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.



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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.



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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...



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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



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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...



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



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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:





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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").



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.



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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).





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



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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).



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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



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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:


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":


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:


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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.





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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.



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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.



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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.



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Review: CursPhoton

In some previous posts I talked about a photography course I took, now that it ended is the time for a review (frankly, the time was a couple of weeks ago but being lazybusy, only now I managed to sit down and write something): back when I registered for it, very little information was available on the net about it beside the official site.

In very few words, I can say the course was within my expectations, but this does not tell much, it may tell something about my ability to set my expectation level or to perceive value, so there is a clear need for more words... At 6 weekends, the course is short, you will learn some stuff but also will feel the need to continue learning on your own, do not expect to walk in a total noob and walk out Cartier-Bresson.

Regarding theory, if you read a good photography book and/or a couple of websites, the course will add very little, but I found more important the opportunity the practical experience of a real studio and working in a real studio, as well as the interaction with other photographers: both the Marius and Vlad, the teachers and your fellow colleagues (about a dozen of classmates).

In a very conventional style I will try to outline what was, from my subjective point of view, the good, the bad and the ugly.

The good: for me, the best part was the open atmosphere, it was pretty much like an open conversation where you didn't feel afraid to contradict the teachers at times and also felt your opinion matters. You are treated like an equal.

The bad: the "Photoshop" class was a wasted day, I could not care less about what are the shortcuts in some proprietary Adobe software or how awesome some people think are the plug-ins from Alien Skin. But I expected that, too bad that I didn't have ready a "each time you pirateillegally download an expensive proprietary graphic editor and your job would be accomplished fine with a Free alternative, God kills a kitten".

The ugly: the course has an online presence, a discussion group on Yahoo and also a very inactive and less populated flickr group, you can easily see a lack of experience about online communities. In fact the entire "community" part is lacking, most likely I won't get it touch with the colleagues.

As a conclusion, I find it a positive experience at a right price (for me it was an impulse buy, finding the news about it when I was browsing an online photo gear store, but I am odd with money spending and priorities), so if you can afford, go for it.

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Spring flowers: Crocus (Brinduse)

I only saw those flowers blossoming in my garden only in the early spring, just after the snowdrops and they are a joyful spot of color in any garden.



And if the photo above was taken in the controlled conditions with tripod and such, I also have a version from their natural state and hand-hold camera:



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Salonul Nautic Bucuresti: [not enough] Babes on Boats

The Nautical Salon in Bucharest was supposed to be a big event, but it wasn't that big, barely filling a hangar at the Romaero Baneasa Aircraft Factory and it missed the most important part: babes on boats, there were not enough of those, how did they expect to sell boats? :P





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Martisoare Fair at the Peasant Museum

Beyond selling martisoare at practically every street corner, at the Peasant Museum was organized a fair: the good part was that in a sea of kitsches, you were able to find some authentic stuff, the bad part is that the place was overly crowded.



It was a good opportunity to see what the martisor originally was: a silver coin on a red string, a protective amulet to protect the children after the cold season, not the hypocrite gift you have to give to all women around you.



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