Merry Christmas!

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Merry Christmas to everyone!

For tech geeks:

This year’s Christmas card photo is shot again at our home. I used a white backdrop with a white cloth on the floor to provide a seamless background. The photo was lit with three speedlights. The main light was a shoot-through umbrella on camera right. One gridded speedlight is used to light the background and one bare speedlight is used as hair light.

Last year lighting wise it was a bit more complex, as we had a shiny box that the kids were in.  My blog post about last years shoot: http://www.anttikansala.com/?p=271 and the end result: http://www.anttikansala.com/?p=372.

Vacation at Bahia Feliz

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During the darkest autumn days, we decided to head off somewhere warm. Criteria for the location were fairly simple: not too far, fairly warm, I could windsurf and no Egypt. This left only one place: the Canary Islands. Bahia Feliz is a sleepy tourist village on Gran Canaria. We chose Bahia Feliz because there is a Club Mistral windsurf rental shop right next to the hotel, there are multiple heated pools and the beach is right next to the hotel. In addition to these there are multiple playgrounds around the hotel area and many families with kids. This place just works with small kids.

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Portraits of Iisa

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Yesterday we had our traditional Christmas card photo shoot at home. My blog post about last years shoot: http://www.anttikansala.com/?p=271 and the end result: http://www.anttikansala.com/?p=372.

When I was setting up the lights, Iisa wanted to come and pose so I took some photos of her. I think that the photo above best shows her natural, laughing expression. A couple of more shots of her: http://kansala.kuvat.fi/kuvat/Antti/2012-12-06+Portraits+of+Iisa/

Horse riding

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My blog writing is seriously lagging behind now, but I’ll try to do my best to catch up. A few weeks ago I was shooting my god daughter’s horse riding competition. The complete set is available at: http://kansala.kuvat.fi/kuvat/Antti/2012-11-18+Lauran+ratsastuskisat/

For tech geeks:

It was a very challenging environment, with only light from the tungsten lights in the ceiling. Earlier when I have been shooting there, there has been some light coming in through the windows, but this time it was only the artificial light. I had planned to use my 50-150/2.8 lens, but had to ditch it for 85/1.8 to gain some more light with the larger aperture. It turned out to be a good choice.

Jumping on our bed

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Tonight we did not go outside, so we had to figure out some other way of releasing the excess energy from the kids. Bed jumping is an all time favorite for the kids. Oona was jumping on our bed and I took some shots. It looked so cool that I decided to setup some speedlights quickly and take some shots of the kids jumping. Ode was more eager to jump, so most of the shots are of him. A couple of my favorites are Continue reading →

Normal day…

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Both of the older kids have learned to climb on the door frame. So now instead of running and yelling, they like to stay up… 🙂

A couple of more shots I was able to get of them today: http://kansala.kuvat.fi/kuvat/Antti/2012-10-18+Climbing+at+home/

For tech geeks:

For these shots, I quickly set up two off-camera flashes inside the rooms to give some rim light to the kids. I also had an on-camera flash on ttl to give fill light. This setup was done in like 2 minutes and I had no time to really adjust the lights.

Close-up spiders

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I like the amazing world that opens up when you stop in the forest and start observing really closely what is happening around you. There are many creatures that you would otherwise pass by without noticing. The above spider was moving along a single line of spider web. This little fellow went almost unnoticed with the protective coloring: Continue reading →