We just returned from a 10 day trip in England. I shot a bit over 1,000 pictures and put 61 of them on Flickr and in the travelog – a 6% rate which seems pretty typical. The full travelog is at www.anirama.com/england and the Flickr set is here. Here are six of my favorites.

Kevin and Sarah at Windsor Castle. I like that the background is blown out - it gives them a sense of space without competing with their faces. I don't even mind the fence.

Taken during a tour of Oxford in a light rain, giving a softness to the light. Kevin struck the pose, but it works really well.

London City Hall. Lots of processing in Lightroom to bring out the dramatic sky without the building descending into darkness. The beauty of shooting RAW is that you have a few extra stops of latitude to play with in post production. It's much easier than trying to do this with HDR.

The lake in St. James Park with the London Eye and Horse Guards in the background. The soft sky flattens the light and gives the scene a painterly feeling. View it bigger and over black here.

Napping in front of Salisbury Cathedral. I like this one because you get a sense of the scale of the Cathedral without showing the whole building. Plus it has my kids napping in it.

Beer.

Eric and I went to the Marin Car Show on Sunday. I used it as an opportunity to challenge myself with a photo assignment. i decided to only shoot with my 100mm Macro at f2.8, and to only shoot people. Plus, since it was a car show with shiny parts, everything had to be shot in a reflection. These are my top 10 picks.

Checking out a classic Mercedes, reflected in the front fender of a Cord.

Porsche 356 owner leaving the show, as seen in the wheel of another Porsche.

Dane

My friend, Dane, shot from the hip at my sister’s ranch

The original image, straight from the camera.

Some quick notes on the image processing. He’s a black dog shot on a bright overcast day, so he’s almost gone in the original image. Luckily I shoot RAW so there was plenty of latitude for processing in Lightroom. After some color balancing to warm up the shot, I used the local brush to select all of Dane and boosted his exposure by .80 and bumped up the Clarity a bit. Added a little bit of vignetting to the shot. That’s all I did, but it gave it a bit of an HDR feel – not sure why.

SF Bay baylands, shot from a Southwest Airlines flight after having just taken off from San Jose. I’m a sucker for the colors and patterns.

The Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge Environmental Education Center at the top of the frame.

Parking for trucks in an industrial yard in Alviso, CA.

Le Ovo

We took a fieldtrip with our students to see Cirque du Soliel’s Ovo in San Jose. The show was entertaining, creepy, and wondrous all wrapped up into a big egg. I took this photo while people were entering and finding their seats, and right before one of the ushers told me photography wasn’t allowed inside the big top. I would have loved to have been able to shoot during the show – the characters, lighting and shadow play were fascinating. As it was, I had to just relax and let them take me on the journey. Sometimes I forget that not taking pictures can be rewarding, too.