Last weekend was a longer weekend for me, I had some time off from work as compensation for the many weekends I spent working in the recent past.

My wife and I made a trip to Charleston (South Carolina) for some kayaking and just plain enjoying life in a new place. As things go – it’s all fun and games until She sees an opportunity to go shopping, which leaves me in turn with some extra time to take pictures.

One day I found myself with some spare time in front of this water fountain, and created an impromptu assignment for myself: HDR is the big rage, and people either love or hate it. Especially the kind of over-processed HDR images that have an unrealistic grunge look to them.

Now, I couldn’t care less about this discussion – if you like those kind of pictures you like them, if you don’t then you don’t. It’s up to you. At least that’s my take.

I still wanted to see if I can create such an HDR image, so here it is:

For full disclosure: I used the trial version of Photomatix Pro to create this image, hence the watermarks on the picture.

Last weekend I was in Washington DC. Wasn’t my first time, I’ve been there a couple of times before.

One of the usual stops was of course the National Mall, and the Korean War Veterans Memorial was as touching as ever. The following is a picture of one of the statues at the memorial:

During my recent trip to Hawaii we also had the pleasure of doing some hiking in Haleakala National Park on Maui.

One of the many nice experiences was a walk through a bamboo forest, which was amazingly dark with just some sun rays shining through.

This picture of my wonderful wife was made in the coastal region while hiking up to a waterfall. I like the dreamy feel of this picture, so I also entered it into my gallery at the Sierra Club.

I recently came back from a fun little trip to Hawaii. Full of recent memories, here is my first photograph from this trip:

Duke Kahanamoku, full name “Duke Paoa Kahinu Mokoe Hulikohola Kahanamoku”, is usually credited as the creator of the sport of surfing as we know it today. He has a statue at Waikiki Beach on the Island of O’ahu:

Just one more impression from the day I took pictures at the bicycle criterium in Wake Forest (North Carolina):