Exploring one of the many churches along Lake Como in Italy

“Beauty can be seen in all things, seeing and composing the beauty is what separates the snapshot from the photograph.” – Matt Hardy

If you are into the art of HDR photography, no doubt you have run into the “tripod police” from time to time. Seemingly out of no where they just kind of appear with some sort of a lame excuse for why you can’t be there…with the tripod. I still remain baffled at this somewhat silly charade of rules and authority. While I sometimes drill them back with a bucket of questions, I usually just give up shortly after realizing I am discussing the situation with the equivilant of a nice wall.

You have a few choices of course. Work REALLY quick and stealth like is a good first option. Ask permission….sometimes that actually works as well. Finding something to lean against while cranking up the ISO is of course another but it can produce some pretty nasty results. Another great option is to head away, far away, from the crowds.

While exploring the area around Lake Como in Italy, I did just that.

Although they are not quite the scale of the more grander cathedrals like the Duomo to the south in Milan, there is a lot to explore in these little gems around the lake. And the best part is, they are for the most part empty in the middle of the day!

As you can tell, I played a bit with my mirror image technique on this one. While refining it, I decided to paint in a few light textures to help tell the story of color as well as vary the light a bit as to not look to even. Can you spot the slight lighting changes from the left to the right side? I also worked a bit in the middle as to not make the seem so noticeable. I’m sure I could have tweaked it a bit more, but I decided to stop here and share it.

As always, more on ALL of this later….