Part II and part I linked.

It doesn’t happen very often that the sun sets under the cloud deck like this. It’s quite an impressive sight.
This image is straight out of camera (conversion from the RAW file), no post-processing (like saturation or anything) save for resizing and the border. It really was this colorful.

D700, ISO800, 1/90 sec @ f/8, Nikkor 50mm

Värileikki

I’m having an exhibition with a fellow artist the coming two weeks. It runs from May 12th-May 24th.

The official opening is on Sunday May 10th, from 18:00-19:30 in Kässän Taidetalo in Virkkala (Tynninharjuntie 21).
If you’re from around, you’re around and you feel like popping in: welcome!

Some time ago I wrote about how our balcony’s facing west and how we enjoy frequent sunsets.
Now that the ever present snow clouds accompanying the winter on its way out, we get to see those sunsets again. Today was especially colorful and I was too busy to get out and find a decent spot to make a good composition of it. But I think this picture tells enough.

D200, ISO100, 1/45 sec @ f/5.6, Sigma 10-20mm

More to follow, without any doubt.

Know the feeling? You see something gorgeous, but you’re in the wrong place and can’t move elsewhere and if you go later the opportunity will be gone?
I had that today.
So I had to improvise.

D200, ISO100, 1/250 @ f/4, Sigma 10-20mm

So yesterday after my life-threatening operation downtown Helsinki I went to a big store where they sell fabrics. There was one piece missing still for my home studio table top: a black backdrop.
I went into the store and enthusiastically asked for black silk, thinking it would be some 30 euros per meter. You can imagine my surprise that the cheapest suitable silk they had in store was closer to 70 euros per meter. That was a good amount more than I had budgeted and seriously more than I was willing to spend on it. So I had to downgrade… I found a very nice piece of Lycra or something and that was really the best piece after the silk I could find. The others were not really black, or too shiny, or dusty, or what not. But this nice piece of cloth still cost me 39 euros per meter. And I needed two meters at least. So… *sighs* about 80 euros lighter (oh, and a 50 euros parking ticket, because I parked three meters from a pedestrian crossing instead of five – that’s TWO tickets in two weeks, for crying out loud!!!), but a nice backdrop richer I went home to test it out.

D200, ISO100, 1/250 sec @ f/2.8, Tamron 28-75mm, off-camera SB-800 with Photoflex softbox

I went out to get a bunch of leaves and I even had a really nice conversation with an old guy who was working in the garden close by. That’s such un-Finnish behavior! And I like it

Oh… And when I was testing out the backdrop, I found out why it was so expensive anyway… It said with big bold white letters “GIORGIO ARMANI” on it
Hahahaha! Now that I come to think of it… How decadent is it really? I’m using a GIORGIO ARMANI cloth for my photography backdrop…
Oh my… where is it going with me?