Paras lääke ahdistukseen

Eilen pääsi taas ahdistus elämää kohtaan hiipimään pääni sisälleni. Viitisen vuotta olen tässä pähkäillyt, mitä elämälläni tekisin, ja luulin jo ainakin osin päässeeni tästä tunteesta eroon, kun sain työpaikan ja jokseenkin tasaisen ja vakaan elämäntilanteen. Siitä huolimatta, ahdistus käy koputtelemassa aina välillä oven takana. Vaikka tässä jonkinmoinen suunnitelma lähitulevaisuuden varalle onkin, niin silti välillä tuntuu siltä kuin painuisin vain kasaan paineen alla. 

Noh, eilen tuijottelin vuoroin seinää, vuoroin kattoa, ja koitin vaan hengitellä syvään, kunnes keksin, että vieressä inisevä Severus olisi jälleen kerran se paras apu ahdistukseen. Niinpä syntyivät nämä kuvat valotreenin merkeissä. Seposta on tullut hienosti kauko-ohjattava (no, välimatkaa vajaat kaksi metriä..) näissä meidän kotikuvauksissamme. 

Ylempään kuvaan osui juuri oikea ilme, asento ja istumakohta, jotta valot pääsivät osumaan enempivähempi täydellisesti. Tyyppi on tainnut harjoitella peilin edessä...

Alempi kuva oli yksi ensimmäisistä ottamistani kuvista, kun herran tukka oli vielä ihan sähköinen, ja hain valojen paikkoja. Se oli vaan niin surkusuloinen, pieni les miserables -kakara. 

My Bitch and some other smoking hot black and whites

My Bitch

Heidi came for a visit from Vaasa again, and our regular team went out and built a studio to take some b&w shots of Heidi and Sape. Those two are seriously two of the most gorgeous people ever! As always, we had loads of fun and I'm super pleased with the outcome. :)

Sape and the nude lady, Pusu

Photos & edit: Milla Kouhia

Models: Heidi Järvi & Sape Koskinen

Assistant: Pasi Itäsalo

Expecto Patronum

Expecto Patronum

I had a huge urge to shoot something one night (almost midnight) and I decided to go out to this little river nearby. I took my tripod, ND-filter and my very dusty kit-lens and sat myself on a rock in the middle of the stream. The original plan was to use the ND-filter, but it turned out to be dark enough (or too dark) without it so I didn't use it after all. The focusing was a big pain in the ass and I thought to myself that a flashlight would've been nice to have. Even though the Finnish summer nights are't dark at all, it was too dark for the camera, especially with the forest dimming all the sunlight. So, it was pretty much "a shot in the dark" - literally - focusing for this shot.

I used a 30 sec shutter speed and the aperture was about f/5 or something like that. Once I got the camera focused manually on something else than the rock in the foreground, I came up with an idea to capture more of the surroundings using a panorama technique. At home I was really surprised that photoshop was able to do such a great job stitching the random photos together as I didn't have a clue if I'd gotten anything proper while I was in the woods.

While editing the photo I thought it lacked something important and that's how my 'patronus' was born. I chose a wolf because it symbolizes loyalty and family centrism - two things that really hit hard with me.

Sorry for the boring report and for the rare updates here. I haven't had the time to shoot anything proper, but tomorrow I'm going to get a lovely couple in front of my camera, so I'll be posting the results as soon as possible! :) Thanks for sticking around anyways!!

Meltdown

30 Seconds To Mars - Hurricane

Meltdown

The concept for this photo came to my mind when I first heard the song above, and I got the final vision on a sleepless night as I was rolling around in my bed. Heidi's friend, Johanna, was an awesome model and perfect for this image, so hats off to her and a huge thank you! And again, Heidi helped out and taught me about the lighting.

Let me know what you think! ^^ I'm pretty psyched.

At the clinic

Pretti had her annual check-up at the clinic today.

Make-up with Photoshop

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you my thought process of tonight:

Hmm...I feel like taking a self-portrait... 
I could test out what kind of a lighting I can get with my two lamps... 
I really wouldn't want to put on any make-up, although I look like sh*t... 
No worries, I'll add some in Photoshop!



Music: Petteri Sariola - Prime

My imagination stopped working as soon as I'd set the lamps to their places. The final photos look as if they were taken at school, but it was good practice. And it was fun to play with PS after a little break.

Silence

Apologies for the silence in this blog. My camera hasn't moved much from its spot on this table, and I'm having a little quiet time in my photography at the moment. I'm sure I'll pick it up again soon, but for now I hope you'll be patient. :)

Here are two photos of Heidi that I posted on Facebook a while ago.

See you again soon!

P.S. 70 readers!! Wohoo! :)) Thank you all. I promise to post something new again soon!

Fly, fly away

With this bridle I cannot fly...

...but when the bridle is off...

...peculiar things can happen.

Wings copied from this image

Whisper to me sweetly and tell me I will never die unloved

Jann Arden & Jackson Browne – Unloved

 

Sweet dreams in black and white

Sonata Arctica - In Black And White (Live)

I've had a whole new inspiration in my Photoshop work after the product photography course I attended a week ago. My use of layer masks has become so much more efficient. I first worked on this in color, but then realized that it actually looked better in b&w. Even though my damaged hair is more obvious....I wasn't made to be a hair model (or any kind of a model for that matter).

Btw, this is my first proper SP with my new camera. It's still quite difficult to get my eyes in focus if I want to 'free' my bangs, but in close-ups like this one it's easy to repeat until you get the results you wanted. 

Black & white landscapes on the ice

It was a warm day (~0C) so I spent a couple of hours wondering around this area on the ice of Näsijärvi. I drive by this place almost every day (whenever I go to the stable or to my parents') and I've always thought I gotta go down there and take my camera with me. I was hoping to see a beautiful sunset, but unfortunately there were hardly any clouds so no colors.

I had a nice day out and I also met two wonderful dogs, an 11-year-old Belgian Sheepdog and the other was a 9-month-old black Labrador and my heart absolutely melted. I have a big soft spot for black labs in my heart. :) 

Anyways, here are a few photos from today. I thought they all looked much better in b&w. Let me know what you think. 

Serenity
I felt at peace when I saw this view; the soft hills of snow and the light coming through the trees,
and beyond everything this amazing horizon somewhere far far away. 

The Trail
I liked how the trail lead the eye to the small island (it's called Lassinlinna = Lassi's castle).
The sky was a little dull color so I thought it would probably look good in black and white. 

Black & White phase

MARKO, RAX & panning

The photo shoot with Juni is gonna get down on 30th! I can't wait. Probably gotta do a little more planning, though. One can never be too prepared, eh? 

I've been browsing through some photographers' websites for inspiration and I found a couple of pretty amazing professionals. I want to share two with you guys. 

MARKO

First one is Finnish photographer called Marko. I love his portraits of Finnish celebrities. Very inspiring and creative. 

RAX 

(Ragnar Axelsson)

And this second one has got me seriously amazed. Incredible grainy black & white photography and his compositions are really inspiring! I especially love the Greenland- and Last Days Of The Arctic-galleries. 

As for my own photography, I haven't done much this week. I received a 35mm Back for my Diana and I'm pretty stoked about that. I bought some film today and will start shooting now. I've been meaning to take a full film from the PopCam to a nearby photography shop to get it developed, but I haven't got around it just yet. Maybe tomorrow.

I had my camera with me at the stable today and I tried to get some shots, but it was so dim already that they didn't turn out so good. I tried to get some half-decent panning shots, but this is all I got.

Here Pretti's head is KIND of in focus....so almost there, but not quite.

Gotta try again when there's more light and I have my tripod with me (uhm...I never have my tripod with me...). Anyways...I also snapped this mobile phone shot of a brilliant cat who refused to move and ended up with two riding belts on his back.

Exploding Pianos (a cool band name?)

I've been wanting to incorporate my piano in a photo for a long time, but I never figured out a way that would satisfy me. Then I found this feather lying on my floor (it came from a pillow) and I took the guitar shot with it. You can find that one from Acoustic music junkie -post. And so after that I took this photo and there it is.
Well...I'm still not fully satisfied..I would like to make a self-portrait with my piano, but I haven't had that ground-breaking idea for that yet.

Surely, something like this would create the dramatic effect. ;)
But I don't have an extra grand piano lying around just waiting to be blown to pieces, so...

Mine is just an electric Roland. Wouldn't look as good while being blown up.   

And if you're like me and wondering whether that is just some kind of pure magic done with Photoshop or the real deal, see the next video. I'm telling you........no, wait, no I'm not, because I'm speechless.
I do not know what to say.
Except for 1. poor little piano and 2. I wanna do that too!!

 

See the final video in my other post over here.  

DANCE!

I watched Flashdance today. I'd forgotten how damn great it is. I felt like dancing when I finished, but after a film like that it gets just too obvious that I seriously can't dance. :D
And I'm not anywhere close to being anything that could be called 'fit'.
However that doesn't matter since no one's watching.



Shandi - He's A Dream (Flashdance)
.Lovin' the song.

I'm tired of living in this rain of grey, with you stealing my umbrella ella eh eh eh.

Perfect weather!

It's been just the perfect weather today. Sunny, snowy and cold as hell. I know some people hate the cold, but I love days like this one.

I decided to go down to the beach and take some outdoor self portraits. I consider these a big step forward for me, 'cos they are full-body pics. At first I was pretty grossed out when I looked through the photos for the first time (because I hate the way I look), but then I started doing the PP and thought that maybe I'm the only one who really cares. Let's hope so!

Fashion Beauty

So we had our little photo shoot. I almost cried when I got home and saw how many of the photos were ruined. My lovely unstable hands and sensor noise just killed most of them. Thank god I managed to make some of them ok with PP. Here are some examples:







It was nice to shoot someone else for a change. Though I am eager to get back to my apartment and start working on my fiftytwo-photo for next week. :)

My imaginary friend thinks you have some serious problems.

I've been PPing my photos for over an hour now and this is what I got today:

Actually I used 6 different post processing programs when editing these; Windows Live Photo Gallery, Microsoft Office Picture Manager, FrameFun, FotoFlexer, Picasa 3 & Gimp. Kind of a drag but still had fun 'cos I had a clear visions of the things I wanted to do.

Collages are so much fun to do and I might go a bit over-board with them now and especially in the future, but I can't help myself. :D