Last summer, when I was in the US doing that photography course, one of our teachers gave us a checklist on what to check before we go out and/or take pictures. It’s become quite an automatism over the past half year to go over that list in my mind. But not this afternoon.

A couple of days ago I was out shooting in the late afternoon. Cloudy, overcast day, and too dark, really, to take pictures. But well… stubborn… I wanted to try anyway, even if I knew better.
Upped the ISO to 1600, screwed up all my pictures, as expected. D200 doesn’t really handle high ISOs as well as the newer models.

Worse, today I shot a couple of pictures and forgot completely to check the checklist. So I left the ISO on 1600.
Bright daylight, so this image wasn’t as ruined as the rest…

Anyway… Rambling…
Doesn’t have anything to do with what I actually wanted to write.

IT’S WINTER!!!
We finally got a decent pack of snow, and cold weather!
Love it, LOVE IT!
It was kind of funny when I shot this picture.

D200, ISO1600, 1/180 sec @ f/8, Tamron 28-75mm

This image is unedited. There was a gorgeous orange sunset behind me, turning everything on the opposite side this shade.
We live a bit uphill and when it’s clear there’s a sunset like this every day. Lasts only about 5-10 minutes, but when I’m home, I’m always looking.
I still have to nick the keys to the roof of our building some time. Set up there and take a shot from bird’s eye view

And this… Well… sunset through a glass pot with some frost in it…
Never mind me…

D200, ISO1600, 1/500 sec @ f/19, Tamron 28-75mm

Giorgio Armani is treating me well (and he should for the money I invested in him ).
Got some feedback on my previous pics and was advised to put in some complementary colors.
So… following the good advise:

D200, ISO100, 1/250 sec @ f/16, Tamron 28-75mm, off-camera SB-800 with Photoflex softbox

And the beauty?
The picture is unedited save for a bit tighter crop. No saturation, no alteration. Right out of the camera
Good that the flowers don’t have GIORGIO ARMANI on them, otherwise it would’ve been one hell of an expensive picture

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?

It actually did stop raining. I took a good walk with my better half today (still walking off the extra pounds that I gained back in the US ).
Fall colors are really coming through now everywhere. I’ll save you a lot of reading, just look at the pictures.

D200, ISO100, 1/1000 sec @ f/2.8, Tamron 28-75mm

D200, ISO100, 1/90 sec @ f/4.8, Tamron 28-75mm

D200, ISO100, 1/60 sec @ f/2.8, Tamron 28-75mm, off-camera flash SB-800

D200, ISO100, 1/90 sec @ f/5.6, Tamron 28-75mm

D200, ISO100, 1/60 sec @ f/2.8, Tamron 28-75mm, off-camera flash SB-800