I found this pond with water lilies in a restaurant, for all places. Of course it was not your usual dining-out place. It was one of those unknown in Midwest, and extremely popular almost everywhere in Poland fresh fish frying places. Almost all of them have their own fish (trout) farm, and in some you can even fish for your dinner. So, since they have water ponds, they may have another one, with water lilies as well. In fact, this one I found at the back of the establishment, when I took my camera for a closer look at the area.

Another shot from the garden series. I started from taking several shots of gooseberries on the bush. But I wanted something more “creative”, and more like food then nature shot. The gooseberries were still too hard to eat, as they are still ripening in the June sun, but I got permission to pick some fruit for my photo project. I found this small bowl with green flower pattern on it in the cupboard. At first, I thought it might be too decorative, but then I figured it will match gooseberries green color, and it may actually work. Especially that I chose to use the garden wooden table as a simple backdrop. The biggest problem for me was to make the single berries outside the bowl to look naturally dropped, I completely don’t have the eye for that… But here is the resulting image, with just a bit of my typical post-processing- Clarity, Vibrance and Vignette.

The fruit trees and bushes in my father-in-low garden are ripening already. Quickly, for me, but the truth is it is about time. The summer is here, we had summer solstice last week, and the vacation time in Poland started. I remember picking currants in my grandma’s orchard when we were coming there for summer vacation, and eating fruit straight from the bush. In fact, it was the only way I would eat them- somehow in a bowl you can feel better how sour they are!

Lat weekend, we went to a reconstruction of battle for the fort at Srebrna Gora. It was featuring a Napoleon war episode in the war, and turned out to be a really international event. The soldiers, dressed in the appropriate to the era attire were not only Polish enthusiasts of the “living history”, but there were units from Germany and Czech Republic as well. It was great fun, and we certainly know for next time where to position ourselves for the best pictures of the battle itself (we were in less then optimal location this time). But luckily, we came early that day, and saw and photographed a lot of preparations for the battle, and took a look at the military camp where everybody resided.

Couple of weekends ago, I spend two very hot and sunny days at a small, private airfield close to Warsaw. It is a place where air picnic “Goraszka” is organized for last 15 years. It was my first time here, in Poland, and fourth air show overall. After great disappointment after last years’ Airventure, photographically, I must have learned some, because I am quite happy with my images this time. And I wrote down few lessons for the future reference.

1) Airplanes don’t look very attractive from far away. Just look at the two images of glider Solo Fox and see, which one you like more. The glider started the show far above, and was lowering its position during the program, enabling me to take better shots.

In my case, 18-200 mm lens was the only choice I had, and I felt it was not enough. I not only looked funny with this lens on the press podium, where the least “pro-looking” guys had 70-300 mm (or whatever Canon equivalent is). But I also think I could have used those 300 mm to sometimes look through the windshield to see pilots face. And 300 mm would be enough, too. Because on the other hand, filling the frame too much often results in missing pieces of the subject .

2) Airplanes look better when propeller, if any, is shown in movement. Just look at the difference the moving rotor and the propeller makes between those two images of Xenon gyroplane.

It is good to have a basic knowledge of planes or somebody knowledgable with you. I had at least three people in my company constantly whispering – 1/250 for this one, and you are safe with 1/500 for this one, no propeller there. Or you can just make a few tries to see what works and what doesn’t. You just need to remember about the effect. And use Shutter priority mode on the camera.
But…. 1/250 sec is not a fast enough shutter speed for 200 mm, especially if you don’t have a steady hand.

3) Turn on the burst mode, and just shoot as many images as you/your camera/your card can. According to Scott Kelby’s theory, something in the middle will come sharp. Or sharp enough. At the same time, you have a chance of catching the most interesting moment in the sequence of the events. Or just ensure a better composition or cleaner background, as you can see at the two consecutively shot images of landing CSS-13 Kukuruznik.

4) Train your panning technique. With airplane moving fast in front of you, and rather slow shutter speed, you are introducing additional movement with panning, which can result in blurry image. And good panning will give you an interesting photo, like this one of TS-8 Bies over Goraszka airfield.

5) Airplanes look most interesting when photographed from above and from up front. Obviously. Those are hardest to achieve when you watch the show happening in the air from the earth. But see for yourself the difference between those two shots of the most interesting aircraft of this year Goraszka air show- newly restored LIM-2.

6) The continuous focus is probably your best friend in many air show situations. Although it is not perfect, and will be sliding all over the sky, it will often help getting sharper images, especially combined with burst mode. After all, there are fast moving planes in front of you.

7) With shutter speed limited by propeller movement anyway, you can go up with your aperture. I was using the medium apertures from f/7.1 to f/16, hoping to get better depth of field which would help hiding imprecision of continuos focus. Or situation like in the first shot here, where the other plane came out soft in the common flight of Spitfire and Hurricane.

As you can see from the sample images, I made all the mistakes I could, but I learned and trained it all at the same time. I am sure next air show will give me maybe less then almost four thousnad pictures, and hopefully more than 67 great keepers.

There are some flowers, which you would photograph for their color. For example red poppies look great on the background of the green field. And there are flowers where the form, the shape, is what is the most fascinating about them. Like roses, of any color. Or cally lilly. It is almost like the green of its leaves disrupts study of the shape of the white flower itself.

Craft and Vision released today yet another e-book. This one is different from the previous releases as it introduced a new subject to the site. It is not a book about photography, but about a video. And this is a good news.

Today, each of major DSLR manufacturer has a camera recording video in their offer. In many genres of photography, still images, even the greatest, don’t cut it anymore. Photographers needs to embrace something called convergence or fusion, to create the multimedia content. But it requires gaining a new skill- shooting a motion story, which can be quite different from what they normally do.

On only 20 pages of “Vision in Motion”, Trevor Meier skillfully summarizes the most important points in building a good movie. The book is well organized, and divided in three chapters, Story, Sequence, and Technique, each loaded with practical information and tips to get you started. The familiar to still picture professionals topics, like exposure control or focus, are discussed in a new way and attention is directed on how they differ when shooting video. The author also mentions things photographers normally don’t need to worry about, like recording sound, and gives advice on necessary equipment and accessories. It is a great book to get you started on recording your first digital video.

Here is what David du Chemin says about the new release:

Vision In Motion is an introduction to digital video for stills photographers. Written by Trevor Meier, both a professional stills photographer and film-maker, this eBook discusses the core issues of motion storytelling.

So go and check out the “Vision in Motion” e-book for yourself. For the first few days, you can use the promotional code MOTION4 at checkout to get the latest e-book for only $4 OR use the code MOTION20 to get 20% off when you buy 5 or more e-books from the Craft & Vision collection. They are all well worth the price (they are actually worth far more, with all the tips and great photographs). They are also presented in a very portable, PDF format, suitable to be read on iPad, laptop or desktop computer, great to buy for yourself or for somebody as a present.

The promotional codes expire at 11:59pm PST June 27, 2010.

My image of strawberries on colander seems to be doing quite well on few of stock agencies I submit images to, so I decided to go with the blow. In Poland, quite different then in US, the fruit are far more seasonal. When a fruit is in season, there are people selling it outside stores, freshly picked from their gardens. Or so I want to think . In any case, right now seems the strawberry season is winding down (and so the prices), but the cherries just showed up. I made similar set and shoot some images.

This peacock, called Kubus, leaves in a botanical garden in Walbrzych, South-Western Poland. He was actually a very funny bird, because when you called him by his name, he would spread his beautiful tail and start posing to the pictures! His handler was a very pleasant person as well, as he invited us outside the glass house where peacock resides, to his outdoors aviary, and take some pictures through bigger crate (so that you can put lens through, without tricks to make it disappear). Unfotunately, the grey concrete wall was not a perfect backdrop, and I am glad I gave up the whole body shots and went for close-up. They give justice to beautiful colors of Kubus’ tail.

I shot this very simple scene yesterday. We were visiting an old palace, beautifully kept, and very popular tourist attraction in the area. No wonder that on the palace inside court, there were several businesses, some offering rather expensive food options, but at the pleasant setting. This single orange roses in a glass drew my to the scene and I decided to take a photo right there.
What I like about this photograph is how the color of the rose matches its surrounding. It gives the table a very elegant, simple and inviting look.