New beginnings…

And so it’s been a long time again… My former blog was called “The intermittent blog” – a name I sometimes feel I should have kept… 🙂

But I digress.

I haven’t been idle, I’ve just not found the time for blogging – though some shots have appeared on Facebook, and quite a few perhaps more mundane things have been posted via Instagram  – @hagafotografen – (lovely, fast publishing tool…).

And some ideas, one in particular, has been slowly simmering away in the privacy of my brain – and camera. Now, however, I’ve committed to pursuing it a little more officially, and hence – return to the blogosphere!

Actually, I’m not going to talk all about it. I’m just going to post a couple of shots that represent, in a way, my first efforts in a for me unusually long and long-termed photoart project… And so, the nervous question that at some time or other must enter every budding artist’s public communication… do you like?

Speaking of collages…

I couldn’t find the time to enter this month’s Photo Art Friday, but the theme was collage and I thought that was a good idea… People around me have been asking for shots of the new place, so here’s a collection!

 
And obviously, there has to be one with the happy cat as well!

 
Right, that’s it for the family photo album. Back to business… 🙂

I just have to say…

Remember my lively orchid?

Well, four months later, it’s still going strong 🙂

For C

This summer, I promised Caritsa’s owner, C, a portrait of her horse. It was a little difficult, because Caritsa was an old horse, a little tired, and not to stay with us for very much longer. I talked a little with C about it, and she said yes, perhaps something that accepted the old and the gray… showing Caritsa as she was, and saw the beauty in that.

Piece of cake… 😛

It took longer than I’d expected, because there was something missing in the shots I ended up with… and it wasn’t until yesterday that I saw a possible way to deal with that.

I hope it’s not too dark for you, C!

A random piece of photo art…

… just to keep my hand in.

I did a serendipitous little photo session with Twiggy the cairn terrier the other day, and in the sun and snow some shots were a bit (…) over exposed. Black and wiry-haired, however, she then made a perfect subject for some quick sketching…

Winter birds

I love bullfinches. And we have quite a bunch of them around here, but we hear them more than we see them. They keep to themselves. But every once in a while – especially in the winter, although it’s not very wintry here yet… – you spot them, a flock sitting in a tree and dropping down to the ground every now and then to pick at delicacies still available. Not unlike bohemian waxwings, actually. A lot more shy, though…

As I stood there, under a neighbouring tree, trying to get closer to the bullfinches, I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye. There was someone who wasn’t very shy at all! A treecreeper was hopping up the trunk of the tree next to me, and if it was quick around the trunk, well, at least I had my camera ready in hand…

Though admittedly, some of the shots were better suited for a little creative editing afterwards… so it’s a good thing I like that, too! 😉

Photo Art Friday – A Word for 2014

I don’t really have a Word for 2014…

What I do have, however, is… an attitude, perhaps, or a kind of focus. I don’t really want to put a word to it. But during the last few days of last year I found a few images that, together with Bonnie’s texture pdpa Dear One, hold all of that which I want 2014 to be…

A very happy new year to you all, and may it be all that you wish for it to be!

Find more guiding ideas and beautiful photo art at

Waterfalls

I’ve spent a couple of days photographing running water – it’s kind of classic I guess, but one should do the classics too… Unfortunately, the ‘rapids’ and the ‘falls’ I have to practice on aren’t, really, at least not unless you’re a lilliputian. Not that it matters with regards to the water and the technique (long exposures, and do use a tripod…) but little distractions like rotting leaves and scattered twigs suddenly tend to become major parts of the picture, as opposed to if I had a real waterfall to shoot.

Never mind, for once I began by clearing up a bit first where I wanted to shoot, and then ignored the rest. I set up the tripod – sometimes across the stream with one of its legs on a root and the other two on a rock each (and yes, I did step into the stream once; wet rocks and muddy banks are not an optimal combination for getting a good grip) – and shot water. Lots of fun. Then I trudged back home with one sopping shoe but fortunately still a dry camera, and processed my shots.

I was happy. They came out nice – not brilliant, but nice – and I’d learned a bit about exposures. Pretty pictures of running water, you know, where you get that almost dreamy shimmer to the water thanks to its running trough a static landscape. But then I had the surroundings… Let’s just say they don’t fit the fairytale image. Well, at least not the fairy bit… but there’s usually a dark element to fairytales, as well… right?

So I worked on them a little, adding some textures from the KKC, and ended up with something from a slightly different kind of story…

What I really liked about this was that the hues and textures worked so well to bring all the elemets of the shots together. A little abstract, perhaps, but then again – what fairytale isn’t?

Fortunately

Santa’s sleigh needs no snow…

From both of us…

… to all of you:
a Very Merry Christmas!