My Father, a Tribute to a Kind Man

This blog post is going to be longer than usual, and even so, how can one summarize one's feelings and memories of a person within the pages of any medium. It's an impossible task as there are so many fond memories, so many things to say and so many little details about a person that makes them unique. Nevertheless, I am going to make an attempt to jot down some things about the wonderful man that was my father. Thus, I will focus on my most precious memories of him, and in doing so, try to give justice to the amazing person that he was. I also want to mention that this blog post is quite late in the making. My father passed away over two years ago, but until now I have not had the heart to finish it. As some of you know, I haven't blogged about anything else either, though maybe I should have - but it just didn't seem right to do so, before finishing this.

Who was my father? An American and yet not an American. He was born and raised in USA but in some ways he little resembled what some consider to be the American archetype. Of course, there is a lot to be said of archetypes - naturally, one cannot judge a person by their nationality alone, and nevertheless there are archetypes of just about every nationality there is. I guess archetypes say more about culture in general than it does about people. Nevertheless, many associate Americans with chattiness, that wasn't my dad - his personality was more laid back and less out there. He, like I, enjoyed listening and only chimed into a conversation when he had something thoughtful to say. He was the type who let his actions speak for him, but he wasn't shy or unsocial in any way. Instead, I would describe him as calm, mild mannered and empathetic. He had many characteristics of an introvert and yet he always seemed comfortable in crowds. He was in fact very easy going, and had a wonderful sense of humor. A person can be many things, I guess, and he had a complex personality - a rare combination of traits that made him unique and very loved. 

Other parts of the American soul, he had in spades. He was an alpha male in all the best meanings of the word - hard working, family oriented, a man of many talents and a great role model in many ways. He believed in self reliance and what he didn't know how to do, he soon found out, and made sure he did right. Anything from carpentry to cooking, he mastered, and since he picked up new things quickly, he did so quite speedily as he went along. Anything you asked him to help you with, he did, without a moment's doubt. Happily even. In that way he was the very embodiment of the American dream in its original form - he realized his dreams through hard work, and nothing seemed impossible to achieve with him around.

One of my first memories of my father is of waiting for him to come home from work. I looked forward to that every weekday. My mother would be in the kitchen cooking and I'd look out the window as soon as I heard the sound of a car outside, hoping to see the red Opel that he was driving. I'd ask, "is daddy coming home soon?" many times and my heart would swell every time that red Opel entered our driveway. I was always so happy to see him, and of course I'd run to welcome him home. Strangely though, what I remember most vividly today about him coming home is seeing the headlights bouncing off the garage wall and running to the window to see that red car. It's weird how memories work sometimes. 

Other early memories I have are of him reading bedtime stories for me, sitting on the floor beside my bed. I had a thick book filled with stories for each day of the year. "365 Bedtime Stories" it was called, but we didn't follow its almanack, and he would read several stories for me every night since they were really quite short - they were like a quarter of a page with a picture to go with them. I remember there was one about a princess called Aurora. That was my favorite (mainly because it had such a pretty picture) and he'd read it to me on many occasions without complaint. That was the man he was. Kind and gentle. He'd read to me every night even though sometimes he was so tired he'd almost fall asleep himself right there on the floor beside my bed, with my book in his hands. I still have the book somewhere, I'ts one of those things I'll always keep.

Of course I have memories that any daughter of a loving father has. Like the ones of him giving me a push so that I could ride my first bike (I couldn't start without him), of him taking me to ice skating practice and bringing hot chocolate that was always a little too sweet (he loved it that way) or of trying to coax him into taking a swim with me in the lake that we lived by (one of the coolest lakes in the country, brrr, I know now why he wasn't always so keen). Many little moments, that seem to have gone by so fast, where did time go?

I remember being fascinated with dad's camera. He had a DSLR and its many dials and buttons had me hooked. It was magical to me how he took so many nice pictures. Though sometimes I wished he'd shoot faster - as a kid I was always on the move and standing still for a photo wan't always what I had in mind. His interest in photography stuck with me though, I'll always associate photography with him, and all the many wonderful memories he captured in his view finder. I'm so glad to have them all, and I'm glad that he was not always behind the camera himself.

When I was a teen, I went through one of those awkward phases - who doesn't? I remember dad smiling at me often, and me being confused as to why. Like many teens I was confused about a lot of things back then. But now I know why he smiled, and I regret not smiling back very often then. What I wouldn't give for one of his smiles now. He smiled because he loved me of course, but as a self centered teen I was too stuck in my own little world to see it. Dad smiled a lot. Reflecting back, I think he was simply a very happy person, with a big soft heart. What a wonderful thing for a father to be.

When I married, dad walked me down the aisle to my future husband. Mom told me later how proud he was at that moment, thinking of that brings tears to my eyes. It was wonderful to have his large hand to hold on to, walking down to the beach where I got married, all jittery, emotional and with my heart pounding. I also love the symbolism of it - the most important male figure in my life handing over the role of protector to my husband. It is a beautiful tradition, feminism be damned - it's not about that to me. To me it is a show of trust, acceptance and welcoming my husband into the family. That he did, without a moment's doubt. He never questioned my choice of life partner, he loved my husband like a son and was happy to see us happy. That was who he was; a welcoming person.

When we moved to our house, dad, handy that he was, never said "no" when we needed help. I remember tearing out the old kitchen and building a new one with him, mom and my hubby. Dad was easy to get along with and he cooperated with such ease. Everything seemed to go smoothly with him around. Mom and I would assemble kitchen cabinets and drawers, and dad and my hubby would fit them together and attach them to the walls. My hubby would cut the floor tiles, dad would mix the adhesive cement paste, mom would scrape it on the flor and I would put out the pattern I wanted. We were a small, well oiled renovation team, and dad was my go to guy if I needed advice - he always had such wise things to say.

Dad was never one to pretend he was something he was not. I remember being on a trip with him, mom and my hubby, sitting in a restaurant just about to order some wine to go with the food. When the waiter asked what wine he'd like to order he simply said "nothing too expensive, they all taste the same to me". We all had a good laugh with him, it wasn't the most tactful thing he could have said, but it was so typical of him. He was not a fancy man, he was honest and down to earth, and he never minded laughing at himself. I loved that about him.

My father was a wonderful painter. He painted with oil and almost all the paintings at his and moms house were of his own make, beautiful and colorful. Sadly, he hardly painted anything after I was born - he only painted a handful of paintings that he made for me. I treasure them all. One of them was of a motif that is very close to my heart - a place from a book that I love. I always dreamed of having an interpretation of it on my wall. Having him paint it for me took the motif to a whole extra level of meaningful. He gave it to me on one of my birthdays, it was so beautiful it brought tears to my eyes and I told him so. He replied that my reaction put tears into his eyes as well. We hugged and I stupidly tried to put a lid on my emotions, thus ending that wonderful moment. I love that painting, I love that memory, and I love that the giving of the gift affected him as much as it affected me receiving it. I will never forget how beautiful that moment was. 

Lastly, I would say that dad was stoic. He never burdened anybody, even though we would't have minded him doing so. Five years ago dad found out he was dying. Yet he never let on how it must have affected him. He simply kept on smiling, being his usual loving self, sometimes perhaps even more so. I remember visiting him and mom, walking into the front door asking "now, who should I hug first?", "ME!" he exclaimed in a happy voice as he jumped towards me and gave me a big hug. I will always treasure that moment. It was so unexpected and wonderful in every way. Dad knew he didn't have much time left with us, yet he didn't show any signs of self pity, mourning or bitterness. He treasured every moment and made the most of life, right up until the end. I hope to take that aspect of him with me, treasuring every moment life has to give, smiling my way through hard times, showing love towards my friends and family and aspiring to follow the wonderful role model my father was to me.

/MrsHjort

Day 4 - Bells and Clock Faces

We're still in Martinikerk. There are things to see inside you see. Like the bells, a short history video about the city and the church and a bell organ (is that the right word? It's the one that came to mind at). It was a nice surprise.

You're getting a bonus shot today. I think you can guess who this is, but for those that are not so familiar this is Mr, the apple of my eye and the inspiration for one of my BotS series' main characters. He's not as crazy in real life, though he sure likes to goof around. He doesn't like having his picture taken though, so getting to shoot him is rare. I'm working on getting him comfortable in front of the camera, but I can't really say anything because I'm the same way. I like being the one behind the camera :)

On a different note, I never stop being surprised of just how much difference the raw format makes. It's so cool how it can save pictures like the bottom one. It totally helps not having to worry about exposure as much as I used to.

/MrsHjort 

Day 60 - Artsy Parodies

Back in day 1, I showed you a picture of me staring into the distance in front of the Vatican. As I explained, it was a shot that was poking fun at me, and today I'll show you Mr's version. He was a bit confused when I got down on my knees - "You're doing what? Why? Really? And you think that will work? Okay...". He didn't know if he could trust my vision, but I absolutely adore the shot, even though it's not meant to be a serious one.

The whole origin of the "deep, staring into the distance in front of a famous cultural spot" photo joke actually (sort of) originates from my time at the university. You see, we had this new relatively young lecturer who took himself just a tad (ok a lot) too seriously. He was our lecturer in English literature and he would just go on, and on, and on, and ooon about stuff that would take anybody else half a minute to explain. I once (unknowingly) "hijacked" part of one of his lectures by going through the ins and outs of a book we had read - symbolism and all that jazz - which left him without anything to add to the (rather thorough) 10 minute presentation that I made (he had asked me to do it as a part of the mandatory course elements). He ended up ignoring the book in question entirely for the rest of the 3 hour lecture and explaining the other ones we had read to death instead (even more than he usually did)... Oh my... Needless to say, I used to be super bored during his lectures - "okay, I get it already! You don't have to use all the flowery words in the world to describe one concept", you know the type... The ones that make you hate a subject that would have been so much fun in somebody else's hands. It totally turned me off from reading and it took years to for me to enjoy books again. I still hate the idea of so called "fine literature" with a fiery passion. But I digress...

Anyway, all the professors and lecturers were listed on the uni's internet site, and his "official photo" was hilarious. Basically it was him, staring into the distance in front of a famous place in Paris, in black and white with a non-level horizon. Very different from all the other staff pictures - that were quite traditional. It was just like him, ridiculously pretentions in so many ways... and more of a rather embarrassing Facebook profile pic than a professional head shot. After I graduated, I once showed it to a colleague at the office where Mr and I work as we were talking about old uni stuff. She thought it was hilarious, so ever since then it has been our own little inside joke. Every time any of us travel to a famous place, we do a parody shot to poke fun at the concept (and ourselves).

/MrsHjort

Day 1 and 2 - Welcome to Rome!

Oops! I totally forgot that I was gonna start yesterday, so I'll post two shots today instead. :)

To start off, some of you know I have some health Issues - I'm undiagnosed but I've had some kind of chronic condition for two years now. This trip was wonderful in many ways. I made sure to call my doctor before hand, and he let me go back on a medication that worked well before (I usually don't take it since I am undiagnosed and taking it slows down the progress of finding out what's up with me). So, that meant that I was able to cope with the physical strain that the trip involved (Rome is a place where you usually do a lot of walking) and have more energy in general. So, not only was it lovely to get to see so many lovely things, but I got to feel better than I have been feeling since what feels like an eternity, and it made me feel like me again, if that makes sense. But this isn't a cryfest, I'm not complaining and I'm not looking for sympathy. I want to celebrate life and share the beauty I found in Rome, so here goes.

Day 1: 

I thought you might want to have a look at the person behind the camera. This is me, with the Vatican in the background. Mr actually took the shot for me, so it's cheating a bit, but this isn't a formal challenge, I set up the camera for him and I did the editing... and besides that's the only way you'll get to see me anyway, unless I brought a tripod, but who wants to lug around that in Rome? Anyway... we wanted a silly emo picture where I started into the distance. A real cliche to poke fun at me to show to a coworker as an inside joke (we're silly like that, we did a similar thing with a picture of Mr in front of the Colosseum but I'll show you that one another day). It actually turned out quite nice though. As good as I'll get on camera anyway - I'm way more comfortable behind it haha.

Day 2: 

This is the view from our balcony with the Tiber in front and the city center in the background. A lovely tiny bed and breakfast with walking distance to the Rome highlights.


/MrsHjort

Day 22 - Superman

As we went out on our morning walk along the mini mountain path, I stepped up the last steps of the stairs and found this - the light shining down on my hubby as he stood there, looking out on the city as if he was its protector. An unreal sight, almost magical. "Hold it right there!" Guess if he was pleased as I showed it to him :D

/MrsHjort

13 Hours of Christmas

So, as I was crazy enough to sign up for a 12 hour challenge on Daggerbay, here goes! Here's 12 hour of Christmas with our jolly, loud and exuberant family :)

8:24 
I wake up with my usual sleeping buddies, meaning Mr and this little lady, who continues to watch over my morning routines hehe. It's the morning of Christmas eve, which is when Swedes celebrate Christmas, and the family will come over in the afternoon - meaning, lots to prepare!

9:22
Rather than showing you a bunch of shots of me cleaning our house, I though I'd share this little Christmas favorite of mine - this knitted Santa my grandmother made me back when I was a child. She was a wonderful lady, who always knitted us beautiful things. I still get tear in my eyes thinking of how much love she pored into it all. I remember how she apologized for running out of the red yarn half way up the red coat of this wonderful creation. That was my Grannie haha,  I've always loved it... How I miss her!

10:06
Mr is the boss in the kitchen, he's so much better at it than I am and I'm very happy to let him run the show. He's a wonderful cook! I have to watch my weight with him around. It's way to easy to eat too much when everything he makes is so delicious. Here he is preparing one of the upcoming Christmas dinner dishes, and enjoying a Swedish Christmas drink - glögg (a sort of mulled wine, that we drink with almond flakes and rasens).

11:42
I've long since given up on trying to convince the rest of the family to restrict the Christmas prezzies to the children alone. Most Swedish families don't buy Christmas presents for everybody, you see, but do "secret Santa" or some kind of raffle instead, and some even do Christmas games where you have to win your presents. Not our family though, nope! We go above an beyond haha! This isn't even all of the presents, it's not even half of them! It's a big hassle to buy one for everybody - and I hate shopping - but I have to admit, nothing beats the atmosphere of antecipation and joy that they bring. The children can hardly keep their fingers away waiting, and we have to keep them from examinering the presents a little too closely.

12:01
Getting snow for Christmas in Sweden is more unusual than you'd think, or well at least it is where I live. I'd say the chance is about 50/50. You see, we live by the second largest lake in Sweden, and it helps keep the area warm in the winter. So, if you go up to the "highland" from where I live, you can go from this, to a whole lot of snow in a short distance. It's kind of nice in the autumn, because it delays the cold and keeps our streets free from ice a bit longer than everywhere else, but it decreases our chansers of a white Christmas, and it delays spring. Sometimes it even freezes over, and that's when you know spring will be unusually late. It's a very cold and deep lake... It's very rarely freezes though. Also, being so deep, it seldom gets warm enough for one to want to go for a swim in it - it takes a lot of time to heat all that water. It's beautiful though, and very clean. As you can tell, I have a bit of a love/hate relationship to it haha.

This is the view from our attic. The lake is in the distance, and, as you can see, we didn't get any snow this Christmas. There was ice-rain though, a lot of good it did us, ha!

13:02
The first guests arrive! My parents, always early and just as happy as you see them here. Sweden is like that. If you're expected to come at a certain time, people will show up right then, and not a moment later. Being more than 10 minutes late is rude, and it's better to show up 10 minutes early. Many of my friends from abroad shake their heads at that haha! But anyway, these are my parents. Swedish mother, American father. They met on a stroke of luck when on a holiday in yet on other country, and now here they are :)

14:10
I don't know how common these are outside of Sweden, but we eat these "prince sausages" every Christmas, along with loads of other traditional food, like meat balls, Jansons frestelse, herring, turkey and much, much more. It's where the word smorgasbord comes from - smörgåsbord. Since our family is kind of large, we do potluck. It would simply not work otherwise, and so each of the guests bring their assigned dishes, and, as hosts, we try to coordinate the best we can. That's where Mr comes in, and I'm very happy to leave all that stuff to him :)

15:58
This is Mr carving the Christmas ham. That's the super star of the Swedish Christmas foods and it's preparation is a science of its own. Mr has been experimenting for years to get it better and better. First you have to pick the right one, be it a pig or wild boar, then it has to be boiled and baked in so or so many degrees for this or that long. Mr has gotten really good at it - even I who don't particularly enjoy ham, like the way he makes it.

16:15
Tada! All the dishes are finally heated and ready! They're so many they don't even fit into the picture, that's not even mentioning the desserts. We actually forgot one of the dishes in the refrigerator this year - my mother's orange and walnut sallad. It's one of my personal favorites, yum! I cannot believe we forgot it.... eeeer well, okay then, yes I guess I can really, there are just so many dishes (and I've got a cold, so my head isn't quite screwed on right), so, it's a wonder it doesn't happen more often really haha. Oh well, it tasted just as good this morning as we ate some of the leftovers. That's a wonderful thing to have every Christmas day - lots of yummy leftovers when you're too lazy to make breakfast. We'll have leftovers for days, even though we sent all our guests home with food too!

17:27
After dinner things calm down a bit, and we all sit down, too tired from eating all the food to do anything sensible. Just like it should be. Food is half the spirit of Christmas in Sweden. At this point, we just sit down and enjoy each other's company, catching up about whatever and talking about nothing in particular. I really enjoy when the whole family gets together like this, both my side and Mr's. All the people I love under one roof, what could possibly be better? If the food makes up one half of Christmas, family makes up the other.

18:02
The Children's wait is over and Santa has finally arrived! It's all a bit weird though, as all the presents have been under the Christmas tree all day, haha, but luckily the children don't think of that. Mr was worried he wouldn't be able to fool them this year - the girl in this picture was a bit suspicious last year and suspected it was him under that white beard. So, he bought a better costume and though up a better cover story to explain why he had to leave all of a sudden. He was so happy when it worked! The magic of Christmas got to endure a year longer, yey!

19:19
It's desert time! After everybody has opened their presents, it's the perfect time for sweeties. In this picture you'll see two of the Swedish classics. First, there's the orange rice, which is not to be mistaken by rice a la Malta... seriously, don't! Or my father in law, who made it, will explain it to you, in full detail haha. That's actually also one of the traditions. Not a Christmas goes by without that particular lecture. He has also made the other sweet in this picture - the controversially named ball... Don't ask, I'll just leave it at that ;)

20:51 (bonus)
Our evening ends with Christmas quizzes. They're not usually about Christmas, or the same questions would pop up every second year or so, but about trivia in general. I'm the worst at that sort of thing! Mr though, won both of them, the brainiac that he is. Just don't tell him I said so ;)

So there you go! 12 hours of Christmas, plus one extra bonus hour. I've never made this challenge before, it was a lot of fun!

Merry Christmas everybody!

/MrsHjort

Day 12 - Hear Ye

"Who is this?" You may wonder. Well, it's the announcer of the knights' duel I wrote about yesterday, clad in beautiful green and gesturing powerfully as he captivated the crowd between the clashes :)

This might possibly be the last of the portraits I'll show you from the that wonderful day at the Medieval market (which doesn't mean there isn't more to come). This shot was the one I worried most about. I was afraid that the fake bokeh would be problematic, I mean just look at all those fuzzy details of the subject's costume!

Having done so many of the fake bokeh shots lately, I've learned the ins and outs of the process. The key is to get real close and meticulous with the lasso tool when the background is busy, and looser when it is relatively monotone. My first try to get this right turned out much better than I expected it to. I usually go over it with the clone stamp to smooth the edges after blurring the background, but it required very little work this time. Maybe because I was extra careful with the lasso tool...? It was a huge relief nonetheless.

/MrsHjort

Day 11 - The Squire

It's not everyday you get to see two knights in full armor have at each other with war-hammers! In the middle of lunch there was suddenly a roar right outside the restaurant garden, Overcome by curiosity, I grabbed my camera and hurried to see what the fuss was about, and to my surprise I found this dramatic scene playing out. I didn't understand a word - I only know a couple of words in French - but the drama spoke for itself. Sadly the crowd ruined the photos from the actual fights (people got right in my way) but I did get this shot, of a squire helping out his knight, adjusting a gauntlet. I hope you like it.

/MrsHjort

Day 8 - 10 Merriment, Music and Heart

Sorry for posting so late! I've experienced some internet problems - we haven't had a connection in three days. Our household has just gotten optic fiber installed, and ironing out the odds and ends took some time. But now it's up and running, and considerably faster than before! Yey!

Day 8 - Merriment

The photo above is a "right in the moment" type of shot. I saw this group of beautifully dressed men and women greeting each other, and snapped a whole bunch of photos of them, hoping to get one that was okay. Anyone who has taken pictures of a a group of people knows how hard it is to get all of them right at the same time, and that's not even speaking about candid pictures, like this one. The lady on the right sort of makes a funny face, biting her lip like that, and the lady in blue just moved behind the lady in front of her, but I still like it. The energy of the group mirrors what is was like to be there perfectly. It was joyous, warm and very dynamic.

Day 9 - Music

This violinist played beautifully as she walked up and down the street. Thankfully, there wasn't much people there, so I could take her photo without too many distracting elements getting in the way and choose my angles without worrying about people walking into my shot. It's such a luxury to get to do that! Only too often I find myself waiting for people to move out of the picture when I'm shooting something, and when they're finally out of the way, others take their place. Shooting stuff in crowds is hard!

I really shouldn't complain though, I'm very fortunate to have gotten so many decent photos from that day. I only expected a few of them to meet my standards. My camera is getting kind of old and sluggish, you see, so I have to say that I'm very happy with the crop of pictures that I've gotten. Soon things will be different though... I'm awaiting an upgrade! I turned 30 a few days a go, and one of my presents is a brand new camera! A Nikon D7100! I can't wait until I get my hands on it, and I'm so looking forward to testing all of the new functions I'll have access to. 

Day 10 - Heart

I don't usually go for a central subject, but in this case it seemed fitting. The pose and the direction in which he is looking made me go against my usual preferences. I just couldn't crop away his arm and cropping away the "air" on the right side would leave him looking like he was moving out of the picture, and no one likes that. So, central subject is was!

If you're wondering about the pose, despite of the how things may look, it's actually a candid shot. This man was standing listening to the Scottish bagpipe music and dreamily looking into the distance as they played "Amazing Grace". You can even see a pipe in the shot in the unedited version below. So it seems, I was not the only one moved by the music :). It was truly beautiful.

/MrsHjort

Day 7 - The Blowing Scotsman

This is another of the bagpipers I wrote about yesterday. This fellow was all dressed up in the traditional Scottish manner, with all the accessories. He made for a wonderful subject!

The fake DOF in this shot was a bit of a pain. I wanted it to look real, and keep that wonderful long hair from looking slick and unnatural. It proved quite a challenge...

I used my new method as a base, which worked very well with the hair on top oh his head - there was not much going on in the background so the blur didn't change much - but the hair falling down his shoulder was an other story. I used the clone brush as best I could to create a natural looking transition from blur to hair, but it wasn't enough - the blurry background had changed color too much to look natural, and the original one was peaking out from between the hairs. I ended up using a combination of things - de-saturation, dodging and color replacement. I took me a while but I'm finally satisfied with the result.

/MrsHjort

Day 6 - The Gentleman Bagpiper

Having just been in Scotland a few days ago, I was very surprised to see Scotsmen at the French medieval market. And not just one of them, but a whole Scottish bagpipe band, all dressed up and complete with four bagpipers, two drummers and three tambourine players! And they played... oh how they played! I'm sorry to say that even on my trip to Scotland I did not hear such music! It was very powerful!

After further research, is seems it's not strange at all to find Scotsmen in Burgundy. A Scotsman settled down not far from Chateauneuf en Auxois, where the market was held, and started growing his own grapes on the slopes of Cote d'Or in 2004. Sadly, the winery was sold a few years back, but it seems the Scottish traditions remained. And oh what wonderful traditions they are. Having a dash of Scottish blood in my veins myself, the music almost brought a tear to my eye.


/MrsHjort

Day 5 - The Ladies

Yey! Things are moving forward! I've had two epiphanies since yesterday - I've figured out a new way to reduce noise selectively using the Nik Collection, and a new, much faster way to fake a narrow DOF.

Let's deal with the noise first. Sometimes, the name of a thing can blind you to the effect is has. The Nik Collection includes a filter called Dynamic Skin Softener that reduces texture in, you guessed it, skin tones. But, you have the ability to redefine what should be accounted as "skin", which means that you can soften any color you like by using the pipette tool. Neat huh? That helps a lot when changing a portion of an image drastically, like say when you use the Detail Extractor to bring out a sky and it becomes "too noisy". I wish I had figured that out sooner.

Next, lets talk about the fake DOF. Before, I used do that in a very time-consuming way. I used the lasso tools to select the portion I wanted to keep sharp, copied it and put it on a new layer. After that I  went back to the base layer, cloned the areas close to the "copied part" and painted over it to minimize the bleed effect that blurring an image creates - otherwise I would end up with a give-away fuzzy "halo" around sharp area. Today I figured, why not simply cut the subjects out instead? That way there would be nothing left on the base layer to bleed from. As you can see, it worked beautifully! Tough, I had to copy the base layer three times, blur three of layers and keep a sharp one in the back so that there wouldn't be any "sharp bleed" or transparency (am I making sense here? I hope I am).

So there you have it. My two new methods, I hope they're useful to you too.

/MrsHjort

Day 3 - The Smiths

There are many different layers of post-ed to this photo. I wanted to brighten the original, but keep the dark areas close to the fire in order to contrast the flames against it. So, the first thing I did was a Bleach Bypass to brighten things up a bit and then cut away the bottom part to keep it dark. That's how you have to work with the Nik Collection, since the adjustments are global and applied to your image as it is displayed on you monitor, regardless of what layer you're on.

Next, I enhanced the fire with Contrast Color Range to get those marvelous fiery colors, and then cut away everything but it (the rest obviously got too wild). After that I hid the fire layer (since it was perfect), and did another contrast color range layer on the rest in order get it right. Then I reordered the fire-layer to put it on top and showed it again. After that, Detail Extractor and Skylight. Then I reduced the noise, sharpened and reduced the noise again. Two additional layers with a slight dark vignette (curves) to the right and top and I was done.

/MrsHjort

Day 2 - Weavess

This photo went through more or less the same processing as the one I posted yesterday - minus the selective blurring. That made it easy in comparison. Making a fake DOF effect look good is a lot of work, so I'm glad I didn't have to today. But then this is a picture that thrives upon its many details.

This woman sat waving the whole day, and it was a treat to watch her work. It's always marvelous to watch a skilled craftsman. There were quite a lot of them at the market. Smiths (you'll get to see them an other day), glassblowers and carpenters. I really admire those who have learned to create works of art with their own hands. Nowadays we take so many little things for granted. It's so easy to pick up stuff at the local store, but there is something special about something that has been created by hand. Don't you think?

/MrsHjort