My winter and spring / Mun talvi ja kevät

   It's been a while from last time I wrote on this blog, and now it's time to start again! There's quite a few reasons why I haven't been around. One of them has been lack of time. Since moving back to Finland from Croatia it's been pretty hectic and If there's been hard to find time for shooting, it's been even harder to schedule some time for writing. But I'll try to correct that now! What I'll also do is, I'll unite my second blog, which is in Finnish, to this blog. The reason is that then I most probably will update both of my blogs same time and I'll save lots of time (Wish!).
   While my shooting has been more random than ever, I've done some cool gigs during the winter and spring! Visited a couple urbex-sites, and enjoyed the atmosphere in them. Had fun on a family photo shoot, and then I also got the possibility to get my feet wet in interior photography (Thx, Helsinki Interiors!). In the end of the text following in suomenkieli, some images... (As always!)


  Tekstiä ja kuvia on tullut suollettua viime aikoina kohtalaisen vähän, kun on ollut muuttoa ja muuta elämää suurempaa! Nyt kuitenkin olis aika korjata tilanne ja näin puolen vuoden jälkeen aloittaa kirjoittaminen uudestaan. Kun nyt sais sen yhden kirjoituksen aikaiseksi viikossa tai edes kahdessa (Viikko oilis kiva), niin sehän olis erävoitto. Bulgaria tuli ja meni, samoin Kroatia! Nyt ollaan Suomen kamaralla ihan kunnolla ja näin niin kuin suurkaupungin (Kait Hesa-Espoo_Vantaa sellaisia ovat) maisemiin kunnolla asettuneena kiire tuntuu olevan kova ja valitettavasti se on tuntunut kuvauksissa. Koetan kuitenkin korjata tilanteen ja lisätä sekä kuvaamista ja myöskin kirjoittelua. Sen verran kuitenkin on tullut kameran takana oltua että muutama urbex-keikaus on seikkailtu, yksi superhauska perhekuvaus ja sitten viimeisenä mutta ei vähäisimpänä Helsinki Interiors salli meitsin päästä mukaan remmiin kuvailemaan tiloja! Joten ei tässä ihan laakereilla olla levätty. Blogista sen verran että ajattelin yhdistää tän lontoon murteisen The wilder side of life ja suomen kielisen Seikkailuja valon valtakunnassa blogit. Eli yksi blogi, kaksi kieltä ja näin säästyy aikaa (Hope)! Loppuun sitten kuvakavalkaadi kevättalven kuvailuista...

While packing my belongings

  Even if I kind of love to get out there and make a few dramatic portraits in let's say for example some old abandoned buildings, there still is something in that lazy me who enjoys staying at home. If there is a good reason to shoot inside the four walls, why not! Technically I wouldn't say that my home is a very dramatic backdrop for any image. Just plain white walls and a few furniture. But as we are at the moment in the process of moving, I thought I'd execute one idea I've had already for quite awhile. Now when moving your stuff from place A to place B, it means that there's a bunch of boxes around, at least that's how the situation is here, and that means you could make a backdrop from those already filled or to be filled boxes, and that's precisely what I did. Piled the boxes, placed a small carpet on the floor, added some props to show what's our next destination, and then finally had my model, a.k.a. my wife to sit down on the floor. Nothing very ingenious, but a lot of fun and a good break between packing. To light my scene I used one speedlight with minimal power setup shot through an umbrella, and this from up and camera left. The main light was an orange geled speedlight, softbox and a grid combination, from camera right and a low angle. Here's the resulting image...

    

Heading for a head shoot? Why you should!

  When did you have your head shot last time? If the answer is ”Recently!”, that’s good. But as it is, most people don’t even think of finding a professional photographer to make a head shot of them. So why consider to do it? There’s quite a few situations when you need an image of your face. The most obvious nowadays is probably a profile picture for social media, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. Then there is the possibility that you need to write a CV,  and it might be a good thing to ad a picture of yourself to your resume. And then your own website, ID-cards, just to mention a couple more places were we might have to place a picture of our beautiful face. Some might argue that they don’t need a payed photographer to make a picture for them, they do have plenty of good images of them self on their computer or in their mobile phone. Just pick up a picture you like, post it like that or crop it if necessary and there you are. So what could there be possibly that a hired photographer can give you more? A good experience! Working with a professional can be and should be a nice empowering experience, which can be fun and you will have good memories. Good images! A pro knows which lens to choose, that means good sharp images, with no distortion in your face. He knows how to use light to flatter your facial features, bringing the best out of you. He chooses the background with care, no distractions or poles sticking out from the head to take the attention from the your beautiful or handsome face. Education! From a photographer you can learn how to pose for photos, so you will have an advantage of your photo shoot even next time when someone makes images of you. So in the end you will benefit quite much of hiring a photographer to shoot your head. And if you are a pro then it's even more important that a pro makes your images, for professional appearance. Here's a couple samples how a head shot could look like...

A different kind of a family portrait

    For each their own style, right? But to find the style and the idea can be a bit hard sometimes. And then the time could be a factor you need to consider as well. It’s completely different when you do a photo shoot and you agreed for one or two hours with the client, but how about when you know that you need to work fast and you won’t have the luxury of time? That’s when it’s good to have your goal and idea in your mind ready Before you begin the shoot. For this image I had a pretty straight forward ready to go idea in my mind. One speedlight with a softbox and a grid to camera right. One test shot to see if the power is what it needs to be. Brought my models one at a time to the scene, placed them on the right spot, tried to get them relax, focused and fired. This time it worked like a charm, even the cat part which I thought would be hard if not even impossible. Two images of everyone, then a bit of a postprocessing for the chosen images and there it was, the final image. The photo shoot didn’t probably last more than 5 minutes, and that’s mostly because I had a plan and my models did an excellent job. The post processing part was a different story due to some technical problems, but in the end the image was there, ready to be shared. So, from where did the inspiration come from? If you are familiar with the pop culture you most likely got it already. You can see the original here.

Dvigrad

  One of those places you read about, you see a few pics and you want to go there by your self... and that's what I did! Dvigrad is an abandoned medieval castle in central Istria. The last residents left the place somewhere about 1700 and ever since the place has been falling apart. Plague, malaria, siege just to mention a few things this place went through before it was left by its inhabitants. Before driving to the site I was pretty sure it will be a big disappointment, just as it has been a few times before when I've been anticipating to see a new place, but not this time. I really could sense the atmosphere and it was a perfect spot for the imagination to fly. It though would have been cool to have a model with me, maybe dressed in a medieval dress, but maybe next time.

    

Some family photo fun! (How precious are memories?)

  Family or couple photos, - when did you last time have yours taken? Why should you invest time and money in a photo shoot as a family, as a couple, with your kids, with your parents? As an answer to the first question, I’d guess never. Most people have their family photographed most likely when there is a big family event, and that’s usually exclusively a wedding, but after that... never! But why should you consider hiring a photographer to make a few photos of your family and loved ones? Because of memories! Of course we take lots of photos of our close ones with our smart phones, but what happens usually with those images? They end up forgotten on a hard drive or they are stored in the cloud and we hardly see them anymore. Just one failure in tech, and they are gone! Memories gone with the wind! So how about a photographer concentrating on you and your family for an hour or two? Lots of fun and some unforgettable memories? How much fun it will be to look at the pictures later when time passes, when we get older, our kids grow up, see how everybody have changed... precious memories on paper, something you can touch, look again and again, or show to other people, and feel a bit proud! There's just something in those photos showcased on paper. Yes, I know, it is luxury to hire a photographer, and even if the one making the images wouldn't take any money for hes / her services, you still need to find that time for the shoot from other important things, and time is precious. But then how precious are your memories? A small investment for something that will be priceless after awhile... I'd say it has to be worth something!
  From the "memories worth something" -talk, to the shoot we had this past Monday. Close friends of mine wanted their family to be photographed, and to be honest, it was one of the best shots I've ever been involved in. It was lots of fun, they were relaxed and I think they enjoyed the shoot just as much I did. The scene for the shoot was a sculpture park near the town of Labin in Istria, Croatia. Even if I had speedlights and a stand with me, in the end I just went with natural light, and mainly one fast 85mm lens. As I got the images transferred on my computer and started editing them, I still could feel the relaxed, fun and loving atmosphere, and I pretty much had a smile on my face from the start to finish when editing the images. I guess that's for me a sign of good photo shoot. Here's a few images...

Still life is still alive!

  One cool way to hone photography skills is to shoot still life photos. Of course in the field, there are those moments when you find some interesting things or items which for sure can be seen as still life subjects, then you shoot them, edit them and eventually showcase them, but in my opinion it's a different story to make up something by your self than just rely on something you just found by chance, something that was made by someone else. First you need to have an idea, so it trains your imagination. Lately I've got some fruits from people I know, so I've used those as a starting point for my images. It's always possible to use just one item, but I usually try to see if there are at hand some other items I can use together with the start subject. Then I just start building my still life scene while shooting and trying different combinations and angles. The other thing where still life photography helps you is lighting. It doesn't matter if you are using available light or artificial light, when shooting still life you have all the time you need to change and see which lighting looks best, and I'm pretty sure the subject won't come up with any complaints. So next time when you are bored and don't know what to shoot, or maybe the weather makes you want to stay at home, why not try a still life shoot. Here's a few of mine, inspired by pumpkin, pomegranate and grapes...