Month: March 2009

In the park

Posting lot of flower photos lately I may gave the wrong impression of wussification… nothing far from the truth, in the park I don’t shoot only flowers but also people. Not many, as the weather is not yet warm enough and I am picky.

In the park: skater

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Willow

Among other trees and flowers, the willows are blossoming to, making the walk near a lake into a beautiful experience.

Willow in spring

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Buds

We are into the astronomic spring already, the bulbs (like this magnolia from my garden) are ready to explode, they need probably one or more hot sunny days, not the cloudy today. But there is a good thing to that: I have not managed to uplaod al ths shots from yesterday in the park…

Buds in my garden, waiting for the spring

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Spring yellow flowers

I could use some help from my readers, even if those flowers, probably the first trees blossoming in the spring, are practically everywhere, including in my garden, where I took the shoot, I don’t know their name, not the Romanian name and not the English name.

Update: thanks to a comment on flickr, I learned the name: "Forsythia" in English respectively "Forsiția" in Romanian

Yellow flowers

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About squirrels

The Romanian word for squirrel is "veveriță" and sometime is used in the same sense as the English "beaver", so I guess someone can argue about a link between those shoots and my usual stuff…

A squirrel in the park

This little guy lives in the Herastrau Park and, even still stressed, is accustomed with people and is profiteering to grab some food.

A squirrel in the park

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Belly Dance

One of the most popular tourism destination for Romanians is Turkey, so inevitably agencies present at a Romanian Tourism Fair must attract visitors with some oriental belly dance and if you, as a photographer, spot a cooperative dancer, the shoting is set:

Belly Dance at the Tourism Fair

Belly Dance at the Tourism Fair

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Malta: Bikinis and Knights

The ugly to hot ratio at a tourism fair is high, probably because the booth babes are supposed to talk with the public, not only to sit on display like at a car show (…or it was yet another effect of the economic crisis?), but a booth for Malta vacancies was putting quite a show: they had to bikini babes posing (unfortunately, in the hours I roamed around only the brunette was "working").

Tirgul de Turism: Bikini Girl

They also had a couple of guys in heavy armours, posing as knights, without Malta crosses and with a shiny cardboard background, so not very realistic but still some effort.

Tirgul de Turism: Malta Knight

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Tourism Fair / Tirgul de Turism

From the photographer point of view, the spring edition of the Bucharest Tourism Fair (Tirgul de Turism al Romaniei) was worse than the autumn one: the place was very crowded, being hard for you to get some good shots (and considering the bad light, it was quite an effort).

Tirgul de Turism: Cowgirl

Tirgul de Turism: Booth Babes

But being insistent enough, you can get something, including revealing cleavages like this:

Tirgul de Turism: Booth Babe

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Waiting to blossom

I hate this ugly and cold weather: the vegetation is waiting to blossom, look at this tree from my garden, and is held back by the low temperatures… But I guess there is also an upside for this: I have in my mind some spring photos for which I lack the means to take at the moment (but the situation does not appear to be changing in the following weeks, so is not much of an upside).

Waiting to Blossom

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Fighter wannabe

This self portrait has a lot of flaws (position of the background, an unwanted shadow, not the best focus and light) but it was fun and some more will follow.

I like to pretend is a Level 1 Fallen Paladin, beginner with the sword and who has to kill rats to get enough experience and advance some levels. Maybe then he will be able to master the sword, learn some magic or even multi-class, but that is wishful thinking :p

The pretended swordsman

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Close-ups and Depth of Field

I tried some close-ups with various parameters for the shot and found myself unable to definitely chose what I like better: a wide or shallow depth of field, for each of them I can see pluses and minuses, so I turned out to some external opinions.

Unanimously, the non-photographers (and a photographer interested mostly in portraits), opted wor a wide DOF, and I can understand why, the "more is more" doctrine, the picture shows more things, wich many people consider a good thing:

Purple Crocus / Brindusa Mov

Still not convinced, I turned to past colleagues from the photography course Cursphoton, and I found voices opting for the shallow DOF, or what I like to call in this case "less is more":

Purple Crocus / Brindusa Mov - Shallow depth of field

I find the difference interesting and telling, but obviously the definitive question is still "who is the target for the photos?" and this may tell you which option to prefer…

And of course I tried another version of the photo: dark background and an intermediary aperture value, it tells a completely different story:

Purple Crocus / Brindusa Mov

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More crocus: from my garden

A beatutiful early spring Sunday afternoon: sun, warmth, flowers, even bees just good to continue shooting spring flowers with outdoor close-ups from my garden.

Yellow and Purple Crocus / Brinduse Galbene si Mov

Purple Crocus / Brinduse Mov and a Bee

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White crocus / Brinduse albe

Continuing the spring celebration with macro shots of spring flowers, here is the colse-up of a white crocus (Romanian: Brindusa alba) from the Herastrau Park.

White Crocus / Brinduse Albe

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Spring flowers: Viola Odorata/ Garden Violet/ Toporasi

Yet another macro of an early spring flower taken from my garden. Not that great of a shot, I plan to try again.

Viola Odorata / Garden Violet / Toporasi

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The Sword

I bought myself a sword (a real one, battle-ready) which I intend to use for photos, I got plenty of ideas but it will be harder to put them in practice (needing models, locations, accessories, etc.). At least the first step is made.

My new Hanwei sword

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