Journal of the Shutterfreak

Celebration New 2012 Year!

2011-12-26T18:47:00.000-08:00

New 2012 Year is coming!

Here is few photographs of colorful fireworks. Set of 4 prints on amazing metallic surface are available in my Etsy store for special price!

West Coast storm photos.

2011-04-10T22:23:00.000-07:00

Weather forecast finally said that there will be some stormy wind on a coast, and we like storm chasers, got ready in no time and went through Olympic peninsula to La Push to watch the storm.
Seagulls were nervously flying back and forth.

The ocean was all white from a foam. Nasty, dark stormy cloud system was coming from north-west.

I had just about half an hour to take pictures before pouring rain started.
That's how shore looked like after the storm.

Healing power of copper - new collection on ArtFire.

2010-10-23T17:19:00.000-07:00

New beautiful collection on ArtFire curated by GreatSupplies
called Healing power of copper:

Healing power of ...

Curated By: GreatSupplies

ArtFire.com

Indie Design

Walking around Green Lake in Seattle

2010-10-19T21:04:00.000-07:00

It was great sunny day in Seattle as we walked around Green Lake.

Trees wore their best colorful clothes dropping leaves in quiet waters of the lake..

Photo of the day - Juniper Tree

2010-09-17T20:38:00.000-07:00

Juniper always look very sculptural, and it was great autumny light today in a park.

My photograph made to the Etsy front page!

2010-06-01T14:15:00.000-07:00

Yehoo! Thanks to Tonya Utkina my abstract reflection photograph got to front page of Etsy on May 30 in her Chocolates treasury! This is really yammy and beautiful treasury, and here it is:

Full list of artist from this treasury you can see on Russian team blog:
http://etsyrussianteam.blogspot.com/2010/06/chocolates-etsy-front-page-treasury.html
My photograph was taken on a lake, it was light breeze and dead trees were making arabesque patterns on a surface:

Fort Ebey state park scenic views.

2010-05-31T22:51:00.000-07:00

Few days ago on beautiful sunny, but windy day we took a hike in Fort Ebey State park. Air was very clear, and spring grass was bright green. This 645-acre camping state park is located near small town Coupville on Whidbey island, and was originally built as a coastal defense fort in World War II. Here is the map:

A trail goes for a while along a high shore with beautiful views of an ocean.

And if you go there, make sure that you are careful and stay on a trail:

Bright spring flower photo.

2010-05-20T22:08:00.000-07:00

While walking in a park today, I took some closeup pictures of different things on a ground - it was fun just to aim on little pieces of moss, grass, flowers. Looking tonight on those photos, I found a nice flower, I am not sure what is the name of it. I played with it a little in photoshop changing a temperature, saturation of the photo to make it more bright and vibrant. I like to manipulate with temperature - it's easier to do it in RAW format. Most of the time I lower temperature until I am satisfied with effect. I can't say for sure how much - every photograph is different. Degree of saturation also depends on a personal taste and quality of the image. It's important to shoot with minimum ISO available on your camera, and working with photos in RAW format. Here the excelent article about it:
http://www.northlight-images.co.uk/article_pages/why_use_raw.html

Here is the final flower picture I got. I think it would be a nice note card for any occasion, or a print on the wall.

Halo around the Sun.

2010-05-15T16:46:00.000-07:00

It was an interesting atmospheric phenomena in the sky this afternoon - a halo. They were lightly colored ring with reddish inner edge surrounded the Sun, and sky inside looked like a dark cloud, at least darker than sky outside the halo. Usually they are formed by sunlight going through ice-crystal cloud. I took a picture of it, with dish antenna blocking the Sun (I didn't want to burn my camera sensor).

Photographing flame in my backyard.

2010-05-11T23:19:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I made a campfire in our backyard, burning old branches, and took a few pictures of it. I wanted to show a flame texture, making a sharp image of it, so I played with trying to get flame in focus. Since it was daylight I could use fast shutter speed 1/125 (with ISO 100) and f/6.3. There are of course lots of other ways of photographing fire and there are different types of fire - single flame of a candle, big bonfire (especially interesting in a dark) and so on. The longer exposure at night time would show beautiful lines of flying sparks. Flame is very interesting subject for photography and I am going to continue making experiments, photographing it.

Psychedelic colorful photography of a drift wood.

2010-05-04T13:37:00.000-07:00

This morning I woke up with very bright sort of electric colors images in my mind. Something similar to psychedelic art. I liked the idea and I started playing with my photos. Here one of the first experiments. And, no, I didn't smoke anything and didn't eat mushrooms.

Photography of nature abstracts.

2010-05-01T22:44:00.000-07:00

We went for a walk in a woods near Bellingham, and at the end of our hike came to this small mountain lake with really interesting reflections in it. I took a few photos of it.

Photography of cherry trees blossoms.

2010-03-09T12:20:00.000-08:00

For a while we really thought it's spring coming in the end of February! Nature also had this illusion and started acting right away. Look at those bright pink cherry blooms!

Photo of full Moon over Mt.Baker at sunset.

2009-12-04T20:39:00.000-08:00

Beautiful moonrise over Mt.Baker, North Cascades, taken from Anacortes. Next day the Moon was orange for some time after rising.

Halloween Pumpkins

2009-11-03T20:32:00.000-08:00

For the first time in my American life (actually for the first time in my life, because we don't have Halloween in Russia) I carved pumpkins!
It was exciting, and would continue but we run out of pumpkins.
So here they are - a cat-pumpkin and an alien-pumpkin. I hope you will like them!

Art Festival in Anacortes

2009-08-10T19:51:00.000-07:00

I had an opportunity to display my photographs in a gallery during Art Festival in Anacortes (a small town about 1.5 hours North from Seattle) together with a few other members of Skagit Camera Club. It was not the best weather for a festival - cloudy and a bit chilly, but it was fun anyway.
On Sunday finally it got warm enough to take tables outside.

Sails near San Juan Islands.

2009-07-26T13:57:00.000-07:00

Sunrise.

2009-07-22T17:39:00.000-07:00

Sunrise is not something you can photograph easily. As minimum you have to get up really early (at least in summer) and act quickly - it's getting lighter, not reddier. The mountain on photo is Mt.Baker.

Forth of July Fireworks photographs!

2009-07-12T22:36:00.000-07:00

I don't know about you, but I can watch and photograph fireworks indefinitely. This year 4th of July fireworks I could see from the porch of my house! I don't know yet how many images I took, so far I processed "only" about 30, and it looks like it less than a half. It is more coming!

Photographs were taken with ISO 100 and exposure time from 4 to 8 seconds. Images are available as photo prints and greeting cards.

Beautiful pink peonies.

2009-06-20T20:05:00.000-07:00

Peonies are one of my favorite flowers. And now they are blooming in our garden! Definitely flowers has some power to change our mood - may be there is some scientific theory behind it (Val said in her Val's diary video that she found some explanation of it on line), but I was thinking about different power - power of the past.
When I was a child my grandparents (in Russia of course) had a garden, and my grandmother was growing lots of different sorts of plants - flowers, fruit trees and so on. Of course, peonies were there too - right near the entrance, and I couldn't get enough of them - looking and smelling like some kind of addict. So imaging how happy I was when a little bush in the corner of our garden turn out to be a peony (we are renting a house just for a few month, so we keep discovering things on the 4 acres property).
Anyway, here are photographs of these beautiful peonies which I took with macro- lenses, and the last photo is sort of abstract, it's was taken very close-up.

Dandelions, black and white photo.

2009-06-19T21:33:00.000-07:00

This photo of Dandelion I made right in my yard. It's too bad they are considered as weeds, I think they are very pretty with their fuzzy heads. The second - is taken with macro lenses. Sun shining through their little parachutes and dark blue sky made them very good object for black and white photography.

Photographs from my travel to Alaska. Aurora Ice Museum, Fairbanks.

2009-06-07T21:15:00.000-07:00

Aurora Ice Museum is located near Chena Hot Springs, not too far from Fairbanks, Alaska. I was there in early February. It was chili outside - about minus 30F, but inside a Museum where everything made of ice, was relatively warm - about 20F.
Museum features the work of award winning artist Steve Brice, who had to create all sculptures in a temperature below freezing! Brrr...
The beautiful colors are designed to replicate the aurora borealis. There are several exhibits - two knights, a huge chess set, a chapel alter that has been used for wedding ceremonies, the Coca-Cola polar bear and the beautiful hanging chandeliers. In the central part of the room is the real bar that is totally made of ice, even the bar stools (with a fur covering on the top though). Even Martini was served in an ice martini glass! And it was good too!
And in the back of the room there is a hotel with bedrooms and beds of ice with reindeer fur sleeping bags!

Photograph of roses.

2009-06-07T20:42:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, exploring my big yard (about 4 acres) I found those beautiful roses near the well house. They just started blooming, and probably for a while nobody took care of them - it took me for over an hour to remove all the dead vines. Hopefully, they will survive my care.

Photographs from my tavel to Barrow, Alaska (cont.)

2009-06-04T20:59:00.000-07:00

Artctic Ocean, frozen waves under the snow.
And people have sense of humor here too - those are summer cabins a little bit outside of Barrow, palms of course not real - they made of baleen (plates for filtering food from water).

Unfortunately, I didn't get to see polar bear, although when taxi driver was showing us around they said on a radio that a polar bear was spotted near high school, but when we got there it was gone.

Photographs from my travel to Barrow, Alaska.

2009-05-24T11:18:00.000-07:00

I decided to show once in a while photographs from my past traveling, since I didn't have a blog that time, but I have lots of interesting photographs.
Today I want to show you few photos taken in the most north town of Alaska and United States - Barrow. I had an occasion to get there in January, 2004 for a few days. It was cold: -50F and windchill -60F. Do you think it's a midnight? Wrong, it's a noon, with a moon hanging over Arctic Ocean, frozen of course.
Life is still going even in those harsh conditions.

Irina's Photos

2009-05-20T18:33:00.000-07:00

Today guest artist in my blog is Irina, photographer originally came from Russia.
"I have taken pictures since I was a teenager. My favorite genres are Still life and Landscapes."

Aleksandra Vali jewelry art work.

2009-05-10T11:46:00.001-07:00

Aleksandra Vali is a creative artist with unpredictable, but well defined sense of style and personal signature. She conveys her passion for style through unique hand crafted jewelry-seductive yet extravagant, harmonic yet so contradictory. Alexandra enjoys working with gold and silver, as they allow her to experiment and make the most out of the three dimensional potential of the metal.
Aleksandra Vali is originally from Russia, city of Novosibirsk (in Siberia!). Now she lives in Illinois, and member of Russian Art team on Etsy.

Photographing trees.

2009-05-03T11:19:00.000-07:00

May 1 was bright and sunny, how is suppose to be on that day :^). I took a few photos of trees in my yard. Trees are fascinating "creatures", I think they are alive, we just don't know how to communicate with them.

Postcards from my photos!

2009-04-30T14:28:00.000-07:00

Not so long ago I ordered and received a few postcards from my tulip and sunset photos. Professionally made in SmugMug photolab, they looks really nice and come with white envelope. Those cards for sale on Etsy right now:
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=24410595.
Actually, any of my photo can be made as a postcard and I can make on photoshop any customized greeting.

Few more photos from Tulip festival

2009-04-24T12:52:00.001-07:00

Red and pink, and even overlooked but still pretty daffodils!

Tulip festival in Skagit valley!

2009-04-24T12:17:00.000-07:00

New tulips are blooming!
I went to the valley yesterday - on weekend it will be really crowded.
Almost idyllic scene with a blue sky and pink tulips!

Windy day at Cranberry lake.

2009-03-19T23:29:00.000-07:00

Today I was hiking around a local lake and I liked this madrona branches bending with wind. I took this photograph very fast since it was cold.

Ducks

2009-03-15T21:56:00.000-07:00

While walking today near the salt water pond took a few pictures of ducks sunlit by the setting sun.

Photo of the day

2009-02-18T21:13:00.000-08:00

While taking a walk on a beach in Deception Pass park, I saw seagulls splashing in a fresh water pond. I took few shots. Here is one of them in black and white. You can see bigger sizes on my photowebsite:
http://www.kazanskyphotography.com or in Etsy store: http://www.YuliaKazasnky.etsy.com

My Travel Photos - Trip to Columbia Gorge.

2009-01-06T22:02:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I returned from short 4 days trip with my friend. We made a loop - went to Columbia Gorge and then to Oregon coast through Portland and then drove north along the coast through Astoria, and then through Olympia on I-5 and back to our Anacortes.
I am still working on photos, but here are a few for start. Those photos are taken after we cross Columbia river to Oregon side. It was snowing rather hard for a while there, so some local roads were closed. Snow made things a little lighter even in gloomy days.