Archipelago

  If there's one place on this planet where I could spend more time, that would be the archipelago of Finland. Lots of things to photograph, but mostly the relaxing environment. It doesn't matter if the winds are blowing or the sea is dead calm, it's always a most relaxing thing to be there and just enjoy the surroundings, the nature, the creation. Almost missed the whole experience for this year. If you ever visit Finland, do not miss the fantastic archipelago. Here's a few pics from my last visit...

Sunflower field

  Yesterday evening we had promised to a friend of ours to drive her to water her garden plot just a little outside of the town. Just a perfect place for a little photo shoot, so I asked my wife if she could wear something else than the regular shorts and neon red sports t-shirt. Grabbed my gear and so we hit the road. While our friend was taking care of here vegetables, we moved a little further the road and found this tiny small crossroad kind of a place, from were a sunflower field started. At this point of the summer the sunflowers have seen their best days, but with the setting sun, and a few clouds they just made the perfect backdrop. Placed my lighting, made a few test shots and so we started. I wish we could have continued for a little longer, but due to an attack of some strange tiny and stingy insects I just decided to quit the shoot. Thanks to my models patience we still managed to make quite a few images. Here's a few...

Trouble shooting

  On Saturday I attended a convention. The venue was an ice rink. When on my way to the bathroom, which were downstairs, I ended up to this almost abandoned looking small ice rink. Not really sure if they are still using it, but the place looked so abandoned. What a lovely place for a photo. Made a couple of clicks with my phone and left the place. What really bothered me was that it was really a perfect spot for a portrait. The next day I asked if my lovely wife would come with me downstairs for a small photo shoot, and she agreed. There we were in the middle of all that dust and probably some asbestos too, but the light at 8:25 am. was just perfect. Placed my model in a natural spotlight flooding in from a window and got ready for a shot. I was shooting on aperture priority mode, but somehow I just didn't nail the exposure. Gave a little compensation, -1... -2... and finally I was at -3, and still I got some heavily over exposed images. Of all the images I made, I managed to save one. Of course this bothered me a bit, I just wasn't sure why my camera was over exposing the images. Maybe it was a malfunction in my gear, but no. Then finally yesterday evening I realized what my problem was. A simple solution for a simple problem. I meter almost exclusively in spot metering mode. Usually when I lock the focus by pressing the shutter release button halfway, it also locks the exposure. In the camera menu you can choose what happens when you press the shutter release, will it lock the focus only or if it will lock both focus and exposure. Because of some strange reason I don't have a clue about, the shutter release only locked the focus and when I recomposed the image my exposure got wrong. One click in the menu, and now my exposure stays as I want it to be. Here's the one image I managed to save...