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A windy day

08 March, 2014

Tags: wildlife

When you can see the effect of the wind on a squirrel, then you know that it is really windy!

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Umeå 2014: Burning Snow

01 February, 2014

Tags: umeå

The official inauguration has taken place! People everywhere downtown and even the bridges surrounding the the spot on the river where the event took place where crowded. Unofficial numbers guess that there were around 55000 people present. People on bridge watching There was a light show with some small flying things (radio controlled helicopters?) that had lights in different colors. One of the patterns they formed was the logo used for the Capital of Culture project. Umeå 2014 logo in the sky Umeå 2014 inauguration fireworks Yes, there were fireworks as well. lightshow And the light show ended with something that resembles the pr image used for the event.

On my way home from the event, I noticed a painting on an ice block that has received much attention in the media for different reasons... ice block painting

Finally, this is different and I like it: art

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Umeå: European Capital of Culture 2014

31 January, 2014

Tags: umeå

Welcome to Umeå!

For being a photo blog, there hasn't been many pictures (or much about anything) lately.That's going to change.

This weekend is the big inauguration for the European Capital of Culture where Umeå is one of the two cities, Riga in Latvia is the other one. The main event in Umeå this weekend is called Burning Snow and takes place tomorrow at 17.00. I think it will be something extra.

Something else I'm looking forward to see is the Guitar museum that is opening downtown. I will definitely bring the camera when going there.

If you're an outsider and happens to visit Umeå, don't be afraid to ask a local, people here are nice and friendly. But if you come by car, I wish you good luck finding a parking space downtown. The politicians here haven't played simcity as kids...

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Post processing: Creating a straight horizon

11 April, 2013

Tags: gimp, open source, post processing, tutorial

Here is an image: The image is not particularly interesting besides showing that if the horizon is not horizontal, it can add a big distraction. The nice thing is that it takes less than 10 seconds to correct the problem. Load the image in gimp, select the measure tool (shift+M) and draw a line along the horizon and read the message on the status bar. In the example image, it is visible that the horizon is 2.3 degrees off. The next step is Layer > Transform > Arbitrary rotation... and type in 2.3 and hit ok. Done. Rotating the one and only layer in the image will add some transparent pixels in the corners. This can be fixed in some different ways, but the easiest is to make a selection that only contains parts of the original image and then selecting Image > Crop to selection to remove a small part of the image. And the final result:

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Photo triplet: Can you tell the theme behind these pictures?

07 April, 2013

Tags: fototriss

Sunday morning, breakfast coffee, trying to ignore the fact that about 10cm of snow has fallen since last night. The theme for this weeks photo triplet is pick your own and see if the others can guess what it is. Providing a big contrast to what's going on outside, here are my three images:

 

Those that read the cyberphoto blog (I'm not getting paid to say it, but that's where I pick up most of my photo gear) will most likely already know where these photos were taken.

So, what do you think the theme is? More unknown themes can be found here.

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All that glitters is not coltsfoot

06 April, 2013

Tags: flowers, umeå

The last days have been warm, a few degrees above freezing and the snow is melting. On my way home from work yesterday, I found three coltsfoot in a sunny slope. Couldn't resist taking a photo of them - first spring flowers I've seen this year. Coltsfoot

 

Funny thing, when I got home I could read in one of the local newspapers "Here is the proof - spring is here" and there was a picture of some yellow flowers. A reader had sent in the picture along with the words "Found spring in Holmsund" (Holmsund is a place near Umeå). Someone at the newspaper posted the image and added some text saying it's coltsfoot when it's really dandelions. That's first grade knowledge and every kid can tell these flowers apart. The newspaper text has been slightly changed after many readers gave helpful comments saying what flower it really is..

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Photo triplet: My Easter

30 March, 2013

Tags: fototriss

Easter, we've been looking forward for this extra long weekend, giving us a chance to catch up on some of the things that needs to be done at home. I'm not really a fan of eating eggs, but they do look nice when painted.

Painted eggs

Guessed it would be crowded at the store on Thursday so we went there Friday morning (yes morning!) instead and the best things, besides having a full fridge, were the tulips we found and Zeunerts Påskmust. Not Easter without Påskmust.

Tulips

Earlier today, when being outside enjoying the sun, this yellow bird showed up and sang and since it's Easter, we can call it a fluffy chicken, right? :)

Great tit bird sitting in a birch tree

Wild birds is not something I've photographed much before and I've set a challenge for myself to do more of it and catch at least a certain number of different species before this year is over - and at the same time, I might get better at telling different species apart.

 

Other interpretations can be seen here.

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Photo triplet: Silhouettes

23 March, 2013

Tags: fototriss

A new theme over at fototriss, silhouettes. I like the theme and also if photographing towards the sun, it can tell technical details about the lens - the shape of the lens flare is determined by the number of diaphragm blades.

Here goes, my triplet:

 

Other interpretations can be seen here.

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