An elderly Italian man lay crippled and dying in his bed. While suffering the agonies of impending death, he suddenly smelled the aroma of his favourite anisette sprinkle cookies wafting up the stairs.

Gathering every ounce of his remaining strength, he lifted himself from the bed. Leaning against the wall, he slowly and painfully made his way out of the bedroom, and with even greater effort, gripping the railing with both hands he crawled downstairs. Finally, with laboured breath, he leaned against the doorframe, gazing into the kitchen. Where if not for death's agony, he would have thought himself already in heaven, for there, cooling on the kitchen table were literally hundreds of his favourite anisette sprinkled cookies.

Was it heaven? Or was it one final act of love from his devoted Italian wife of sixty years, seeing to it that he left this world a happy man?

Mustering one great final effort, he dragged himself to the table, picked up a cookie and just as he was about to take a bite, his wife snatched the cookie from his grasp.

"Donta you touch," his wife warned. " Those are for the funeral."

@unknownuser said:

@double espresso said:

These are incredible Jeff.
Are they long lens shots or are you actually in the crowds using something like a cellphone camera?
Very Jim Jarmusch...

no long lens.. ultrawides..

12mm on a d2x which = ~18mm equiv. on a 35..

handheld flash in there as well.

Thanks Jeff... you have a great eye. I take it you just move through the crowd.

These are incredible Jeff.
Are they long lens shots or are you actually in the crowds using something like a cellphone camera?
Very Jim Jarmusch...

Great shots David and Eduardo.
Thanks for sharing...
David the first shot is amazing and your choice of a washed out tone is perfect.
Eduardo, clean and sharp...beautiful colour. Love the first one, the butterfly and the intersection.
DE

@hebrides said:

@unknownuser said:

I'm getting close to buying a new camera and leaning towards a Panasonic DMC FZ 28. What do you think?

Nice camera although for another 100 you can buy a real reflex...i.e. nikon d-40 or equiv. canon.
The panasonic doesn't have manual (mechanical) stops. Or at least there is no mention of it in the specs. As it is not a reflex camera I would assume that there are no stops. This would not be suitable for your HDRI work.

ps: great shot of the boat!

Thanks.
As I get into this camera/HDRI thing more I can see that my original thoughts have been dashed.

Took a little trip down to the marina today.
Still needs a little tweaking in places like the sky.

Second version with sky.

@mike lucey said:

Time will tell. Just a thought! In order to protect these inventions, patents will have to be granted. This means that FULL data will be available to the public. At this stage the facts will come the light ... excuse the pun.

Mike

And that is where it always falls apart...

@pbacot said:

Keep an open mind. But science is not dogma. I would say it is the opposite of dogma.

catma?

@nomeradona said:

wow its really nice to see diiferent parts of the world with your shots.. imagine Malta... thnaks david H. DE is that your HDRI try and using tone mapping? i bet you are using cool temperature right. ///

nomeradona,
There is actually a lot of blue in the shot. I created a quasi-HDR/Tone Map from a single JPEG converted to TIF 16bit and then played with it in PS. I have absolutely no idea what I am doing yet or if the conversion to TIF 16 bit made any difference. It turned out okay since I wanted a Painterly/Photo Realistic look.

I'm getting close to buying a new camera and leaning towards a Panasonic DMC FZ 28. What do you think?
http://www.steves-digicams.com/2008_reviews/panasonic_fz28.html

EDIT:
So, here is a version of the Havana rooftop pano as a pseudo HDR Tonemap. I took the image and created five exposures in PS then rendered it in Photomatix. There are still issues that are a result of the original photo being a JPEG and not having enough information to work with, however, this is pretty cool and once I get my new camera all will be good.

click for larger image

I'm starting to play around with Tone Mapping. Here's my first try. Not there yet.

It's so cool to fire up the computer and see these amazing shots. What a great way to connect with everyone and start or end the day.

I need to figure a better way to post my shots. Suggestions.
DE

Great shots Jeff... you're raising the bar, man.

A few more from Cuba series. Okay, I'm heading to the streets.

@unknownuser said:

I thought it wouldn't be necessary to get help from a clown, but here we go.

"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." - Arthur Schopenhauer

Lighten up...

Where old iMacs go to die...
When the LCD died I removed it and created 'Samar-iMac'.
Still works great!

@unknownuser said:

Hmm, since one cannot measure "pretty" and "ugly" I'll leave that up to the individual. Both are tools to get a task done. I guess when my desktop needs to be pretty under my desk that will matter or when I care how pretty the case is. To each their own.
I guess people go to the hardware to get a pretty hammer

As a designer I spend a lot of time with my computer and it is important to me that it looks cool. Of course, if my Macs were a source of frustration, I would change, but, they provide everything I need in a beautiful package. Sure, I've had my moments over the years when I wanted to throttle Apple, but, when it all shook out, there was no real viable alternative.
When I cook, I use nicely designed knives and if I was a carpenter... Nice hammer, Mike.

On the topic of Mac vs Pc, well, when I was a kid the big fight was Ford vs Chevy.
Things never change.
You only pass this way one time.

nomeradona...
Only 86 to go...then what?
Love the pencil.

Nice David,
I really like the bikes. Try cropping out the guy.
Thanks for posting.

@nomeradona said:

DE i must call you the Light Master....

Thank you.
Here's a shot I took at 2:00 in the morning, walking home from a club called La Cucaracha in San Miguel de Allende. Needless to say, we all had a few tequilas and the next morning was a bit rough.