Midsummer

The Photography Weekend - Saturday

On Saturday we went to Saarijärvi where I met Heidi's family and a friend, Ike. She agreed to model for us with her 25-year-old Icelandic horse, Aisuli. 

As the evening came and we returned to Vaasa, I ended up on "wrong" side of the camera as well. 

© Heidi Järvi

© Heidi Järvi

© Heidi Järvi

The Fairy Godmother

I had an inspiration-flood last night and this is just one of the results. More coming soon. ;)

A photograph reveals what she turned around for.

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Before & After

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

Jann Arden & Jackson Browne – Unloved

 

Photo Walk vol. 2

I spent a couple of hours today walking around in Pyynikki esker conservation area taking photos. It was incredibly beautiful up there with the sun shining from a clear blue sky. You know I love these kinds of days. Here are some of my favorite photos from today's walk.

I must have looked silly when taking this...*tree hugger*

When you have no one else to model for you, Mr. Buttons comes to help. He hangs from my camera bag. :)
Personally I like this shot a lot. The DOF is pretty much perfect.

And the happy photographer herself. Now I totally get the fuzz about how hard it is to get the eyes sharp and in focus when shooting self-portraits. I had to re-do this shot a gazillion times. So much for spontaneity...

I've been wondering a lot about shooting RAW. I have read from so many photography forums that it is absolute must to shoot RAW, you'll get so much better results is you want to process them on the computer. Now that I have tried it out, I'm having mixed feelings about it, mostly because my whole PP process has to change completely if I want to shoot everything in RAW. 

I know I don't have to shoot absolutely everything in RAW, but then that just makes it even more complicated when some photos can be previewed in Windows Live Photo Gallery and some can't. And that is what I have always done first. After previewing I decide which ones are worth more work in Photoshop. 

I have tried using Adobe Bridge and the program that came along with the camera, Digital Photo Professional, but I just don't feel at home with them, so to speak. And is the quality really that different? I'd like to hear some opinions and advice. Right now I just find the JPG so much more convenient and faster. 

When bored, open Photoshop!

I haven't had any ideas or inspiration for new photos and I was bored, so I started going through my old photos. I made a few new edits. Tell me how you like them! :)

I've been experimenting with digital double-exposures and this is so far the best I've come up with. This effect is very easy to achieve by just pasting a photo on top of another one. Then just play with the layer opacity and the eraser tool and its opacity.

I used the same flower photo in this one. At first I was going to leave it looking very similar to the first image, but then I tried blurring the flower layer and I liked how it just gave the hints of color to the b&w photo underneath. 

Winter photowalk

VANESSA CARLTON - PARADISE

I went for a long photowalk today and I walked around the Peltolammi-lake that is nearby from where I live. My intentions were to go to this little river and take some long exposure water photos; I had my tripod and everything in my backbag, but then I ended up in totally different place and far away from the stream so I decided to postpone it. Instead I got some shots that I'm pretty excited about.

Note that I have also processed all of these photos to give them more of a vintage look that appeals my eye personally.

In this first photo I gave a long thought for the foreground again. It was pretty easy really, because it's kind of obvious that the shadows lead your eye deeper into the picture. I exposed it this dark on purpose to emphasize the shadows and give it more contrast. It really wasn't this dark yet.

Here I went pretty much down on my knees to get lower perspective and I searched for the peaking sun from behind the tree to get my shot. I think this one turned out really well.

Then I wanted to take some close-ups in the beautiful sunlight before it went away.

I smell squirrals!

Yesterday I read about different kinds of filters and someone wrote about DIY filters and suggested that one could breath onto the lens and get a nice blurry look. So I tried it out, and the rest of my walk from there to my car I kept breathing onto my lens. I fell in love with this look! Very mysterious and dreamy. I just wiped a little hole in the middle with my glove and started shooting.

A panorama photo of the path.

I think this looks pretty ominous. I feel like adding one of those robots from War Of The Worlds above those trees there.

Winter beauty!

I went back to the beach today and I have a few pretty awesome shots for ya. :)

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I love this kind of a weather. Cold, snowy and the sun shines. I can't think of anything more beautiful.

My school is over for this year and now I get to concentrate on enjoying the holidays (wait, that made it sound like I would have actually concentrated on school before today....). 

Obviously I shouldn't start any kinds of projects because I can't finish them. Like the 24 Christmas Songs -theme. Turns out, it's not too natural for me to post something everyday and I don't like to force myself to post. I doubt this will bother anyone, but just acknowledging it.