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“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.”

~ Henry Miller

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* All comments are welcome & Monkey Business is strongly encouraged. If you have questions, I would love to hear them. Check me out at BlameTheMonkey.comThanks for viewing!

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Marina Bay Lights || Blame The Monkey 2.0

A big thanks to everyone who has supported me over the last year and half. From blamethemonkey.com to Flickr, I’ve really felt the love from everyone and things have been growing rapidly. Thank you so much -- I sincerely appreciate it.

We don’t have a team of people working at blamethemonkey.com. It’s just myself and my wife +Naomi Locardi . Everything you see is the result of a true love for photography and a passion to freely give away knowledge, experience, and information. I do this purely because I love it and she helps me purely because I’ve cleverly tricked her into loving me. (I find that subliminal messages work the best).

Over the next week, significant updates will be coming to blamethemonkey.com, starting with the re-design followed by new content and tutorials. -- (Not to worry, all the before and afters will stay in place). -- Hopefully we can prevent taking the site down in the process but if things start acting funny, you’ll know the reason. So, please bear with me over the next week as I enter my sleepless, caffeine driven - obsessive - get things freaking done mode. : Hopefully we’ll come out with something wonderful when it’s all said and done.

This is all in preparation for a huge life change in March. In 2011, with a comical blend of insomnia and jet lag, I flew 220,000 miles to feed my passion for Travel and Destination Photography, almost always with a return ticket. But as of March, after we finish relinquishing all of our personal possessions, there will be no more round trips, no more going home, and no more looking back. The world will become our new home with 22 countries planned for this year alone.

I openly invite you to come share the world with us and learn how to create beautiful photography in the process.

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About this photo
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Marina Bay Sands and The Helix Bridge

With only 2 days to explore Singapore last week, I hit the big areas first - and they don’t get much bigger than Marina Bay. And what could possibly make one of the most opulent places in the world more attractive? How about a laser light show? Now that’s cool!

Trust me - having only a few days in this amazing city was a complete tease but thankfully, I’ll be back there very soon. :)

From Wikipedia:

Marina Bay Sands is an integrated resort fronting Marina Bay in Singapore. Developed by Las Vegas Sands, it is billed as the world's most expensive standalone casino property at $8 billion, including cost of the prime land. With the casino complete, the resort features a 2,561-room hotel, a 1,300,000-square-foot (120,000 m2) convention-exhibition centre, the 800,000-square-foot (74,000 m2) The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands mall, an iconic ArtScience museum, two large theatres, seven "celebrity chef" restaurants, two floating Crystal Pavilions, an ice skating rink, and the world's largest atrium casino with 500 tables and 1,600 slot machines. The complex is topped by a 340m-long SkyPark with a capacity of 3,900 people and a 150m infinity swimming pool, set on top of the world's largest public cantilevered platform, which overhangs the north tower by 67m.

The Helix Bridge , previously known as the Double Helix Bridge , is a pedestrian bridge linking Marina Centre with Marina South in the Marina Bay area in Singapore. It was officially opened on 24 April 2010 at 9 pm, however only half was opened due to ongoing construction at the Marina Bay Sands.

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* All comments are welcome & Monkey Business is strongly encouraged. If you have questions, I would love to hear them. Check me out at BlameTheMonkey.comThanks for viewing!

Circle me on Google+ or find me on Facebook and Twitter

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Hyangwon Pavilion || A Rare Sky Replacement

I had done a bit of research on the Hyangwon Pavilion inside The Gyeongbok Palace, and I was really excited to shoot there. Unfortunately, when I arrived at the pavilion, the sun was completely tucked away behind a heavily clouded and overcast sky. Since the lighting was totally flat, I went back 2 days later. This time, the lighting was nice but the sky wasn’t very appealing. Once I got into Post-Processing, I knew that neither version was going to work out. So, to sum things up, what you’re actually seeing is a composite of 2 different days, shot within a few meters of the same location. Specifically, you’re seeing the sky from day one and the foreground elements from day two. Does that make sense? I’ll elaborate. :)

Post-Processing Before and After Find it here: blamethemonkey.com/hyangwon-pavilion-seoul-gyeongbok-palace

Now, I rarely swap out skies but in this case I felt it was an absolute must. It’s not because I’m against sky replacement or anything. It’s just that I can usually work with the sky as is and I’m a firm believer of the phrase, “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it... But with this scene, there was so much detail in the foreground that I had to figure out a way of muting the sky a little bit, and making it less distracting. The cloudy sky form day one turned out to be perfect and it added a nice subtle contrast to the Lily pads on the louts pond.

The main objective of the color correction was to highlight the Pavilion itself, in order to give it some extra separation from the background. Then, taking the color separation one step further, I also added a slight hue shift to the green trees in the background, giving them a more yellowish color.

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* All comments are welcome & Monkey Business is strongly encouraged. If you have questions, I would love to hear them. Check me out at BlameTheMonkey.comThanks for viewing!

Circle me on Google+ or find me on Facebook and Twitter

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The Dubrovnik Stradun And The Old City

The Stradun (placa) is the limestone-paved pedestrian street that runs through the old stone city of Dubrovnik. That’s funny because the whole time I was there I thought it was a marble street but Wikipedia says it’s limestone. So, thank you Wiki, once again you’ve crushed my dreams... Maybe I’ll just make a little adjustment, and, boom. Now it’s marble. :) Man I love me some user generated content. (I’m kidding of course ;)

Also, I know that I’ve been posting a lot of photos from Dubrovnik lately but I just can’t help it. I fell in love with that place, I really did. There was something special about it -- something about the way I felt living inside the old city and being so close to the Adriatic Sea. I felt very at home. Even while writing this, my ADHD infected mind forced my fingers to ALT/TAB over to the interweb and research apartment prices for a return visit. Even if I don’t get back there soon. I really want to make it a priority to get back there in the future.

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* All comments are welcome & Monkey Business is strongly encouraged. If you have questions, I would love to hear them. Check me out at BlameTheMonkey.comThanks for viewing!

Circle me on Google+ or find me on Facebook and Twitter

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Click Track || Stockholm T-Bana

Here’s another interesting T-Bana station from the beautiful Stockholm, Sweden. Lately, I’ve been accused of being slightly bananas for spending so much time shooting underground in one of the most beautiful cities in the world. -- This never bothers me. Every time I get accused of being crazy, I always flash a double thumbs up with a ridiculous grin and say enthusiastically, “Thanks!”

“It’s better to be absolutely ridiculous than to be absolutely boring.” ~Marilyn Monroe

This scene was really cool but as you can see, the original exposure came out a bit flat. So I bumped up the contrast a bit. OK, well, honestly I bumped it up quite a lot... I also enhanced the shadows and the highlights a bit to add some more drama in the shading. Other than that, there were just a few stray people walking around in the background. A few quick brush strokes with the Rubber Stamp tool took care of them.

Check out the Post-Processing Before and After here: blamethemonkey.com/click-track-stockholm-t-bana-metro-statio

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* All comments are welcome & Monkey Business is strongly encouraged. If you have questions, I would love to hear them. Check me out at BlameTheMonkey.comThanks for viewing!