Magical Iceland

Copyright Thomas Males

 Iceland is a newfound favorite of mine. It's landscape and wildlife is very interesting, It's not much more than a rock in the Atlantic ocean, but a scenic one and the best bathes I have ever experienced. I have been hunting raven with camera but so far I'm not satisfied with the pictures. I do think how ever that it's good to have something to strive for. That keeps one motivated, I don't take pictures of birds merely for the pictures sake, but to see them observe them as they go about their daily life.
Wild animals should be seen in the wild.

This picture is of course a whole different type of bird, a volcano, and it has a warm red tone to it.

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 Stendörren Natural Reserve

Copyright Thomas Males
 

Stendörren is one of the nicest natural areas in this part of Sweden, of the ones I have been to. What is wrong and what is wright when it comes to pictures.This is not exactly as it looked there this day, but than again a photo is never really real, since it's just a crude attempt to capture the world, but pictures are just a reflection, not the real thing, this is how it looked that day with a full spectrum camera, with a infrared filter, and then some post production tweaking to the imagery. But no person ore animal wold look at the world this way. As far as I know. Pretty cool pictures though I think, mission to mars like.

Rosa ssp.

Copyright Thomas Males

This is from my latest  macro excursion, it's a hostile environment when it's mosquitoes in the woods, Macro is very easy and very hard, it's easy enough to take a picture of something small, but to get the details and color and dof right is hard, (depth of field). This is a wild rose of some sort, in Sweden we use the rose hip (the berries) and make a soup rich in vitamin C.
I have started to enjoy macro photography more and more, although it is hard, but then again aren't everything worth learning hard in the beginning ?

Diptera ssp.
Copyright Thomas Males

Flies are true masters of flight, when you see one next time take some time to observe there amazing skills, they can land upside down in the sealing. They can track movements several times faster than we can. Anyway, this is what they might look like if you have very, very keen eye sight.



Firebug ( Pyrrhocoris apterus )
Copyright Thomas Males

This was the first time I saw these bugs, It was actually Sarita, my girlfriend who spotted them. It's hard to imagine that it's difficult to see something this colorful, but they somehow manage to blend in pretty well, they dropped to the ground when I used the flash. They sure are vibrantly colored and I think they look like they have been painted. Macro is very difficult unless one is shooting inert objects, but also very rewarding when things work as it should. 

Skånelaholm castle IR
Copyright Thomas Males

This was taken a few days ago just north of Stockholm, It was a nice (but pink) castle that was a few hundred years old.

Skånelaholm castle IR
Copyright Thomas Males

I chose  monochrome for this picture.
It is taken from the remains of the pier, it's more than a hundred pictures that has been stitched in to one. It was a bit to much work I think and the picture didn't come out as good as I wanted it, but then again the pictures ore what ever I do ever come out as good as I want them too, and I guess a driving force is to try to improve my work.