50 - Vehicles

I like vehicles. There are so many different type of 'em. For example cars. Newer ones:

and older ones:

 
 



... and two-in-one:

and there are vehicles in the air (for example this one is carrying Felipe Massa after his unfortunate accident at Hungaroring this year):

... and there are vehicles created by the most creative people (children), this one was prepared by my daughter and son for our little one. Please notice the safety belt! Safety first!

48 - Texture

As Marek was complaining that I missed the "Texture", hereby I'm recovering:

49 - Tree

It is December. It is difficult to shoot nice tree pictures, but December is also the month of Christmas. This reminded me my favourite Christmas tree picture:

Hope you like it.

47 - Signs

I always wanted to sign my pictures, now I did.

46 - Shadows

Little play with my wedding ring and wedding invitation card and of course light and shadow.

45 - Self Portrait

I wanted to get something in between, but didn't have more time to play...

44 - Rule of Thirds

Probably the most commonly applied compositional rule. I think it is a simplification of the Golden Ratio.

I think you all know it, but for the sake of stringency, let's have the definition here:
When the ratio of the sum of the quantities to the larger quantity is equal to the ratio of the larger quantity to the smaller one. The golden ratio is an irrational mathematical constant, approximately 1.618.

Many artists and architects have proportioned their works to approximate the golden ratio - especially in the form of the golden rectangle, in which the ratio of the longer side to the shorter is the golden ratio - believing this proportion to be aesthetically pleasing.

If one splits the picture 1/3 to 2/3, that is pretty close to 0.382 vs 0.618, so the picture will look balanced.

Sorry for the long introduction, but when I saw the subject for this week, it immediately reminded me to one of my pictures taken in the summer of 2004.

I loved and still love this picture. And it is not only because this is my family. I asked many other people if they also thought this was a very pleasing picture or not. You may confirm or deny, but for me this is very peaceful picture generating emotions. When I shot it, I didn't think of it, but checking it afterwords I realized it had been composed excatly by golden ratios.

Originaly it is on color slide (Fuji Sensia 100), scanned for this purpose now, on my simple scanner, so the quality of it is far from optimal.

Marking the golden ratios:

43 - Reflection

This could have been saved for next week (self portrait), as I am reflected in my wife's eye here...

42 - Pyramid composition

This has been shot with Nikon D3X 14-24mm F/2.8

41 - Photoshopped

I'm catching up again...

Playing with Photoshop I chose a portrait of my sister in law. I took this picture sometimes during the summer using a home-made softbox.
I deliberately slightly overdone the retouch to show how those cover girls are "made". I also upload it in a pretty high resolution, so you can check details.

40 - Photo of Choice

I might have chosen something more special, but didn't have too much time this weekend. Today it's full moon, so I thought this may be a good subject.

... although I more like when it looks like this:

Most people don't know - I'm sure you do - but for taking good moon photos, you don't necessarily need tripod and definitely not long exposure. At ISO 100, you should take f8 and 1/250 sec, basically your subject is being lit by the sun... Actually, if you are shooting longer than 1/60 sec, you'll get motion blur.

39 - Photo Essay

Harvest

Few weeks ago we harvested grapes at my friend's vineyard. Although it's a long time it becomes wine I tried to document the the first part of that process. If you are well organized you still have a few bottles from the prior year by the time the new one becomes ready. This essay is about the first actions from picking the grapes until it gets to the barrels. Hope you enjoy:

38 - Patterns

Learning from Marek's comment last week, now I was trying to get the best out of the subject by moving around and using different focal lengths. I shot quite a few pictures and this is what I liked the most, but I have to tell you, I'm still not 100% satisfied. I wanted to create more dramatic feelings. Looking forward to your comments and suggestions.

37 - Paths

Today I went for a bike ride with my son and I was looking for some paths along the way. It was difficult because we didn't plan to leave the town, so we rather saw roads and sidewalks, but not paths. After a while we arrived to a very old bridge which was crossing over the railway. The bridge had a small path for the bikes.

Not sure it is really called path, neither in Hungarian nor in English, but looked good and really helped to climb up with the bikes...

36 - Opening

I was thinking long time how and what to shoot this week. First I thought the opening ceremony of the school-year might be a good opportunity, but didn't know what exactly. Then I didn't even participate on it as I stayed home with the four-month-old.

Later I started to think about a door that is being opened, but no exact pictures in my thoughts.

Yesterday evening I was tired like hell. We put the two boys to bed one after another with my wife, but then I had to "pray" to my daughter to go to sleep. I said to myself: Okay, I'll have a beer, then I go and sleep even if my daughter is still awake, I don't care.

...and that was the moment, when I opened the beer, I knew what my picture is goanna be this week:

35 - Night

I wanted to shoot a night picture of the new National Theatre (built in 2000-2001) for a long while, but somehow I never managed it. This week's theme was a good indicator, so I went there with my tripod:

Another night related favourite of mine is star trails. I tried to shoot once, but there's a room for improvement:

34 - Movement

Although I'm not a big fan of Formula 1, I must say there is a special feeling when you are there and hear it and smell it live. I never watch it in TV, but I visited the Hungarian Grand Prix 4 times during the last six years. Of course, it is partialy due to my son, who likes it very much.

One can not find a better place to shoot movement pictures than a Formula One race, so I tried it this year and prepared ahead for this weekend of our photo contest. Obviously my equipment is far from excellent for this purpose. I shot these @200 mm and 1/100 second. This is the last turn, entering the home straight. At this point F1 cars are driving around 130-140 km/h and start to accelerate (to speed up and reach 290+ at the finish line).

33 - Monochromatic

I tried to find the best monochromatic solution between simple b&w and sepia to match the mood of this picture, because I felt both of those too extreme. Hope you like it...

Just for comparision:

32 - Modern

I didn't see too many modern things during my vacation, but I liked this:

Macro - continued

I have quite a few macro shots to show you, as I was playing with different small animals during my vacation. Now I show you one and may continue if you like. (click on it and view full size)

31 - Macro

As I mentioned I'm on vacation and have no access to web, except my mobile. Anyway, you can remember that I prepared a macro shot a few weeks ago. Now I'm uploading that one:


This week I shot a few other macros, so I'll upload them next week.

30 - Low key

I still owe you some pictures of the former weeks, but today I made my very first low key photo. I was trying to find good subjects, but I failed with most of them. This one is somewhat acceptable, so I upload this. I think there's a long way to go in learning and experimenting low key, but it was an interesting excercise, I liked it.

Now being on vacation I will definitely catch up, but I will have limited access to Internet and Photoshop, so I may upload only two weeks later.

Trying to catch up again, three pictures at a time. From Friday I'll be on vacation, so more chances to use my camera... Looking forward to your comments and upcoming pictures. Cheers!

27 - Light

My son having bath in light

26 - Life

... not a really good one in captivity, though...

25 - Landscape / Nature

Although it is rather cityscape, I liked the clouds and the sun so much, I had to take this shot (or shots, as this is actually three pictures).

(click on it to view full size)

23 - Children

When I was thinking what to show you this week, obviuosly my first idea was: my children. Then I though it can be so boring to see my family pictures week on week, so I decided to come with something different.

I had planned to shoot something interesting on the party that was organized for my daughter's classmates for Saturday. I did some prework as preparation, to get the best result. Here is what I did home:

During the party I was waiting for the best momemt, which came when a dozen of them started to play ping-pong, so I did not even had to play with Photoshop:

At the end, you will not escape! I show you my children anyway:

(Notice the lighting, I used two flashes, one with a home made soft box and the other one with a grid, also prepared by myself.)

22 - Hot

This weekend I made a mistake. During the week I checked what the subject was for this week and I was happy, because I like macro (Macro is following low key, so probably this is how I messed up...). I very accurately prepared a macro shot today afternoon (we had long weekend).

See how I did it:

then started to upload it in the evening and realized the subject was rather HOT, not macro.

So I quickly did this:

This is burning hot Hungarian paprika