Sunset Through A Porthole

Why are the windows on a ship or portholes round? I was told they are better at preserving hull strength than square or rectangular windows. Also circular windows are easier to seal than those having sharp corners.

One rarely see a nice sunset over the Straits of Malacca these days. This surprisingly lovely sunset was photographed from Cenang Beach when I was in Langkawi for LIMA. Since it was a bit hazy, I decided to use use Snapseed’s Grunge Filter to create the scratchy, dirty look of peering through a porthole 🙂

Sunset Through A Porthole

Good Distortions

With a wide angle lens, the vertical lines distort by diverging outwards when you hold the camera pointing down. You can use this effect to your advantage in your compositions. In this picture, I let the vertical candle and worshiper form a V-shape. The elements became an inverted triangle when the arm and joss sticks connect with the flame. Only problem with a wide angle lens is that almost everything falls into sharp focus. This is the time to use Snapseed’s Foggy Filter plus Vignetting selectively to feather the messy background. Photographed with the Olympus OM-D and Panasonic 7-14mm UWA lens at a Hungry Ghost festival prayers session in Hot Springs New Village just now.

Good Distortions