2 - Portrait, the last one

This was shot a couple of month ago, some of you have already seen it, as I'm using it on my phone as a background image. Anyway, I though it was worth to publish here.

2 - Portrait, continued 2

Then came the little son, Matyi. As he walks already, it is probably the most difficult to make a good portrait of him, because if he realizes the camera he runs to me. I could make this one when my daughter was holding him.

2 - Portrait, continued

As I wrote last time, it was difficult to get some models, but Sunday afternoon I set up my home studio and started with my daughter. As she is a teenager already, it was quite different than it used to be. She used to be the nicest girl on Earth, but it's hard to remember those good old days, as nowadays everything is overwhelmed by her neglectfulness. Anyway, there were moments when she looked cute, the only task for me was to catch. This is how I succeeded:

2 - Portrait

I would like to show you a few portraits, as this is one of my favourites. The number of pictures I will upload really depends on available free time during the weekend, as well as the health condition and willingness of my usual portrait subjects - my family members.

Regardless of that, now I'm starting with something special. The lady on this picture has been the neighbour of my grandmother for sixty-seventy years. My grandma died already seven years ago at age of 92, but Mrs. Vendég had her 104th birthday yesterday. She is wearing very well, doesn't even look 90, although she has seen the funeral of one of her daughters and a grandson, on top of that her husband never came back from 2nd world war. She has 8 great grand children. Her daughter is 79, her grandson is 52. Lots of things are happening in 104 years time...

Happy Birthday Mrs. Vendég!

1. Black & White

Happy New Year!

Since I owe you 'water' from December, I thought I will combine B&W and water now. I was playing with angle of light and focal length as well as DOF. Hope you like it.

Click on the picture and view full size for details...

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: