How to do, What to do, when to do, no no just doing...... no thinking

We went for a ride today.

A place called Mrs Green.
You will understand why.

Very nice company with my family.
We had our coffee in a small greenhouse 

The only gear I brought was my self phone. 
A perfect beautiful day, sun shine and all 
you can ask for.  
The sky turned black and the snow fell 
down on us. It didn't matter. I started to 
take some pictures from what was there.

I had some fun in this cold spring day. 
I will not go in technique or what I did 
to get the result.... I had some fun

And I was relaxed, catching small details 

....all for my soul 

From an inspiration to the implementation

An image often starts with a whim. I see something interesting along my way to work, or when having a leisure walk. It can be just as simple as a reflections on the metal plate covered wall. But for enthusiastic photographer that is only the beginning.

On photo editor I then let my imagination and previously learned tricks to complete the idea. Very often the colours are pale and contrasts flat on the original image. Sometimes they can be improved with particular tools to enhance the saturation and increase the contrasts. Sometimes curves tool does to job. But sometimes Photoshop or GIMP layer mode like 'Hard Light' is enough to boost the image.

My goal often is to "manipulate the image but not change it". This means I do not add or remove much, except some accidental small twigs close to the edges of the image, or small dust or dirt particles on the photographed surfaces.

I also may "correct" the perspective, for example to make the vertical lines parallel, or fix the tilted horizon. I have a somewhat "annoyingly absolute eye" for unlevel horizon, thus being able to see even less than 0.5 degree aberration from the absolute level.

Finally, on editor, I often find some surprising details which I did not notice when taking the shot. On the example image it was the clouds, which seemed to complete the original composition. I first planned to crop this into a square, but the original aspect ratio was almost perfect, and I only cropped the image to make the diagonal line of the roof to meet the corner.

All this makes the hobby of amateur photography so interesting. At one stage I thought the ideal is to record the reality as it is, not to change anything of it on post processing. But then I discovered the reality for me is the illusions and dreams I have, and those are what I want to share. So, the scene you see in the image is the reality how I like to see it.

In Finnish there is a word 'mielikuva', which means something like a 'mental image', 'vision', or a 'conception'. But it is also like a 'created image' one sees on advertisements, which try to sell us conceptions like 'family', 'freedom', 'beauty' etc. So, to "sell" something like 'futurism', which I kind of hope you to see on the example image, requires the boosting of such features as deep blue sky, going almost as black as space, and turning the reflections almost blinding bright.

But 'mielikuva' can mean also something like a 'favorite image' (mieli = favorite). In other words I'm sharing my favorite images as well.

Further reading:

• Futurism, Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurism
• Mieli (Eng. mind or favorite) at Wiktionary https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mieli

Street Photography...

42mm, f/11, 1/80, ISO 400

I really like street photography.
And top photographers make it look so easy.
So, if you have the right settings on the camera, it should be easy:

- you see it;
- you focus;
- you shoot.

That's it.

Well, that's hardly it.

This is me:

"- Hey, a cool scene. This will look great..."
"- Wait, wait, he's/she's/they are looking my way..."
"- I'm gonna get in trouble. I'll wait until they look away..."
"-Wait..."
"-Wait..."
"-Move away, you little §£@ €/#?$!%&!, you're ruining the shot!"
"- Wait a little longer..."
"- Waiiiiit... "
"- Damn! They're going away! Damn! "

A missed oportunity.
Simply, for now I just don't have the guts to stick a lens right in the face of other people. I know I could use a longer lens and shoot from far away, but that's not what I like to see. Just love a wide angle lens effect!

So I feel like I'm the King of Lost Oportunities, but I'm sure I'm noth the only one.

See you!

Orlando N

I use to greet every flower in the morning

About Flowers



It became a ritual , from early spring till late autumn I wanted to keep them all in my memory.

To compare from one year to the next.
I started to take pictures, I became more and
more picky.

I found a book it became a kind
of bible for me I use it when I forget or cant
find out how whenever I need a word on the road "Digital Photography" written by Scott Kelby.

After some good advise, easy thoughts, I started all over
again. Some of the advise was not my cup of tea, but
it made me understand the way. To bring  patience
tripod or something to stabilize the camera,
it is enough with a small shaking flower....

The tripod was fast forgotten ......too much
no sport .... The advise I took to my heart is.

Make sure you take the photo with a small
angel and from the side.  Think about the light
and that you can see the bottom of the flower
giving a deep feeling.The last thing but ever so important
The setting F 3.5 -- 8.0 the rest is a matter of taste ...

When I think about this the process of learning
is for the rest of my life ....
Just a small word with thousands of ways how to do ...


Just a little something .....