Man Walking On Snowy Road In The Woods
Mountain Cabin On Green Mountain Meadow
Abstract Surreal Purple Hues In Space
Stocksy Top 5 – January 2019
Category: naturestockphotos
Stocksy Top 5 of the Month – November 2018
Hello everyone, it’s time for the Stocky Top 5 of the Month – number 23! This time it’s about the seasons changing from autumn to winter. A bit more late than usual, but here are my top Stocksy United picks for November 2018:
Aerial View Of Meadow With Lines And Trees
3 photos curated by Stocksy
Glad that Stocksy United liked my last batch of photos and even added 3 of them to the curated feed. All full of mysterious surreal vibes, so that makes me even more happy!
The fist one is Mysterious dark autumn forest lake, the second one Centipede insect close-up and the third one is Sunset river
Great to see something a bit different from the usual getting a bit of the spotlight 😉
Dew drops on green plant – simple things
This image – Dew drops on green plant – has been getting some attention lately and I remembered that it’s often the simple things that work. The dew covered plant is a subject that has been photographed again and again but each photo is unique and succeeds in transmitting that special morning freshness.
I took this photo on a foggy morning while I was trying to enrich my Magic of the Forest collection. After walking through the woods I got to a clearing and noticed the beautiful drops of dew on the green plants. I used my 90 mm macro lens, an exposure of 1/250 and f/8 @ ISO 160. I used the flash to make the dew drops shine a little bit and pop out. Even if I photographed certain places a lot of times in the past 9 years, I am always delighted to find something interesting every time. I think this is the beauty of visual arts: you can discover a place over and over again and see it in a different way, a different perspective every time.
Stocksy Top 5 of the Month – June 2017
A bit late this month with the top 5 photos from Stocksy. I guess it’s better late than never, and this section usually gets the most attention on my blog so here is my top 5 for the month of June 2017 on Stocksy:
Abstract colorful space background
Ethereal landscape with horses
Mysterious haunted forest at night with dark man silhouette
Green Meadow in Spring
This photo of wild horses on a green meadow is one of my favorite spring images. It stuck trough the years and when I think about spring photos that I have in my portfolio this image always comes to my mind.
It’s taken some years ago in 2010. It was taking at the end of a day with no extraordinary conditions for photography when we were about to call it quits. We were following a herd of horses and didn’t have much luck getting close. The clouds were covering the sky and rain was approaching but as we got to a hilltop a ray of light from the setting sun started shining over the meadow and was casting beautiful long shadows of horses and trees. The silhouettes of the horses give a sense of the grand scale of the landscape. The soft light gave that fantasy landscape aesthetic that I always search for, a fine art aesthetic. I used a tele lens at 90 mm and a 1/320 shutter speed with f4,5 because I was shooting handheld due to the fact that the conditions were rapidly changing and didn’t have time to set up a tripod.
Stocksy Top 5 of the Month – February
A bit late this month with the top 5 photos from Stocksy, but a lot is going on right now. Nevertheless, some great photos made their way to in February, some of which even got curated by Stocksy so here is my top 5:
Mysterious man in forest at night
Cave entrance with man silhouette
Shutterstock Blog Feature
Shutterstock has a blog post on “9 Exceptional Photos That Look Like Paintings” and one of my photos – Forest Road in Transylvania has been featured.
As people who follow my work know, a picturesque look is what I try to achieve, together with a special mood and atmosphere, and it seems that the folks at Shutterstock got that too. I am andreiuc88 on Shutterstock. Got that nickname in 2009 and didn’t change it. Here’s what they had to say on it:
“Many photographs seem like paintings because they effortlessly evoke a complex mood or feeling with just a glance. Such is the case with this eerie photo of a desolate pathway in a dense forest in Transylvania, Romania. The combination of the fog, sparse flowerbeds, and low light make for a creeping sense of dread.
The effect here is not accidental – the photographer, andreiuc88, is somewhat of an expert when it comes to moody, atmospheric photography. A nature photographer based in Transylvania (the literary home of Dracula), andreiuc88 creates a variety of nightmare-inducing landscapes.”
You can read the whole post and see some truly amazing pictures here: https://www.shutterstock.com/blog/9-photos-that-look-like-paintings
Apparition in Forest at Night
I’ve written about photographing star trails and other types of landscapes at night before on this blog, but there is another type of night photography that I like and find really interesting – photographing deep in the woods at night, in total darkness. It’s a unique experience and I have to admit that I really feel the grandeur of nature when doing this.
This works best when the air is a bit hazy but there isn’t any thick fog. Going deeper into the woods on forest roads and then leaving it always feels a bit like the premise of a horror movie. It’s a totally different experience than in the daylight because a lot of the forest creatures are nocturnal. There are strange noises and little glowy eyes following you everywhere so imagination runs wild. Knowing that the “safety” of civilization is so far away and gets ever further makes for and interesting mix of emotions.
It was on one of these night hikes trough the forests of Transylvania that I made the photo “Apparition in Forest at Night”. As always, I was with my brother. We saw that the light from the flashlight is casting interesting shadows and tried to see how a lit silhouette would perform under such conditions. Like on all night photos I used a tripod and a wide angle lens. The problem here was that the light behind the silhouette was coming from a flashlight and was pretty low so the silhouette became blurry because of the tiny movements. I tried to keep the exposure as low as possible but still needed 50 seconds at f5,6 and ISO 400. Multiple tries later, the result was something surreal and dark that makes the mind wander. It could be a magical portal to another world, the materialization of a dark time, a ghost apparition or even an alien. It could also be a vision for the concept of spiritual enlightenment, time and space.
The image is available on NatureStockPhotos.net
Shutterstock’s Most Viral Photos of 2016
One of my photos – “Deer on a road in a dark forest after rain” is on the list of the most liked and shared photos from the past year from Shutterstock’s social media feed.
I caught this moment a few years ago. I got to the woods early in the morning and a deer herd kept appearing and disappearing trough the fog almost like it was watching me. I got a glimpse of them running and jumping trough the air as they appeared only as silhouettes in the magical glowy light. I saw them doing this a couple of times but they were too fast for me and the light was too dim to photograph the scene. After a few hours I was following a forest road and saw the herd standing in the middle of it. I had a short zoom lens on my camera and thought there is no way I can get the shot right. As I was approaching two of the deers started to run but one stood curiously in the middle of the road watching me. I kept taking pictures and approaching bit by bit until it ran away. I said it before – for me it’s almost like a supernatural moment when I cross paths with wild animals so I was really excited to see this scene and photograph this special moment.
I have also made it available on NatureStockPhotos.net for those of you who don’t have a Shutterstock account or don’t like the subscription model.
PhotoCosma 