Rafael - Living live a day at a time

It has been quite a while since my last post, and friends have been asking for an update and picture, so to keep things short and simple: we moved to Dubai back in March 2009, and so far we have had a very interesting and challenging times here in the Gulf (more on that later on). For the time being I will leave you with a panoramic photo of the tallest building in the world, the famous Burj Dubai; which nowadays is higher than 780 meters and has over 160 floors (final height has not been confirmed yet as it is still under construction).

This is a view from the Palace Hotel and the picture was made by stitching together 3 horizontal photos taken, there's no way to get it all in only 1 picture (without a really wide lens)


For those of you that cannot access flickr (as it is banned in the UAE for example) you can also see the pic at http://tweetphoto.com/rcc1azi1

Labels: Photography

Adobe has launched today their new, free, online version of Photoshop: Adobe Photoshop Express. This new application is aimed at the casual snapshot who wants to quickly edit his pictures before sharing them online at sites like Photobucket, Facebook and Flickr.

With this new and free application, you can edit your pictures online with an easier and simpler interface than its Photoshop brothers, store them in the new and free 2 GB Gallery, and share them with the world; by using other photo-sharing websites. Adobe has plans to enable you to push and pull photos from Facebook, Photobucket and Picasa, and Flickr (not yet available in the beta version).

All edits done to your pictures are Non-Destructive and therefore can be reversed at any stage by a simply clicking on the effects and edits. You can: Adjust exposure, color, sharpness, saturation, fix red-eye and blemishes, crop, resize, and also add some creative filters as Distort, Sketch, Cartoon Colors or turn int Black & White pictures, and more.

There's a good review from Webware of the application, where Lori Grunin not only talks more about the application itself, but also cautions photographers as the current Terms of Use mention a "perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable license to use, distribute, derive revenue or other remuneration from, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, publicly perform and publicly display such Content", so take it with a sip of water.

The beta release has some drawbacks as: Imported images are limited to dimensions under 4000 pixels, you can't print, you can't import email addresses, no keywording or filtering is available, and you can't upload directories only files. But I guess, those items will be improved with the users feedback, and before rolling out their planned paid premium services and making it a platform to integrate with desktop products like Lightroom and Elements .

More information on Adobe's Press Release, Wired, Adobe Photoshop Express Home Page. And you can also go and have a look at some examples of edits in this interesting website by Adobe.

Labels: Photography

Do you want a chance to win one of the 7 possible prizes worth about 2,100 to 2,200 Euros each? And also get to the finals in Vienna, and possible go shoot an assignment with Canon?

If you answer yes to any of the questions, then you should go right now and check Canon's The Assignment for this unique opportunity!!

There are 4 categories that you can submit a picture for: Portrait, Landscape, Macro or Sport.

The catch? You can't be a professional photographer, there's no fee to enter your picture, but "Each User may submit only one Entry for one of the Categories and only in the country of his/her residence". Which is very good to my standards.

Registration stage has started and will end on 01/05/2008 at 00:01 CET, then a voting stage will start from 05/05 to 19/05/2008. Top 10 photographs per Category and Country with highest numbers of votes will qualify for the Jury's selection period.

Jury selection period is from 19/05/ to 25/05/2008 and those selected will have a paid ticket to Amsterdam and then to Vienna where the finals take place from 22/06 to 27/06/2008. They will also get tickets to a qualifying match in the UEFA EURO 2008 and photography coaching from a professional photographer.

Each category winner will be taken on a photographic assignment with a leading photographer during the 2nd half of 2008. All details are in the terms and conditions.

DO YOU WANT MORE?

Well even if you don't plan to participate there is a good deal of information and tutorials on each one of the categories, which I recommend you check out.

In the last 8 hours the gallery went from 1 photo to 32, so don't wait any longer and go Register to take advantage of this chance.

Labels: Photography

Aquí algunas fotos más para complementar las puestas anteriormente del campo de flores en Holanda. Tuvimos un excelente día con un clima cálido y soleado increible para esta época del año que por supuesto aprovechamos para tomar muchísimas fotos. De verdad una zona que vale la pena visitar especialmente en esta época del año cuando todo está floreado y colorido. Este campo en especial estaba cerca de la ciudad de Sasenheim entre Roterdam y Amsterdam.

Labels: Español, Netherlands, Photography, Travel

So following the suggestions from family and friends we went to the Netherlands to check their famous Flower Fields now that Spring is fully here. We drove off the highways to go through the small streets in the Netherlands and passed by the towns of Leiden, Katwijk, Nordwijk, Sasseheim to end up in Keukenhof, a floral park that deserves a posting on his own. You can check the area in Google Maps. We enjoyed the beautiful landscapes, small towns, windmills in the roads and people just cycling around, and close to Sasenheim found some fields full of flowers were most of these pictures were taken (with the exception of the Rose and last tulips) It's definitely worth it to go to the Netherlands at this time to enjoy the scenery!!

Labels: Photography, Travel