Happy Thanksgiving 2014

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

For "turkey day" today, here's a picture of a beautiful bird I took in Peru a couple years ago...

Backroads Uses One Of My Pictures

The Backroads travel company has used one of my pictures to illustrate their Big Sur bike tour.

(C) Marc Osborn

Last summer, my wife and I took the trip with another couple we are friends with. Starting in Monterey and biking day-by-day down the coast to Santa Barbara. I can tell you it was beautiful, challenging and very enjoyable.

Anyway, after making a significant climb up from a bridge, I pulled off to wait for our group and took a shot looking back from where we had come from. See picture below.

This is the shot Backroads is currently using on their Web site to help illustrate the Big Sur trip.


You can see that page HERE and below. My picture is one of several in a "carousel" of images that flip through as you read info about the trip.

Once on the site, you can use arrows on either side of the picture window to advance to the next image.

Anyway, this is the most recent photo of mine to be licensed. I'm happy to have it represent Backroads and while the "reimbursement" was minimal, it is cool to have one of my shots online at a significant travel company's site.

If interested, you can check out other travel shots I've taken on my Flickr photostream.






Copyright of the photo in this post is owned by Marc Osborn. No use of this image is permitted without prior written permission from Marc Osborn.

300,000 Views Celebration - Picture of the Day #5

For the final installment of my picture-of-the-day in celebration of 300,000 views of my photos online, I'm focusing on one that is one of my personal favorites.

Below is a shot I took in the town of Hoi An, Vietnam back when we visited there in 2006. Here, we see a bevy of activity at the daily morning market on the river. You can see other pictures I took in Vietnam online too: Hoi An HERE, Hue HERE, Hanoi HERE and Ho Chi Minh City HERE.

Picture by Marc Osborn. (C) Marc Osborn

What I like about this shot is that it captures many things I enjoy about photography:

• People - The make the world go around. So many different types involved with so many activities.
• Travel - What other places look like, what people do, what they wear, etc. are endlessly fascinating to me and a picture like this touches on many of those things. 
• Everyday life - This is a scene played out daily - and for centuries - at the Hoe An morning market. Seeing this slice of everyday life is interesting.
• Artistic merit - Yes, what constitutes "art" is certainly subjective, but to my eye the mass of conical hats, the motion of the people, the one woman just sitting in her little boat in the front...all combine to create what I think is a well composed and artistic look at the morning market.

I also enjoy remembering how I came to take this picture. The day I took it was to be our last in Hoi An. We'd had an early night the evening before, and as a consequence I woke up pretty early in the morning. Not being able to sleep, I decided get up, grab my camera and get a taxi into town from our beach resort hotel...probably a 5 minute drive. 

I knew I wanted to go to the morning market, and as I found myself nearing it I saw a bridge leading to the other side of the river. I thought...OK, if I go over to the opposite bank I can find a spot to get a great view. So I did. I threw on my telephoto lens and started taking pictures. Of the many I took from that vantage point, the one above instantly stood out. Sure, I was trying for a well composed image, but believe me...I have plenty of similar shots that are not as compelling as this one. 

Anyway, I was very glad to have ventured out early and on my own to see the market in the morning and conduct a little photo adventure.

NOTE: Copyright for the picture in this post is owned by Marc Osborn. No use of the picture for any purpose is permitted without prior written permission from Marc Osborn. 

300,000 Views Celebration - Picture of the Day #4

To continue my one-picture-a-day-this-week in celebration of 300,000 views of my pictures online, I've selected a travel-related picture.

Travel - both foreign and domestic - is an important part of my life and my wife's. We enjoy seeing new places, meeting people, experiencing a diversity of cultures, trying the local food and drink and visiting historic places to learn more about them. All of that helps inform and - I believe - improve our understanding of the world beyond experiencing it through the media or staying put in our own city or even country.

You can see a bunch of pictures I've taken on our travels at my Tour of the World set online HERE

For the shot of the day - the Pyramids of Giza.

Picture by Marc Osborn, (C) Marc Osborn

A few comments about this picture:

• We visited Egypt in 2010 - before the revolution happened there. We had a great time visiting Cairo, taking a river cruise on the Nile to see all of the amazing historical sites and then out to beach resort town Sharm el-Sheikh. 
• But, seeing the amount of military and police present to protect tourists and also the president of Egypt (miles long lines of guards on main roads leading to/from the presidential palace for example) on this trip and seeing the amount of poverty meant that we were not that surprised when the uprising occurred a short time later. The country was fed up.
• I took this picture because I liked how the three camels mirrored the three pyramids. 
• What's a bit crazy is that this picture makes it look like the structures are out on a desert plane and not much else is going on right there. Sure, you can see the city in the far background, but otherwise this looks pretty much how it might have a long, long time ago. Not true in reality. Just outside of the frame are a load of tourists, more camels and their masters, a few buses and assorted souvenir vendors. Also, I had to wait a bit for a car to drive through along the barely visible road in the left of the picture. 

300,000 Views Celebration - Picture of the Day #3

Next up on my one-picture-each-day-this-week-a-thon in celebration of 300,000 views of my photography online is an abstract shot I took in China.

Photo by Marc Osborn. (C) Marc Osborn

I rarely set out to take an abstract picture. Typically when I do, the results are wanting. Not always, but typically.

No, usually when I take a picture I want to capture something specific with clarity. But, in doing so - and often in low light situations - I sometimes get a pretty wild abstract that transcends the original idea or actual object. Such shots take on an artistic quality, making the viewer wonder what it is or seeing many things in it. You can see a short set of abstract/close-up type shots I've taken HERE.

The abstract above is one I took when my wife and I were in Shanghai China in 2008. The Chinese built a "Tourist Tunnel" under the Huangpu River so people could more quickly get from the older district of the city (the Bund and surrounding areas) to the new section of the city across the river. But, this isn't a utilitarian transit system. No, it's more like a psychedelic tram ride with flashing lights, odd characters and music. Weird.

Anyway, we took the tunnel and as we started on the short journey under the river I pulled out my camera and took a bunch of shots as the lights and other effects started. The way the light hits the tramway and overlaps some suggests to me a bizarre river way into the unknown.

NOTE: Copyright for the picture in this blog post is owned by Marc Osborn. No use of this photo is permitted without prior written permission from Marc Osborn.