DxO PhotoLab 9
DxO has been slow to the AI masking party, and most rivals now have a two year head start. But waiting until the technology was mature may have been a wise strategy.
August
A random(ish) set of images from August, in no particular order, taken while travelling in Northern Italy. This summer, it has been difficult to walk much because of the heat. Most of these were therefore taken on short walks, the most ambitious being a hike around the Lago di Alpe Gera in Valmalenco. One of the images above shows a mountain-scape in which there are a few small fragments of remaining glaciation, with copious water pouring out. 100 years ago, that scene would have been almost entirely ice. It has […]
El Llobregat
A selection of images from the Llobregat river, in the area between El Prat and Sant Vicenç dels Horts, near Barcelona. These were shot on two visits to the river area, with the aim of exploring how to document an area such as this, where the river area is nominally described as a natural space and is surrounded by a mix of quasi-industrial agriculture and city infrastructure. Between the two visits there was a deluge of rain, depositing up to 40L/m^2 in this area. The result was that huge areas […]
Castelmezzano
A short set of images take while hiking earlier this year at Castelmezzano, a mountain village in the south of Italy. Although the town is trying to promote mass tourism (in the form of zip wires, sledging runs, and quad biking), go there when out of the main season and you will find abundant natural beauty and plenty of quiet walks through the villages and hills. Pleasant memories to try to forget the chaotic furnace that is Barcelona right now. All images were shot with the Q3, with cropping to […]
Matera
A set of images from Matera and the surrounding area. Matera is a unique city in southern Italy set on the edge of a deep gorge that cuts in to soft limestone in which there are many caves both natural and excavated. The unique setting, architecture and long history, with continuous settlement dating back to the Paleolithic have earned the city UNESCO World Heritage status. Much of the modern part of the city is familiar territory to anyone used to exploring Italy, with its mix of chaotic, dense construction and […]
Collserola
A set of images from a walk up on the Collserola de Serra, the ring of hills that separate Barcelona from the inland areas of Catalunya. The Collserola is not the most aesthetic of parkland areas, with low mediterranean woodland and scrub areas. There are numerous tracks all over, and navigation is easy, particularly if you use Organic Maps which unlike Google or Apple Maps, shows most of the possible paths. This particular walk started improbably from the L1 metro stop at Baró de Viver, running up through the city […]
Postcards from Napoli
A short set of images taken on a trip to Naples, Italy. This was very much a sightseeing trip, but there are still some interesting contrasts to be drawn and lots of very photogenic scenes, of which these are only a small subset. The images were mostly shot around the Quartieri Spagnoli and surroundings, using a fixed-lens 28mm compact camera which worked excellently with the subject matter. Processing used DxO PhotoLab 8.2, with FilmPack for a slightly modified Kodachrome emulation and ViewPoint for the some geometry corrections.
Postcards from Seoul
A final set of images from Seoul, documenting architecture and scenes around the mega city. These span from Incheon in the West down to Hanam in the East and were shot over several months of walks in the city and its surroundings. All images were shot with the GFX100s, mostly using the 55mm lens and a polariser to bring out the colour on saturated surfaces. The camera worked really well despite frequently damp conditions, and although weight was frequently an issue switching from a cross-shoulder strap to a waist belt […]
Kōchi Digression
This post has a set of images taken on a short trip to Kochi, in Shikoko prefecture back in May. This was a short trip, travelling light with more than 100km of walking in conditions that encompassed everything from cloudless sun to monsoon-like storms. The images below are some of my favourites from the trip, and are a small subset of a much larger documentary set that looks various aspects of the local culture, centred around the water, fishing and food. Overall, this was a fascinating experience, arriving with pre-conceptions […]
DxO Photolab 7 Review
This is a in-depth review of DxO Photolab 7, based on almost a year of use. I have long been a strong advocate of Capture One Pro, but with the company’s push towards subscriptions and frankly unjustifiable new pricing, it felt like time to consider other software. Lightroom Classic is the obvious alternative, although it has many of the same drawbacks as Capture One. So the candidate replacement that I have looked at most comprehensively is PhotoLab, which on paper offers a viable alternative as a high quality RAW editor […]
Hangang
A short set of images taken walking along the banks of the Hangang river in Seoul. This was a particularly rainy and wet time and there were few people around, often giving the illusion of an abandoned city – an illusion that is easily broken if you are just a little higher and can see all the traffic! I am still finding my feet at the moment and I will write more on Seoul and Korea when I have had enough time to understand the region better than I do […]
Urban
A short photo-essay using urban fragments, shot in and around the Barcelona that the tourist brochures do not seem to show.
Fragments
Five fragmentary images taken in Barcelona.
December
A short set of images taken in December. This has been a challenging month for photography as a lot of time has been spent migrating tsoniq.com to hugo and complete a set of synthesiser plugins that have been waiting a long time for release. These were taken on a series of walks around Barcelona, exploring the railway around Sants and Bellvitge, as well as the city centre. There were surprisingly few festive lights this year, but there is always something interesting to find at night. All images taken with the […]
El Prat
A set of images from a walk from El Prat to Castelldefels, at the very edge of the Barcelona metropolitan area. I much prefer the beaches in winter, when the temperature is more bearable and there are fewer people. The walk is about 20km, with quite a lot on sand, necessitating an early start from the El Prat railway station. From there, there is a short walk through the town to start of the wet lands and dunes that surround the airport, which dominates everything not least for the constant […]
October
It has been a difficult October, as most of the month has been spent in Italy with multiple trips to deal with family health problems – fortunately all now resolved successfully. This has meant that photography has been very constrained, both in time and also by the ability to carry camera gear on easyJet, so these are a somewhat random set taken with walks around the area of Sesto San Giovanni in Milan and also on a brief excursion to Como. All images taken with the GFX100s and GF45, GF55 […]
Transient Eye 