Skiing into the sunset

Skiing into the sunset

I went out to photograph the sunset on a cold January afternoon because it looked like there might some nice colors in the sky. As I was looking for a good position, this man skied past me and I knew I had to get him in the frame with the sun. I had my camera hanging on my neck, but I wasn’t really prepared to take any photos. Luckily he wasn’t too fast and I was able to adjust my camera settings and take this photo. Looking back, I think this was the best photo I took that day.

For those of you who are interested in tech stuff, the image is a blend of two differently exposed versions of the same file. Blending allowed me to adjust the exposure of the snow and the sky more easily to my liking.

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A great tit with snow on its beak

A great tit with snow on its beak

I took this photo of a great tit last December on one of the last days of the year. We spent a day away from the city near Pieksämäki. It was a fairly cold day, but very productive in terms of bird photography. I haven’t had the time to go through all the images yet, but I know there are at least a couple of photos I like.

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Sunset on a hill

Winter sunset

There’s a small hill with a relatively nice view near our apartment where we sometimes go. I originally shot this photo bracketed to make an HDR image, but ended up using only one exposure. Apart from the sun there wasn’t much need for the extra dynamic range. I think I’ll try to make the HDR version later when I have more time.

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Crows over a lake

Winter Sunset

This image is also from 2007. It was taken just a little after the one I posted earlier. Well, actually it’s a composite of a few photos, but the base image was taken in 2007. This year I plan to do more processing than before, so some of these experiments might go a bit over the top. I try to keep them tasteful though.

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Walker

Walker

Here’s another image from 2007. Google was kind enough to give me a free copy of Nik’s plugin bundle and this was the first image tested it on. I used a very randomly selected set of filters from Color Efex to get this look and the image instantly became one of my favorites.

As a side note, I’ve created a Facebook page for my images. If you don’t like RSS feeds, you can now keep keep up to date with this blog by liking the page. If you like the images there (or here), feel free to share them to your friends.

I’ve still got loads of exciting news to share, but I’ll try to keep my posts short, so more on those next time.

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Winter sunset

Winter Sunset
Winter Sunset

Lately I’ve been going through old photos again and trying new processing techniques on them. I haven’t used textures before, but I think after this experiment I’m going to try to use them more often. The original photo was taken in 2007 on a frozen lake in Eastern Finland.

By the way, I have a mobile phone / scrapbook blog in Tumblr. In addition to phoneography, I also use the blog to post alternative takes on images and unique Creative Commons content. Tumblr updates don’t show on the front page so if you want to keep up with my mobile photography, be sure to follow me on Tumblr or subscribe to the feed on the Mobile page.

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New beginning

Spring flower

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I’ve neglected the blog for quite a while again, partly due to work and partly because I was updating the layout. Finally everything works almost as it should so it’s time to start posting new photos. I have also decided to move my old photo blog at scumbucket.explodingfish.net to explodingfish.net. From now on, you can find my travel photos by clicking the Travel tab and the photos from Scumbucket by clicking the Blog tab.

You can now subscribe the RSS feed by clicking the rss icon at the top of the page. There are also links to my social media sites.

I’ll start adding old post and photos to the blog little by little and try to post new stuff once or twice a week. I’d like to hear what you think about the new site.