Most Decorative Places of the World

Who doesn’t like flowers and lights and accessories! A fine decoration always appeals us! A decoration adds bling to our monotonous lives and set us in the mood for celebration!

Our favorite traveler Andy Hayes from Oregon State Treasury takes trips to different cities of the world and accumulates fascinating facts about them! He has been to several summer holiday and winter holiday trips and has come up with lists of exciting places so that we can plan our trips too.

For now, Andy Hayes from Oregon talks about the most decorated cities of the world, that he’d come across during his winter trips!

• New York City, New York : This city is popular for all the good reasons and now it grabs a position in this list too. In the winters, right after the Christmas, the streets are buzzed with vendors selling roasted chestnuts and people going crazy over ice skating. This is quite a place to visit if you love snowfall!

• Paris, France: This is the city of lights and it indeed displays the best of lights on its streets. Bulbs and tuber and what not- Paris is enveloped beautifully with some of the most wonderful lights. Andy Hayes says that walking on nights can’t get fancier than this.

• Orchard Road, Singapore: If you wish to see a real Christmas celebration, you must visit Singapore once in life! The Orchard Road is all about dazzling lights, music and performances going on.

• Niagara Falls, Ontario: Niagara Falls already is a beauty and imagine three million colored lights illuminating the whole 5K route of the waterfall- the vision is spectacular and no other decoration is required to make it wonderful.

• New Port Beach, California: Seafaring vessels draped in colorful lights of blues and pinks- a must go place for people who love looking at water!

This world, indeed is a decorative place to live in!

Perfecting B&W Photography

To see in colour is a delight for the eye but to see in black and white is a delight for the soul.

This seemingly overtly philosophical saying absolutely hits the nail on the head when it comes to black and white photography. The most fundamental thing one needs to understand to perfect the art of black and white photography, is that you need to learn to see the world in black and white itself. Being able to grasp how the world would look in black and white is the first step in being able to take beautiful pictures, believes Andy Hayes, Oregon State Treasury, a renowned photographer. One has to learn to look beyond the colours to notice the textures, contrasts, shapes and tones of the world around –and in that manner, screen for the best shots that will come out beautifully in black and white.

Having established that seeing the world through not a digital black and white lens, but in black and white through your very own eyes is the first step in perfecting the art, let’s move on to discussing other chief elements of brilliant black and white photography.

Andy Hayes, Oregon, suggests that the shooting in RAW is crucial to good black and white photography. The advantage herewith is that you have more control over the appearance of the image, especially in the post-production phase. So if your camera offers RAW, then live by it for black and white photography!

As is the case for many cameras, RAW may not be an option for you. In such a situation, it’s best to shoot in colour, and then convert the image to black and white later. With the recorded colour data, you have more elbowroom in terms of managing elements of the conversion to black and white.

Shooting with the lowest possible IOS is integral to taking good black and white shots, says Andy Hayes. When the IOS setting is high, a lot of ‘noise’ or grainy matter appears in your photograph –making it more obvious. So it’s best to show with low IOS and avoid this element of noise in your perfect black and white photograph!

FOND OF STARGAZING? PACK YOUR BAGS FOR THESE WONDERFUL SPOTS

For a traveler, it’s not about the day or the night, the winters or the summers. A traveler would go on to explore unknown places of the world, no matter how remote the area is, or how unfavorable the temperature is!

Our favorite traveler, Andy Hayes from Oregon state Treasury has undoubtedly been to a number of amazing corners of the world and how adventurous it is to roam around like a nomad.

During one such journey of his life, Andy Hayes went stargazing on all the nights. He remembered those childhood nights he spent watching the beautiful blanket of stars in the pitch black sky. As he grew up, he discovered some of the best spots of the world to watch stars. Here’s a list.

•    Big Bend National Park, Texas: Stars are best visible in an atmosphere without pollution. You can spot around 2000 stars from this national park on a night. We sure as hell are not going to count on fingers, but that indeed is a big number!

•    Flagstaff, Arizona: This city is popularly known as the Dark Sky City, and the stars are surely clearer when the nights are darker. Carry a telescope with you and you can also visualize some planets!

•    Mont-Megantic National Park, Canada: Andy Hayes from Oregon had been into the national park Astro Lab, which is an astronomy interpretation center open to the public. This national park is also famous for its unobstructed view of the skies.

•    Joshua Tree National Park, California: Heard of the Milky Way present in the solar system? Well, if you want to see it with naked eye, this is the place should be at. This desert park offers brilliant view of stars and the Milky Way.

So wait no more. Plan a trip with a large group of your friends, and spend the night counting the stars!