Björn Moerman PHOTOGRAPHY

Pic(k) of the week 6: Greetings from Tyrol

2012-02-08T00:13:00.000+04:00

A weeklong ski-trip to Austria or Switzerland has become a yearly February tradition. This year the fun in the snow is taking place in Zillertal, an amazing ski-area in Tyrol (Austria) with over 600 km (yes!) ski runs all covered with a single ski-pass.

While last year's was abnormally warm, this year's is very cold. So much for global warming! Under a clear sky, morning temperatures frequently dipped below -25C, with maximum temperatures not exceeding -15C for most of the week.

As is normally the case during these winter breaks, the DSLR stayed home. The small compact Nikon P7000 did travel, but stayed in its bag... Wanting to go commando, I decided to shoot the entire holiday on the iPhone 4S. And boy I had a blast!

The image above of clouds drifting in from the left, is a 7 shot panorama completly edited, including the stitching, on the iPhone 4S. I kind of had forgotten how easy it is to shoot a panorama on the iPhone. Zooming in on the image, one will see a lot of detail like the individual skiers on the slope. Quite a challenge for a tiny sensor like on this camera phone. As promised I will dedicate an entire post on iPhoneography, in the near future.

Image details:
iPhone 4S
ISO 64, f 2.4, 1/3200s, 35mm
AutoStitch to edit the panorama
Nik Software Snapseed for basic editing

Freezing cold or steaming hot; go out there and shoot!

BJORN

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Pic(k) of the week 5: Pineapple building

2012-02-01T12:17:00.000+04:00

One of the things Western visitors to the UAE are always amazed with is that official street and building names are rarely used here. People give directions like; " take a left at the pink building, then second street after the green mosque". Another typical example is the Dubai Silicon Oasis Head Quarters (DSO HQ), which people familiar with the area call "the Pineapple building"...

I live in a villa compound in the DSO area and while running in the neighbourhood, I had noticed a potential photograph of the DSO HQ in post sunset light.

The image above was made about 15 min after the sun went down. I purposely selected a small aperture of f 20 to get a nice "star effect" of the lights.

Image details:

Nikon D700 with Nikkor 24-70 2.8

ISO 200, 40mm, f 20, 8 sec

RAW development in LR3

Nik SilverEfex Pro 2

As I'm writing this, I'm getting ready for a weeklong ski-trip to Austria. The big camera bag will stay home but I do plan to make loads of iPhone images. Some of these will probably find their way on my Facebook and Google Plus pages!

Whatever you do, where ever you are, have a great week!

BJORN

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Pic(k) of the week 4: Abra driver

2012-01-26T11:08:00.000+04:00

Centuries ago, life in Dubai started around the Creek, a saltwater tidal channel dividing Dubai in two main parts, Bur Dubai to the Western side and Deira to the East.

With the first records of the town being made in 1799, life was then mainly sustained by fishing and pearl diving. Dubai became a separate Sheikdom in 1833, when the Al-Maktoum dynasty of the Bani Yas clan took it over peacefully. The invention of artificial pearls in 1926 and the Great Depression in 1929 caused a collapse in the international pearl market, which resulted in Sheikh Saeed looking for an alternative source of income and Dubai becoming one of the leading re-export ports in the world. In 1966, oil was discovered in Dubai, which changed the country beyond recognition and led to Dubai becoming the vibrant, modern, business-centred city-state it is today.

Even today the Creek still has the guzzle and buzzle it used to have in the early days. It is a Mecca for travel photography. I finally decided to open a gallery dedicated to the "Life at the Creek". Browse through a few years of images here.

One of the must do's for every Dubai visitor is taking an Abra (small wooden boat) across the Creek. Quite often I bump into people who have been living in Dubai for years and have never done the crossing. You are missing a unique experience! And yes it is cheap... 1 DHS (1/4 USD) for a single trip!

While wandering around the docks, I photographed this "Abra driver" bathing in the evening sun.

Image details:

Nikon D700 with Nikkor 70-200 2.8 VR2

ISO 800, 200mm, f 6.3, 1/1000s

RAW development in LR3

Nik SilverEfex Pro 2 for Black and White conversion

Remember don't just take pictures, make pictures!

BJORN

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Pic(k) of the week 3: Flying sensation Zoltan Veres in action

2012-01-22T12:03:00.001+04:00

My first encounter with Hungarian pilot Zoltan Veres was during the 2007 Al Ain airshow in the UAE. Zoltan belongs to the top of the world aerobatic performers. He is a regular visitor to the UAE and normally has one or more of his aircraft based here for the winter.

Last time I saw him perform amazing aerobatics in his MXS aircraft, was at the Skydive Dubai Marina drop Zone (DZ1) end of 2011. He surely knows how to entertain a crowd!

Image details:
Nikon D700 with 70-200 2.8 VR2 lens
ISO200, 140mm, f5.6, 1/320s
RAW processing with LR3
Nik ColorEfex Pro4

Remember don't just take pictures, make pictures!

BJORN

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Best 3 x 3 of 2011

2012-01-18T14:40:00.000+04:00

As a yearly tradition early in the new year, I've now made a selection of my best 3 Architectural, Aviation and Travel photography images. Overall I've just over 10.000 keeper images in my Lightroom library. Only just over 1% of them have received a 5 star rating; these I consider my personal best.

Narrowing the 100 image selection further down to three per category is never an easy task... I've followed my intuition as much as possible and have not tried to balance the results over different destinations etc...

Here we go. To see the whole of my portfolio, click on the bold category names below:

ARCHITECTURAL

1 The "other building", next to the Burj Khalifa, Dubai. I was attracted to the patterns in and the quality this Black and White image

2 Mosque in Umm Suqeim, Dubai. Just behind the world famous Burj al Arab, one finds this mosque. Even though I've shot quite a few images of the mosque together with the 7 star hotel, I like this stand alone image because of its structure at night.

3 Karlskirche in Vienna, Austria. I did shoot more Black & White architectural work than the preceding years. Taking the color away focuses the attention more on the building itself. I also like the reflections in the fountain pool.

AVIATION

1 Ditched Curtiss C-46 Commando near Norman's Cay, Bahamas. Made during my recent Florida and the Bahamas from sea level to 1000 feet tour. Even though I really liked this image from the start, the feedback on my 500px site has been mind boggling; approaching 17.000 views and 1100 votes, this images must be my personal image of 2011! As icing on the cake, the image was selected by National Geographic as Photo of the day in the first week of 2012! People also seemed attracted to the story behind the airplane. I guess a picture is really worth a thousand words! For more make sure you read this blogpost.

2 Lockheed 12 used in the movie "Amelia". The tornado I witnessed during the Sun 'n Fun fly-in, end of March 2011, is one for the aviation history books! The day before hell broke loose, I photographed this beautifully restored vintage twin engine. I do like the color image, but find that the structure of every single rivet really comes to live in this Black and White image! It looks like I might be off to Sun 'n Fun again this year...

3 Zoltan Veres coming from the moon in his MXS. Amazing flying by this great Hungarian pilot. Zoltan demo's his MXS on a regular basis at the Skydive Dubai, Marina drop zone. He surely knows how to "wow' the crowd!

TRAVEL

1 Chapelle de Roumé, Cieutat, France. In 2010 I started flying paragliders together with my wife, in the French Pyrenees. During our first training week in May, we "lost" of few flying days, but did some interesting travel-landscape photography instead. This lonely chapel overlooking the French mountain chain, really symbolizes this trip!

2 Mosque 20km from Hatta, UAE. Not that far from home in Dubai, I wanted to document the Hatta pools area. If one want to see the "original UAE" this is a good place to start.

3 Bimini shipwreck, the Bahamas. During our Florida and the Bahamas from sea level to 1000 ft trip, I photographed the remains of Gallant Lady, a old cargo vessel on the North-Bimini island.

As we are now into the third week of 2012, it looks like it will be another great year for photography. Trips planned so far are a ski-trip to Austria in February, another visit to the Spring break for pilots fly-in in Lakeland, FL end of March, a paragliding trip to France and probably a two week South-East Asia trip after the summer... to be continued!

Remember don't just take pictures, make pictures!

BJORN

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Pic(k) of the week 2: The skydive elevator

2012-01-15T08:21:00.000+04:00

Some of you might know that I spend the early years of my flying career in and around skydiving ("parachuting") operations. I've flown "left seat" in a broad series of skydiving aircraft; Cessna 206, Britten Norman Islander, GAF Nomad, Short Skyvan. Beside I also have "right hand seat" time in the Antonov AN-2, Let L-410, de Havilland DHC-4 Caribou, C130 Hercules.

A great skydiving aircraft I have never flown in is the Canadian built, de Havilland DHC-6 Twin Otter. This is the backbone of "Skydive Dubai", a sport parachuting club based in guess where... Dubai!

The image above of one of the club's two Twin Otters, was made at the second drop zone, SD2, otherwise also called the "Desert campus"; a fully equipped Skydiving center on the Dubai to Al Ain road. Skydivers need a minimum of 100 jumps (B license) to jump at the Dubai Marina drop zone (SD1), which is close to high-rise buildings and is surrounded with lots of water.

The aircraft had just picked up a fresh load of Skydivers and was on its way for another elevator ride to 12000 feet.

Image details:

Nikon D700 with 70-200 2.8. VR2 lens

ISO200, f16, 1/200s, @200mm

RAW development in Lightroom 3

Nik Software SilverEfex 2 for Black and White conversion

Happy shooting,

BJORN

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Pic(k) of the week 1: Back to basics in 2012

2012-01-08T12:49:00.000+04:00

First of all, a HAPPY 2012 to all of you!

On the second day of the new year, I upgraded my 2 year old 3GS and got an iPhone 4S (64GB). As a photographer, I'm of course mainly interested in the camera quality of this new phone. This is also one of the reasons I went for the top end, 64GB model.

So far, I haven't been disappointed! The quality of this 8M pixel has blown me away...

As one of my New Year resolutions, I promised myself to photographically go back to basics in 2012! The iPhone 4S really seems to be doing that for me. Standby for an entire blogpost on shooting with the iPhone in the next few weeks! Meanwhile I opened a new iPhoneography gallery in my personal project section.

The image above of a Belgian winter tree line, was one of the first ones I shot with my new toy!

Image details:

iPhone 4S

ISO 64, f2.4, 35mm, 1/1500s

Editing and framing all on the iPhone only, with Nik Software Snapspeed

Next post will probably be my "Best of 2011"images.

Till then remember size does not matter!

BJORN

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Pic(k) of the week 52: Sunset over 2011

2011-12-29T16:00:00.000+04:00

As 2011 slowly comes up to a close, I wish all my readers a Merry Christmas and a Happy 2012!

The image above was shot just before landing our Cessna 172 at Everglades city, Florida, last month.

Image details:

Nikon D700 with 70-200 2.8 VR2

ISO200, 70mm, f4, 1/8000s

RAW processing with LR3

Happy shooting,

BJORN

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Pic(k) of the week 51: Dubai Lighthouse

2011-12-24T13:04:00.001+04:00

On Christmas eve I wish all readers celebrating, a MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Morning sunlight reflecting on the shiny Burj al Arab, made it look like a lighthouse...

May the light shine on you!

I briefly like to touch on a very typical comment I get all the time from people looking at my images: " You must have a really big camera..." Well no, this was shot with my Nikon compact P7000!

Image details:

Nikon P7000

ISO100, 42mm, f 5.6, 1/400s

RAW processing in LR3

Nik SilverEfex for Black and White conversion

Merry X-mas,

BJORN

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Florida and the Bahamas from sea level to 1000 feet, Part 5

2011-12-22T21:33:00.001+04:00

Leaving Norman's Cay behind us, we were off for our last overnight in the Bahamas.

A two hour flight over water, brought us straight across the capital island of Nassau and then onwards to Bimini, the most Westward island of the Bahamas.

We stayed at the Bimini Big Game Club, an interesting resort which is owned and run by marine wildlife scientist and artist, Guy Harvey. The image above of the hotel was taken while on the approach to the South Bimini airstrip.

On the Southern tip of North Bimini (Alis town), I photographed the remains of "Gallant Lady".

The next morning we unfortunately had to leave the beautiful islands of the Bahamas. After having cleared customs at West Palm Beach (PBI) we made our last flight of the trip, a little hop to Lantana (LNA) airport where we returned the keys to Palm Beach Flight Training, the flying school where we rented the aircraft.

"Florida and the Bahamas from sea level to 1000ft" has been a success. Mainly due to the extensive planning, which we started about 6 months before, we were able to almost complete the plan 100% .

Those of you that have missed it... Make sure you check out my 5 min Vimeo video, shot with the GoPro Hero 2 on the wing and tail of our little Cessna!

It might be about 2 years away, but I'm starting to daydream about our next flying-photo adventure. Canada, Australia, South-Africa; they are all on the bucket list!

Fly safe, shoot well,

BJORN

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Florida and the Bahamas from sea level to 1000 feet, Part 4

2011-12-21T11:25:00.000+04:00

On part 4 of the series, we will be slowly heading back towards our departure airport in South-Florida. The trip is far from over yet, since we still have 2 more flying days covering about 1000 km back to the mainland US.

Leaving Long Island on a North Westerly course we initially headed towards the Exumas, a more than 200 km long island chain, consisting mainly of tiny little islands or "cays".

The turquoise colored waters make the Exumas the most scenic region of the Bahamas for aerial photography.

Without doubt is must also be heaven for sailors and motorboat fans. The water is so clear that the bottom of the ocean (20m to 30m depth) can be seen from 1000 ft. A sight not to be forgotten!

We stopped for coffee at Staniel Cay where we had a look around the Staniel Cay Yacht club. A place which was recommended to us by several GA pilots, but where there unfortunately was no place to accommodate us for the night...

The colorful cottages surely look interesting. If only we had more time...

For lunch, we stopped at Norman's Cay; a small island in the North part of the Exumas, with plenty of "drug smuggling history". Carlos Lehder, co-founder of the Columbian drug cartel Medellin, setup his cocaine transport empire at this Cay in 1978. With armed guards, Dobberman attack dogs and even a radar station, he completed occupied the island. In 1982, under pressure from US law enforcement, and despite years of turning a blind eye, the Bahamian government began to crack down on the activities at Norman's Cay, ultimately confiscating Lehder's land. His life sentence plus 135 years, was reduced to 55 years after he testified agains Manuel Noriega and he is still in jail today.

Just East of Norman's Cay, I photographed this Curtiss C-46 which ran out of fuel in 1980. The full story was part of my Pic(k) of the week 47 and with now over 13.000 (yes) views at my 500px site has without doubt become the most popular image of the trip!

Now that Norman's Cay is a safe tourist heaven again, small aircraft like this Beechcraft Barron, fly in food and supplies from the US.

Our last 36 hours on the Bahamas and some closing thoughts will be in part 5 of the series.

Till then click that shutter,
BJORN

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Florida and the Bahamas from sea level to 1000 feet, Part 3

2011-12-19T11:18:00.000+04:00

In part 3 of the series, we are leaving the Bahamian island of Eleuthera for Long Island where we based ourselves at the Stella Maris resort for four days. Staying at a central location like this one, allowed us to see most of Long Island from the ground, as well as being able to do some flying to nearby smaller islands.

The Stella Maris resort, has an interesting tide pool, which can be seen on the aerial above, just below the wall at the bottom of the picture.

A local guide took us for a tour of the island. This included visiting some of the island beautiful churches.

Some of the damage done by hurricane Irene last August 25th is still clearly visible.

The difference of scenery on the West and East coast of Long Island is quite remarkable. Especially when seen form the air. The coastline on the Atlantic side (East side) of Long Island is mostly very wild and rugged.

While the other side is part of the shallow waters of the Grand Bahama bank. Often there's only a few kilometers between the East and West coast of the island.

Just North of Clarence town, the capital of Long Island, one finds " Dean's Blue hole"; with 202m (662ft) the deepest known sea water blue hole in the world. Even though we did also visit the place by car, it is really from the air that one appreciates this special place!

During a day trip to Crooked Island, we circled around the "Bird Rock Lighthouse". The image above, really shows how remote some of the Bahamian islands are. Exactly what I was looking for...

On part 4, we will move islands again, but before we do so, I would like to share a video compilation, shot with a GoPro camera on the wing and tail of our flying photo platform. Click here, to watch a 5min Vimeo clip of some of the footage.

Till then happy shooting,
BJORN

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Florida and the Bahamas from sea level to 1000 feet, Part 2

2011-12-16T23:08:00.003+04:00

At the end of part 1 of the series, we were ready to leave Vero Beach, FL, the birthplace of every Piper aircraft for the beautiful islands of the Bahamas.

For those of you that don't know, the Bahamas are an independent country East of Florida and North of Cuba, consisting of 29 island and 661 cays (small sandy islands). Total population is just over 300.000 people.

The crystal clear water with their great beaches are a dream for landscape photography.

After a one hour flight from Florida, we cleared customs at the Freeport, Grand Bahama airport and then continued South-East bound where we ended up at Governors Harbour, Eleuthera.

We spend the night at the Cocodimama resort, a small scale three bungalow resort right on the beach where being stressed is close to impossible!

The main reason the Bahamas have been on my bucket list for quite a while, is the amazing potential for aerial photography. Needless to say that picking the right aircraft for the job is essential. Even though not perfect, a high wing Cessna 172, like the one we rented, is a very good start... In order to avoid reflections, a quick modification to the window, allows it to stay fully open in the airflow.

Most aerial images on the trip were shot from altitudes between 500 to 1000 feet. The world is so much nicer from 1000 feet!

Just like for most photography trips, location scouting has proved to be essential. There is no way, I would have found this disused airport without the online research!

On part 3 of the series, we will be changing islands...

Till then,

BJORN

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Pic(k) of the week 50: The other building

2011-12-14T20:14:00.001+04:00

Looking at other photographers' work, is what really keeps me motivated to shoot even more. It is the perfect way to keep the inspirational juices flowing! Last week one of my favorite fellow Dubai photographers, Catalin of the Momentaryawe blog, posted this shot of the Burj Khalifa; "Sunset hues". It is a different way of shooting the worlds highest tower, just a few kilometers from my home. Being different is what makes people stand out...

Two days before Catalin shot, "Sunset hues", I took some family members "At the top", the Burj Khalifa trip to the observation deck on the 126th floor. After we came down, I shot a few images of the small building to the East of the Burj and some detailed shots of the tower itself.

It was only after I saw Catalin's blogpost, that I became inspired to convert some of these images into Architectural Black and Whites.

The one that stood out was the photograph above, which I named "the other building"... The patterns, especially after the Black and White conversion, really make this image stand out for me. I even added the image to my "Architectural Portfolio".

Image details:

NIkon D700 with Nikkor 70-200 2.8 VR2

ISO 200, f 3.5, 200mm, 1/2000s

RAW development in LR3

Contrast + detail adjustment with ColorEfex4

Black & White conversion with SilverEfex2

Don't just take pictures, make pictures,

BJORN

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Florida and the Bahamas from sea level to 1000 feet, Part 1

2011-12-13T12:08:00.000+04:00

Over the years our bi-annual flying-photo adventures have become a tradition. 2009 Was the year of the "Chasing the Volcanos" trip to the North West of the USA. The archived part 1 of 6 blogposts on the trip can be found here.

Our latest adventure which we completed end of November 2011, started in Lantana near Palm Beach, FL, where we rented a 2007 Cessna 172SP G1000, for a 10 day trip through South-Florida, followed by an island hopping trip to the Bahamas.

Most of you probably know that my day job is being an airline pilot. My real love of flying however is in flying single engine light aircraft over great scenery like what you are about to witness here!

Because my other passion is photography, having a wife who can do most of the flying, really helps!

We started the trip by heading South along the famous Miami beaches. A great mix of Modern and Art Deco architecture.

Everybody has probably seen the typical images of the Miami beach lifeguards.

From the planning stage it was clear, that this trip would provide me plenty of opportunity to shoot some interesting aerials like the Long Key bridge on the way to Key West, FL.

One of the highlights of the Florida part of the trip was a visit to the Everglades national Park, where we kayaked with the alligators! Just before landing at the tiny airstrip of Everglades City, I shot this beautiful sunset over the nearby ten thousand islands. The only downside of our arrival time was that we were eaten by mosquitos after disembarking...

Reflections in the water were just mind-boggling.

Bridges are always good subjects for aerial photography. The Skyview bridge near St Petersburg, FL is defenitively no exception!

I've been planning to do a short introduction flight in a seaplane since my visit to the Sun 'n Fun fly-inn earlier this year... For the second time, the weather was not on my side when we visited Brown's seaplane base near Winter Haven, FL. I guess, I'll have to go with the "third time lucky".

In a few days, part 2 of this multi blogpost, will take us to the islands of the Bahamas.

Till then,

Fly safe, shoot good,

BJORN

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Pic(k) of the week 49: The mystery man

2011-12-09T12:58:00.001+04:00

Photographing people on and near the New York subway is always full of potential...

While waiting to catch a downtown Manhattan bound train, I bumped into this "Mystery man". It felt like he had just stepped out of a Sherlock Holmes movie. Some selective coloring in post processing, made this character even more intriguing !

Image details:

Nikon D700 with Nikkor 24-70 2.8 lens

ISO 1600, 70mm, 1/100s, f 2.8

RAW development with LR3

Black & White conversion with SilverEfex Pro 2

Whatever you do, wherever you are, have great weekend!

BJORN

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Pic(k) of the week 48: Bush plane

2011-12-03T20:19:00.001+04:00

A bush plane is an aircraft serving a remote or undeveloped area where roads are normally insufficient or non existing.

This "bush plane" however, is a 1956 Aero Commander 560, lying in the bush at Colonel Hill airport on Crooked island, Bahamas. I managed to crawl through the dense bush to shoot a HDR image of the cockpit of this twin engine 7 seat aircraft. One can clearly see the cracked windshield and the fact that some of the instruments have been removed/stolen.

A few more images giving a clearer picture of the surroundings can be found here.

It is quite possible that this aircraft was grounded after being used in the 1980 's for the then very popular drug trafficking through the Bahamas. Unfortunately, I'm not able to find more information on the aircraft beside that the last owner lived in Puerto Rico and that the FAA (US Federal Aviation Authority) officially does not know where the aircraft is! Well, I now do...

Image details:

Nikon D700 with Nikkor 24-700 2.8

ISO800, 24mm, f6.3

RAW development in LR3

HDR development with Photomatix 4

Fly safe and shoot good,

BJORN

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Pic(k) of the week 47: Turquoise water ditching

2011-12-01T21:06:00.001+04:00

While recovering from a 9hr time-zone jet lag, I've been editing +1500 images from my recent "Florida and the Bahamas from sea level to 1000ft" trip.

Quite unexpectedly one of my aerial images has become a huge hit on the highly regarded www.500px photo-sharing site. As of now the photograph of a crashed Curtiss C-46A in the turquoise waters of the Exumas near Norman's cay, has won over 240 votes and has been viewed more than 2500 times. It has also just been given the "Editors choice" award.

Often been mistaken as the smaller DC-3 (C-47), the Curtiss C-46A Super Commando, ditched just outside the Norman's Cay airport in the Exumas on Nov 15, 1980, while smuggling drugs for the Colombian Medellin cartel on Nov 15, 1980.

One of the only images of this aircraft in its better days, can be found here.

If you do like the image, please vote for it at my 500px site

Image details:

Nikon D700 with Nikkor 70-200 VR2 lens

Shot from a Cessna 172SP through the open window from 800ft

ISO 200, 200mm, 1/4000s, f3.5

RAW file processed with LR3

Contrast adjustment with ColorEfex 4

I'll be blogging more on my recent "Florida and the Bahamas from sea level to 1000ft" adventure as of next week. Meanwhile, please have a look at a selection of the images here.

Fly safe, shoot good,

BJORN

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