Chill out

Time around Christmas and New year is relaxing time for me. I spare at least a week of vacations every year for this time. Year end is usually busy time of year and as this year has been very busy and hectic I really enjoy 2 weeks at home with my family now. Pushing thoughts on work out of my mind, enjoying the Christmas mood – beautiful sweet smell of Christmas cakes, decent light of colourful bulbs on a tree and jingle bells playing in the background, this and priceless presence of my wife and children, that’s what makes my Christmas and what I cherish above everything on this world.

Too bad that it runs out so quickly but it’s one more reason to enjoy every minute.

( Thanks for arrangement goes to my wife )

I wish you to spend your Christmas time with your most beloved ones and exactly in the way how you like it.

Rose abstract

It has been almost five months since my last post here and for almost the same time I haven’t held camera in my hands. This break from photography was unintentional and actually it was my longest break from photography in several years. What caused it, you ask? Well, even I am not absolutely sure. In the first half of this year I took much more photos than in any year before and before the break I was taking photos every day for more than a week. Then a need for taking photos left me suddenly.

My other great hobby are books and during winter time I tend to read really a lot. Almost all my free time is spend with a book in my hand. Before summer I usually feel so full of stories that I can’t absorb more for some time. I feel like fully satiated. The pace slows done or sometimes stops completely. I think the same may have happened with my photography. Have you ever experienced something similar?

So I divided all my time between my work, my family and my other hobbies. It is true that both my work and my family needed, and still need, much more time than in past so there isn’t much time for the other hobbies either.

Anyway, after these months of not creating any new photos my camera and potential subjects start calling my creativity again. Three weeks ago I took a camera with macro lens to my hands again. I was wondering if I am able to see things in the same way as before but I think that it’s like riding a bike or rather driving a car after some time – start may be slow but a memory and instincts come back quickly. And here is the photo:

~ Turbine ~

It is a shot of not-yet-fully-open rose bud and final photo is a combination of 3 exposures at ISO 100:

• 0.3 sec @ f/2.8
• 1.3 sec @ f/5.6
• 2.5 sec @ f/8

I used photos with higher f-stops for sharper petal edges and nice soft gradients from f/2.8 for the rest of the image. Colours are strong but I like it as it turned out. There is only small adjustment to saturation which is not to saturation directly but to vibrance in Adobe Lightroom instead. Vibrance enhances saturation of colours which are in minority on the photo.

I really hope that I will come back to photography (and this blog) more frequently now, presenting new and also old photos. I have still some photos taken back in July which I haven’t processed before the break started.

Finally, I would like to thank all of you who have been visiting this blog in those months, hoping to see some new posts. It is really good to know that there are people who cares for I do. Thank you!

Have a wonderful Christmass season and cherish your close ones.

Technical information: photo in this post was taken with camera Canon EOS 450 and Canon EF 100mm USM f/2.8 macro lens, mounted on a tripod, under natural conditions, indoors.