Foxglove (Dark Cold Forest) on RedBubble homepage

This lonely foxglove was just featured on RedBubble homepage. Yay!

And this is the copy of the homepage:

And I believe it's only one of two from a thousand artworks that make it to the homepage. Cool!


(p.s. This is my second work on RedBubble homepage. Previous Nightly - featured on RedBubble homepage )

Negative space

What is negative space?

Negative space is the space surrounding your subject in a photo. To make it really simple, it's generally just all the empty or unused space in your photograph. In fact... almost every picture has some negative space but it's not every image that uses the negative space as a dominant element of the composition.

I often find comments about getting closer in photographs and I know... sometimes they have a point. But many times it's just that the viewer doesn't understand what he/she is looking at. That may sound rude but let me explain that before you judge me...

I just love using negative space to bring out the details of anything or just to make calming surroundings to a simple subject. I find that in photography many people don't understand the power to it... or maybe it's just that many don't just take time to relax and let the image speak to you in that way. I also find most people nowdays are enjoying photography as, well, as fast food... :/
Many images with a lot of negative space don't give such "wow" factor and people just skip it. And of course, it's just not appealing to all. So it's not like you are stupid if you don't get it. ;)

But nevertheless... What I'm trying to say is...
Take your time and let the images speak to you.
Photography isn't fast food!


Some of my photos with a lot of negative space:

One birch tree

Calm

 breath of fresh air

Walking on ice

Remember the summer?

As the spring is slowly getting closer and you can already feel it in the air I'm forced to look forward to the summer. I'll be doing that by looking up photos from last summer, which was a gorgeous summer if you really like the sun and warmth. It was pretty rainless too which is definitely not typical to Finland.

So... here's some Finnish summer presented in several ways!

Late evenings

Midnight dandelions

Summer activities

Moody black and white lake scenery

Exploring the water

Water. What a fascinating substance. What's the most interesting in it, it can be pretty much anything.

It bends light and colors beautifully. It may be still or moving. It can be liquid or solid. And as solid... Ice... it can be molded to anything. From the ice cubes in your glass to actuals size hotels.
(like this real ice hotel in Jukkasjärvi, Sweden *link to icehotel.com*)

All of these are seen in nature too. So I went and tried to find some natural water. Not so difficult in Finland. ;)

Shapes of water

Motion of water

State of water

All the small things

Sometimes you just forget to take a look at all the details in the world as you just go on and on. That's one little big thing that makes being a photographer fun. Admit it... the world just seems different with the camera in your hand. You start framing the world and looking at all the small things most just go by every day without seeing the beautiful small details. With the camera in your hand an every day object can turn to something charming.

Or the nature. We see lakes, fields and forest but forget to take a deeper look. They just are there.

Today's photos are about all the small and big charming details in life we just don't acknowledge.

A breath of fresh air

Strong light on the background made this look naturally black and white. Feels crisp as the air that day. -20C (-4F)

Nice stalking to you mr. Rabbit

So I was walking around the harbor area while the sun was setting. Just looking everywhere if I could see something worth capturing. Keeping my eyes open and I saw something move a little... so I got closer...

So I saw this rabbit. I stopped there avoiding to scare it away but of course others didn't see it so they just walked right through and it ran away...

Ok. I thought that was that and continued walking but suddenly I felt something staring at me. Turned around and I saw this rabbit again... It was lurking behind my back. Stalking.

Took couple of shots and it just stood there. I looked away just a bit and it was gone. Again.

I thought I might as well walk back then... but I actually saw this same rabbit yet again.

Now I just stayed there to see what it was up to. The stalker. Looked like a statue even, it was so still.

After a while it just ran away. This time permanently.

Good bye mr. Rabbit. Nice stalking to you.

Where the rabbit went

Every winter it's just mandatory to take at least one photo with the rabbit trails on snow. This was taken while the sun was setting behind the city of Lahti.

And NO. I did not make those trails. This is one reason why I caught up on those trails. They just seem to be unrealistically similar to each other. Same space between and all without any extra marks on the snow.

Could it be that this rabbit was an mathematician? Engineer? A Java-coder?

He sure knew how to copy-paste...

Ice fisher

Everyone else was fleeting from the lake ice when the sun was setting and it was getting really cold but this one really cool ice fisher was different. It was his time to get on the ice.

I felt his presence and he looked he will just do it...
It was time for some serious fishing.

Blue

Time for some minimalism again. :)