The news today indicates it's highly likely the Russian Airbus A321 was brought down by a bomb planted in the cargo hold. I guess this isn't really a surprise. After Russia came in to help defend Assad it was only a matter of time until someone found a way to take revenge. The Arabs are nothing if not persistent ... especially the fanatics. I'm curious how president Putin will react. This is one of those times when he has very little choice. He can't admit he made a mistake and pull out. He really can only double down and keep bombing ... this time seriously targeting ISIS and their associated groups. He's walked into a quagmire (as did our president Obama) and now he's stuck. Funny how sometimes the enemy becomes your friend ... as now we see Lavrov and Kerry surgically attached at the hip and walking the same path together. Ukraine is forgotten as it probably should have been long ago. It was and is a mess with no easy solution. So now the US and Russia face a common enemy and an equally messy and dangerous path to vanquish this foe. It should get interesting as we go forward.
Horseshoe Bend Redux
Was going through my photos from the first cycle and came across the images from Horseshoe Bend in northern Arizona. This was one of my first panoramas and, although amazing, it was not the best work. Some of the colors were over saturated and there was distortion around the center feature. Not sure where that came from but it really damaged the overall image. I also did extensive work in Photoshop and I probably overdid some colors. So, I redid everything, using the techniques I mastered later in the trip. Went back into Photomatix and found a better set of adjustments and then, avoiding Photoshop except for stitching together the pano, I used Lightroom to find the proper color balance. I've gotten comfortable using the color adjustment tools and don't push the saturation nearly as much. I also let the depths remain somewhat dark although I did lighten things just a bit. This gives the image greater depth (almost 3D) and mystery which is something the canyon has in spades. I enjoyed my time in Page so much I may add this area to my second cycle, around the same time as this image was taken (mid-April). That was a nice time ... not too hot and not too cold. We'll see.
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| Horseshoe Bend - 16mm(1.6 crop),f/14,HDR,ISO 100,license CC BY-NC 4.0 |
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