Travel Photo Roulette... Round 10 "URBAN"

Ken Kaminesky Travel Photography Blog

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Travel Photo Roulette… Round 10 “URBAN”

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I’m happy to be hosting round ten of Photo Roulette!

Round nine was hosted by Wes Nations on his blog Johnny Vagabond, and the theme was Water. My photo of Lake Louise in Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada, was chosen as the winner, so this makes me the happy host of round ten…

Wooohooo!

So, it is my privilege to choose this week’s theme.

Photo Roulette Round 10 theme is: URBAN

Let’s invite as many travel bloggers as possible to participate by TWEETING this page:


 

Here is my take on the theme as requested by Jeremy.

The travel photo roulette is the kind of fun and lighthearted competition that I love. I rarely enter photo contests, because I don’t believe that art is a sport. However, this is a great way for those of us in the travel and photography community, to get together and share some of our photographs and experiences from the road. Photographs are a unique way to communicate, they require no language, and bring us closer together in a way that all cultures can relate to. I’m a photographer first and blogger second, yet blogging has allowed me to communicate my vision with people all over the world, and that is one of the best parts of the internet as far as I’m concerned. Anything that can bring us closer together, make us feel like we want to learn about different cultures and countries, has to be good!

We live in a golden age of discovery, where the common person has a chance to explore the planet like never before. This is where the travel bloggers inspire me. Now it’s their turn to inspire us all with their photographic vision!

Rules

The contest runs from February 8 — February 15. Winner will be announced February 16.

The rules of the game are simple. The hosting blogger is the chosen winner of the previous week’s (7 days) game. The new host chooses a generic keyword or phrase that other bloggers submit photos to during the course of the week. Phrases can be as generic as ‘signs’ all the way to abstract thoughts like ‘religion’ and everything in between. At the end of the week, the hosting blogger chooses their favorite photo that fits the chosen phrase and moves it to the top of the post as the winning entry with direction to the new host’s site for the next round.

Readers can attempt to sway the author into picking a certain photo via comments, but the author(that’s me!) can ignore comments as they see fit. The game is repeated with the winner hosting the following week’s game and choosing a phrase for new photo submissions. The following is a list of the previously played rounds of the game and the hosting blogger for each. This list also doubles as a winner’s table as each topic host won the preceding round! Click the host’s link to go directly to that entry to see some stunning photographs from the chosen term/phrase!

  1. Nov 4-10, 2010 Living the Dream – “Animals”
  2. Nov 17-24, 2010 Skinny Backpacker – “Road Signs”
  3. Nov 29-Dec 6, 2010 Dream a Little Dream – “Street Art”
  4. Dec 8-Dec 15, 2010 Flashpacker HQ – “Festival”
  5. Dec 17-Dec 24, 2010 Over Yonderlust – “Landmarks”
  6. Dec 26-Jan 2, 2011 Don’t Ever Look Back – “Beaches”
  7. Jan 5-Jan 12, 2011 ThePlanetD – “Portraits”
  8. Jan 15-Jan 22, 2011 Travel with a Mate – “Motion”
  9. January 26th — February 3rd 2011 Johnny Vagabond – “Water”

The contest rules stress “No Photoshopping”, but consider that waived for this round. I want to see your artistic vision, to me computer editing of images is an integral part of the process, if that is what you wish to portray in your photos. I’ll be judging on the merits of the photograph, not on the photoshop skills, so you don’t need to be a photoshop expert to participate.

When submitting an image, please provide a brief description and location of where it was taken for captioning.

Those interested in playing please provide a hyperlink to a photo you’d like to submit in the comment section of this post and I will host it on this page.

I need the photos at 800 pixels wide MAXIMUM.

If you don’t see your entry here after 24 hours, then please resubmit the photo as a link to the PHOTO, not the page that hosts the photo and make sure it is the requested size.

This is very time consuming. I’m not able to do all the extra work like resizing images & trying to figure out how to get around non linkable images. Please do your part to help me!

Thanks!! :)

Since the winner has to host the next round, you have to be a blogger to participate.

*** Please make it easy for me to LINK to your PHOTO ***

Ok, let’s see what you’ve got!


Jeremy, from Living the Dream has submitted:

Philadelphia is one of my favorite urban environments, with the iconic LOVE sign nestled between tons of huge sky scrapers giving the city of brotherly love tons of character

Adam from Travels of Adam submitted:

This photo, though not my favorite, best represents my idea of what living in New York City as hipster is like. Taken from a window of the MoMA, Converse shoes reflected, a frost-covered tree and just a few lone people on the sidewalk. City life is wonderful, no?

Dustin from Skinny Backpacker submitted:

This was my favorite building to shoot in Prague. I don’t know the name of it, but it did more for me than the castles.

Christy from Ordinary Traveler submitted:

Sydney, Australia taken from Glebe Village.

Brendan van Son from Brendan’s Adventures submitted:

this is a photo taken of Valpo at sunrise done up with a 3 level HDR to give it a bit of a cartoon look

Leslie from Downtown Traveler submitted:

Here’s a photo I shot on my iPhone of midtown Manhattan after a snow storm

Cam from Traveling Canucks submitted:

The old Steam Clock in Gastown, Vancouver BC

Crystal of Storytelling Traveler submitted:

This image was taken in the old market of Cairo while on assignment for Special Olympics in 2007. This image leaps to mind when I ponder the word, “urban”. The cultural layers in this shot, taken from the hip at a terrible exposure, embody the richness found in so many urban settings. My colleague, the person they are staring at, is a tall, beautiful blond woman, an odditiy in this market.

Christine from christine|in|spain submitted:

Here is a shot of one of the alleys off of the famed Las Ramblas in Barcelona

Dan of Dan & Holly submitted:

I was bumming around the old part of town here in Knoxville and found this scene… made me laugh… and then look around to make sure he hadn’t come back.

Joseph of Fiy3ro submitted:

Chinatown and the Financial District in San Francisco….love the transition from small buildings to giant ones, almost like an evolution scale

Edwin (he doesn’t have a travel blog but I dig the photo, so here it is):

Urban Exposure

Keith of Velvet Escape submitted:

It was a sunny day and I was on a flight from Sydney to Brisbane. The plane took off and I was treated to this amazing view of Sydney Harbour

Katherina of The 100 Miles Highway submitted:

I took this picture with my lomo Diana F+ in La Boca, Buenos Aires

Evan from Evan and Rachel submitted:

This is Osaka as seen at dusk from the Umeda Sky building last October.

Mia from Four Days a Weeek submitted:

I reached out and touched the moon.

Enjoy more travel photos and stories:

Comments (96)

Add A Comment

  2. Thanks for the invite Ken!! I will definitely participate. I just wish I hadn’t left my best photographs on my largest HD at home in Charlotte. In NYC, I only have a smaller HD with me and I think I am here till the contest ends. But I digress, this is a great contest and I will try to participate. HOW FUN!!

    Reply

  11. *** Please make it easy for me to LINK to your PHOTO ***
    –
    Make it so that you are linking to a JPG that I can link to, or I won’t be able to use the image.
    –
    Brendan, your link contains no image!
    –
    ツ Thanks!!!

    Reply

  15. http://www.blog.crystalstreet.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/STREET_EGYPT.jpg

    This image was taken in the old market of Cairo while on assignment for Special Olympics in 2007. This image leaps to mind when I ponder the word, “urban”. The cultural layers in this shot, taken from the hip at a terrible exposure, embody the richness found in so many urban settings. My colleague, the person they are staring at, is a tall, beautiful blond woman, an odditiy in this market. Thanks!

    Reply

  25. If you have copy protection on in Flickr, I can’t use the image! I need to be able to use the link to the PHOTO, not the page. So if you don’t see your photo here after 24 hrs of posting your link, it means I can’t find a usable link. Try hosting the photo on your blog instead of Flickr. Then re post the link.
    –
    Thanks!

    Reply

  27. Ken, not sure if this will work. Not a photographer, but submitting for fun.

    Four shots with the moon http://bit.ly/hpXRYH.

    So true about what you wrote: Anything that can bring us closer together, make us feel like we want to learn about different cultures and countries, has to be good!

    Great round of photos. Congratulations on your Lake Louise photo. Indeed a winner.

    -Mia

    Reply

  41. Sorry people… I need the photos at 800 pixels wide MAXIMUM.
    –
    If you don’t see your entry here after 24 hours, then please resubmit the photo at a link to the PHOTO, not the page that hosts the photo and make sure it is the requested size.
    –
    This is very time consuming. I’m not able to do all the extra work like resizing images & trying to figure out how to get around non linkable images. Please do your part to help me!
    –
    Thanks!! :)

    Reply

  43. Well if it’s “urban” we’re after, than we simply MUST have at least one quintessential “skyline nightscape”, no?

    http://travelnlass.smugmug.com/Other/Private-Misc/15596949_Q3Ls8#1182657730_PycoK-A-LB

    But his one with a bit of a twist. I mean, what could be more urban iconic that not one, but TWO Seattle Space Needle(s)? ;)

    And nope, no photoshoppin’ here – just old school fiddlin’ with the manual controls on a (gasp!) f-i-l-m camera (creating a double exposure by cocking the shutter w/o advancing the film.) I only wish I could figure out how to do such tricks with my Lumix ZS3 digital – sigh…)

    P.S. And Ken – I hear your pain. The link above is to the 800×547 version in my SmugMug private gallery (external links on so you should have no trouble grabbing it.) Do let me know if you have any grief and I’ll send it to you by email.

    Reply

  48. Wow, such great competition and I’m late to the game :) Here’s an image from a recent trip to Tokyo. The picture represents everything I love and hate about urban Tokyo. The variety, the crowds, the light and the dark, but also the funneling effect of so many choices eventually making everything blur together and leading everyone in same direction.

    http://www.toddswanderings.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/The-Tokyo-Funnel-Effect1.jpg

    Reply

  50. Across the Street from the Moulin Rouge – Paris, France.

    http://beersandbeans.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Across-the-Street-from-the-Moulin-Rouge-Paris-800px-for-Roulette.jpg

    Everyone in the crowd was trying to get their perfect picture of the famous Moulin Rouge. I turned around, noticed the rain clouds and fantastic light emerging from across the street and I knew that was my shot.

    It reminds me of Paris, the crowd at the famous landmark, the way the rain bounced off the cobblestones and how everyone went running for cover. Everything is perfect in Paris – even the rain.

    Reply

  60. Nancie, I need a link please.
    –
    Alexey, In order to participate, you have to provide a link to your blog please.
    –
    People who have submitted photos that are not linkable or of the right size, still have to resubmit their image links. If you have provided a link to your photo or page, and your photo is not displayed, please re read the rules and resubmit. Thanks! ㋡

    Reply

  69. Hi Ken, a modern architecture one here. An amazing building designed by the English Architect Lord Norman Foster, this building dominates one side of the main square in Nimes opposite the only fully preserved Roman temple in the world.

    “http://kiff-backhouse.com/wp-content/uploads/IMG_7835-Edit_6-Edit_7-Edit_tonemapped_tonemappedx2-400×600.jpg”

    Reply

  77. Hello Ken,
    I need you tell me what the program/software you use to work your fotos in HDR.
    I love HDR and I try to get the same result, as you get in your pictures, but I didn´t get the effect so good.
    I think you work in Tone Map a difrent way.
    Thank you!!

    Reply

  82. Urban style (if I call it right) of photos is my favorite one. Especially, if New York city is on this photos. All of them are awesome! Thanks for sharing your art with us through this blog.By the way, you’re writing beautiful although you say that you are a photographer first and blogger second.

    Reply

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