Month: november 2014

Basic editing in Lightroom- Folders, importing, basic editing tools and exporting the photo

Lightroom is my favorite editing program since I got it last year. Photoshop is a great set of programs and Lightroom is the one that I love the most in the series. The other day a friend bought the lightroom program and asked me the important question on basics off handling your folders in this program. Off course, this friend is (an almost) professional on photoediting and does all her edits in Photoshop (the mother program). But Lightroom is an asset both for beginners and professionals and somewhat different from Photoshop. IT has a lot of the features that Photoshop has, is easier and handles editing several photos at a time with grace. All the editing program you need if you have to choose. I will show you my process of editing. Everyone does it differently and there are no rights and wrongs so use the tips you like, add some from other guides or loose some. It is your choice! This weekend have been all about editing, I have used both lightroom and photoshop for some photos and just …

A forest, a fika and some editing

Today has been all about editing. Editing, a photowalk and some fika with friends (adventsfika – a Christmas coffee loosely translated).  Have finished editing some photos that I might participate with in an upcoming photo contest. It is challenge editing photos and you soon realise how important it is with a good quality photo to begin with. Have fallen in love somewhat with the grey November weather and are for the first time not looking forward to the snow. If you have asked me yesterday I would have said that snow is my favorite but today I love the grey weather. Another thing I´ve fallen in love with is the sepia filter when editing. Love black and white photos and sepia filter. It is now past midnight in Grythyttan and I am heading of to bed. There will be many other late nights editing now when I have gotten a bigger screen. Will show it some day, but for the time being you can see it on my insta – here. Katarina Canon 5D Mark …

Black Friday – In Sweden?

Today we celebrated Advent at work. We had lussebulle (saffron bun) with glögg (christmas wine). Christmas and Advent is a important tradition in Sweden and something that is not taken lightly. Something that might be even bigger for you Americans out there though is todays Black Friday. It seems that the concept of Black Friday has arrived in Sweden as well. I´m not kidding when I say that I probably got seven emails from different  (Swedish) stores marketing Black Friday today. This gets me confused? Why are a tradition that is not necessary coming to Sweden? Why do we want to have a day where we consume more when we are trying to get rid of overconsumption and unnecssary consumption in general?And why do we need a kickstarter to something we are trying to do less of, shop? The stores seems to be as confused as I am. 20% on clothes all weekend from a clothes store, free shipping from photo stores, extra cashpoints from a flying company and etc. Black Friday in America is …

How to make chiliflakes

This week has been a lot about food. Martin has made Kimchi, these chiliflakes, pasta with salmon in fennel-saus, mashed potatoes with cod in egg saus and baked sourdough bread. My portrait muse, my food muse. There will be more recipes in the future I assure you! I don´t think this one needs a written recipe, do you? Just look at the pictures and follow. But for dummies I have some written information down below.     How to make Chiliflakes You need 300g Spanish red pepper, a knife and an oven Cut the chilis as in the pictures, put in the owen on 70 degress celcius and dry. It is important that the chilis are spread wide over a owen baking tray. Leave the chilis in the oven over night or around 10 hours, until completely dry.   Now we are heading over to the neighbour for some coffee and horror- movies. Have a nice evening! Good luck! Katarina      

Kimchi – Mastering the arts of Korean cooking – third times a charm

Kimchi wasn´t that easy in the end. First try was dry as sand and smelled awful in the fridge. Take two was a (superstrong) success. Now Martin is making it again. The recipe follow in Swedish and English (my transl.) Martin has developed/changed and changed the recipe again. Through looking on a youtube video where some korean person was cooking he managed to get a better recipe than the Swedish one he found on the homepage of Ica last time. The below photos show us how the procedure looks.   A fun procedure where you should including your hands, Martin concludes. To start the process of fermentation! In the above photos Martins used a third of the below recipe. Katarina Recept Kål 2,7 kg kinakål, napa cabbage 135 g salt Dela kålet i 4 bitar längst stammen. Salta kålet mellan bladen noggrant och låt de ligga 30 minuter. Vänd sedan kålen, totalt 4 gånger. Skär av roten på kolet och skär i önskad storlek   Bas 500 g vatten 25 g sött rismjöl (Funkar med vetemjöl) 30 …

Photoguide: Shooting with a polarising filter

We are all on the hunt for the perfect photo, with great contrast and saturated colors, right? It is basically possible, through a polarising filter. An old but sometimes forgotten best friend in the photography world. When I first bought my Canon I didn´t reflect much upon needing more equip than a camera, a lens and maybe a tripod. I put the camera on the ground and shot all my photos from a low angle, or just found ways to shot for me the perfect photo. When getting better on photography you realise that you have to have additional equipment to go further. This additional equipment cost money. Lots of lots of money. But there are always these cheaper stuff that makes a total difference. The polarising filter is one of those. Without a filter With filter   It is a big difference between the first and the second photo, don´t you think? Shooting in sunlight isn´t always easy. Adding a polarising filter makes a difference and keeps the colours of the sky and the …

Fem för fem – five for five

Fick en frågeutmaning under gårdagen av Johanna, Lady & a Tramp. Eller jag fick vetskapen om den på lördagen. Vet inte riktigt hur den funkar men måste ju såklart utmana andra också. Så välkommen till utmaningen Antonia, M-R och Hållbara handlingar. Kan ju lätt påstå att frågorna inte passar mig varför det blev ännu roligare på något sätt.. I normalfallet tackar jag annars nej till utmaningar, men denna antog jag. Nåväl, vi kör! 1. Vilket livsmedel kan du inte leva utan? Min spontana tanke är ju att det nog helt klart är mer än ett livsmedel människan inte kan leva utan. Så frågan är ologisk, var på ett ologiskt svar krävs. Ägg har många svarat, jag är frestad att svara samma sak men anger i stället det jag i hjärtat känner att jag inte kan leva utan: Lakrits, lakrits och åter lakrits. Genom tiderna har det funnits många favoriter i lakritsnästet, framför allt djungelvrål, de salta figurerna i Gott och Blandat, Salta Katten och några havrelakritsgodisar jag hittade på hälsokostbutiken. Hade inga godisar hemma just …

The yearly photo exhibition in Stockholm

Yesterday I attended the photo-exhibition in Stockholm. I was there just to hang out with my companions from Karlskoga photo club and check out some inspiring and new stuff on the market. Must say that all stuff seemed familiar to me and that there where nothing that I hadn´t seen before. Maybe the film department would have got me surprised but, well, didn´t check that part out any deeper. Didn´t bring my camera, a lot of people did, so I shot some photos with my Iphone 6+ to show the spirit of the exhibition. A lot of people visited and to the Canon and Nikon boots it was a queue the whole day. Tried out the Wacom drawing board and actually bought one :/. I must say that I went a bit crazy and bought a Wacom, a Led-light for the camera, a new camera strap, two books as well as a video mic from Röde. The equipment will turn up here eventually in posts and on photos, with comments of how good and bad …

Spoting new photogrounds

Earlier me and Martin headed out for some photo- spotting. We went to for me a new area, Persberg. Now I am relaxing at home, watching some tv series and trying a new resizing app for the phone. Shot the photos with the phone today as well. Katarina Photos from Persberg, shot with iPhone 6+, edited in Rezise Image App and Photoshop Express.

Heading for the photo-club

Today it is time for the monthly photo meeting. Where discussing and giving each other tips for the upcoming photo-competitions in the area. I don’t participate in many or haven’t yet at least and are looking forward to get a tip or two from the other members who are very talented in the art of photography. Are at the moment blogging from the phone and on the bus on the way home from work. Will grab some quick to eat and then head for the meeting. In a way it is a good thing that I forgot my leftovers home today, due to that reason. I took some photos this weekend while out shooting to show a bit of my gear. For the self portrait shoot I used my canon 5d mark iii, a Sigma 50mm 1,4 art lens, a tripod, a uv filter and a cellphone lamp when shooting in the dark. Katarina Photos edited in the photoshop express app, shot with iPhone 6+

Portraits and a swamp.

Continuing learning portrait photography and especially taking my own, I headed out for a walk to find a spot today. I probably took me an hour to find one, you might think it isn´t that hard, but eventually after heading through a marshland of mud close to home I found myself in the center of some birches. And birches makes great photo background! After shooting probably 200 photos it got dark. In the heat of the moment when shifting space I dropped my self-timer and hade to run around like a crazy person to find it again. Eventually got some nice potential photos for my ongoing project as well, so it was a totally okay shoot. Now back home enjoying Sunday evening with some episodes of Reckless. Katarina   Canon 5D Mark iii Sigma 50mm 1.4 Art lens Editing in Lightroom

Food- Picante de Huevos

Made some Picante de huevos today. This simple recipe is my favorite of the week and I want to share it with you. Today I used: Sourdough bread, eggs, sugarsnaps, cream, salt, chili, garlic and oil The recipe for the hot eggs comes from my boyfriends aunt Elia in Peru, she used to do it for us when we where there but then it was different and tasted different due to the the fact that they have other ingredients in Peru. This is how you do it: 1. Heat a pan and pour some oil in it 2. Add chili and garlic (we use some dried chili Martin prepared) and fry it 3. Whip up some eggs with some cream (or milk, water) and some salt 4. Put in the pan together with the spices 5. Fry and stir at the same time. Don´t fry more than about a minute tops 6. Put on plate and fry the sour dough bread and the sugarsnaps in the same oil for a couple of minutes, until the …

Behind the scenes

From this weekends shoot of self portraits. Some went well, some went less well. Here are the less wells..   Trying to get the self timer to work..   (not) fitting the frame..     Pushing the button to late.. Not getting the focus right.. Crazy looking .. Falling out of picture.. And weird pose with weird connotations.. Well, who said it was easy? Katarina   Canon 5D Mark iii Sigma 50 mm f 1.4 Art lens No editing

Work in progress

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Äntligen vilse (@antligenvilse) Above shot with iPhone 6 +, edited in in the Instagram app Today I have been working with my photoproject the entire day. Most of the time trough a web seminar with fellow students. It is nice to be given critique about your work, now I have got the energy to push forward in this November darkness. To give a short update about my life I am also working on a guestpost for a travel site called Resfeber. The post is in Swedish and will hopefully be published shortly. Will of course link it when it happens. My next step in my project is to go out shooting more and will probably try to put myself in the scene more and experiment more with light, to show my perspective of Bergslagen. That is my aim at the moment. For the spring I am thinking of offering a photographer to be his/hers assistant for a photoshoot or two. Have anyone tried internships/ being an …

Selfportrait- the forest

Taking a self portrait is more difficult than you can imagine. I take mine with a self – timer, wireless. The timing is crucial. In this post I want to show some photos I took yesterday. Have been practicing different styles all weekend. Saturday I did the out of focus portraits and Sunday I tried getting full focus and perfect sharpness. I succeed in some and in some not so much. It is hard telling when you are out if you have gotten that perfect shot or not, it isn´t until later when home again your realize that 90% of all photos lack something like focus, sharpness or are to light or dark etc. But it is a challenge that I love. Enjoy my portraits from the forest of Grythyttan. Katarina     Canon 5D Mark iii Sigma 50 mm Art lens Ed in Lightroom

My new friend – iPhone 6+

Newest in in the camerabag and handbag is my iPhone 6+. Well needed for my eyes with bad vision as well as an update for my camerabag due to the better camera functions. Will head out now for some shooting. Katarina     Trying it out the first time..   Canon 5D Mark iii Sigma 50mm 1.4 Art lens Lightroom (converting to black and white)