I’ve been testing out some new HDR techniques and software…

HDR is short for High Dynamic Range. It is a post-processing of taking either one image or a series of images, combining them, and adjusting the contrast ratios to do things that are virtually impossible with a single aperture and shutter speed.

Cameras, by their basic-machine-nature, are very good at capturing “images”, lines, shadows, shapes — but they are not good at capturing a scene the way the mind remembers and maps it. When you are actually there on the scene, your eye travels back and forth, letting in more light in some areas, less light in others, and you create a “patchwork-quilt” of the scene.

HDR is a technique that is still in it infancy but is becoming utilised increasingly in the Real Estate industry because it enables an image to show a low light room and a high light view through the windows. I have been playing around with it in a simple form while shooting houses in NZ but I’m curious to see what else I can do with it, particularly with action shots.

Here is my first non real estate effort, it is a combination of 6 images from before sunset through to almost pitch black night. I should point out that sometimes HDR images can look pretty ridiculous and over tweaked, but I have not cranked up the colours in this image. It is simply the light from the different images all layered on top of each other.

More coming soon…

As I watched the Gold price drop on friday like a stone with the news of the potential Dubai default, I wondered again at the sanity of being in this market. As it turned and began to climb almost as quickly back up again I laughed at the fickle metal and settled back to watch the roller coaster again…

Trying to punch above my weight and play smart in the Gold market has left me with sweaty palms more than once in the last few years. Instead of shooting overpriced houses, I was racing round central London in 2008 refreshing my wireless connection, desperately trying to get a signal so I could dump my holdings just as the price was about to go over the cliff. Does this sound like a sane individual? No. It rates as one of the lowest points, but that’s the market, and the nervous contentment of seeing the price up again by $10 each morning when Gold is on a run gives odd satisfaction to a self confessed Gold bug.

From the endless doldrums through most of 2007, to the sudden freefall of 2008 along with almost everything else, to the seductive skyrockets at the end of 2008 and the end of 2009, it has been one hell of a ride.

One thing has seemed clear to me for a long time now though. We have been in a Gold Bull market that has a way yet to run. To an extent, it may inflate and deflate like other asset bubbles, and it certainly isnt the last time it will drop hard, but there are some fundamentals at work here that are undeniable.

From the concept of Peak Gold (quite possibly reached in 2000) to the admission by the Chinese Governments that they have been and will continue to buy on ALL dips (and strongly encourage their own citizens to do so too) as well as almost all other governments becoming net buyers of Gold, to the overproduction of the USDollar like confetti backed by hot air while Debts are roaring higher…the reasons go on.

For a while the price of Gold was really only making advances Vs the USDollar (not neccessarily a good sign) but the fact that it is now pushing nominal highs Vs Sterling, Euro, Swiss, and other currencies means to me that something more deeply rooted is taking place.

I have been tempted many times to pull out completely, save myself the stress and anxiety and stop caring, but somehow I always come back for more. Call me a sucker for punishment, but while politicians continue to lie through their teeth, the debt levels of the biggest nations are all heading in the wrong direction – the UK rating especially looks to be heading for junk status – and the rest of the poor sheeple heading for poverty, then something tangible like Gold really has seemed like the obvious hedge for a while now. Hopefully once everyone realised that, I will have sold out and moved to an island somewhere…

10 days til we head to the Pacific to begin our first scouting mission…

10 DAYS UNTIL LAUNCH!

The list of things to do before we leave is absurd, Flo is on a mad 9 day stretch again, and I have loads of jobs to cram in, so we decided to ignore it all and bounce over to Queenstown and Arrowtown for lunch…

I’m also trying out a new style of gallery which saves time as the whole page doesnt need to reload but so far doesnt seem to work so well for portrait style images…

You can click on the photo to go on to the next one, or choose an image from the thumbnails below it…

Really enjoying this blog – Jeremy Jones update:

Today was a fantasy.  I hopped in the zodiak to scope terrain and from that point on it was sensory over load.  On one side of the bay was a mountain called “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.”   On the other side one of the most outrages mountains scape’s I have ever seen towered over head.

More epic ness from Antarctica here…

Wakeboarding…it has come a long long way since I first tried it on a tow system using an old button lift going round an artificial lake west of London in 1996…
Well impressive, especially with the towable sliders…

If we have hit Peak Oil as many suggest, is it ok to spend $100 on gas to have some fun before the cost of the same gas is more like $500?

Some friends have a boat in Wanaka and I happened to be driving past the Marina as they were about to go out.

After looking at the lake for 6 months it was fun to get out on it.

I havent been wakeboarding in about 10 years and although I did get up first time, unsurprisingly I still sucked…

A few good slams worked my shoulder and tweaked my knee nicely…still good fun though.

Appearing at a bookstore in the downtown Loop, Gore was confronted by a team of demonstrators from a grass roots group called “We Are Change,” as he was signing his latest fascist screed on the global warming swindle. Gore bolted from the bookstore, raced down an alley, jumped into a waiting car, and tried to speed off, with protesters chasing after him and banging on the car.

Full article here.

Could it be that people are actually beginning to pay attention?

Not if you read the MSM though or listen to politicians as there is precious little coverage of anything contrary to the standard GW theories…or is there:

Australia is leading the revolt against Al Gore’s great big AGW conspiracy – just as the Aussie geologist and AGW sceptic Professor Ian Plimer predicted it would.

ABC news reports that five frontbenchers from Australia’s opposition Liberal party have resigned their portfolios rather than follow their leader Malcolm Turnbull in voting with Kevin Rudd’s Government on a new Emissions Trading Scheme.

Rest of the article here.

A particular favourite quote would have to be the bloggers description of Australia’s urban community as

“pinko, libtard metropolitan fleshpots.”

Meanwhile Gordon Brown continues to bumble along, throwing money at things in his usual style in an attempt to hide the problems…

WAKE UP!

What is with the “news” these days??

Tony Blair and George Bush knew there were no WMD’s but, having run out of reasons to attack Iraq, just went ahead anyway!

As if it hadnt been obvious from the start, this is now being reported as “NEWS”

Global Warming (renamed Climate Change) has been clearly shown to be a sham, intended to allow Governments endless reasons to tax and control their minions…

Dubai finally admits that actually it cant afford to build a ludicrously overbudget supercity from scratch….and most all bubble asset classes go over the cliff again…

9/11 Texts released on WikiLeaks show some extraordinary inconsistencies, suggesting that perhaps the Bush regime wasnt entirely honest about things? Surely not more lies?

Is it just me or are things really starting to unravel, just as the MSM would have us all belive that things are getting back to normal and pfffew we managed to avoid a massive depression. Double dip anyone?

Modern historians will look back at the defining events in this period in history and marvel at the disgraceful behaviour that went entirely unchecked for so long…

For a more eloquently written version of this outrage and other things you can check my brothers site here, as I just noticed that we posted about the same topics at about the same time…does combined outrage make any difference?

The new plan for the next year:

Finish my 12 months of mini semi retirement (well I mean why wait til you’re 65?) by traveling for a month, getting married and then moving to Sydney, getting a decent job and getting much better at surfing and surf photography, among many other things….

Looking forward to living by the ocean again.

Some inspiration:

More here

Jeremy Jones hits Antarctica to ride some epic lines on the second season of filming for the Deeper snowboard movie…