Where the ships are docked

Let’s change the country again. So for today, let’s visit Portugal. To be exact, this is the small town of Barca de Alva. It’s right at the border of Portugal and Spain, and it’s also a turning point for many river cruise ships that cruise on the river Douro in Portugal.

I took this photo while staying on one of those ships. It was a very hot summer night and I took a walk across the bridge (Ponte Almirante Sarmento Rodrigues) to get a bit of fresh air and enjoy the calm evening. The bridge also looks very nice, with its reflection, which you can see in this photo.

This is a blend of three exposures, done in Photoshop. It’s not really a panorama, as I cropped it down. I found the sky a bit boring and like this, the composition works just better.

Lit up reflection in Porto

When the weather does not play along, the blue hour always makes for nice photo. Even if you have zero clouds during the day, and it’s crazy hot, you just have to wait until the eveing when the lights come on. Then, you can get a nice photo. If you have a tripod that is. I would not try evening and night photos from hand.

This is a photo taken in Porto Portugal one summer evening. Not really sure how it was edited, as I did that a while ago, but I think I used Oloneo Photoengine here, and finished it in Photoshop.

Crossing the bridge in Barca De Alva

After all those busy photos recently, here is a very simple one. This photo is from the small town of Barca De Alva in Portugal, on the border with Spain. I was staying there one evening on a ship, and since we were standing right next to this bridge, I also went onto it for a few photos. Since there were no clouds, I tried not to include that much of the sky, but more of the bridge. That’s why I went with a vertorama here, to capture more of the road, so pulling the viewer eyes into the photo.

This is a two shot panorama, each shot from two exposures. Blended and combined in Photoshop.

Evening at the Douro river

I wanted to post a daytime photo from Portugal today, but I did not like the ones I edited. When I was there it was just too hot and sunny, for the photos to look like I wanted. So in the end I went with another evening photo here.

This one was taken in the town Barca De Alva at the Douro river, close to the Spanish border. This is a blend of 5 exposures, done in Photoshop. I really needed all of them, as it was already quite dark and the bridge is lit up very brightly.

Hot day in the vineyard

It got a bit colder recently, so of course I will post a photo from a very warm day :) This one is from my trip to Portugal last year. It was in the middle of August and the temperatures were around 40-44 degrees all the time. Really not something I’m used to. But when one takes photos, one even forgets about that :)

This is a single exposure, edited in Lightroom and Photoshop. Taken at the Quinta da Roeda in the Douro Valley.