Barcelona

Some of the pictures I took in Barcelona:

Casa Batllo by Antoni Gaudi

Sculpture by Josep Maria Subirachs on the Passion Facade at la Sagrada Familia

Sculpture of Antoni Gaudi by Josep Maria Subirachs on the Passion Facade at la Sagrada Familia

Interiors of Sagrada Familia (model)

Nativity facade of Sagrada Familia

Passion Facade

La Pedrera (Casa Mila) by Antoni Gaudi

Roof of La Pedrera

Parc Guell

Where I stayed (corner windows where the railing is)

View from my room on La Rambla

La Boqueria market

The Barcelona Pavilion, designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.

Frank Gehry’s fish in Barcelona

Beer and olives in bar near on the beachfront

The beach

London Getaway Weekend. Part 02

Hello all! Here’s the second posting of the London Getaway Weekend.

Saturday

We booked a cruise on the Thames just to see the city from another perspective and also, just to enjoy a bit of tourist stuff.  It was really good.  It was narrated all along by a pretty funny guy that had the same tone of voice as Marvin in Hitchhiker Guide to the Galaxy but including some jokes here and there.  The boat ride was about an hour and fifteen minutes and took us from the Houses of Parliament to Greenwich, the home of meridian zero.  

The cruise boat we took.

We went under all the bridges of the river, each one with its own story.  Did you know that the Thames is a tidal river?  The river is tidal in London with a rise and fall of 7 metres (23 ft).  All along, the narrator pointed out some interesting buildings and wharves and some fun stuff about it too.  

Waterloo Bridge

Blackfriars Bridge

Millennium Bridge with St-Paul's Cathedral

Forgot-the-name Bridge

Do you know why Canary wharf is called like that?  Because all the boat going there where from the Canary Islands.  Today, 3 of the tallest buildings in the UK are located in Canary Wharf, the tallest being called One Canada Square (aka Canary Wharf Tower).  The “tour guide” also explained where the word wharf came from.  According to him, it’s an acronym of: Ware-House at River Front. But, someone I know dug a bit deeper and realise that it’s actually a bacronym. It comes from the old English hwearf meaning “bank” and “shore”.  Less interesting but accurate! 

Tower of London

Tower Bridge

After this mini cruise, we ended up in Greenwich where we walk around the town and saw the Old Royal Naval College first designed and build as a hospital in 1696 by Sir Christopher Wren.  He was a really well know English architect who did 55 churches after the 1666 Great Fire of London and St-Paul’s Cathedral.  

Old Royal Naval College by Sir Christopher Wren

Happy Annie!

After that we ended up in the Royal Observatory where we saw an exhibit on Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) and the prime meridian.  It is quite fascinating to see why and how people develop the idea of a portable an accurate time measurer.  It was needed for the ships at sea to be able to establish the East-West position (longitude).  The problem was so hard to resolve that the British Parliament offered a 20,000 gbp (2.77 millions gbp today) reward to however would find a solution.  John Harrison, after many years of work, invented the marine chronometer.  The solution was at last found.  Ships at sea were able to locate themselves more accurately which increased efficiency and speed of transport and delivery and also, reduced the death of sails man lost at sea. 

View of Greenwich and Canary Wharf in the distance from the Royal Observatory.

At the Royal Observatory.  The notch in the roof is where the prime meridian is.

Little girl playing around the bronze roof of the movie theater.

Sunday

We decided to take it easy on Sunday and booked and afternoon tea in one hotel near Oxford Street.  I loved it! Sandwiches, scones, deserts and little chocolates, what more can you ask for?  Delicious, relaxing and typically British!

Afternoon Tea!

I think I will stop here because if you have been reading all the Wikipedia pages linked in this posting, it means you have been sitting in front of your computer for about 8 hours.  That’s what happens when you live in a city full of history. Hope you still enjoy this blog!

London Getaway Weekend. Part 01

Hello all,

Today’s blog and the next one will be dedicated to Annalise’s and my London Getaway Weekend!  We wanted to go to Paris for a long weekend but, since we looked at it too late, the price for the Eurostar was about 300 GBP (500 CDN).  At that price, we don’t have accommodations and haven’t eaten yet.  So I had the brilliant idea to spend the train ticket money for stuff to do in London.  Basically a 100 gbp a day for 3 days.  Thanks to everyone who gave us wedding presents :)

Friday.

We decided to walk around the Palace of Westminster, had a pint in a pub, wanted to go see the Westminster Abbey, but it was closed.  Did you know that Benny (aka Big Ben) is the actual bell in the clock tower and it only chimes at the hour.  It’s 150 years old and still looks brand new.  I think it’s actually a really nice piece of architecture.  The setting is amazing from anywhere you look at it.  Follow this link if you want to learn more about this clock tower. 

[photo of big ben]

[photo of abbey]

[photo of victoria tower]

Also, if we wanted to enjoy London to its fullest, we had to go see a musical.  Wicked.  I mean the show was called Wicked!  It’s the untold story of the witches of Oz and how one came to be called 'good' and the other 'wicked'.  It was at the Apollo Theatre near Victoria tube station.  The venue, the set, the singing and the costumes were really good.  The script however...  could have been written by flying monkeys!  It was full a clichés like the dumb blonde with the hot guy that ends up with the ugly one in the end and bla bla bla.  Seriously, nothing to rave about.  I am pretty sure that story has been written about a thousand times.  Was not good the first time and still isn’t now in 2009.  Writer, it’s time to move on!  But, despite the script, it was a pretty good evening. 

[photo of front of theatre]

[photo of inside the theatre]

That's it.  See you next time for the rest of our Weekend adventures.  By the way, I feel pretty lonely over here.  I post stuff for friends and family to see, but I never hear any comments back.  Is anybody reading this?  Please feel free to leave a comment once in a while.  Thanks.

DAN

Dan Dove Commercial

Hello,

I am sorry if some of you are expecting a more London-oriented posting, but I thought I’d show what I have been doing for the past week.  (If you are not interested, wait for the next post.) Since I am not working at the moment (how sad), I decided to improve my skills in other fields than architecture.  I have been doing some photography, but last week I wanted to recreate the Dove commercial process on one of the most handsome models I shot in the last month.  But seriously, I wanted to show how to tweak a bad picture.  ;)

Step one: Take a bad picture.

In that case, the shot was poorly lit and the model had bad skin.

Step two:  Make the ugly face symmetrical

I copied the left side over to have a perfect symmetry.  “Facial symmetry, is one of a number of aesthetic traits, including averageness and youthfulness, associated with health, physical attractiveness and beauty of a person [...]”

Step three: Colour correction

I decided to play around with the overall color of the picture. In the end, I went for a desaturated purple blueish colour tone.  It gives a clean, pure, sterile almost robotic look that I am quite happy about.

Step four: Eye correction

I bumped up the saturation in the eye to make them punch out a little.  I found the combination of the blue eyes accentuate the blueish color tone of the picture.

Step five: Blemishes

Here, I removed all natural blemished to even the skin. Birth marks, wrinkles, bags under the eyes, black heads were removed.

Step six: Smooth skin and final touch

Here, I evened out the skin tone to make it look even smoother.  I again increased the amount of white in the overall picture to finish the ethereal look. 

Summary

Before/After.

That’s it.  That’s what I do during my free time.  Quite fun actually.  So if you ever need tweaked photos, just let me know.  I won’t charge too much and maybe I can even make a living out of it? Yeah, if only... Check this video to see really good photo retouching.