Suffering for photography.

Yet another crazy idea popped into my head.
Summer is coming to and end and another school year is about to begin. Temperatures are dropping and leaves are starting to fall. So one day I got up and saw how sunny and warm it was, my friends and I quickly decided that it's was a day for the beach.

Since I have an underwater camera, I decided that it might be a good idea to try and take some pictures in the water. Only then I had no idea how painful that would turn out. The water was freezing cold and I could barely hold the camera still for a picture because I was shaking so much. I could literally feel my skin burning from the harsh temperatures. My beautiful friend Ula bravely agreed to model for me. I was quiet surprised at her decision but at the start she didn't take me seriously. But who would? It sounded like a crazy idea then, bathing in the Atlantic ocean without a wetsuit in late August. I honestly didn't mind it though, a passionate photographer is ready to do almost anything to get a good shot, right?

Now a little bit about my awful camera: it's actually an ancient Fujifilm FinePix A500, and its waterproof casing. The camera is only 5.1 mega pixels so that is why the photos are of really bad quality. But that is the only waterproof camera I have at the moment so I had to work with it. Another minus about it is the fact that it eats up battery life like crazy. The batteries will be gone in a couple of minutes. I found that out the bad way, trying to work out why it's not working while freezing in the water and having Ula complaining at me (at least we will know what it's like next time). I edited the photos in Lightroom.
Enjoy the pictures.

A slight problem with taking pictures in the water is that you sometimes get drops of water
on your lens and it ruins a perfect shot. I kind of liked this one though.

...
About a week ago I was in London and I decided to take pictures there with my Smena. I purchased a colour film and a real black & white film. I have the colour film developed and printed, but the photo labs in Cork cannot process the black & white. It costs me 20 euro because they have to send it off. That's a ridiculous price, and absolutely unacceptable. Hopefully I will have the photos ready soon enough and I will post about my trip to London soon. I can't wait for you to see the photos.

Fond of the Fed.

All the way back in my first post (this one) I mentioned my cousins Fed 5, and how it sparked my love for film photography and further strengthened my love for photography. Well this year I had my go at shooting with it, and it was a exciting experience.

I had a lot more control over my photos with it than with the Smena 8M. The Fed 5 brought me additional features that made it easier to get great looking photos. Such features are a light meter (which wasn't working well do to the age of the camera), a good focusing ring which showed if the photos are focused through the view finder. Also a much better depth of field regulator and an excellent way of finding out what shutter speed to set based on light and the depth of field. Unlike the Smena, the Fed also shows how many shots you have left on your film quiet accurately, this was extremely useful. There were downsides to this camera as well, for example the weight of it. It is much bigger than the Smena, and the body of it is made from metal whereas the Smena is made mainly from plastic. Another downside is the difficulty of taking double exposures. I love making multiple exposures in one photo and having to rewind the film to get a double exposure takes a long time and that doesn't guarantee that it will be aligned. I suppose you have to make sacrifices for better quality.

Unfortunately I do not have photos of my Fed 5 at the moment and I cannot take any because I'm in London and I didn't bring it with me. I suggest you look it up online if you want read more about it. My camera is quiet battered with dents on the lens and paint scraping off. I'm considering re-painting it and giving it a personal touch.

Shooting with it was so great, I was confident that all of my shots were in focus, I couldn't guarantee that when shooting with the Smena. These photos were taken in Ireland, printed and then scanned. 

The Fed 5 captures beautiful bokeh as seen in this image.

 I will be taking black & white and colour photos with the Smena 8M during my time in London, hopefully I will have something posted soon.

Camping trip with breathtaking views.

Ireland truly is beautiful.

This may be hard to see for people who have been living here for years, we only see the bad side of Ireland and take the beauty of this country for granted. It's probably the same for everyone in other countries. I would love to see New York I think it's a beautiful city, it looks beautiful from the photos anyway, but I doubt the citizens of NY would agree with me. I don't know.

In the short time that my cousin is over in Ireland with me, we had enough time to go on a camping trip! We went to a place called Wave Crest which is situated in the Ring of Kerry. Kerry is a very mountainous county, so we knew we were in for some breathtaking views.

And we were right.

Just the drive there had us in awe of all the mountains around us. Personally I'm not a country type of guy, I prefer living in cities but I don't shy away from nature either because there are some great photos to be taken there. We got very lucky with the weather, it was sunny with some clouds floating here and there, and it was warm.

In the evening we went to the beach which was a short drive away. That's where I took most of the photos that are in this blog. It was a wonderful evening, a warm splendid summer evening with gorgeous views all around us. The sun threw a bright yellow light on the mountains above and the sparkling waters below. What more could you want? 

Tried to do a miniature photo

Bananas

Shooting in the woods.

Back in Ireland.

After two rapid months of warm and cold summer days in Lithuania, I am back. All summer I imagined to myself that the weather here will be miserable, I was counting on the worst. Luckily it isn't as bad as it could be. This summer was the warmest for Ireland in years, and it sure isn't ending this August. Not yet anyway.

My cousin Veronica is really like a traveller at this stage. She and her family have come to visit us in Ireland, from Israel, to Lithuania, to Ireland. That is a hectic way to spend your summer holidays abroad! I was over the moon about that anyway. I get to see my beloved cousin for another week, before we don't see each other for a whole year. I should start planning on visiting them in Israel sometime soon, that would be cool.

Now I believe I should say something about what exactly this post is about.

My cousin and I decided to have another photoshoot. A location I've had in my mind for a while are the woods that are right next to my house. It's a really cool place with interesting geographical features. In places, it has large emtpy spaces spanning from very low ground to very high ground. All covered by trees.

That same day we bought a shirt which was on sale in Topman and it suited the surroundings extremely well. We were so lucky with that purchase. 

Something that we were very eager to achieve was beautiful bokeh. A blurred background with unfocused circles of light looks so pretty, and it suits 'fashion' shoots like this one (even though it only featured one piece of clothing). I figured out how to get nice bokeh completely by accident. What I did was walk far away from the subject being photographed, and zoom in to achieve a blurred background.

All the photos have been edited with Photoshop Lightroom by me.

Extra photo outside of the woods that has been getting quiet a lot of credit.

Hope you enjoyed the pictures! I have more posts planned out, they will be posted soon.