CCC - June: Sunny

This clematis is my favorite, it's called "Nelly Moser"... I know, I know, I initially said no "blooming flowers". I didn't want to recreate the last calendar challenge I did, and I've done so many traditional flower shots that I'm growing a bit tired of them, but you can't do a theme of "Little Details in Nature" without including at least one blooming flower. This macro it not at all like the ones I shot a coupe of years ago though - the composition is different, and this is more focused on the details of the flower than the flower as a whole. Thus I figured I was okay. I won't be doing any more of these though, so consider this the one exception to my rule.

/MrsHjort

CCC - May: Mild

There are a lot of poppies in my garden, They seed each year and new ones keep on sprouting all over. That particular capacity is great, since they're not only pretty, but excellent ground cover plants too. They help me keep the weeds at bay...

I absolutely fell in love with the elegant lines of the poppy stalks this spring, I just had to do a shot like that for the calendar. Finding the perfect subject wasn't hard (we have a lot of poppies) and playing around with the shots in post-ed was a lot of fun. I've done quite a lot work to enhance the textures and bring out the different shades of green, yellow and turquoise. The end result makes this one my favorite of the series this far. A picture of three buddies, hanging out :)

/MrsHjort

CCC - March: Light

I wanted March to be all about new buds springing from the ground. I was quite worried at first - nature didn't exactly cooperate and it wasn't until the end of the month that the buds actually started to pop up. You see, we live on the slopes of a hill, facing north, so spring is usually late here, this year however, it was a bit later than normal. Thankfully I finally got my shot. The name I chose is very typical of how it is here up north that time of year - light finally returns and we crawl out of our homes, like bears waking after a long winter :)

/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

CCC - January: Thaw

I just realized I haven't been posting any of my Calendar Challenge shots this year. There has been so much going on that I completely forgot - the start-up of Daggerbay (check it out if you haven't already, it's turning out quite awesome :D), work both at the office and home to improve our garden... you know how life can be. Well anyway, here goes, my theme for this year is "Little Details in Nature".

I love doing nature shots, especially closeups, and since I've already done floral shots the other year, I didn't want to repeat myself. There may still be "flowers" in this years, calendar, but I won't be going for the blooming ones. Also having done the last calendar in portrait dimensions, this year I'm flipping format 90 degrees, so all my shots will be in landscape dimensions. And just one more thing; I want all of my shots to reflect the weather somehow - if you've ever met a Swedish person you know that swedes are fascinated by weather haha, but it's not only that. Finding the shots that reflect the weather in some way should also prove an interesting challenge.

January isn't really a colorful month. I wasn't as worried this year as I was back in 2014, since it's far easier to find "little details" than flowers, but the beginning of this year was unusually dull when it came to weather. Thankfully I finally found this little spec of color. It's a bit cliche, I know, but lovely nonetheless.

/MrsHjort

Blossoms, Blossoms Everywhere

This spring may be late, but oh so lovely. It's been so long since I've seen this many blossoms in the trees. The weather is lovely and nature literary is exploding with colors. Wonderful! Unfortunately the weeds have also awoken and my back aches from pulling up what feels like a gazillion weeds from the strawberry plantation in my garden. If I had a super power I wish it was the ability to conjure away all the weeds... and the dust that gather inside my home haha - you wouldn't believe how fast cat hair gathers in the corners during springtime, when the cats shed their winter coats!

On an other note, I'm still having fun with the Nik Collection. In the beginning I played with it like a kid who first discovered Word Art haha, but now I'm trying to go for more natural looks. I have to say I'm impressed with what the software can do. It's wonderful how much detail the filters can extract from what looks like plain monotone areas, and I love the skylight filter, it's a life saver on cloudy days. The only beef I have with the software, is that it often creates a bit of grain in soft backgrounds. The reduce noise filter helps a bit though, but boy would I love it if I could keep the smooth soft background and still have that edge the Nik Collection provides. Oh well, you can't have everything I guess...

/MrsHjort

Day 3 - Laurentia

This little nugget of mine has been a neglected for far too long. I have always loved the raw material, but I've never been able to do it justice in post-ed before. The original is much more "contrasty" and green, and therefore, being one to go with natural looks, the green has always turned out too powerful for my taste when I tinkered with it before. Either that or too boring, too bland or too ordinary looking... Bah!

Thanks to Morporkian, a fellow Quartermaster at Dagger Bay, I've now got a fresh set of tools to play with. The full collection of Nik filters is free for everybody, and wow are they fun to play with. It helped me step outside my comfort zone to try new stuff, the way new software often does, and it is wonderful. Thank you Morp!

Anyway, this little dainty flower really needed a pastel surrounding to shine. Well not exactly pastel, but close enough - it needed a bit of contrast too or it would have disappeared. I'm so glad to have these new tools to play with :)

/MrsHjort

Day 11 - Color

This most be the most elaborate setup I've ever done! And the strangest one too, but hey, whatever works!

This is a bundle of straws. I put them on a mortar, that stood on a chair, that stood on our kitchen table (this is not usually the case though haha, if you're wondering :P). The kitchen lamp behind my setup caused lens flare, so I used a tripod and remote. I also held up a kitchen towel behind the straws, and let the light shine through it instead of directly at the straws. Though that turned out too dark, so, I decided to put an empty jar behind the straws, a jar to support my phone. The phone was set to use its own little flashlight (you know, that itty bitty one that it uses as a flash) to shine through the straws.

So there you have it, this is how I spent my afternoon haha!

/MrsHjort

Day 6 - Pet

It's been a long day today! Don't get me wrong though, it's been a good one. I got lots of stuff done at the office, went to after-work with my colleagues, and had a couple of glasses of nice wine. Not too shabby! As I went home, I only had one thing left to do - take a photo of a pet.

Easier said than done! None of my cats were cooperative today! I chased them around for nearly an hour and never managed anything better than a few snapshots. I even edited some of them, desperate to make them into something better, but no matter what I did the results were subpar. After a lot of frustration my kitty got just as tired as I was, and then I finally managed to get a decent shot of her, as she drifted off to sleep. Good night dear readers, sleep tight, I know I will ;)

/MrsHjort

Day 1 - Grass

So! November has finally arrived! This month I will be following a list of words as my theme. The list was created using a random word generator and I think it makes things more interesting and challenging than simply shooting random stuff on a broader theme. So, the first word of the month is "Grass".

I had thought of doing a shot like this today, but unfortunately, nature didn't provide - it was both dry and cloudy. However, nothing can stop a trigger happy girl with an itchy index finger, and thus I thought - "If you can't make it, fake it". And so, my neighbors ought to have been a bit surprised by seeing me today, with a spray-bottle in my hand and my backside in the air as I was crawling around right in the middle of my lawn haha. I hope you like it :)

/MrsHjort

Unexpected Beauty

Sometimes, you can find things where you least expect them to be - like when Mr and I took a spontaneous drive up a mountain, during our recent holiday to Madeira. As we were huffing and puffing up a steep road, wondering if even the 1st gear would be enough, we found these wonderful orchids. They were all around, at approximately 1 200 m altitude, and thrived beneath the thick foliage in a moist dark forest. Someone probably planted them along the roadside long, long ago, but since then, they've spread, and now they'd just pop up anywhere... sort of like dandelions back home, but far prettier!

As you've probably figured out by now, I just love floral macros. The last calendar I did was full of them and I just cannot resist that itchy feeling in my index finger whenever I encounter subjects like these, especially not since I got my 70-300 mm macro lens. I's been like Christmas every time I've used it. I could just snap on forever... if not for Mr that is. He usually sighs more and more loudly until I notice him and stop haha!

Orchids are especially interesting when it comes to shooting. You can get so many different lovely angles and really experiment with composition. I've always been fond of the Rule of Thirds (RoT). I love its simplicity and mathematical components. Though sometimes breaking the rules can really do the trick. I really like that about photography. Nothing is written in stone, and everything is up to you. We all look upon the world with different eyes and beauty can be found anywhere! Even in a murky forest, up in the mountains, along a small winding road.

/MrsHjort

New Adventures

I've been away for a while now, travelling. And since I'm a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to my photography, and my laptop can't handle PS, that means that I've been away from my blog as well. This was the third time we went back to the one of our favorite islands - Madeira, Portugal.

I've always preferred nature photography to anything else, and Madeira is a great place for that. The "levadas" and mountain paths are just gorgeous and the flora is quite unique. You can find a lot of different types of areas - from very dry to very moist, and sometimes, it's enough to turn a corner to get from one to the other. Very cool indeed!

Unfortunately though, Mr and I had been sick for weeks before travelling, and therefore, we were quite out of shape. So, alas, this time we had to keep to the easier treks, wish meant mainly forest treks along levadas. Don't let that give you the idea that it was less enjoyable or less adventurous though. You can find really gorgeous spots pretty much anywhere on the Island, and despite the fact that Mr and I have spent... lets see... yes, as many as 7 weeks on the island in total, counting all our trips there, there are still things we haven't done yet!
Ergo, lots of cool stuff to see and do, and shoot ;)

So, there's more to come. I just wanted to touch base a bit, and show you the first batch of my shots. They describe our trip pretty well I think - wandering in lush green forests, feeding birds and enjoying the wonderful weather :)

See you soon

/MrsHjort

Still Chasing the Dream

I don't know how many hundreds of butterfly pictures I've
shot. I find it hard to stop snapping once I've started. I'ts like when you were young and went to the candy store haha. I just can't stop chasing that perfect shot. Not that I have a particular one in mind, I just want a real gorgeous one. A picture that makes all other pictures look mundane and boring. That one dream shot, that constantly alludes me, fluttering out of reach just as I reach for it.

I doubt that I will ever get it, that once in a lifetime shot. Not that I doubt my abilities, it's just that some goals should never quite be reached. You should always strive to do better - it keeps you on your toes, and besides, it's the journey itself that's interesting. It does not matter If I ever make it, I just enjoy the ride.

So, yesterday, I once again went out into my garden with my camera-hand itching for action. Somehow, every shooting gets you something different. The light is never exactly the same, the environment around you changes and gives you a different bokeh, and the butterflies themselves never behave in exactly the same way.

Having shot tonnes and tonnes of butterflies, I've learned a bit about how to get closer to that dream shot. So, here are some of my thought about macro photography, and shooting butterflies.

1) Choose a calm day - it's so much easier if you don't have to wait for the wind to stop blowing all the time, and for the bushes to stop moving. Even the smallest gust of wind can be very frustrating when using a narrow DOF - things will move in and out of focus, a lot!

2) Any time of the day is fine, as long as the sun is shining. Even late in the afternoon or early in the morning - it makes for great opportunities to get "contrasty" shots with the main subject shining in the sun! Anyway, lots of light makes for shorter shutter speeds which, in turn, makes the shots sharper. It helps a lot when working with small, fast moving subjects.

3) Always think of the bokeh. You want the butterfly to be contrasted to the background, unless your intention is a dreamy shot, like the second from the top.

4) Experiment with angles, The butterflies may be pretty with their wings out from above, but there are a million of those shots, and one more isn't original. Unless, it's exceptional in some way - I just love the colors in the top shot :)

5) The focus should be right in the butterfly's face. Just like when shooting portraits. It's the coolest thing when you get those eyes just right. You know, I actually never thought of butterflies as fuzzy creatures before I started shooting them, haha, but they are, and gorgeously so.

6) Speaking of close-ups... A macro lens might have the ability to get you those really cool zoomed in shots, but, they're devilishly hard to get just right. So, do not use the maximum zoom capability all the time, sometimes a shot from a bit "further away" can be just as lovely.

7) Composition is tricky when working with subjects that have a will of their own. A good deal of luck is involved, but you can learn to anticipate their movements to some degree, if you observe them closely.

8) Shoot a lot of "safies". Butterflies are tricky to capture, and the more shots you have, the larger the quantity of really sharp shots will be. Let that trigger finger work!

9) Use an empty mem-card with a large storage capacity, I can, literally, shoot hundreds of pictures during one shooting. And, trust me, it's not fun to have to go through them and erase the ones you think are bad because you have run out of storage. And, it might make you miss a lot of cool stuff too.

10) Have fun and be patient :)

So, those are my thoughts, I hope they helped you.

Cheers, and happy hunting!

/MrsHjort

Summer Glow

I went chasing butterflies again today, I just cant help myself! I've been looking forward to this all summer. It sort of reminds me of when I was a kid, waiting for my birthday to finally arrive haha. You see, I was born i August. All summer long I waited for the big day, and when it finally came, it was just marvelous! There was just one downside - my birthday always meant that the summer holidays were nearing the end, and as the days grew shorter again, autumn drew closer and closer. Now that I'm not that fond of my birthday anymore, the blooming butterfly bushes has taken over that role, the role of something you look forward to, but don't really want to experience, not just yet. A weird, bitter sweet sort of thing...

Anyway, having shot many, many butterflies, I've come to the conclusion that they're easiest to shoot late in the afternoon. That way, the sun shines beautifully on their pretty wings and accentuates their textures. Lovely, don't you think? Also, the low angle of the sun illuminates them so well, it's less likely their fast movements will result in motion blur. Quite neat, I must say.

/MrsHjort

Chasing the Dream

Just like most little girls, I have always loved butterflies, and as a grown-up, I have always dreamed of taking that one perfect photo of one. To make things easier, we have planted four Buddleja bushes in the garden, or well, it's not only that they attract butterflies, they are very pretty too.

So, yesterday, I headed out with my trusty Nikon to chase the dream. I think it's becoming something of a tradition haha - last year I did the same, but then I used a tripod and remote. I figured it would be safer, but I found that is was hard to capture the fast, and small subjects witch such bulky equipment. It was hard to compose too, so this year I'm trying without them. The result is about 20 % sharp images - the ones when there was absolutely no wind whatsoever, the narrow DOF was just right and I didn't move an inch. So the ratio might be a bit lower, but the ones that made it were much prettier - it's better to compose yourself that to hope that chance will make the butterflies step to exactly the right spot you want them to be in.

Anyway, this is my favorite of the set, I hope you like it too :)

/MrsHjort

24 Pictures from One Spot Challenge

I love new challenges, that's why I joined W1K back in 2013, and it's a huge part of why I've stayed. Even more important though, are the awesome artists you meet there, and all the inspiration you get.

Today, thanks to Buffy, I've finally gotten around to shooting my garden. For some reason, it's hard for me to get around to shooting at home. I like to go places and shoot, but really, you can find loads of nice subjects in your own back yard.

So anyway, the challenge was to stand in one spot, without moving your feet, and shoot 24 different photos. Fun huh? It makes you look around more than you usually do and experiment with angles and composition. I shot all of the pictures with my Sigma 70-300 mm lens - I just love how flexible it is and the gorgeous bokeh you get when using a large aperture :). It's just the best!

Shooting comes quite natural to me, I'm usually very fast - that's the way you get to be when you have an impatient husband, who sighs loudly when you take too long haha. The time-consuming part is the post-ed. But, it's an oh so important part. Some sharpening here, some curves manipulation there, getting the levels right is important, and saturation is the cherry on top. About two hours later, and I'm done.

So, here it is, the fruit of my work, both as a photographer and gardener. I hope you like it.

/MrsHjort

Life is Beauty

... or some other cryptic heading haha (silly Facebook must be rubbing off on me). Sorry, but it seemed to fit the photo :). Well anyway, for those of you who have been following me, are wondering or are just curious, I really like where I am at right now. I've recently changed careers - from school teacher to... ehm, I'm not really sure how to describe my new job (it's quite unique) but it's a desk job, and it has to do with law, news and court records. I've worked with this before, at the same company, and it's still great!

Well, as I was saying, I really like it. Don't get me wrong though, I really loved teaching too, however, this new job has proven to be better for me - when it comes to health. It's been said now and again in Swedish media (and I'm sure it's not unique to my country) that teaching is one of the most stressful and demanding professions of all. Since I am a bit too ambitious for my own good (I'm a bit of a workaholic), and tend to get a bit too involved with what I do, it has became too big for me at times, which affected my sleep a lot.

So, for the reasons mentioned, I jumped at the chance of this new job, which offered better hours, less stress, better chances of advancement, and a significant salary increase (plus, it's fun too)! So however sorry I am to leave teaching, I have to say that this has been really good for me. Though I have to admit, I do miss my students, the thrill of teaching and all the good times we had.

So, to all of my old colleagues, thank you for the memories, the laughs and the tears. It's been a pleasure! And to all of my new colleagues, thank you for welcoming me back, I'm so glad to be with you again, and I'll see you tomorrow :)

/MrsHjort

Beautiful May

So, May is here, and the trees are blooming! This is one of my favorite times of the year, even more so now than before! Because, you see, this year is the vary first year that our garden has been "finished" (if there ever is such a word when talking about gardens).

So, this year, I get to see all our hard work paying off, and one by one, the plants and seeds that I've cared for awake and blossom in all their splendor. I cannot halp myself, I'm positively giddy haha.

Who would have thought that I would become so involved in gardening!? Five years ago my main reason for not buying a house was gardening! I've always hated it with all my heart.  But now, things are very different... Maybe it's maturity finally catching up with me (yeah who are we kiddin' haha!) or maybe it's because this time it's actually my own garden (most likely!), and I get to decide everything for myself (that's what I'm talkin' about!) but now, I cannot help but keep myself away!

So happy spring to you, and happy gardening :)

/MrsHjort

Blue Starburst

I'm so thrilled that nature is finally changing from sepia brown into color! I shot this in my garden yesterday. These blue little beauties pop up all over the place! They're a bit problematic to shoot though, since they grow in clusters and the DOF don't really work in their favor. That's why I shot this one with its twin behind it, it makes a lovely "starbursty" effect, doesn't it :)

/MrsHjort

Wonderful Spring

I've had a very productive day today. I just love how much more energy you get when it's light as you wake up in the mornings. The boring browns outside are finally giving in to green and the first flowers are blooming in my garden. Finally spring is here!

I shot this pretty Snowdrop just this morning, and the weather was no nice I decided to stay outside, grab a shovel and do some gardening (I didn't even need a jacket). So, now the flower beds have been cleared and the boring brown dead things have been cut away. Ah what a nice feeling to have finally begun with the spring chores!

Later, Mr and I went to Ikea to buy some shelves for our newly renovated library, and after that, as Mr went off to judge a football game, my energetic fingers just could not stay away from the boxes for very long. I grabbed a screwdriver and bippity boppity boo, up they went, easy as pie (I love Ikea!).

I never expected to get so much done this day, I have longed for a day of doing absolutely nothing all week, and as it arrived it turned into the exact opposite. I "blame" the clear blue sky, the spring wind and the twittering birds.

/MrsHjort