2010 new World Cup Green Point Stadium, Cape Town, South Africa.

I would like to learn how to make a photo look like  a "painting"

 but I have only Picasa and Picnik

to play with and there is no option as far as I know to do that

Have a Great weekend !

No better place then seeing the new World Cup Green Point Stadium in Cape Town from the top of Signal Hill

Click images to see large

Really my first thought was

Nice Easter basket !

even the sunset created colours on the roof which are in keeping with the pastels of Easter :)

This is what the Green Point Common and golf course looks like on October 28 2009

Shot from the West to the East side on a dull, mostly sunless day

The West side is where the "urban park" will be created

Click images to see large

Working on a huge water feature

closer

Another big water feature in the making

and more water ..I wonder if they will attract mosquitos ...

The reason the grass on this fairway looks brown, is that they just scarified the grass to make it stronger , on the right of the image you can just see half of the heap of scarified grass .

But the "greens" are greening up nicely
They were sown with grass seeds then covered with plastic and now look already nice and green

Hamiltons Rugby club

and the edge of the old Green Point Stadium

and ...yesterday
the "bow" of theStadium and Table Mountain

and this evening
The stadium bow lights and Table mountain in the clouds

Night Images of the World Cup 2010 Green Point Stadium in Cape Town

Click images to see large
V&A Waterfront straight ahead and Port of Cape Town to the right
The far away shore is Milnerton and Blouberg

Sea Point with the Ritz Hotel (blue lights) and on the right a bit of the Green Point Common

the island in the distance is Robben island

click image to see high res
tonight the lights are on again
I have not touched the images they are RAW and not edited



Frankly I am mesmerised by the sight of the stadium with all the lights on

I can 't stop watching it

and they are still adjusting the lights see how the roof colour is allot mellower now

Half past 8..

See storm damage to several strips of ripped facade of new World Cup Green Point Stadium up close

Click Images to see large

The strip on the left is obviously damaged but I have reason to believe that the empty hole on the right also used to have a strip which is now gone The evidence is the piece still hanging on and ....

....here at the top you can see where it was attached Click image to see upclose it is where I put the X

To compare ..

As you can see the stadium is now heavily guarded but dressed in  my camouflage suit ( similar to Colonel Muammar Qaddafi ) and armed with my new Canon telephoto lens, he was easy to tackle.

  Yes dear reader/voyeur, I hope you realise I go to great length to bring you "uptodate" photo news, of our already much loved but battered new 2010 World Cup stadium in Cape Town 

I had actually already been up Signal Hill at 4.30 PM but the mist was closing in and it started to rain while I drove up, so I shot a couple for the hell of it, then went home and had an early dinner.

 I saw the sky clearing up again and decided to drive to the Stadium to check the damage of last night
  After I shot the above pix I drove up Signal Hill again :) but by the time I arrived it was dark

I just saw them now, raw from the camera and I think there will be some you will like

but  I will show those tomorrow, still need to edit them, for now I will try and get a decent night sleep tonight

It was weird weather today it kept changing
 You can actually see the damp misty air rising up

Storm force winds in Cape Town whip PVC strip of the new 2010 Green Point Stadium facade loose

Click IMAGES to enlarge

 The wind is absolutely insane today in Cape Town

 There are frightening strong and very noisy storm force wind gusts, one was so strong and loud it  made me look up from my laptop and then I noticed something flapping above the roof of the stadium, at first I thought they were waves  but then I realised it was a piece of the facade !

 I assume and hope that it was the half piece I posted here a few days ago

 This is obviously a setback they didn't count on and I also hope the "Fins" are not being damaged by the whiplashing strip of facade

The 2 above images were taken with my Canon Power Shot SX 20 IS Super zoom which is a point and shoot cam, notorious for grainy long exposure shots but great for zooming in good day light

the above and bottom images are with my Canon EOS 450D and my brand new zoom lens
so far I am very happy with it but it is

 too slow to "freeze" the whipping strip in low light, as it was here

7.30 PM
I was dying to try out my new zoom lens
 Canon EF 70 - 300 mm DO IS USM
but where to go with that wind blasting away ? I could see the Green Point Common and Stadium were shrouded in clouds of dust so I tried a few spots

They were working on the new strip of the facade here till about 2 PM

I guess the wind made it too dangerous to stay up there

4 PM The sitenow  looks deserted

See the dust being kicked up by the wind
the strip with my name on it was put up, this morning

I then drove around Fresnaye thinking there might not be much wind ,looking for a vantage point to shoot from. Fresnaye is just around the corner from my house and I found this spot over looking the beautiful Clifton beaches and Camps Bay in the distance

 but I wasn't able to stand there for long I was seriously afraid to be blown off the rocks
 The South Easterly created a nice string of clouds over Table Mountain and the Twelve Apostles Mountain Range

UPDATE
Oct 26
Last night at around 2 AM all hell broke loose in the skies over Cape Town I hadn't been able to sleep much anyway  with all the rackett going on outside but at 2 AM I leaped out of bed when there were explosive thunderclaps and the heavens opened pelting us with golfball size hail stones, I feared for my windows !
Got my camera out and took few shots of the roof

Just checked them, there was no sign of the torn Facade piece anymore ..
I assume it was finally ripped off completely

A boat trip past the stunning new 2010 WC Green Point Stadium in Cape Town

Just past Granger Bay and the Radisson hotel here

And so a few days ago I went on the Whale Watcher boat the Motor cruiser "Condor" it left at 6.30, which is later then the other tourist charter boats, so I had only about half an hour shooting time before it was too dark

The skipper and crew were very helpful after requesting to go close to the stadium but my first shots were straight into the sun and unfortunately there was a water spot on my lens

so I discarded them but here is the rest

Click images to enlarge

Note the bus

Honey ?

Does my Stadium look big here ?

Would you like to live in that penthouse ?

Cape Town, the mother city, the gorgeous city I live in

Here is a good example of how grey the facade of the stadium can look in certain lights and from certain angles, this is after the sun is down, it was not by any means a spectacular sunset, no colourful sky and  so no golden facade, it was a bit of an anti climax ...

Allthough I thouroughly enjoyed this trip, it is not great for photographing but fantastic to see Cape Town's night lights.