Day 26 - Through the Château Windows

The trouble with tourist hot sports like Château de Chenonceau is that if you go inside, so did a lot of other people. With crowds like that it's very hard to get a clean shot of the pretty interiors, and even if you do manage to get one, you seldom have time to compose them in an optional way. As I was wandering though the many lovely rooms of the chateau I thought I had managed to get a few really good shots, but as I looked though them on my computer at home I cringed at some of the mistakes I had made, like cutting off the top of a statue's head or not noticing a busy background element. It's much harder to get great photos on the go in a chaotic environment... I wish I could have gone there all alone with my camera, like I had the good fortune of doing in Cathédrale Notre-Dame d'Amiens. My best shots of the chateau are of small details, like this one.

/MrsHjort

Day 16 - Mediterranean Morning

Day 14 - Iris

This shot proved particularly tricky to process in post-ed. This is because I've chosen to work with a very narrow depth of field in this challenge and needless to say, I've been doing a bit of focus stacking on the larger subjects. Anyway, since I don't shoot in "controlled conditions" I do my focus stacking by hand. That is, I shoot several shots and select parts of them by hand and blend them together using different layers. It's usually quite simple, but the shape of the flower in combination with the windy day today made the process more lengthy and complicated than usual. It was a bit of a pain, and I'll admit that normally I wouldn't attempt in on a day like this, but I finally found a fresh Iris blossom that was isolated from the others, so I really wanted to do this shot. I ended up using three "focus layers" and twisted and prodded them until they matched up. I also had to match the backgrounds, since the wind moved stuff there as well, so I ended up cloning a bit and using the eraser to get it as close to the real thing as I could. I finally think I got it :)

/MrsHjort

Day 12 - Oxeye Daisy

I know, I have already done Daisies, but in Swedish, they actually have different names - the one from day 9 is called "Rosa Margerit" and this is a "Prästkrage" - meaning Priest's Collar :). So to me they're different enough to warrant two shots ;)

I got so lucky with this one. I was adjusting the focus manually, planning to do some focus stacking, and this little bee landed in just the right place! Yey!

/MrsHjort

Day 10 - Chives

I've been wanting to get the Chives for a couple of days now. The bumblebees love them and I wanted them in the shot as well.

Shooting live insects demand a great deal of patience... and timing. More often than not you're left with a pleasing composition but the insect is in the wrong place, or the focus isn't quite right or the insect is fine, but everything else is... meh...

Though ever once in a while, you get lucky :)

/MrsHjort

Day 9 - Daisy

Today is another hot day best spent in the shade. I parked myself in the middle of our lawn under a tree and snapped pictures from there. Usually I'm always shifting my position to find absolute best ange for a shot, but today it's simply too hot. Though, I have to say, confining yourself to one spot is kind of fun too - it forces you to search for new subjects in a whole new way. Also, working with a telephoto lens makes it all the more interesting because you get to search, not only in different directions, but in depth as well. Today was a fun :)

/MrsHjort

Day 7 - Woodland Sage

It was windy today... That's literary hell when you're trying to get a good shot of flowers, or well, at least if you're trying to get a good close up. The focus gets messed up all the time and the flowers blow in and out of the picture. I thought I had managed to get one or two good shots, only to find out they were blurry when I viewed them on my monitor. Aarrrgh! So, I ended up doing a not so close up shot today. The Woodland Sage was the perfect candidate. It's much prettier this way. Or at least I think so :)

/MrsHjort

Day 2 - Fireglow

The Fireglow is more colorful than ever this year. It must be all the fine weather we've been having. According to records, it's been over a 100 years since Sweden had such hot days this time of year. It hasn't rained in a month now, so everything is very dry. I'm not complaining though. I love the heat.

No special filter is used in this shot, only the regular CPL-filter I use during daytime outside.

/MrsHjort 

Day 1 - Poppy

So, It's finally time to start a brand new 30 day Challenge on DaggerBay, and thus I'm blowing life into my old blog again.

First off I want to jot down a few explanatory words to tell you why you haven't seen a lot of me lately. Those of you who know me in person may already know, but this past year has been quite hard on me. Basically I've been dealing with health problems. Without going into too many details, it has meant cutting back on many things, including my participation on DaggerBay. So my blog has been very quiet these past months. My condition has been having a big impact on my day to day life, and it is only recently that things have started to turn around for me. I've finally arrived at the top of the list to see the medical experts that can help me, and I have finally gotten some medicine that helps. I'm so glad to finally have enough energy to get my creative juices flowing again and I look forward to doing this challenge with all of the amazing photographers that have chosen to join me. Just to say though, however happy I am to be able to do the challenge, this past year I've learned never to take anything for granted, so, even though I'm (knock on wood) feeling better at this moment, things may change, and I may need to take a step back again. Cross your fingers for me!

With my current condition in mind, my month's theme will be quite simple - things found in my garden. This shot is my second experiment with a 10+ close-up lens filter. It enables me to get much closer to my subjects but has the drawback of limiting me to a very narrow depth of field. The result is quite dreamy, don't you think? :)

/MrsHjort

CCC - September: Cool

These vines are actually from our garden, and no, they're not in a green house or in any other protected place. They're totally unshielded from the elements, right in the middle of our back yard, growing in a beautiful arch! Who would have thought it possible? Not me anyway... I never knew there were vines this hardy before - I do live in Sweden after all, but these vines are not only surviving, but thriving.

On to subject of photography... Back when I was a beginner I used to search for pretty subjects, groan at stuff that ruined the composition and move on (or shoot anyway and hope for the best). But experience has thought me that nature shots can be every bit as arranged as still life photography. This is one of those pictures. Grapes may be beautiful but it's super hard to find a perfect ones, and finding two perfect bunches of grapes right next to each other is next to impossible, especially when you need an exact angle, or the DoF will ruin one of them. Yes, I could do focus stacking, but I'd rather not! Fixing things the natural way is faster. So, the bunch of grapes on the left are really growing there, but the ones on the right are not. I hung them there after I picked them from an other part of the plant. Also, that little leaf above them both was placed there, in order to hide an ugly twig. And, last, but not least, I tugged at the leaves in the background to create a pleasing set of lines. It took som coaxing, but it turned out nicely. This picture even won my second golden CCC challenge trophy :)

/MrsHjort

CCC - July: Partially Cloudy

I just realized I've been so busy with the DaPP challenge, I've totally forgotten to update my blog on regarding the Calendar Challenge! This is July's picture, taken in my backyard. It was one of those annoying days when the clouds got in the way all of the time, so I had to wait and wait whenever I chose a new subject. I didn't want to shoot when the sun was behind the clouds because it automatically makes the colors look washed out and the contrasts become flat. Sure you can always fake it, but the real thing is always better! After waiting for what seamed like an eternity the sun finally showed at last... for about 2 seconds, and then it hid again. I gritted my teeth at it at the time but took a bunch of shots anyway - because the light still shone through a bit. Funnily, those shots ended up being the best of the bunch. They had just the right amount of light to blow life into the colors, and at the same time, not too much light as to make stuff too "contrasty". So, partially cloudy it was. Yey!

/MrsHjort

CCC - February: Diamond Dust

It's been a while again, real life keeps getting in the way of me blogging I'm afraid. But anyway... February's shot turned out more "wintery" than the one I used for January. I wanted snow, but just snow is a bit too boring, or wouldn't you say? So I went out in the garden and started looking for the perfect blades of grass. Now that's a much harder task than you'd think - either there were too many of them, the background didn't work, the depth of field wouldn't work because the grass was too twisted, the light conditions were bad or the grass was just plain ugly. It took me a while to find something I was satisfied with, and even then it would probably had been better to do some focus stacking - it's a bit rough around the edges. I really like the effect of the glittery snow though, which is why I decided on this one. I hope you like it too.

/MrsHjort

Day 5 - Snowdrop

This picture was a though one to edit, I am still second guessing the processing I used. On one hand the white flower needs contrast to shine, and on the other the "contrasty" background may be a tad too much. I like the glowing foliage in the background and the golden quality it adds, though at the same time I am worried it takes the glory away from the flower, buuuut at the same time I like the overall impression of it all. Aaaargh! Maybe I'm overthinking this haha. After all, those dark areas are where they are supposed to be.

The main thing I like about this shot is the way that little bell-shaped flower is only just open. That's when Snowdrops are the most beautiful. I love the clean innocent elegance of them, don't you? It's a pity they only bloom once a year. But then again we wouldn't appreciate them as much if they were more generous would we?

Happy Spring to you all

/MrsHjort

Day 4 - Wood Squill

Here's an other little ugly duckling who got to grow into a swan. It was one of those shots that got pushed aside in favor of a better one, plus, it always bugged me that the center of the flower is't in focus. Processed this way it does not matter to me as much though - since the glow makes it an entirely different kind of shot. Enhancing the light like this makes it into a "mystical fairy-tale" type of shot, and that takes the pressure off the that little imperfection. Funny how a photo can change genre like this, just through the use of different post processing techniques - in this new context the blur actually works in its advantage.

I'm gonna have to stop trowing shot's like this away haha. If only I can get that perfectionist inside me to keep her finger off that delete button. A photo does not have to be technically perfect to be enjoyable. That's the lesson I relearned today :)

Cheers!

/MrsHjort

Day 2 - Dahlia

This is from last autumn. The shot was doomed to the shoebox when I saw it on my monitor and discovered that the focal length didn't quite cover the bee. Alas I had no other shot that did, so focus stacking was out. Thus I gave it up at the time, and went with an other shot for whatever I was shooting for that day. Photoshop sure can do some magic though, a couple of bee specific High Pass layers later and I'm satisfied to use it.

This shot made me think of Alice in Wonderland. Maybe it's because the composition looks similar to a drawing in the children's book I had when I was young. That made me want to use processing to make it look slightly unworldly, as fitting for a fantasy story. So off I went and did several layers of cross processing and then cut them together with different layers softly spreading out from the bottom one in the middle.

Now that I'm done it makes me think of the book even more :). I love the time travel you sometimes experience through photography! Don't you?

/MrsHjort

Day 1 - Tulips

Dagger Bay has just started running a Shoebox Challenge! Fun fun fun! If you're wondering, the main idea is to finally get around to processing old picture that haven't yet seen the light of day. Boy do I have a tonne of those haha!

For this challenge I'm going to focus on floral shots - I absolutely love doing them and as a consequence I have a million of them gathering dust on my hard drive.

This shot is actually three shots - they're focus stacked in order to make all three tulips crispy sharp. I shot them two years ago but never got around to finishing the work. It was too time consuming at the time and I didn't really need the shot anyway. Today I found them again, and I'm so glad I did!

I am also going to try to focus on processing techniques that I don't usually use - I tend to go for the natural look, but for this challenge I want to focus on bringing out light and colors in new ways. Time will tell if I'm successful.

Wish me luck!

/MrsHjort

Happy Easter

I have really been neglecting my blog lately. Dagger Bay is taking up much of my time (but it's so much fun) and work has been busy too (I love it though). In the meantime spring has finally arrived, and colors are returning to the world outside my windows.

This spring is something extra. Maybe it's because last time I didn't have the time to enjoy it. Sure I'm busy now too, but it's a positive kind of busy. The kind of busy that is about building new things, enthusiasm, creativity and drive.... about that feeling of moving forward and accomplishing something. I am very happy right now. Life couldn't be better. It feels so good to be able to say that.

This is a shoeboxd picture. I shot it years ago but it has never seen the light of day because of some slight focus issues. I can't help but love it though. The low angle in combination with the light and colors is so pretty. It's very "Eastery", if there is such a word haha.

Happy Easter to all of you!

/MrsHjort

13:04 - City Life

I finally got to try out my new telephoto lens today (it's a Nikon 55-300 mm telephoto lens). I've been dying to ever since I got it, but January has been so hectic. There has been so much Dagger Bay related stuff to do I just haven't had the time. But toady's lunch walk proved the perfect time!

I must say, I'm very happy. The lens proved to be just as awesome as I'd hoped it would be - giving me those dramatic street candids I wanted. I felt kind of awkward shooting though, standing amidst the crowd trying not to invade people's privacy too much. I didn't want them to feel like I was shooting "them". Also, people kept getting in my shot which was very frustrating. I saw many perfect opportunities that were ruined by some random person or another walking through the frame right at the wrong moment. Gaaargh! I finally got one that I was happy with though. I hope you like it too :)

Ps. Today's shot comes with a goofy bonus shot, just for laughs ;P XD ;)

/Mrs Hjort

Nr 31 - Happiness

Congratulation again to all who made it!

In addition to being an homage to essjaynz, LetItBeFun and Regoch who made the whole moth following the word list in their own individual and o so wonderful ways, this shot is an acclaim to kimbomac who shot such lovely texture images every day. It's also a salute to sectretatlantis, and her marvelous search for the light, and I do believe she got it right! The shallow focus is a tribute to purplefrog, who delighted us with her use of DOF. This is also on the theme of abstract patterns and shapes, which is what sfalice dazzled us with this month. And finally, the picture is monotone therefore a bow to JustLou, who managed to get her beautiful rainbow in the end.

And now to why this shot is "happiness" to me... Fist off, it's yellow which has always been the number one happy color to me, and that's the reason why we painted our bedroom mango yellow. It's a shot of a piece that is very dear to me. It symbolizes our current home in many ways and it evokes many fond memories of past times. Also it's made of things you can bring home with you from trips to sunny warm places, which is very much happiness to me.

Can you guess what it is?

/MrsHjort

Day 28 - Padlock

I love those bridges filled with padlocks symbolizing the love two people share. We don't have one in my home town though, instead I had to come up with something of my own. So, why not Mr's and my own padlock locked together :)

It's been eleven years now, since I met Mr. It's strange to think - time flies by so fast! Though at the same time, I cannot even remember what it was like before I met him. It's been eleven very happy years, and I just know, we're going to stay locked together forever :)

/MrsHjort