13:43

It is quite a while since I posted something. This picture was taken some time ago. Initially I overlooked it, but afterwards I started to like it - this was made with fisheye lens.

Bonsai Art

Shot of the bonsai by Andrea Melloni. The tree is Juniperus Chinensis and was presented in bonsai exhibition in Vilnius

The Light of Faith

The idea between this photo was to show the cross enlightened within dark, grey sky. I tried to do my best but I am not sure that my post processing is good enough to show the idea behind it.

Evening glow

One more beautiful sunset in our small country

Blossom

Frankly speaking, I do not know what is the name of this flower.

Blossoms of the spring

While going, I saw a tree full of blossoms (the real spring just started here), and it attracted my eye. After some considerations, for this shot I used my wide angle lens, the very wide end of it actually. I like the dynamics of this shot.

The Team

In this shot I like how similar those sails look like. Also, how vertical lines are going from the left, making this shot somehow idylic for me.

Das Auto

I spotted this car during autoshow in Vilnius, where famous collector presented his collection of vintage cars in the main street. I tried to make this image as centered as I could.

Afterglow

As I saw this cloud, my hand was just immediately 'pulled'  to take a shot - I just love how it contrasts to the higher dark clouds.

Storm of thoughts

Enlightened

I like how the ship was sunlit by the setting sun and how it made contrast to the dark water of the lagoon. Buoys of the fishers' nets just happened to end near the ship - just nicely adding to the composition.

The Rose

Strangely I managed to make such shot without any post processing. I like how the red blends with a black (though I made some cropping to have such a balance in the picture)

Life on a bent grass

Actually, I was taking photo of a dragon-fly, resting on this bent grass, as it started raising its tail (or how it is called). I intuitively took a vertical shot and only later noticed how well everything composes - vertical dragon-fly, arched bent grass, spider-web beneath and a small spider hidig. Just like artificially composed.

Apatura Ilia

Something to remember summer. Hopefully, the name is right.

Sunset (3)

Calmness in the blue

This photo was made in clear sunny day, somewhere at the noon, when the sun was the hottest. The water looked unusually blue, with very very light breeze. One of those calm, amazing days where you can enjoy your life leaving all the troubles behind.

Into the skies

Amazing skies

I have made those photos some time ago (to be specific, August last year). These were trully the colours of the sky - no post processing, auto white balance and so on. I am still suprised I have seen such.

How to shoot your friends

Having your camera, you will definitely take photos of your friends, relatives either during the parties, trips or meetings. One of the prerequisites for good portraits (assuming that you are close) is fast portrait lenses. On DX camera (crop sensor) it would be around 50mm lenses, on FX (full frame) - around 85mm. Lenses must be fast - in general, I noticed that rather usable aperture from my point of view is f/2.2-f/2.8 - it has sufficient depth of field, and background is well isolated. Keep in mind, that shooting more than one person they will have to be in the same distance from you as one of them will be blurry. Otherwise you need to step back and decrease aperture. If you want to shoot groups of people and even inside - 35mm or shorter lens is much more usable (and equivalent on FX or full frame sensor) but shorter and fast lenses are getting rather expensive here (Nikon though has very nice 35mm f/1.8 DX lenses - cheap and amazing; see my post on choosing lenses).
Going back to portraits - I have noticed that a lot of people take pictures of their friends and relatives while they are posing. In most cases - those pictures are kind of artificial, as too little people feel natural in front of camera. Better try to catch emotion. Take your camera with you and be invisible. Snap your photo when nobody is expecting that and even will not notice that. You will see - your portraits will be way better and stronger than posed ones, as people express their true emotion, not impersonated one. 
Anyway, if you need a posed portrait - talk with your model, make him smile naturally, not just forcing him to say 'cheeeese' and get one more posed picture.

Fisheye geometry

What I like in this photo is the way how lines are appearing when using fisheye lens. These are Samyang fisheye (purely manual) lens, and I like how vertical lines are distorted and horizontal ones going deep into the photo (from the perspective of viewer standing there). This was done under the bridge in Vilnius. Actually it was rather difficult to get symetry (of pillars framing the picture) as due to the really wide angle of view (180 degrees) even a small move resulted in lost symetry. Even now it is not that perfect.