I’ve really enjoyed Christmas time with my family! With kids we’ve tried to have every day one little activity. Pictures below were taken during our rides at historic Carousel @ Faust Park. And it is again a small but firm evidence, that to carry on my point and shoot with me everywhere is priceless! While I’ve taken several documentary shots of our kids for a family album – I also had a time to switch my Leica also to manual mode and play few seconds with my favorite shutter speed. Would you like to have a ride with us? 😉 Both pictures handheld with Leica D-Lux 4 @  f/3.2 and 1/5 second. Historic Carousel @ Faust Park is a great place by the way. Horses (and deer) are hand made carved and are almost hundred years old. Whole carousel was carefully restored in 80’s and is maintained with love and care till today. If you are around, don’t hesitate and go – see this link. $1 per ride…

There’s a saying, which is becoming a cliché nowadays – the best camera is the one you have with you. Can’t agree more! Three days ago I’ve packed my kids to go see Christmas wonderland to nearby Tilles Park. Thank god for not forgetting (just in case!) also my beloved point and shoot, which is is not “just point and shoot” 😉 Leica is shooting to raw and is able to set up manual exposure…  It can become handy. Right when I was entering with my car into an inverted tunnel made of hundreds of thousands little lights (inverted because light is inside and against a common believe you can see the dark at the end of the tunnel 😉 I’ve realized – what a spectacle! First snap was “okay” (see below), but the one with shutter opened for one full second while driving looks cool, huh? And yes, this has been taken through the windshield! 😉 This is an original shot with 1/100 sec shutter speed… I love playing with shutter speed! And for my non-US friends there. Well, Christmas Wonderland is something very very hard to describe, you must experience it 😉 Sooooo typical american xmas tradition, but have to admit, great if you have kids in  age between 3 and 13 😉 Imagine kind of drive-through light show. Park is decorated with millions (literally) lights in the shape of xmas creatures, snowflakes, santas, rudolph-the-red-noses and other winter designs… and you are driving slowly through it. In your car. Walking is not allowed. Funny 😉 Oh yeah, and this is the inverted tunnel itself, from a distance…

Wouldn’t be great to have in one shot frozen action and motion at the same time? Well, I’ve tried that few weeks ago when I was around a photo session, where my dear Monika was shooting two cool boys, Dominik and Lukas. Session happened nearby local train station and despite natural teenager’s hesitation to be photographed – she got amazing shots! (some pictures are here or inside the article). However, when I heard PA announcing train arrival, I’ve grabbed the camera and tripod and gave them instructions: Stay! and don’t move!! And with a simple 1/4 second at f/16 exposure I’ve got two super cool, unique and I dare to say quite unusual shots! Picture above was shot with a cargo train in the background – those beauty colorful smudges are just plain red and blue containers on a yellow platform (can you ask for a better color combination?!?) And here are few Monika’s shots, taken that day… Cool, huh?  Senior pictures, anyone?

Still getting back to our session where we played a lot with lights, flashes and of course human curves. And actually the bad weather outside didn’t bother us at all – vice versa, it helped to create a fantastic background for Ema. Off camera flash with an orange gel fired via pocketwizard and camera set at f/14 (to get the background as sharp as possible) and  1/200 second shutter speed to freeze ema’s hair in motion. And approximately 2 kg of fun! 😉It’s a bit less than 4 pounds – for my 12 fingers friends.

We had a family trip today and such a delicious composition appeared in front of my lens…Guess who is it? PS: Trip members are not allowed to guess 😉 Anybody guessed mud ground in Death Valley? OK, OK, not really … 😉 Why would I ask “who”, right?Please meet his (or her?) majesty Lazy Hippo from St. Louis Zoo.

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?

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)

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?! 🙂

  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 !!!

I guess you’ve experienced many times situation, that you see the super cool sunset and you would love to capture it – but you tripod is not nearby. Well, do not hesitate and help yourself and you’ll be rewarded by a cool shots. Same happen to me few weeks ago in Moscow, I didn’t give up and – I was rewarded 🙂 I had a drink and light dinner with my colleagues in the panoramic City Space Bar located at the top of my hotel when I’ve noticed sun going down. Literally. You could see sun sliding down. Perfect hyper modern skyscrapers in the background… Unfortunately I didn’t have my tripod, neither my camera, as I was travelling just with borrowed Nikon D7000 with only one available telephoto lens – thanks god for 18-200mm.So using available coffee table and napkins to stuff space under the lens (see picture below), I’ve found the most appealing composition without any inside light glares – I was shooting 140m high, but still through the window. And then the rest was easy. Reading exposure properly from the sky and waiting for the perfect moment – first when sun touched the cranes at the top of the building… and few moments later, when magic moment of the sunset light appeared.Looks more like Chicago or Tokyo… not really typical Moscow’s landscape/silhouette, right? And this is “behind the scenes” shot made with my phone. Thanks Mirka and Lubomir for their D7000 and – “dasvidanya!” 😉 PS: BTW, that was a very remarkable trip to Moscow. I’ve spent 11 hours at the airport upon arrival, have been charged with a penalty and had a serious immigration issue due to the “trial to illegally crossing borders of Russian federations”.  !?!Well, I’m also on the US Homeland security watch list for a trial to take a […]