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About Roman Solar

May 20th, 2014

About Roman Solar

Roman Solar

Few words about me

I am fine-art travel photographer with passion about capturing beauty of our world. Born and raised in Kosice. I am a self taught artist, using various techniques. I am happily married since 2008. My little daughter and my wife are my biggest fans. They are both wonderful and loving. Thanks for their continuous support my photography is alive.

I’ve been taking photographs since 2009. Beside pure landscape shots, i do love taking bokeh photography and also experimenting, resulting in surreal photographs. I called them “enchanted”. The Enchanted World project is a collection of photographs capturing real or imaginary places in unique, artistic, dreamy feel. I do post processing to add my inner feelings and thoughts, signaturing my work.

Photography made me painter, story teller, wanderer, made me see beautiful things i never did before. Photography reflects my soul through my creation, its never ending journey for me. A quest for images that narrate a story. A story that can only live in the imagination of the viewer.



Achievements

Hasselblad Masters 2010 - Semifinalist, FineArt Category
Pixel Induced "LINES Photo Competition" - Winner
Art around the World Photography contest, "Landscape & Architecture" - 2nd Place
The Worldwide Photography Gala Awards, "Colour Competition" - Honorable Mention
The Worldwide Photography Gala Awards, "Interregional Photographic Competition" - Honorable Mention
The Worldwide Photography Gala Awards, "Best-Shot" - Two Honorable Mentions
Fotosalóna STROM 2011, 26th year, "TREE" - Two Exhibited Photos
Photographer's Forum magazine's 31st Annual Spring Photography Contest - Finalist - Honorable Mention
Krasy Slovenska magazine's Spring-Summer Photography Contest - Winner
Color 2011 ePHOTO Awards - Finalist
Incheba Expo Arena Bratislava, Juried Photo Exhibition - Winner
WPO, "Sony World Photography Awards 2012" - two images "Commended" in the Enchanced Category
Amateur photographer of the year "APOY 2012": Water in the landscape - second place
Mist Photo Contest, ViewBug - Honorable Mention
Doorways & Passages, Profotio - Merit Winner
Photographer's Forum magazine's 32st Annual Spring Photography Contest - Finalist
The Worldwide Photography Gala Awards 2012, "Fine Art Competition" - Two Honorable Mentions

Showers on new Growth

May 8th, 2014

Showers on new Growth

Showers on new Growth

Simple processing example with images.

Taken with my Pentax K-r. Before i switched to prime lens i was using kit 50-200 lens. Today, for similar image for nice bokeh i would go with 50mm or even 135mm. Use small F number, and as usual, experiment with your camera, use different setting, try to find best spot, lay down if necessary ( as i did here ), look for unusual composition. Try shooting with the sun behind your back or against it. This particular shot was taken during early morning hours. The sun was rising in front of me.

Original photo directly from camera

Little bit underexposed, by purpose. Because i would like to capture as many details as possible within bright areas of image.



The most basic edit for any photograph should be exposure correction. So i started with Levels.

A very useful tool is the histogram displayed in the Levels dialog box. A histogram illustrates how the pixels are distributed. It shows you the distribution of pixels in the image in graphic form. The shadows are shown in the left part of the histogram, the midtones are shown in the middle, and the highlights are shown in the right part of the graph.

Selective Color. Another powerful adjustment. I am using this feature very often. You can see below image after i did adjustment with Selective Color. A big difference.



Next step, sharpening, as usual for me with unsharp mask.

You can find it in your photoshop under Adjust > Sharpness > Unsharp mask



IMPORTANT: Watch for burned areas all the time during your processing. Its very easy to end with overexposed image even when you started with well exposure one. Brightness edit or even sharpening could be dangerous. Still, sometimes you will end anyway with some over or under exposed areas.

Different parts of your image need different processing. In this case you could use luminosity mask technique or masking in Photoshop. I will describe them later in another blog post if you are interested. Let me know

Finally, brightness increased a little bit.



Thanks for reading people and if you are interested in different topics or just have questions, you are welcome to contact me directly via email or pm me on Facebook.

Take care

Roman


Light my Path

February 7th, 2014

Light my Path

"Light my Path"

Story behind photo



Image taken during my last trek around village Slovinky, Slovakia. Trees illuminated very nicely thanks to the early morning hours. Together with late afternoon, best time for photography. Side lightning, warm colors with lovely location made this photo very favorite to me.

Entrance to the forest with penetrating light created image with great contrast between dark areas and trees with direct touch of sun.

Taken with my old camera, panasonic dmc fz 18. Despite its not dslr, panasonic bridge camera performed very well. Intrigue light, hard to capture scenery like this.

Sometimes you have to sacrifice details in dark areas just to achieve correct exposure for light part of image. As i did it here with underexposing image.

Or you can use bracketting. Taking several shots using different camera setting. Different exposure for each shot. Of course, tripod is a must here. And finally blend those images together with photoshop for example.

I did not use bracketting for this particulary shot. One RAW shot, handheld. I know, not very clever from me :) Today, bracketting or at least one raw shot with tripod will be my choice.

But still, i am very happy with result, thanks to RAW format and thanks to underexposing this shot, i was able to maintain a high level of details within light area, main part of my interest.


Buy print HERE

Another images from same trip





Prime Lens for the Win

February 7th, 2014

Prime Lens for the Win

Prime Lens for the Win!

When I purchased my Pentax dslr I bought also 18-55 and 50-200 kit lenses. I used them only two or three times. Instead I felt in love with old manual prime lenses. With Pentax K bayonet you are able to use old prime lens of great quality for a bargain price. I was not able to resist, so my first prime lens was 50mm, very fast 1,4 revuenon. And still, one of my favorite and most usable. I simply love manual focusing, it gives you more control over composition and somehow I simply enjoy photography more with this old gem. Not to mention the output quality from prime is way ahead of kit lens. Try it once and you will never switch back to kit.

Pentax K-r
Pentax M50mm 1.7 Prime
8 seconds, ISO 100, tripod, location: Haj, Slovakia

Art Prints

For my landscape photography I got 28mm 2,8 pentax M prime lens and for portraits and macro i am using 135mm f2.8 Hoya prime. These lenses are producing images with outstanding quality and sharpness. I must admit that even handheld especially Hoya is doing marvelous job and amount of sharp details are enormous. On a cropped or APS-C sensor ( non full frame camera like my Pentax K-r for example) lens will show a smaller area of the scene.

Pentax K-r
Pentax M50mm 1.7 Prime
8 seconds, ISO 100, tripod, location: Haj, Slovakia

Photography Prints

Another important point here is Shake Reduction feature built into the body of my Pentax. This unique feature helps deliver sharp handheld shots with any Pentax lens. Another thing, I don’t like plastic feel of many new lenses. Instead, old prime is well built product and my camera looks much better with it. You can also feel this difference when using aperture and focusing rings.

Pentax K-r
Pentax M50mm 1.7 Prime
1/5 seconds, ISO 100, tripod, location: Kosicka Bela, Slovakia

Sell Art Online

My old prime lenses with SR system = simply Awesome! Very helpful in situations where camera shake is an issue. Handheld shooting, such as with telephoto lenses, indoors without a flash, or other low light conditions. For example I do not like shooting indoor with flash because i think it is ruining atmosphere, so having built in shake reduction system helps me a lot.

Pentax K-r
Revuenon M50mm 1.4 Prime
1/80 seconds, ISO 100, location: Flight to Munich

Art Prints

So if you are considering buying dslr camera, consider Pentax. You wont regret it. At least I am very happy with my decision.

Pentax K-r
Revuenon M50mm 1.4 Prime
1/640 seconds, ISO 100, location: Sivec, Slovakia

Sell Art Online

Take care

Roman

Michal Knitl Journeys and Photography

February 7th, 2014

Michal Knitl Journeys and Photography

Michal Knitl Journeys & Photography

inspiration

Adventurer, traveller, couchsurfer, snowboarding instructor, writer. These are his words and i can only agree. I discovered his page year ago and since then i am following his journeys.

Michal already visited more then 500 cities in 59 countries and i am sure these numbers are not final. Many more to come. Beside writings he used his camera to capture every unique situation and place. From mesmerizing shots of wilderness to touching portraits.

I am already proud owner of his book and must admit, i did enjoy it a lot. If you are looking for inspiration or some helpful tips for traveling, you are in the right place.

Travel diary "On the South American Vibe" is a book about 15 months in South America

Find more about Volume 1: Volunteering, couchsurfing and hiking in Uruguay, Argentina and Chile HERE

Follow Michal on his WEBPAGE , FACEBOOK or check out his photography collection HERE

Linked images posted with kind approval from Michal. Enjoy!

















Simple Texture Processing

February 7th, 2014

Simple Texture Processing

I enjoy experimenting, and photoshop is great tool for this. Since beginning I was exploring possibilities and when I found out how to use layers I was amazed. You could try it yourself, its very easy and its fun. Of course, if you are looking for pure landscapes, or reportage photography, surreal scenery created with multiple images is definitely not a good choice.

Textured images are not appealing to everyone, but that is just ok.

I would like to show you really simple, basic processing for landscape shot with texture layer over it.

You can use your own textures, like photos of some patterns, old book pages, sands or rocks. Or you can find thousands of great textures out there. There are many creative persons who are willing to share their textures with others. Just make sure you are familiar with rules and license conditions. Some textures are free to use for your personal use, some also for commercial. It differs from site to site. Look for FAQ or terms of use.

Here you can see raw image, directly from camera, underexposed by purpose and saved as jpeg. I tried to not lose details within sky, so that is why its little bit darker. We can easily adjust foreground later using software.

Its very “old” capture of my first bridge camera.



Misty landscape shot from Cergov mountain, Slovakia. Due to fog and missing sun, photo looks very flat, not very appealing. But still, I found composition attractive so I decided I will do some “enchanting” work here.

Find the “right” texture for image is very difficult, you just have to try few before find the most appealing to you. Many times my final image is layered with two or more textures with different layer mode. Sometimes I had to mask some elements out of texture, or mix together few textures before applying to image. Also using masks very often. Its never ending story. Every new work is fresh experience for me.

I used following texture for this shot. Just simply click HERE and visit page where you could download it.

Before i started with layering texture i opened raw file with photoshop camera raw and made following adjustment for tone curve parametric area to the overall tone. These are only example values. Watch histogram during or after adjustments to avoid burned areas.

Highlights 0
Lights 73
Darks 17
Shadows -32

Here you can see updated photo



The tone tool can be used as basic adjustment to improve the look of your photos. I am using it almost for every shot.

Now we could apply chosen texture. Open both images with photoshop for example. Make your texture image active and duplicate texture layer. Use original photo as destination for layer copy.

Now we have photo with two layers. First layer is our copied texture and second layer is our original image.

Last action, setting layer mode to multiply. Thats all. You could try different layer mode, like soft light or overlay.

Here is textured photo.




And finally, sharpening, another tone curve, contrast adjustment and clone tool. Following photo is the one i consider final.






Enchanted World Folio

January 21st, 2014

Enchanted World Folio

A concept created by Photographer Brooks Jensen. An unbound collection of unmatted fine art images. It is not a book or portfolio, it is something between. Perfect for viewing the images up close holding them in your hands. Simple yet elegant idea. I was so impressed that i decided to make my own Folio. Affordable way to collect quality prints from photographers.



Folios work best as a unbound book. You can simply store it on your bookshelf. Prints can be matted and framed alone or you could create framed collection and display it on your wall. Each Folio comes in folio cover created specially to hold exact number of prints within Folio . Perfect for storing photographs. There is small window on the cover that reveals small image and folio title. Folio comes in a protective storage envelope.



"Enchanted World"

Format A4 ( 21cm x 30cm / 8.3" x 11.7" )
High quality premium inkjet photo paper
Presentation folder, 10 pages total
7 individual photographs, approximately 6" x 9"
Opening page, artist statement and colophon
Handsigned and numbered










If you are interested, just let me know :) Please use contact button at the top of this page