hospital in Pennsylvania.  This is sitting one block off the main street in this small town.  To learn more about this site, you can see two of my previous post on this location. 

http://brook-ward.com/blog/2013/10/31/happy-halloween-scary-hospital-ward

http://brook-ward.com/blog/2013/10/27/abandoned-piano

BIG NEWS:

Oh by the way, the folks at www.Nikonrumors.com featured me as a Guest Blogger today.  I am honored they allowed me to contribute toward their site.  You can see my article here: http://nikonrumors.com/2014/01/11/guest-post-shark-photography.aspx/

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Spanish Monastery

I took this picture a year ago at the 869-year old Cloister of the Ancient Spanish Monastery and St. Bernard de Clairvaux Episcopal Church in Miami.  It was built in Spain from 1133 to 1144 and later relocated to Miami.  This is one of the inter-chambers.  There are a bunch of cool rooms and locations at this site.  To learn more about this location, click here to see one of my previous posts where I go into much more detail about the Cloister (http://brook-ward.com/blog/2013/1/11/spanish-monastery-in-miami)

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Vizio BCS Football National Championship Game

So I’ll give you my projection now….big shocker…I will pick Florida State University with their 2013 Heisman Trophy Winner Jameis Winston to win (34 FSU to 20 Auburn).  I just can’t see Auburn beating FSU in this game.  Auburn is good, but they’ve gotten lucky through the year as well and luck runs out.  FSU just out played everyone all year long.  Below are a few pictures I took of Jameis Winston on their first game of the year against Pitt.  Enjoy the Championship Game.

Puerto Morelos Sun Rise

I got up (which means MJ was disrupted) every morning at around 540am to peek outside.  I was hoping for a week full of amazing sunrises.  Instead, we got rain, clouds and more clouds.  Almost every morning was a disappointment.  But one morning we got lucky and Mother Nature gave us this sunrise.  I’d say it was worth waking up early every morning on a vacation to experience and photograph.  What do you think?

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El Patio Restaurant

This is the inside of the Mexican restaurant at the Secrets Silver Sands Resort in Puerto Morelos Mexico.

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North Shore River Walk

Okay, we’re back from Mexico and I am already sick of snow and cold weather.  So I am posting this picture from last summer.  I took this on the North Shore of Pittsburgh on a walk with my son along the river.  He, MJ and I all had a great day.  I love the clouds in the sky that day.

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Dettifoss Waterfall - Northern Iceland

For today’s photo, I am going back to the Iceland well.  Here is a 7 exposure auto-bracketed HDR photo of Dettifoss waterfall in northern Iceland.  MJ and I had to drive 45 minutes down a very rough dirt road to find this huge waterfall.  I really thought our rental car might fall apart out in the middle of nowhere traveling to this location.  If it did, we would have been in trouble.  There is really nothing out there.    This waterfall is in Vatnajokull National Park and is the most powerful waterfall in Europe.  It is 330 feet wide and drops 150 feet with massive force.  Thankfully we were standing on the side of the falls with the wind to our backs.  So the mist and water from the falls were blowing away from us.  To get an idea of scale, look closely and you can see tiny human figures on the other side of the waterfall.

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Mojito On The Beach

I got this idea from another photographer about two months ago and was waiting for the best time to try this.  I’d do it differently next time, but I think it turned out okay for the first time.  They use brown sugar is all their Mojito’s at this resort, so they are an unusual brown color.  To get this photo with a normal looking drink, I asked them to make it without the sugar.  So the drink looks pretty, but tasted terrible.  But the photo is the important item, not the drink. 

I am posting this for Melanie, who doesn’t seem to drink anything else. 

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Reflections

Here is a small gift for you to get your mind of cold weather.  MJ and I took this photo (well it is a 5 exposure auto-bracket set merged together in Photomatix Pro 5 and Photoshop CS6) at around 6:15am as we walked around the Secrets Silver Sands resort in Mexico.  This was the first sunrise (and frankly first sun) we saw since the time we arrived.  The resort was fairly empty, which hasn’t been our experience on other trips to Mexico, so we had the beach to ourselves except for a few employees.

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Happy Holidays

With the holidays, spending time with family, etc….I may not be on my routine schedule for the blog over the next 10 days or so.  With that in mind, I have a small holiday message for you…... 

From my family to yours, we hope you have a great holiday season and get to spend time with your family and friends.  As the year comes to an end, I can truly say I’ve had a busy, productive, exciting and fun year.  We’ve traveled a ton, spent time with loved ones, and experienced life.  I hope you had a great year as well and have a great 2014.

Thanks for visiting my blog.  Cheers to you.

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Redwoods

What to post?  What to post?  On some nights, I have a very clear idea what I want to share with you.  Other days, I struggle just to pick something I think is worthy of sharing with you.  Tonight was one of the tough nights.  So I scanned through some of my pictures and found this photo from Muir Woods outside San Francisco.  The Redwood trees are amazing.  You can see my last post of these great trees here: http://brook-ward.com/blog/2013/9/7/muir-woods-national-monument

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Hengifoss Iceland

Here is a 7 exposure HDR image of the 118-foot tall waterfall on Iceland’s eastern side called Hengifoss.  It is one of the tallest waterfalls in the country.  Below it along the trail from the parking lot is another waterfall called Litanesfoss.  This was probably the hardest hike MJ and I had while we were in Iceland.  The hike was basically straight up the mountain on a goat path.  I would climb up this trail for 30 minutes thinking that I had to be getting closer and I swear it seemed like I made no progress.  Repeat that process 4 times and you get the idea.  As you can imagine, there wasn’t a lot of others on this trail compared to most of our other stops.    

Today's post is in memory of Joe Fisher who died way to early at the age of 63 on December 5th battling cortical basal degeneration.  Joe and his wife, Jeanne, were celebrating their 44th anniversary on the day of his death.  Today our family laid Joe down to rest.  He'll be missed as great friend, family man, and person.  

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Calvin

Week 14 of the NFL season is already upon us.  It is amazing how quickly the season flies by.  The Detroit Lions are playing the Eagles this weekend.  Let’s hope they can win and move to 8 – 5.  They probably need at least 2 more wins this season, if not 3, to make it into the playoffs. 

So in honor of the Detroit Lions, I am posting this photo I took of Calvin Johnson.  This was the rainy game against the Pittsburg Steelers.  Clearly you can see the pass interference in this photo.  Of course, the refs never called it.  Oh well…..  All I can say is Go Lions!!!!

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Pittsburgh's Point At Night

In my previous post, I shared a Day To Night photo where I merged photos from before and after a sunset.  Today I am sharing the after sunset photo with you as I originally processed it.

I hope you have a great weekend.

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Pittsburgh Day To Night

I saw some cool photos by a New York City photographer where he merged photos from the day and night time into one awesome photo.  So I went to the West End Overlook tonight with Dave and Brad Truxell to capture some photos for this type of shot.  This is my first attempt at a Day To Night photo.  It isn’t even close to the quality I’ve seen by others, but I thought I would share it anyway.  This photo is made up of 14 exposures merged into 2 HDR images, which I blended together for the final photo.  Let me know what you think by leaving a comment below.

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Porsche 911 Carrera S

I took this 7 auto-bracketed exposure HDR image of this Porsche 911 Carrera S at the dealership in east Pittsburgh a few months ago.  I took MJ’s Mini Cooper in for service and spent my time photographing Porsches.  The dealership didn’t seem to care…..so I took a bunch.

Here are my blog posts with other photos from this photo walk:

http://brook-ward.com/blog/2013/8/30/porsche-tattoo

http://brook-ward.com/blog/2013/8/24/porsche-911-carrera

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Brooklyn Bridge

I took this picture on the pedestrian sidewalk above the traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge at around 1am during our visit to NYC.  Typical of NYC, there was still lots of people everywhere including on the bridge.  I had to wait until the right moment to capture this without anyone in the shot.

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