On the top of the world

Last Saturday Sanni came to visit, and we had an awesome photoshoot. These kinds of Saturdays just feel so natural..This is how a Saturday is supposed to be spent!

First we went out and used the outside wall as a white background for some simple headshots. Then we headed to the city to check out a location I'd been wondering about for a while now. I'd been wanting to shoot on a rooftop with the city in the background, so we went to roof of a parking garage and it turned out to be pretty much perfect. 

I persuaded Sanni to buy these awesome pilot sunglasses so we would get some Top Gun feel to the styling. I didn't have to regret that. :)

In search of colors with Julia

Yesterday we went to the city to shoot some basic portraits of Julia before she runs off to Japan for a month. I have to say, yesterday's shoot was extremely refreshing for me. It was awesome to shoot outdoors again, and we found some cool backgrounds with loads of color. I got to experiment with some new color editing tools in photoshop as well. Julia got to be completely herself with no special themes or anything and the whole shoot was very laid back and fun. Perfect Saturday! 

Remember to click the images to see them all sharp and awesome and stuff! ;)

Tuuli & Haza

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. 

Panning practice vol. 2

I practiced the panning technique more today and I think I got some much better results than last time. Let me know what you think. I shot these in RAW, so I'm trying to learn to change my process a bit. I chose RAW mainly because a horse this dark is likely to turn out too dark when shooting in snowy environment.

This one is my favorite because the eye is in focus. The snow is still slightly gray-ish but whatever.
1/20s   f/9   44mm  ISO100  

This was the second best. The muzzle is in focus in this one and she looks cute and happy. :)
1/20s   f/9   49mm   ISO100

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. 

I'm SMELLing a pattern here

No, my life really doesn't contain anything else than horses.
I live at the stable, I have my own box.


[just kidding...]

c o l d . Do you think I'm over-doing the tones and the vintage effect? The originals are good too, but then I just can't help myself trying how the photos would look like with these kinds of tones and...well, I'm addicted and I'm worrying I'm over-doing it to the point where it's not pretty anymore. Am I???!

Pretti, the Little Miss Sunshine

I took my camera with me to the stable today. I arrived just before the sunset and the lighting was pretty awesome. Pretti got to be my model :)

From this angle she looks a lot like a mule. :P

I love how the beams of light are visible here.

This guy is not Pretti. I was zooming out to the last horse to get just one horse in with the sunset.

Sunny day out

Today was such a beautiful day that I took also my digital camera with me to the stable. Today was my last day at that particular stable and Pretti moves to a new home this weekend.

Something tells me that the spring is coming ;)

[not Pretti]

The sunset today was completely bright red. Unfortunately this photo doesn't convey it as well as I wished, but anyways. You get the idea. 

Beautiful day!

I was at the stable today and the weather was incredible! We went for a long walk with Pretti and I couldn't stop thinking about how I should have taken my camera with me (so typical, eh?). 

These were taken with my phone. 

The sunset was just so damn pretty I had to do something with it.

(This guy is one of the Finn horses that live in the stable)

It's funny how I didn't feel sick at all when I was at the stable (yesterday I could hardly make a sound and couldn't go to school or my riding lesson), but as soon as I came home I started coughing and sneezing again. Is there something in the city air or what?

P.S. I now have 29 readers! I'm thinking I should post something special when the 30th clicks the follow-button....I have absolutely no idea what that could be, though. Ideas? :)

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.

Landscape photography

Landscape photography is a field I've become more and more interested in lately. I've been reading a lot about it online and from the Digital Photography book by Scott Kelby (I love love love this book, as I have stated a few times before) and I've come to learn more about the importance of the composition. I've started to think about it more in general also, not just with landscapes. Often when I, an amateur photographer for two years now, take a landscape photo of something like a sunset, for example, I just have a horizontal photo with nothing in the foreground (the bottom of the photo), horizon and the (probably) colorful sky. They never have any kind of wow-factor and I haven't really figured out why. This has usually made me quite discouraged in pursuing landscape photography. But now I think I've figured out a big part of what has been wrong with my photos.

I've read a lot about the importance of the foreground in landscape photography and I've experienced a total change of heart with this field of photography. I feel inspired and I would just want to run out right now and find places to take photos of (but it's midnight at the moment, so I think I won't).

Here are a few links to some articles in dPS and LightStalking.com concerning the foreground in photography and landscape photography in general:

Pay attention to foregrounds

How to get foregrounds right in photography

Where to focus in landscape photography
Landscape photography for the serious amateur 

Here's a good example of what I mean when I say nothing in the foreground + horizon + the sky.
Not all that interesting. It's an okay panorama and all, but as a landscape photo, I've seen much much better.

Now here's when I really put some thought into this thing and ended up with, what I think is a much better photo when it comes to the "flow" and composition. And although I am a fan of sunbursts and lensflare, I'd want a GND filter to reduce those two a bit.

This is an old photo, but I think this has a good foreground too, although I don't remember having thought about it much at that moment. Otherwise the settings could've been better: for example the aperture is f2.7 when it's recommendable to have as small an aperture as possible (usually).