It's fall, and that means it's a good time for salamanders.

  The fall is here, that's for sure. As we are waiting for the colorful foliage it might be an good idea to go out and look for fire salamanders. That's what I did yesterday, and I even found one. I was hoping for a couple, but what can you do, if it's one then it's one. This poisonous black and yellow fellow was waiting at the base of an birch three. Usually I'm used to move my subjects a bit to make the image, but for this guy it was just a minimal touching that was necessary. The weather was pretty humid, almost raining. mist all around and the ground was wet... just perfect for this type of tailed-amphibians. Hope to find more of these in the coming few days, they are anyway quite beautiful animals, and as a bonus they don't move too fast so they are thankful subjects when the shutter speeds are slow. By the way, one of the images are made with a smartphone, can you guess which one?

A mix of images

  Grabbing up a camera and making a couple of images can sometimes be such a pain. Sometimes you are just too busy. Sometimes it's just that you lack inspiration. And then it could be laziness. Or how about a nice even combination of all three? However, I managed to make a few images during the last couple of weeks. Tried a flash bender, photographed landscapes, portraits, and even a couple of bugs... and then I had a gig to shoot a couple apartments (and I was very exited about it), but it failed due to a misunderstanding. So no photos of that. But I'll share what I have...

 

      

A quick portrait shoot

  When it comes to cameras, I've been lately shooting more with my smartphone, than with a DSLR. I actually started a picture a day project for a couple weeks ago, with the idea to use only my Samsung phone, and the results you can see in Instagram @georgfagerlund. This doesn't mean that I buried my "real cameras", but more like that I've been so busy with other things that the only way to shoot has been the phone thingie. Today though I managed to make a couple of frames. The gear I used was a Nikon D300s and two Yongnuo YN560 mark 4 flashes. My setup was pretty simple. My beautiful model was standing in front of a brown wall, one flash unit was behind the model for the rim light, and one flash was bounced through the ceiling from the right side of me. For post processing I used Nikon Capture NX2 and a little fine tuning in ON1 Perfect Effects 9. The image looks like this, a lovely portrait of a lovely model.

      

"Dancing bears"

  Had a chance to spend a couple of days near Bansko, Bulgaria, between the Pirin and rila mountains. Instead of photography, it was mainly sunbathing and swimming in the pool. What we wanted to achieve was a good rest and I think we managed quite well. Even though we wanted to rest we still thought it might be nice to see something interesting while there. Quick search on google and we found out that there is a town called Belitsa nearby and a short drive from this town, up in the mountains there is a bear sanctuary for the so called "dancing bears". You may ask what are "dancing bears"? Long story short, one more example of human cruelty towards animals. There was a time when some people "taught" bears to "dance". All this was achieved by means of cruel torture, the teeth and the claws were ripped of, the nose was pierced so that a chain could be attached to the animal for more control, and then there was the cruel schooling process with violin music and torture. Then this "fiddler" would walk around with hes "pet" playng his violin and people would give him some money because of the "funny show" with the "dancing bear". The good thing is that it's now forbidden to keep a wild animal as a pet in Bulgaria, this is from year 2007, but the park in Belitsa has been working since 2000 saving bears. At the moment there is 26 bears enjoying their well deserved retirement with the help of the Four Paws International and Brigitte Bardot foundation. No more "dancing bears", and that's good. I'm not very fond of zoos, but this place in Belitsa was for sure worth visiting (I really would say it's a zoo. More likely a place were bears have a safe haven from bad people), and I highly recommend everybody who's moving around in southern Bulgaria to go there. Even if there's a lot of bad people out there abusing animals, this kind of places show that there still are good people too, people who are interested in the welfare of not only people, but animals too. Here's a few images and a video clip in the end, and I'm pretty sure that when you see the behavior of the poor bear you agree that it isn't normal. Not all bears were acting like this, but this one was and it was very sad too look how cruel captivity has left its marks on it.

                                                    Lot's of climbing. Wear good shoes!


                            

                    Here's their facebook page: www.facebook.com/DancingBearsPark?fref=ts

Smartphone photography.

  If there is a camera that I've been using lately, it's my Samsung Galaxy s3. Easy to carry with you everywhere, and even if the image quality is maybe not as good as with an DSLR, I just love to play with this camera. A while ago I downloaded Adobe Photoshop Express from the play store, and this makes my life even easier. Turn on the camera, compose, focus, press the shutter, open the image in PS, edit, save and finally share. Here's an image from today. Even if still suffering of a summer flu, we took a walk in the park wit the dogs and while taking a brake, I shot this image and later edited in PS express.

The big day of Petya and Nikolaj

  Marriage is always a big, but joyful step, so congrats to Petya and Nikolaj, who took this step on Saturday. As I mentioned in a previous post, I had the privilege to make the photos at their wedding. It's quite awhile since I last photographed a wedding, so just to be sure that I'll make through the big day, I read quite a lot about wedding photography, lighting and posing, beforehand. Not that I did catch all the moments nor didn't make any mistakes, but I still believe I managed to cover pretty much everything that I should've. The day was moving on in quite a pace and there was lots of venues to go to, and it was hot. Mostly it was a photo journalistic approach which I used, but we had even a little time for some more intimate images in a nearby forest just one minute drive away from the main venue. Mainly I used my Nikon D300s with a Sigma 17-70mm lens and a Nikon SB-600 strobe. For wide angle shots I had my D5100 with Sigma 10-20mm, and for low light and no flash I used Nikon D700, with 50mm or 150mm attached on (in case some one is interested in gear used). And as a bonus, I used my Yongnuo YN560 mark 4 speedlights in a slave mode, and I  have to say that they worked like a dream. The only problem was that it became quite a flickering every now and then, because I wasn't the only one with a camera and a flash. Hope that I didn't ruin too many pictures made by other guests. Here's a couple of images I'd like to share...

       

Lady in red

  Saturday was a big day for my friends, Nikolaj and Petya. I had the honor to be the photographer, so later when the post processing is done and the couple has got their images I'll try to post a few photos. At the venue I saw this beautiful (mysterious) lady, dressed in red. Just couldn't help my self, but had to ask her to pose for a couple of shots. Used my old faithful Nikon SB-600 on a stand behind a white glass door to the right from the model.