Along the highway

Normally driving an a highway you are not looking at the surroundings but you are watching the road and the other cars. As a passenger you have the opportunity to look around you and see the world passing by. During my road trips in the USA it was my favorite thing to do in the van. While the others were sleeping or reading (my second favorite thing) I was looking around and taking pictures of the scenery. Not that the others were sleeping all the time so there were moments that we all took photos from the breathtaking landscapes and city lines. But it seems that we only notice where we are when we are not in our homeland. At home everything is seen before en everything becomes blasé or jaded.

As a photographer you need to be able to step out of the norm and look past the jaded thoughts about our home and make photos that impress the locals. So ourselves included. I know we have beautiful cities and jaw dropping landscapes. But I never saw the area around our highways as beautiful. I never would have guessed I could take a gorgeous photo of that landscape. But you can. Driving to the coast I was looking at my surroundings with new eyes. There are a lot of farms and forests next to the highway. I didn't have my camera in the car, bummer. So when it was time to go home  I took my camera with me. On the highway I started taking photos until we were almost home.

Because of the speed of the car I had to put my shutter time very high to frees the image. My diaphragm was closed enough to get a good dept of field. So my ISO went up, certainly when it became dark. The photos were made with my 18-55mm lens.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Enjoy Photography


Caroline 

Back to the Belgian coast

I wrote a couple of blogs ago (Let's go to the beach) that I really miss the Belgian coast. I think that when you miss something, you need to do everything in your power to do something about it. And that is exactly what I did. Last Thursday me and my mom went to Oostende. It was such a beautiful day. The sun was out all day, it was windy and the real feel temperature was minus 5°C. We went for a walk on the dike and on the new pier. The water was running out of our eyes. Our body's were tingling. And we could hardly stand strait. The wind was blowing so hard my camera almost flew out of my hands. That day was the perfect recipe for a day at the beach in February. It had all the reasons why people go to the beach in February.

A lot of people shared our thoughts that day. Kids were playing in the sand, people trying to have a stroll on the dike and the pier. Some kids were eating to al time favorite cone of ice cream. A little to soon for my liking but the healthy air stimulates the appetite. Riding home I felt tired but satisfied. The salty air that was blown into my nose and lungs cleaned up my body. Every time I go to the coast I feel that effect. I feel so much healthier, I can breath better and although I'm tired I feel energized.

At the beach I felt it was the perfect opportunity to test my new lens. I bought a second hand 75-300mm zoom lens. It's tricky and I still need to practice because it's hard to get the entire photo sharp. With the lens I could take some photo's I normally could make so I'm happy. It was a sunny day so I putted my ISO on 100, my diaphragm closed so a high number and my shutter time high too.

It was that windy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Enjoy Photography


Caroline 

Will you be my Valentine ... FLOWER?

It's Valentines Day. The day that Lovers show each other how much they Love one another. Presents our exchanged and romantic evenings and getaways are planned. For some it's a beautiful day for others it's a reminder that they our alone. Some find Valentines Day the best of days, others find it commercial and think you have to celebrate your Love every day not one day in a year. I think that you have to show your Love every day but one day in a year can be the icing on the cake. One day a year that brings out the madly in Love teenager again. What not to Love about that?

I do wish I wasn't alone on Valentines Day. I wish I had somebody that would buy me a bunch of flowers and will take me away to a romantic dinner for two. Just like in the movies. What girl doesn't want that? Talking about flowers, witch kind did you get? De classic dozen of red roses or a beautiful bouquet of flowers? I am really picky about mine. First of all I don't like to get roses. It's too cliché. If you love getting roses it's good to get them. But when you have other favorite flowers...then it's like the guys our not trying enough. So boys get to know you're girls favorite flower before buying roses and show her that you Love her so much you know what her favorite flowers are. So as my Valentines Day present too you all...some photos of flowers I made in different occasions. And my favorite is in a couple of photos, wanna guess?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Enjoy Photography

Happy Valentines Day

Caroline

Experimenting in the studio

I love to do new things. I love to learn about new things and I love to experience new things. For me it's al about growing and evolving. I don't like it when I have the feeling I'm standing in the same place for to long. I want to move forward in everything I do. So when I have the opportunity to grow and learn I take it with both hands. What I did last Friday night was a new thing for me. Because somebody from my photo group wants to open up his house for us, we moved our evaluation moment to an other day. This way we had a chance to try some studio photography in the rented room above a pub.

I didn't know what to expect. Nobody of us really knew what to expect. The only thing that was told to us was to bring our macro lens, our tripod and a flashlight. That's it. One girl from my group brought some fake flowers, I was happy to see that. Our group leader brought some other stuff. We had garlic, dried flowers, marbles and glass figurines. We all got a dark gray sheet of paper and there were some white paper sheets too. All the rest was up to us and our imagination. I have to admit it was a struggle.  Making a good and balanced composition was hard to do. Some of us had a really good time and couldn't stop at the end, others had no idea how to begin. I was both actually. In the beginning I had no idea how to begin, so I just started doing something and hoped that it would work. At the end I didn't want to stop because I wanted to do more.

The challenge was to make to dark gray paper look black. So we had to find the right settings to do so. For me that was ISO 400, F/7,1 and 1/20s. I tried some other settings to, but the photos on this setting worked best. I tell you honestly that I did some work in Photoshop to make my photos pop more. I also cropped some photos so the composition would work better. I'm definitely going to try this again at home with some of my personal stuff. Here are my best photos of my experiments in the studio.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Enjoy Photography

Caroline