Some weeks ago I went on a mini vacation with my sister, to Vienna. We went to a lot of christmas fairs and it was my first visit at Starbucks too yay!

Just in time for christmas the snow arrived, I baked cookies and made some (pink!! because I’m a girl after all) almond slices in chocolate – my favorite christmas treats. This year I also put up my first fake (and white) christmas tree and I’m so happy I did. The only thing I miss is the scent of a real tree. Here in Austria we don’t set up the tree until the 24th of December and it will stay for at least 2 weeks after christmas.

Now it’s only a few more days until 2012 and I’m really excited for what the new year holds. I only finished my studies and started my new job in september so everything will be new and different this year. I never make new year’s resolutions but I really like to spend as much time as possible with my family, my books and my camera in 2012. What are your goals for the new year?

I took this image last monday but only had time to edit it today. As it’s halloween I thought a vampire me would fit the concept really well.

Here’s a close up (click on image to view bigger):

Happy Halloween everyone!

Hello everyone! I hope you are having a wonderful fall season. Summer has been very busy and I didn’t have the time to really enjoy it. I hope to slow down a bit during this new season and go out and take photos more often.

Here is a before and after of my last shoot:

I first had to expand my image to create a square and then added more background and flowers from other images I took. After that I adjusted colors.

This image was partly inspired by Rosie Hardy’s recent work, especially by her framing. I had her new images in mind for some days and thought a lot about more simple portraiture. I wanted to create something different than my usual images that show a lot of surrounding nature and a whole body that sometimes nearly gets lost in my images. I have experienced that I got further away from the subject with my camera, especially since I am shooting with a  fullframe sensor. Also I prefer not showing my face too close normally because I don’t consider myself being good at making interesting expressions.

With all this in mind I wanted to face my fear of showing my face so directly and using a more simple concept for a selfportrait. I had the image in my mind exactly as I walked into the woods, it felt good. I try to picture the image in my head before I start shooting a lot more lately, it makes editing so much easier because you know what you need for the final image. Shooting itself was a very interesting experience, I think I never stood so close to my camera ever . I tried to capture a rather neutral expression and leave some space for interpretation for the viewer.

Editing took me a lot more time than usual, and having stared at my face for some hours now it still feels awkward somehow. I guess I just feel vulnerable putting my face out there, not knowing if people do accept a normal looking face being spoilt by heavy retouched and perfect looking model faces. But people looking at my images must be used to my face by now so I hope no one will get frightened .

Wow that was much text (for me), thanks for reading. Enjoy a before image (not the exact picture I used for the final image and colors slightly edited) and some behind the scenes pictures and have a wonderful sunday everyone!

- Eva -

I think the effect works best for details, landscapes and clouds.

I just recently completed my very first hotel photoshoot and would like to share my experiences with you. Suzy and Martin (the hotel owners) contacted me after they saw (and liked ) my work on the internet to make some photos of their hotel for the website and brochure.

We met some days before the actual shoot to talk about what type of photos they wanted. Suzy asked for a lot of details and close-ups plus they also liked my levitation photos and asked me to try some floating too. So basically my job was to shoot photos of their hotel, but not normal hotel images, they wanted the images to be “my style”. This was totally awesome but also a bit frightening for me. On the one hand I was happy to shoot the way I always do, but on the other hand I wasn’t sure if they would like my images at the end of the day.

On the shooting day we met early in the morning to take some photos of their breakfast buffet. This was my chance to try out my new softbox .

After that we moved on to the lounge area. Suzy mixed some cocktails and I did a first levitation. Again I used a Nikon Speedlight through my softbox on the left side (and for the cocktails a silver reflector on the right side to add some more highlights).

For the rooms I also did some close-ups as well as some images showing the beautiful view. I came with a lot of stuff this day including my camera, a tripod, my Nikon Speedlights + softbox + tripod, extra batteries and 20 GB of memory cards, a reflector, several lenses (my kit lens 18-55mm, my 50mm 1.8 plus a borrowed 70-200mm L 2.8 and a borrowed tamron macro 90mm 2.8) that I switched a lot of times during the whole shoot. I mostly used the 18-55mm and 50mm though.

Last but not least I moved on to the spa (it was afternoon already ). I shot in RAW + jpg all the time, that’s the reason I needed two 8 GB memory cards in the end. I prefer having RAW files because I can better adjust basic things like white balance and contrast and then use the same settings for a lot of similar images. It is also absolutely necessary when doing levitations to have the same settings on every image you are blending together in the end. However I do like to have jpg files also to easily and quick have a look at all the images on my computer.

After the shoot I had a quick look at the images with Suzy on my camera to make sure we didn’t miss anything important. Suzy seemed very pleased with the images already and I tried to remember the ones she especially liked so I wouldn’t forget to include them afterwards. Suzy and Martin asked for as many images as possible so after some hours of editing (basically white balance and curves adjustments plus the obvious manipulations and a little “beauty retouching” here and there) I delivered nearly 300 images to them.

Shooting this beautiful hotel was a wonderful experience and a lot of fun. I stepped out of my comfort zone (selfportraits obviously ) and tried something totally new. I am very thankful for Suzy and Martin giving me this opportunity and putting a lot of trust towards me and my skills.

Merry Christmas to all of you! I hope you are spending a wonderful time with family and friends and are enjoying the holidays!

I will be back with new photos soon (hopefully )!

A series with the lovely Simona on a very cold and wet day.