This picture is taken at Ulriksdals Park in Stockholm, just beside one of the Royal Castles. I normally don’t use heavy filtering on my photos but on rare occasions I think it adds the atmosphere that I’m searching for, and this is a time when I thought it came out ok.
The picture is taken with the normal iPhone cam and the filter and framing is from the app Magic Hour. I’ve done some final touching up with blemishes in Photoshop afterwards, as well as adding a signature.
Friday night I spent at the restaurant Pontus By The Sea here in Stockholm. On the other side of the water from that restaurant, there’s a boat with a Hostel on it called Af Chapman. This is a view from the restaurant side.
The pic is taken with an app called Slow Shutter. With this app you can set the shutter speed (like using the S-mode on a DSLR). This pic is taken with 15 seconds open shutter. I really like this app if it wasn’t the fact that the pics can only be 3 MP in size.
I’ve added a “clearity-filter” and framed the photo in Photo Toaster and reduced noise with photoshop for iPhone afterwards.
A couple of months ago I made a post about cinemagraph‘s (pictures with parts of them moving). I think this is a really cool way to spice up pictures.
Earlier this week I came across a great iPhone-app that’s all about this technique, Cinemagram. I’ve just tried it out a little bit but I think it’s a really cool app. I think that the best results are given if you record people doing things, like reading a newspaper or just turning their heads and so on. I’ve made a few of those but with respect to those that are featured I’ll let them rest in my cam.
You can find me on Cinemagram by searching for the user Saarimner.com
This image is just an image (taken yesterday from Gondolen in Stockholm) to show what Cinemagram is (look at the roads).
This is the first real week in Stockholm with “full spring”. In Sweden this is some amazing days. It seems like everyone just un-freezes from the Winter and there are happy people all around.
What’s also really amazing when spring arrives (as in the autumn) is the lighting conditions for photo. I can’t exactly tell you what it is but I think it get’s so much easier to get good shots, even with an iPhone-camera, so I’ve been quite busy taking pics during the days this week.
First of is a pic of Kungsgatan two days ago during lunch hour. What I like with this view is that there are very few who takes any pictures here (maybe it’s due to looking silly on a shopping street.. I don’t know 🙂 ) while I think this view holds one of Stockholm’s nicest views of great architecture.
This pic is taken with HDR and then adjusted with Photo Toaster to get a touch of an older look.
Ever since I started taking photos I’ve always liked the final Canon-images better in terms of color saturation and depth, rather than the Nikon but at the same time the Nikons have been better in terms of noise.
Last year I went ahead and bought a Canon 7D (at that point instead of buying a Nikon D7000), but I had some real difficulties with noise in my images, and i also thought that the camera didn’t focus correctly at all times, so I swapped back to a new Nikon again.
Now, after Nikon have release some really good cameras, Canon 5D Mark III is out and I’ve really been looking forward to this one to see if Canon can step up the game as when the Mark II went public. The previous version has been really good in my opinion, but Nikon have been really strong in the areas I mentioned above over the last years.
So here’s a short preview of what we can expect. What do you think, except personal preferences? I know it’s a bad question but I can’t resist; Is Nikon or Canon ahead in the game?
Maybe this quote from Digital Photography is a good overall conclusion: “While there are still other cameras in its class with marginally higher resolution, marginally better high ISO performance, more advanced AF, faster performance, better weather sealing and more solid build quality – and the Sony A900’s built-in anti-shake remains unique in the full frame arena – the 5D Mark II is certainly one of the best value for money propositions on the market for image quality – especially in RAW, where you really can see the benefit of all 21 million pixels. Canon has also wisely made only minor tweaks to the external interface, so that 5D users can jump right in and feel at home. Looking at the package as a whole the EOS 5D Mark II seems hard to beat.”
This winter went by so fast. There wasn’t much snow to talk about and on the news they are talking about 10 degrees celsius today, Saturday and Sunday, so I guess we will not see so much snow in Stockholm anymore.
During a day when I took a really long walk (the same day that I shot the pic of the seaweed posted recently) I also passed by this snowy roof against the sun. I really liked the lines of the roof and the crispy cristals of snow.
Life doesn’t have to expensive to be absolutely beautiful.
Tara Miller from Winnipeg entered the Photo Contest “Canadian National Institute for the Blind”. The contest was aimed at the public, both blind and non-blind. Tara was the only one with under 10% sight, 6%. Despite that, she went ahead and won the contest.
This is the pic she used to win the contest. Click the image to read more about Tara and her husband Jeff. Don’t miss out the galleries either.
Last week I had a business meeting in Sälen, which is a famous ski resort here in Sweden. Since I have a friend that lives at the same place, I decided to stay over the weekend and what a weekend it turned out to be, especially Sunday with blue skies, just -3 degrees.
This is a pic from a ride with the snowmobile. Will get back with more pics during the week. What I liked with this view is the trees that almost gives a surreal experience and even though I’ve been in the Swedish mountains I’ve never seen them as frozen as this.
Hope you all have a great start of the week.
@ Pedro Hansson - Sälen, Tandådalen - Olypmus XZ-1
Recently I’ve read quite a few articles about HDR.
Is HDR a “real technique”? Is it a “true” technique? Should I use HDR on all images or just some type of images? I guess this debate is interesting because the debate is much about new technology. Those in favor of HDR usually says that HDR is the closest thing to reality, and I guess those against arguing in the absolute opposite direction.
Anyway, here’s one of the interesting articles on the subject.
This morning I took a really long walk. At the moment it’s pretty cold in Sweden (-20 degrees in the morning and around -12 degrees Celsius in the day), but it’s also so beautiful. I’ve always loved winter and these clear blue days together with the snowy scenery is so great and it’s almost like you don’t wanna go inside again, even though it’s pretty cold.
So I got up early, stopped by at 7-11 and bought myself a big Latte and off I went. What a great way to start a weekend.
Two photos from today that started cloudy but around noon, it was clear blue skies.
So, this is Sunday evening. The end of a week, that in many ways feels like a month! The week started of hectically with all the work that needed to be done, before getting up from bed at 3:30 Tuesday morning to jump on a plane to London for the ICE fair, so Tuesday night was a night out, and do I need to tell that my eyes were both pointing at my nose?!
@ Pedro Hansson - A squirrel I shared a power bar with in London - Olympus XZ-1
Wednesday went by pretty quick. Had some nice discussions during the day and in the evening I had a great dinner together with some new acquaintances and a colleague of mine. Back at the hotel I found out that an old school friend from Piteå also was in London. 15 minutes later we had a beer and shared some laughs at a restaurant and talked to a French woman in her 60:s about life in general, and the history of Europe. A friendly conversation that made some sudden U-turns at the end when she started to repeat “I wanna kill, I wanna kill”…. 🙂 so, we jumped in a taxi and finished the night down at Picadilly.
Thursday afternoon I went back to Stockholm and had a full night of sleep. Friday morning I had some really interesting business meetings before I went on a conference with me and my colleagues company, DevCode. We stayed at a conference center called Skepparholmen which I really recommend! Great service, great view and excellent food! In the evening we spent two hours in the outside pool, surrounded by snow and all the boats that enters / leaves Stockholm. Magic! A good conference that I think can be important for the future.
@ Pedro Hansson - View from the pool at Skepparholmen (iPhone is not that good in the dark)
Suddenly, it was Sunday. A week that went by as fast as it can and at the same time feels like it was an eternity.
To get back on track I spent the whole Sunday walking in the spring like weather in the woods in Stockholm. Don’t think that are any better ways to slow down and fill up the reserves again.
This is a powerful article I’ve found yesterday, about old B/W-photos that now has been colored and how they actually describes the reality in a new way. Two of the photos are really graphic (warning), and when colored even more horrifying than before.
For me this was an eye-opener. It’s easy to think that the history looks so much different than the present, but I guess it’s easy to imagine that things were more different than they were.
This is a pic I took a few months ago (also in Piteå). The pic has just been lying around on my computer but I recently got some new inspiration in composition from a close friend of mine and the composition of this pic is actually a suggestion from my inspirer; and I think the result came out so much better than the original. It’s strange. Sometimes you just need that push to get out of the blocks.
In terms of other adjustments I’ve added some Noise reduction. Part from that the image is all natural.
During my winter holiday I spent some time in Piteå. The 27:th of December was a remarkable day in terms of a beautiful sky and a clear moon, so I spent a whole day walking around in my old home town. On my way back (behind Nolia for those that are familiar with Piteå) I came across some electric wires, and just behind the wires, The Moon – so I thought I’d call the pic Electric Moon…
In Sweden we have a tradition called Julbord (Christmas table). Almost every company as well as all the familys meet up to have “a Julbord”. This is a tradition that goes on from first of Advent until Christmas day, and is a “must have” on Christmas eve. A typical julbord consists of Herring, ham, meatballs, salmon and many many more dishes. It’s almost like Spanish tapas but served in the middle of the room where all pic up their food.
Yesterday I had a Julbord at an old ship called Mälardrottningen. The weather wasn’t typical Swedish since we still have no ice (!!) and just a little snow, but we have plenty of clouds and rain 🙂
This is a pic that’s taken from the ship towards the southern parts of Stockholm. The reason for the pic is the lights that I suspect comes from Zinkensdamm.
Last month I upgraded my iPhone 4 to the new 4S. I couldn’t say that there is a big difference between the two.
The main reason for upgrading was the improved camera so during the last weeks I’ve taken some pictures and to be honest, the difference isn’t as big as I thought, but of course it’s better.
But maybe it isn’t about the cam when it all comes down… a good photo is always a good photo, with almost any cam 🙂
Almost all pics are taken with the app Pro HDR in Stockholm and are not edited in a computer afterwards.
This morning I looked through some pictures from this years summer. A summer that was truly amazing. One pic that I’ve forgot that I took during the summer was this self portrait in the front window of a boat on our way out in Stockholm’s Archipelago.
I had never really looked at this picture so close before but it struck me that it’s almost like two pictures in one. It’s almost hard to see where the reflection starts and finish, and at the same time there are so sharp edges between those two. Do I sound weird? Maybe a little?!
Also like the look on the women’s faces inside the boat, staring at me with a look on their faces “What the xxxx is he doing?!”.
Hope that you can see a little of those things too. 🙂
Since there are quite a lot of details, the image looks best in full size.
This is the second time I’ll make a post with a reference to Paulo Coelho. The writer that never got The Nobel Prize, but definitely should have got it by now.
The article is from Paulo Coelho’s blog and it’s about how we sometimes just let our dreams vanish instead of keep chasing them.
Sweden is experiencing the warmest November, and start of December in 200 years. It has almost been like spring. But today we got our first snow flakes and there is more to come according to the weather people.
A Christmas with Christmas lights towards rain drops isn’t exactly a Christmas so I keep my fingers crossed for a White Christmas.
These pics were taken during a walk yesterday evening, bringing my small Olympus with me.
Hope you had a great start of the week
(c) Pedro Hansson - Karlbergs Castle in Central Stockholm - Olympus XZ-1
(c) Pedro Hansson - Karlbergs Castle in Central Stockholm - Olympus XZ-1
We’re approaching Christmas; a time when most of us will ask ourselves the question “was I a good person this year?”. There will also be a lot of “good” stories, and to be frank I love many of those stories, they aim at keeping us as good as we possibly can.
So, if you heard all the stories of Christmas before, you might know what will happen. With this story you won’t. It’s a true story with all parts of Christmas in it.
Sunday evening and I will soon hit the bed. Before I do that I thought I’d share a great and inspiring Quote I came across earlier today. The quote is by Woodrow Wilson.
Hope that it can inspire some to a great week start
We grow great by dreams. All great wo-/men are dreamers. They see things in the soft haze of a spring day or in the red fire of a long winter’s evening. Some of us let these great dreams die, but others nourish and protect them; nurse them through bad days til they bring them to the sunshine and light which comes always to those who sincerely hope that their dreams will come true.
(c) Pedro Hansson - Nikon D5000 - Sunrise in Piteå - Click to enlarge
I guess I’m a little bit old fashioned, but I’m not so much into using filters on my photos that I’ve taken with my DSLR. But sometimes you might wan’t to create something special or new, but you don’t want to download a new software, go through the hassle of installing and so on. That’s when the new Online Photo Enhancement Solutions come into play.
Yesterday I stumbled over this great collection of Online Photo Enhancement Solutions at PhotoZZ.Link to the article
If you’ll give any of them a go, I would be really interesting in your experience. My own favourite so far is iPiccy
Last weekend I posted some pics with the title “Stockholm getting ready for Christmas”. This is my second post around that subject.
I really must say that the city council has done a remarkable job with dressing the whole town for Christmas. So amazing just to walk around the town and watching it all.
(note:Some of the pics are a bit blurry, due to a bad lens -> Long shutter time and no tripod, but I hope I submitted the atmosphere)
It’s so easy to worry for things that are out of our control. Today many people worry about the new economic times, some are worrying about their kids and maybe some are walking away from great new possibilities – a great new life, just because of worry.
I think this quote is good to think about when I’m struggling with a decision, both in my personal and professional life, or just being in a worrying mode.
“If you want to test your memory, try to recall what you were worrying about one year ago today.”
– E. Joseph Cossman
(c) Pedro Hansson – Olympus XZ-1 – Lake Mälaren Stockholm
This time of year is always great! The evenings are really dark, and all people start to prepare for the upcoming Christmas. Last weekend I took some pictures of the town getting ready for that same event. Even though there is some parts of the city that’s not ready, there are already many parts that are. This will be part 1 of
Today I visited a photo fair, Fotomässan, here in Stockholm. At the show they had one station with the name “Worst ever LP-album Covers ever”, and I can assure you, they are amazingly ugly!
P.S Don’t miss the description under each image (only in Swedish) D.S
Ugligest Album Covers, ever (Click to enlarge)Click to enlargeUgliest LP-Album covers ever, (Click to enlarge)Ugliest, Album Covers everUgliest Album Covers, ever, (Click to enlarge)This must be the winner!!, (Click to enlarge)
Saarimner.com 