after party

My beloved one, youngest one and the only boy has reached his first milestone. He has been invited to his first party! It was a birthday party of his preschool mate Jacob, and group was wildly partying at Museum of Transportation. You cannot go wrong with 3 and 4 years old and a looooot of trains 😉Leaving with a balloon (of course) and a goodies bag (thanks Jacob!) – I was so glad to have my point-and-shoot with me. Leica did a great job to capture this milestone, don’t you think?

mower (e)motion

A plenty of leaves in the yard, high grass and not really in the raking/mowing mood? Winning formula for fun afternoon includes camera with wide angle lens, tripod and “a hell a lot of duck tape” 😉 Go straight, do a couple of S-curves, go slowly, go fast… Oh, and BTW, meanwhile don’t forget to fire your shutter! (nikon d-90, tokina 11-16mm with polarizer to bring exposure 2 stops down, f/14, 1/4 sec, ISO 200) Have FUN! (nikon d-90, tokina 11-16mm with polarizer to bring exposure 2 stops down, , f/8, 1/13 sec, ISO 200) (nikon d-90, tokina 11-16mm with polarizer to bring exposure 2 stops down , f/22, 1/8 sec, ISO 200)

go low and go wide

You might know that not only photography, but also pets are my passion. So my dream opportunity is to take a picture of pets, right? Right! I didn’t hesitate a moment when I’ve got an invitation to shoot cool and fun pet event! Apart a great photo journalist job I was proud to take few shots, which I’ve found interesting from the photography point of view.I’ll share more later on (maybe ;), but today let me show you this beauty. Taken with my favorite very wide angle lens Tokina 11-16mm, set at 16mm I’ve literally put the camera on the ground and did few “blind shots”. You can call it luck, or a purposefully trying to get those legs into a frame, but hey – one of them worked out! 😉Very wide and very low perspective – and instead of apx 30-40cm (12-16 inch) buddy you’ll get on your screen Irish Wolfhound of its typical 80cm (or an about 32 inch for my twelve fingers friends 😉Cool, huh?! 🙂

ghost in red

So here I am, shooting at one beautiful castle, very intrigued by an old carriage. Cool shot with a nice background. Everything is OK. But then in the evening when I’ve dumped pictures from my memory card to a laptop – THERE SHE WAS! Abandoned, blood-thirsty lady, lost 2 centuries ago while hunting for a young and innocent men. She just popped up on my picture! OK. OK, ok… Drama is over. 😉 But the point is, that this picture is NOT a Photoshop multi-layer, hours intensive output. Again – believe or not – this is a direct shot, made in the camera. (I can say almost) without any editing, as the only post processing was a color correction to make the red dress really pop. But hey, that’s it. Transparent, ghosty, “blood thirsty” duchess was exposed in old good, classical way… (more inside the article). Old good, classical photographic way is to play with your shutter speed and setting up your exposure properly.You just set your exposure to have 8 seconds exposure. Inside a dark castle it’s actually an easy part. Following magic exposure triangle I’ve got with ISO 200 my desired 8 seconds with an aperture set at f/14.Then you ask your model to stand rock solid and you count your seconds loudly (so called mississippi-ly ;). After 5 seconds model have to run away from the scene (OK, with those heels to call it run is a bit overstatement). And that’s it. 5 seconds in, 3 seconds out. And on the top of it a tons of fun with my other workshop mates, Monika and Bryan at one anonymous castle. Whoooo whoooooo! Halloween is coming !!!

no post processing (aka FLW makes miracle)

Believe or not, but the picture below has not been edited at all. This is “from the camera” shot. No Photoshop, no editing, no playing with sliders of white balance and contrast, no HDR… I’m dead serious. Formula is actually pretty simple.1) wonderful panorama of always photogenic Prague’s castle2) right timing, just a few minutes before the sunset3) and a little miracle called FLW filter Bryan had push me already several times to try to shoot sunset with FLW filter so I knew, that difference would come, but again I was surprised to compare with and without shots. Below you can see the very same composition done just a 5 minutes earlier with completely same set up and difference is so obvious! OK, a picture below is missing those wonderful arch lights below the Charles’s bridge, as they just turned them later on… but you must admit, that the mood, colors and mainly that beautiful sky and structure of the clouds is incomparable. And again – NO, none of the pictures has been altered in any way.So, get yourself one FLW filter, and keep it in your bag. You’ll maybe use it twice a year, but than the result will worth it! 😉 PS: And yes, of course, you can get the “same” effect later in Photoshop playing with white balance and contrast. But why bother, when you can get it almost perfectly right in the camera? And what does the FLW stands for? Its original purpose was a bit different, and started back in the film era… FL-W filter is used to balance daylight film under Warm white or white type Fluorescent Lamps. And here comes FLW…

young clowns @ old square

When was the last time you’ve met a clown? Well, we were so lucky with Monika to meet a couple at 7am while walking in Prague 😉 Now tell me something about unusual models at unusual places…What a splash of colors! And couple of more clowns you can find inside the article! Have a happy smiling day… 😉