Blue Twins

While on my holidays, I find it quite relaxing to walk with my old 20D and the great 60mm macro lens and shoot everything with this setup. This allows me to see things I would normally not notice, like the two flowers on today's post. Even though I do not take many macro images, this one, I think, is worth sharing. Camera spec: Canon 20D with 60mm EF-S macro, F8 @ 1/200, ISO 800.

Sunset Portrait

Today I was visiting a summer house of my parents and we experienced a beautiful sunset. I had luckily my camera with me but only a limited set of accessories (read it as one on-camera flash). I was thinking how to light the portrait of my parents and then I saw a white fishing house on the shore, moreover with relatively white wall where I directed my flash to in order to bounce the light back on the scene. Finding the right spot for my parents to stand was little bit tricky (see that attached photo with the location of the fishing house and the place where they stand) but we managed and pulled out a nice photo with great directional light. The same photo with a direct on-camera flash would be flat and artificially looking. The light coming from the right direction was the key to this more pleasing portrait where the light looks definitely natural and more attractive. Camera spec: Canon 5D mark ii with Canon 24-105 4L USM at 35mm, F8 @ 1/125, ISO 800.

Summer in BW

Let me post today a landscape photo from nearby a small village Valdikov located in the Czech Republic. I was thinking about the composition when making the image. First of all, the rule of thirds was applied such that the horizon is where the upper two thirds meet and the small white fishing house is located also where the vertical thirds meet. There are moreover several lines leading towards this small house (note for example the branch starting the the lower right corner and extending towards the house, followed by the shadows in the water). Finally, the whole picture is framed using the branches of the trees in the foreground. The image was converted to BW in Lightroom 3. Camera spec: Canon 5D mark ii with Canon 24-105 4L at 24mm, F16 @ 1/60, ISO 200.

Psss ... Listen

Being on my holidays in the Czech Republic, I have been taking some photos of kids. This one I enjoyed most from the yesterday's shoot. I like how the baby and the dog look at the same direction and carefully listen. I was lying on the ground to get a good angle and the light in the face of the baby was enhanced with a silver reflector placed to the camera right. Camera spec: Canon 5D mark ii with Canon 70-200 2.8L IS II at 115mm, F5.6 @ 1/160, ISO 400.