theater

Today we visited the Giant's Causeway in County Antrim, a UNESCO world heritage site that basically marks the origin of Irish hero Finn McCool's bridge to Scotland. Either that or it's an area of about 40,000 interlocking basalt columns, the result of an ancient volcanic eruption some 50 million years ago. Your choice. I mean, that Finn McCool thing makes a lot of sense.

Traveling through Ireland in November has had many advantages, including not having to fight the crowds (and, frankly, more sunshine than I've previously experienced in July). But it doesn't take huge crowds to interfere with your photograph. No, it may just take "idjit" (as they call them here) American tourist with his or her cell phone sitting in a prime photo spot. 

My way around it was to use my iPhone's Olloclip fisheye lens to bend the view around unwanted people. Of course, it also bends the horizon unnaturally; let's call that an artistic choice. This one dude was in my frame, but he seems cool enough.

If you recall, Deke's Techniques 022: "Removing People with Image Stacks," dealt with just such a situation. There was Deke, trying to capture the forced perspective of the amazing Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza, Italy. And some annoying tourist---I think she happened to be American as well---kept walking through his frame:

Turned out to be no problem because Photoshop Extended includes a top-secret way to automatically remove view hogs from your travel photos:

Good to know Photoshop has something to offer even the most intrepid traveler. May all your travels---or the Photoshopped versions thereof---be similarly unwanted-tourist-free. Read more » 

As promised, here’s Part 2 of my travelogue documenting my recent trek through Southern France. Home base: The Medieval walled city of Avignon, southern tip of the Côte du Rhône. Never mind for the present that I promised this post first thing Saturday and here it is Sunday night. As I always say, why do tomorrow what you can put off until the day after?

Our story takes up in Arles, where in 1888 either Gauguin or Van Gogh himself did the lacerating of the latter’s ear. But that wasn’t the only battle that took place in Arles. Back in Roman times, the town’s coliseum hosted a variety of blood sports, including gladiator matches and public dispositions of the criminal class. Alas, the only blood you’ll see there today is that of da bulls. As in Bull Fighting. Although I won’t speak to the morality of such “sport”--although I must say, one killing seems much the same as another to me, and any preference toward the sterile slaughter of steak cows strikes me as little more than bovine sexism--I like the idea that there’s at least a remote chance that the human Matador might take the fall. Meanwhile, here’s a stitched version of the inside of the Arles’ Coliseum, whose rocks have survived 2,000 years of wear.

Read more »