“An investigation by the Prosecutor’s General Office of the Russian Federation has confirmed Soviet responsibility for the massacres, yet does not classify this action as a war crime or as an act of genocide. This acknowledgement would have necessitated the prosecution of surviving perpetrators, which is what the Polish government had requested.” – Wikipedia.org

The Soviet Union denied the massacre until the 1990s according to other articles I’ve dug up online. I’m not trying to stir anything up, I was just shocked and appalled by what I was reading. Yet, having been born in Poland, I felt proud that this event was acknowledged and amazed by the monuments symbolism and backdrop; the skyline of Manhattan. The monument stands just a few feet away from the WTC 911 memorial.

In 2008, Polish born Andrzej Wajda directed “Katyn” the movie, which was nominated for an Oscar as Best Foreign Film in 2008. I’ll have to rent it this week.

Last night, with the Hudson celebrating its 400th birthday, (kind of ironic since the river existed before it was named) the fireworks were launched of off 4 barges along the Hudson River. We prepared by getting annihilated during the afternoon by Natalie’s home made sangria, took a power nap late in the afternoon and set out to the Hoboken Piers around 7pm in order to get a good viewing spot.

It was the closest I’ve ever gotten to the NYC fireworks; they were literally exploding above our heads. There was nothing special to them but I’ve kind of gotten used to it over the years. The smiley faces have been around for well over 10 years now, and its pretty much the sound of them exploding that turned into a thrill for me. I also seem to have never learned my lesson about bringing a tripod. It’s pretty much impossible to keep the shutter open for at least 2-3 seconds while trying to hold the camera still. I did get a couple of good shots, however I was disappointed at myself for not taking a tripod along with me. Next year.

A couple of weeks ago natalie and I hung out with our family in Williamsburg. My sister has this amazing Schwinn bike up on my mom’s terrace that has an amazing looking contrast against her yellow-ish tinted wooden fence that divides her from the neighbors. At right, Natalie downs quenches her thirst, while my sister Agata, still in her vetinary scrubs, entertains her husband Sebastian and I with some YouTube comedy. Next week, we’re firing up the grill and I’m bringing my camera.

Because of the lack of light around us, the 10 second+ exposures caused a lot of motion blur in some of shots I got. I kept my ISO at about 800 and did not want to risk adding noise at higher levels. However, some of the shots came out adequate for the most part. One day I’ll have to invest in a sturdy high quality tripod for my night shots. In addition, a infra-red shutter trigger would be pretty nice as well. Fortunately, I held on to the camera tight, didn’t drop it in the Hudson and walked away with a few nice shots.

The image at top began as seen at right. I’ve duplicated the image twice, imported it back into Adobe Lightroom and over exposed the first duplicate image and under exposed the second duplicate. As in the previous article, I imported all 3 images into Photomatrix, applied a series of settings until I was satisfied with the result. I then imported the image back into Adobe Lightroom and wrapped my workflow process by adjusting the contrast and color vibrance.

At left is another image I experimented with applying the very same steps. In the near future I’ll begin experimenting with some long exposures of night photography and apply the same steps in creating some interesting HDR photography. If you still haven’t seen any other examples of HDR photography, I urge you to just Google search “HDR”, people have taken HDR techniques to a whole new level.

The steps that you’ll take after importing your images, and utilizing various settings will vary obviously. My camera is a Canon XSI DSLR, I used a tripod to steady the camera and my workflow applications are Adobe Lightroom, and Photomatrix Pro from HDR Soft. Below are the original images I’ve shot with those settings.

After Importing my images into Adobe Lightroom, or any other workflow application you use to store your images, select them, and use your application’s menu to display their location on your computer. If you’ve never attempted in creating HDR images, download an application called Photomatrix Pro and use the trial version for now until you’re ready to purchase the full version. Launch Photomatrix Pro, click on “Generate HDR Image” and drag and drop your RAW files directly into the window. Click “OK” in order to generate your HDR image. The result that you get is nowhere near complete.

To the left is the resulting image. Obviously we’re nowhere near complete as the image generated is an equal distribution of both shadows and light contained within each image that we’ve just combined. Click on Tone Mapping and play around with the settings there until you’re satisfied with the settings. Strength, Color saturation, luminosity, light smoothing, Micro contrast, are the additional settings you should be playing with.The image at right is what I was left with after applying my settings. After completing adjusting the various settings within Photomatrix Pro, export the image back to Lightroom, still as a RAW file, and continue adjusting the exposure, color, shadow, and light intensity until you’re satisfied. My final result is shown at the beginning of this article. I chose to increase contrast, tone down some highlights, and increase some of the shadows.

If you’ve never heard of HDR, you’re probabely wandering what the heck did the application do to your iamges and why you had to photograph the same scene with different exposure levels. In a nut shell HDR is the process of combining a set of photographs with different exposures. To the naked eye, an under exposed image is either a throw away or additional work needed to correct it. Over exposed images can typically receive some work by using various applications to tone down various settings in order to bring some shadows and darks back into the image. However, both over and under exposed images maintain import information about the amount of light and shadows contained in the photograph. HDR is the process of combining that information in order to create a surreal image.

I used to walk around Union Square as well as Bryant Park and photograph anything that moved there. City critters that is; people are a lot more difficult to photograph. I for one dislike having my picture taken by strangers and in turn, prefer not to deal with people’s unexpected reactions to having a camera shoved in their face.

I can’t wait to put off sometime in my life for travel; Someplace with minimal of human foot-print as possible, yet safe enough for tourist to explore. Human kidnapping type-of shows on the Discovery channel scare the Sh*t out of me. I doubt the kidnappers would enjoy getting their picture taken. If I were ever in such a situation, I guess I’d try to bargain for my life by explaining to them that I’m capable of building personal websites for them and explain to them how social media integration can enhance their group’s reach. It’s late and I’m retarded.

A couple of summers ago, I was freelancing as a web contractor for a company based out of San Francisco and was invited to meet with the president there. What was originally supposed to be a weekend trip, turned into a 10 day inspiration-filled vacation. While there, I stayed with a friend in Noe Valley; NYC’s version of the West Village.

I woke up each day early in the morning, and aimed to get lost in the city. I didn’t need nor wanted a tour guide. I wanted to experience San Francisco by simply taking the combination of the BART and the MULI electric trolleys on my own. Like a typical tourist, I experienced most of San Francisco through the lens of my camera. I didn’t regret it one bit.

Everywhere I went, I was blown away by the clear blue sky and a vivid view of the bay. It felt surreal to me as my vantage view of city living consists of being engulfed by brick and steel. No pun to NY or anything, San Francisco just seems more… spacious. Every once in a while, I felt guilty  allowing myself to get relaxed walking the streets of San Francisco during a typical work day, while the locals around me were going about their 9-5 day.

However, all my work meetings while there went smoothly and at the end of my trip not only did I get back to the east coast with a completely diffrent perspective on my surroundings but also felt like I’ve managed to get some work done while off on vacation.

I would love to go back there with my fiancée sooner rather then later as San Francisco is a jaw-dropping romantic city.

Everything is within walking distance here in Hoboken and Manhattan is a single-stop Path ride that takes no more then 10 minutes. I don’t nor have I ever owned a car (Hoboken is a parking nightmare), yet I’ve never had a need to travel much within New Jersey by car. Jersey City, the city where my fiancée lives and where I’ll be moving to in a few months is easily accessible by light rail. It’s a quick scenic (yes, scenic – who knew… I still poke fun at Jersey being the armpit of America) above ground ride.

So my soon-to-be move to Jersey City… I’m very excited. The sky-rise building which we’ll be living in sits right aside a pier and the view of lower Manhattan is awesome. Besides all of the amenities of the building, gym, doormen, out-door barbecue area, tennis courts, and rows and rows of parked boats along the pier, the restaurants, dog friendly parks, and even the people will definitely creatively inspire me. Compared to my current Hoboken brownstone apartment it’ll be a whole lot more affordable.

I would still love for a chance to live in Brooklyn at some point in my life, then there’s San Francisco. I took a trip there a couple of years ago and I’ve been eager to come back. I’ll post some images I took there soon.