Mornings

When you're up at the crack of dawn most of the mornings you have nice company while awakening...

Levels

Everyone can these days take and publish photos thanks to cellular phones and social medias. Unfortunately way too many of those images are of lesser quality in spite of excellent image editing software being readily available cheaply or even free of charge. It could be quite easy to get the pictures to stand out instead of being bland.

A company posted this image straight from a phone on Instagram, I have taken it as it is and in three quick steps made it more appealing.

First alteration that was made to it was to boost the shadows to make it slightly more dramatic.

Next order of business was to increase the contrast to boost the red tones.

Finally the balance between light and dark tones were shifted to make the different reds blend better.

Artful nature

Urban Wild

Often when I go out on a photo walk I have a predetermined theme for which kind of motifs I will choose mainly, for todays little excursion the theme was "urban wildlife" which basically is when nature reclaims land we have taken into possession.

Worm

You want me to put that little wormlike thingie where? It's a hillbilly yuck moment...

Ballsy

A ballsy girl at the beach...

A study in yellow

Went for a walk in the woods the other day and of course the Alpha was with me. Here's a small study in yellow from the walk.

Buzz

One great thing about summer is that there are loads of little creatures to shoot, there's a buzz buzz here and a buzz buzz there...

Hillbilly construction work

The construction work at the hillbilly shack is now at last resuming. This part of the job do look kind of less safe.

Midsommar

Önskar alla goa gubbar och gummor en trevlig midsommar...

Chinese lantern

The first blossom of the year on my Chinese lantern has arrived, can't wait for the tree to become full of those yellow bells lighting up the room.

Love Over Gold

It's been a rough morning and my head is kind of heavy, so I'm taking the afternoon off listening to music and first out is, on vinyl of course, one the best ever recorded rock albums, Dire Straits "Love Over Gold". I am so thankful that I invested in proper headphones the other year, Sennheiser HD650, so I can shut the world out and just float away with the music.

Behind

One good thing about all these old farms in the countryside is that you can always find nice views to shoot, like this old barn behind a tree.

Up against the wall

I'm beginning to get somewhat bored without events to shoot, so bored that even an old spade resting up against the wall becomes an interesting object...

Playing in the sand

Another shot from the beach the other day, an older woman playing with her grandchild in the sand.

Backlight

With no events to cover and mostly just nature to shoot playing around is not far off. Todays play time was spent with both macro and backlight.

Summer

Few things say summer more than the annual arrival of lupines and their blossoms giving us beauty by the side of the road and in some places entire oceans of color in the fields.

Random

Random kid at the beach from yesterdays excursion to Djulö Beach outside Katrineholm, Sweden.

Swimsuit Season

The swimsuit season of 2020 have arrived to Sweden and kids everywhere are once again populating the waters...

Lilac

Still no events of any kind, all there is to shoot except for family is nature and an occasional building. At least this gives me the chance to play a little with the macro lenses and capture a lilac cornflower or two.

Pushing up daisies

Summer finally arrived, more or less anyway, and flowers are beginning to appear all over the place. Someone's been busy pushing up daisies for which I am grateful as they are nice to have entire fields of to enjoy.

Clover

Went for a little macro walk this morning and came home with loads of flowers like white clovers...

Anything goes

I shoot anything and everything, anything goes when it comes to photographic art...

WTF

What the hell is wrong with some people?!? I have just a few hours of peace and quiet in the morning before the 5-yearold is awake making all kinds of noise. This morning I happened to like someones post at Instagram in the wee hours of the morning and he decided to call at 6 AM just because I apparently was awake and when I didn't answer the call I got a surly message on Messenger. Seriously?!?

I refuse to be always available, especially early in the morning!!!

Side action

To better service all you lovers of nature photography a side blog has been launched. Although it is in Swedish the whole world can enjoy it as the focus is on the images and the texts are kept to a bare minimum. Do come for a visit at http://metalphoto.bloggo.nu/

Freckled redhead model

She's only 5 years old, my girlfriends granddaughter, but already model material. Any company or agency wise enough to engage her for marketing campaign photography could make a killing. Of course I would consider putting them in contact with the childs mother. For a modest percentage of her wages, a finders fee so to speak.

Unhinged

Another installment in the continuing story of the hillbilly shack, hinges are being mounted for a possible door. The shack is now slightly less unhinged...

Pixelated into oblivion

Last week I finally got a response on the issues and when in regards to the header being massively pixelated and unuseable on upload I was told the problem would be fixed Friday or possibly Monday. Well, today is Monday and it is now after office hours, do you think it has been dealt with?

This is what the header should look like:

And this is what it looks like after uploading it to Nouw:

On the matter of tracking codes they claim to not allow those due to security issues with scripted widgets. Well, how the hell are you supposed to embed a widget without scripting? Note that platforms like Instagram provides scripted widgets and those are available.

Up until 3 weeks ago scripted widgets were allowed, then for some reason Nouw decided to remove this causing the users not being able to include tracking codes for services such as Bloggportalen, Sweden's largest hub for blogs with a running ranking list, which made it impossible to compete with bloggers and influencers on other platforms.

HELL NO!

Observed something this morning that made me want to scream "HELL NO!" in anger. A teenage boy with an air gun practice shooting at small birds like wagtails and then just throw them on a scrapheap.

It's one thing to hunt for food, but doing it just for your own pleasure without using the game is NOT acceptable!

European

One good thing about being up at the crack of dawn is that you get to see wildlife that usually stay away from us humans. This morning a European hare hopped by and I did manage to get a shot before it took off like a bat out of hell.

Proofing

Looks like I'll be able to get an entire series out of the hillbilly shack. Today they're waterproofing the roof...

Shotgun style

It appears the hillbillies have decided to become resident, if this isn't a shotgun style house I don't know what is...

The term "shotgun" is a reference to the idea that if all the doors are opened, a shotgun blast fired into the house from the front doorway will fly cleanly to the other end and out at the back...

Flower girl backlight

Still no response from Nouw on the issues, nor have they been resolved, which is why I have not been so active with posting. Just to let you know I'm still alive I give you the flower girl with backlight.

Birdwatch

Sure, birds are nice and all, but I am actually climbing the walls here with nothing but nature and family to shoot. Give me some events and concerts already!

Contribution

In one of the many Facebook groups dedicated to photography that I'm a member of, Fototräffen, there is a weekly inspirational challenge on various themes with free interpretation and every now and then I submit an image or two to the challenge.

This weeks theme is "Tree(s)", this is one of my contributions.

You might be a redneck...

For some reason Jeff Foxworthy's redneck test springs to mind... If you have ever mowed your 10 by 50 feet lawn with a riding mower, you might be a redneck...

Apologies for the low quality, it's an old cellular shot...