shapes

Day 24…

Posted by Arno on June 28, 2013
Posted in: color, flower, macro, nature, photography, Photoshop, shapes, wildlife. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a Comment

… during the day (Night dive coming up after this post).

I’ve seen plenty of colors during the past weeks. It’s amazing down there (I know, I start repeating myself). I’ve seen probably 2-3 different kinds of starfish around here in one or another variety, but the other day, when we were out for a skill set and did a short “tour” just off the shore, we ran into some crazy colorful ones that I hadn’t seen before. Only at about 5 meters deep, about 200 m from the beach.

I decided to come back for pictures.

Starfish

D800 (in Ikelight underwater housing), ISO1600, 1/1000 sec @ f/5.6, Tamron 90mm

Starfish

D800 (in Ikelight underwater housing), ISO1600, 1/1000 sec @ f/5.6, Tamron 90mm

Starfish

D800 (in Ikelight underwater housing), ISO1600, 1/1000 sec @ f/4, Tamron 90mm

I shot only three, but there were six or seven of them in different colors. Unfortunately I failed to attached the flash connector properly to the hotshoe of the camera, so I had to shoot without flash. Luckily this was only at shallow depth, and there was enough light coming in to shoot without flash, but the colors were completely off.

Starfish before - after

D800 (in Ikelight underwater housing), ISO1600, 1/1000 sec @ f/4, Tamron 90mm
And the obvious color adjustments in Photoshop.

And then there’s the time where you just sit in the sand, camera at the ready, waiting for that right moment. It may come, or it may not. But with patience…

Starfish

D800 (in Ikelight underwater housing), ISO1600, 1/1000 sec @ f/4, Tamron 90mm

People have destroyed already way too much, both on land and underwater, but it’s beautiful to see how people haven’t (yet, let’s hope it will never get that far) screwed up the underwater world and haven’t managed to scare the wits out of everything living there.
At first you’re just a big strange creature, but if you “sit down” (not literally, at least not everywhere or randomly!!) and stay calm, the life around you will start going about their business within minutes and you get to see the most beautiful things in their natural environment 🙂

On the way to the place where we saw the starfish we encountered a few other things as well.
Very common, the clownfish:

Clownfish

D800 (in Ikelight underwater housing), ISO1600, 1/1000 sec @ f/5.6, Tamron 90mm

Very cute, but actually they are very feisty. They will protect their home against anything that comes close. A couple of times it bumped against my mask just to shoo me out of the way.
And of course the lion fish, it comes in so many varieties, with wings, and feathers and stuff, and it’s so gracious, I could take pictures of it all day!

Lionfish

D800 (in Ikelight underwater housing), ISO1600, 1/500 sec @ f/4, Tamron 90mm

Glass shrimps are also very cute, but very small. The one in this picture is about 3 mm “big”.

Glass shrimp

D800 (in Ikelight underwater housing), ISO1600, 1/1000 sec @ f/5.6, Tamron 90mm

More to come!

Norway… Year two, who wouldn’t want to live here?

Posted by Arno on March 26, 2013
Posted in: black and white, color, lightroom, nature, photography, Photoshop, seasons, shapes, travel, weather. Tagged: , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

This was absolutely breath-taking. Even if it’s very simple to explain what you see, sometimes it’s hard to actually believe what you see.
And it’s remarkable how the weather influences your perception. We drove by this inlet several times and only once was it like this. When there was even the slightest breeze, and the water would start moving, the dream scenario disappeared instantly.

D800, ISO100, 1/250 sec @ f/5.6, Nikkor 50mm

D800, ISO100, 1/250 sec @ f/5.6, Nikkor 50mm

D800, ISO100, 1/250 sec @ f/5.6, Nikkor 50mm. 6 images stitched in Photoshop.

D800, ISO100, 1/250 sec @ f/5.6, Nikkor 50mm. 6 images stitched in Photoshop.

D800, ISO100, 1/250 sec @ f/5.6, Nikkor 50mm

D800, ISO100, 1/250 sec @ f/5.6, Nikkor 50mm

 

 

Norway… Year two, the window between day and night

Posted by Arno on March 20, 2013
Posted in: color, lightroom, long exposure, nature, photography, Photoshop, shapes, travel, weather. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a Comment

Seeing the Northern Lights isn’t a given. With the unpredictability of the weather up there there’s as much chance of seeing the Lights as there isn’t.
And considering the fact that the Lights are only visible in the evenings and/or at night, it leaves about 12 hours of daylight time to shoot other things. And besides being insanely expensive, Norway is also an insanely beautiful country. At least up in the north where we were.

Sunsets and sunrises, a part of every photographer’s portfolio wherever he/she goes (I’m privileged that I got to see the Lights in the first place, but it would be sooooo cool to catch the them at sunset…)

D800, ISO100, 1/30 sec @ f/16, Nikkor 14-24mm

D800, ISO100, 1/30 sec @ f/16, Nikkor 14-24mm

D800, ISO100, 1/125 sec @ f/22, Nikkor 14-24mm

D800, ISO100, 1/125 sec @ f/22, Nikkor 14-24mm

Sunset over Rekvik, Norway

D800, ISO100, 1/125 sec @ f/8, Nikkor 50mm

Sunset over Rekvik, Norway

D800, ISO800, 8 sec @ f/2.8, Nikkor 14-24mm

 

Norway… Year two.

Posted by Arno on March 17, 2013
Posted in: color, long exposure, nature, photography, Photoshop, shapes, weather. Tagged: , , , , , . 2 comments

I’ve decided to stick in the cold for a bit.
Last year we went to Norway to shoot the Northern Lights. It almost turned out in one big expensive disappointing trip.
This year we went again, and it turned out in one big great expensive trip (3 Peppe Pizzas for 108,00€: chaCHING!!!!). But the photos we got were absolutely breath-taking. And no need to Photoshop anything into another picture. All these are genuine and -save for some color adjustments here and there (foreground mostly, not the Lights)- unedited.

I’ll not bore you with any superfluous words. Judge for yourself.

Northern Lights dancing over the hills in Norway

D800, ISO800, 15 sec @ f/4, Nikkor 14-24mm

Northern Lights dancing over the hills in Norway

D800, ISO800, 30 sec @ f/4, Nikkor 14-24mm

Northern Lights dancing over the hills in Norway

D800, ISO800, 30 sec @ f/4, Nikkor 14-24mm

Northern Lights dancing over the hills in Norway

D800, ISO800, 79 sec @ f/4, Nikkor 14-24mm, and a little torch to illuminate the barn to the right for about 15 secs

Northern Lights dancing over the hills in Norway

D800, ISO800, 30 sec @ f/4, Nikkor 14-24mm

Prints are available from here:
My Norway Gallery on Photoshelter (link opens in a new window).

Cracked up

Posted by Arno on September 30, 2012
Posted in: color, industry, macro, object, photography, Photoshop, shapes. Tagged: , , . Leave a Comment

Sometimes you come across things of which you think: “What am I supposed to do with that?”
As a photographer you -or at least I- always look at things as if it were through a view finder. Always framing the things you see around you. Always thinking “how would this look if I were to….?” There’s always something you can do with something.

Take this for example:

Triptych

D800, ISO100, 1/250 sec @ f/2, Nikkor 50mm

I’ll leave you to ponder over what it is 🙂

The beauties of cultural differences

Posted by Arno on September 13, 2012
Posted in: color, flower, insect, macro, nature, photography, shapes, wildlife. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

Last week I spent a few days in my other home country. I had planned to go out at least one day, even just for an hour, just me and my camera, to shoot some pictures. A little bit of me-time. There was that one day, and I took camera and tripod and took off into the fields. I was mainly looking to dive into some more (and other than bumblebees this time) bugs, and maybe some nice flowers. I think it was too warm with 28°C, because there wasn’t much activity.
Save for all of a sudden a dog that came running at me and jumping against and around me. Its owner came walking towards me with a second dog, apologizing for the first dog’s behavior (“It usually never does that!”), but I didn’t mind at all.
I guess in the end I’m more Dutch than I am Finnish. This wouldn’t usually happen in Finland, where people are typically so private towards strangers that they wouldn’t even greet you when you bump into them. We kind of fell in chit-chat mode and I walked up with the lady, who -coincidentally- appeared to be an amateur photographer and member of the local camera club. We spoke about photography in general, about the places she had been, where I had been, what I’d done (“actually just published an article in a Dutch magazine about HDR and cross-processing”, “oh, really? Are you here still next week? Our camera club has a meeting and sometimes we have guest speakers. This would be a subject a lot of our members would be interested in!”), and so on and so forth. We walked and talked together for probably 45 minutes, when I noticed I had to take a different turn, back to where I came from. Time had passed in the blink of an eye, and I kind of had forgotten how much more open people really are, especially in the part of the country that I’m originally from.
I didn’t get to shoot too much pictures, and I didn’t get too much me-time, but I really enjoyed my walk and talk with this lady. I hope (going back into Finnish mode now) she wasn’t offended by me accompanying her on her walk with her dogs. I hope she enjoyed our talk as much as I did…

Ladybug

D800, ISO100, 1/320 sec @ f/8, Tamron 90mm, on-camera flash

Leaf

D800, ISO100, 1/250 sec @ f/8, Tamron 90mm
(loooooove the intricacy of this one 🙂 )

Fungi popping up…

Posted by Arno on August 29, 2012
Posted in: color, flower, lightroom, macro, nature, photography, Photoshop, seasons, shapes. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a Comment
Mushroom

D800, ISO400, 1/250 sec @ f/3.5, Tamron 90mm, off-camera SB-800

Mushroom

D800, ISO400, 1/125 sec @ f/2.8, Nikkor 50mm

Mushroom

D800, ISO400, 1/125 sec @ f/3.5, Tamron 90mm

That’s what happens when the weather gets (or has been) wet(ter) the whole summer. But it makes for some interesting sceneries…

So peaceful…

Posted by Arno on August 27, 2012
Posted in: color, lightroom, nature, object, photography, Photoshop, seasons, shapes, travel, weather. Tagged: , , , , , , . 2 comments

I’ve got some more bugs coming up for you, but this one I wanted to share first.
We were up in the wilderness again, and the weather forecast was dreadful. As usual one should never trust the weather forecast. Those forecasters couldn’t even predict the entrance of an elephant if they were riding in on it…
It turned out to be probably one of the best weekends of this thing we call summer in this country. Absolutely gorgeous!

Kuhmoinen panorama

D800, ISO100, 1/250 sec @ f/8, Nikkor 50mm.
Panorama stitched together in Photoshop from 7 pictures

It’s been busy!

Posted by Arno on July 20, 2012
Posted in: black and white, color, industry, lightroom, macro, nature, object, photography, Photoshop, shapes, stock. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

I got a lot of stuff done in the past week.

A year and a half or so ago I wrote about Photoshelter vs PhotoDeck. I quit Photoshelter in favor of PhotoDeck for the simple reason that PhotoDeck had better and more simple features and it was cheaper. Not too long ago I got a mail from Photoshelter inviting me to reacquaint myself with them for 30 days for free. I did. And I swung right back to Photoshelter. Their features have become so much better compared to what it was, and their prices so much more attractive than they were before that I just couldn’t let it go.
I’m still with PhotoDeck, but my subscription is ending in a few months. I haven’t decided yet if I will keep it up. Compared to Photoshelter they all of a sudden have become a lot more expensive, actually, for the storage space I get with Photoshelter now I would pay double the price with PhotoDeck. That’s too bad, because I really like them. But it’s business. And if I have to pay twice as much for a similar service, it simply is a no-go; that’s too big a difference.
So I’ve been editing and uploading and tweaking my new website with commercial back-end. You can find it at www.stockphotography.nu and it looks like this:

www.stockphotography.nu store-front

www.stockphotography.nu store-front

You can order prints, canvases, mugs, mouse pads or just the plain digital file. The whole nine yards. You can contact me for special prices if you find something you would like. You can do a search for pictures with the search box at the top right of the blog.

The other thing I’ve been collecting stuff for is the One Life photo competition from PDN. If my pictures are deemed good enough, I could win a nice prize. My page there looks like this:

Arno Enzerink portfolio for the One Life competition

Portfolio for the One Life competition

You are free to “Collect Me“, if you have the time and think the images are worth it. The images you see are crops, they are all links to the full size pictures. If you click the link Collect Me you are requested to either sign up or sign in with your Facebook or Twitter username. Do that, then click the image and in the window that opens then at the top right “Collect Me”. Or just leave a comment with the pictures and tell me what you think, that’s fine for me too 🙂
Thanks in any case!

Out of the blue…

Posted by Arno on July 15, 2012
Posted in: black and white, color, object, photography, Photoshop, shapes, stock. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a Comment

Yeah, pun intended…
Sometimes it happens that you’re driving around somewhere and all of a sudden your eye sees something (that isn’t there), and you need to stop. You need to stop and get out (if you happen -for a change- to have your camera with you) to take a picture of that something that isn’t there.
My mind’s eye is ruthless like that. To me it’s a blessed curse, I say. I haven’t had a problem with it, but I’ve had people in the past whom I knew to roll their eyes if I would pull over again and drag the camera out to take pictures of something that just isn’t visible to their eyes.
Usually people get it when they see someone take pictures of a beautiful landscape, but when they see someone sitting on their knees in the knee-high grass taking (close-up) pictures of an old weathered hinge of a gate… That may not receive such understanding.
But of course they haven’t seen what I do with it.
My cross-processing baby, my little bastard child, misunderstood, misnamed, confused with much less artistic things… *grins*

Anyway… Here’s another one. If you’re new here, type it in the search box to find more of them 🙂
I find this one actually quite appealing. It’s not as colorful as the rest, but there’s something funky with it 🙂

Hinge of an old weathered gate

D800, ISO400, 1/125 sec @ f/4.8, Nikkor 50mm

The layer palette from Photoshop showing the steps in the process to the end result

The layer palette from Photoshop showing the steps in the process to the end result

Old weathered hinge of a gate

The end result after all the work is done