This image of a coltsfoot in spring forest is one of the older photos I’ve been post-processing recently. It was taken on the same evening as the series of spring leaves I’ve been uploading on my Tumblr blog. Originally this image had warmer light and it was a bit soft, so I accentuated the details on the flower and the piece of wood next to it and adjusted the white balance to make the ground look desaturated. I also added a lens blur filter on the background to give a “Lensbaby” look.
I took this photo very shortly after I purchased my first DSLR, but it’s still one of my favorites. It is one of the few of my early images that came out the way I wanted despite my very limited skillset and now after post-processing it again, it looks even better. The photo was taken at Pitkäruoho nature reserve in Jyväskylä on a relatively cold day in February.
In July, I visited my home town in Eastern Finland. These visits usually include swimming in the lake and going to sauna. After we’d done swimming, I took a few sunset shots on the shore and my father spent a while casting his fishing rod. For some reason, I haven’t got that many photographs of my parents, so I took the opportunity to snap a few shots of him in the beautiful evening light.
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.
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.