Shutterstock Blog Feature -Creepy Places

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halloween night in dark spooky forest

Hello, it’s been a while since I’ve written on this blog, but I have some nice news and something to read on the Shutterstock blog: 6 Photographers on Shooting Their Favorite Creepy Places

In the article you’ll find three of my photos and a bit of info about them:

“Want to explore abandoned houses and lonely graves? Discover creepy places with tips from these six artists as they share their secrets for finding and photographing locations that haunt the senses.

Photography and superstition share a long history, dating all the way back to the “spirit photography” craze of the 19th century. While the “ghosts” that appeared in early camera experiments were in fact merely the results of long exposures, these eerie images were quite popular throughout the second half of the 1800s; many of them were widely published or sold as stereocards. And more than a century later, we still enjoy a good spooky photo.

In honor of the Halloween season, we put together this collection of spine-chilling photographs. We asked six Shutterstock contributors to tell us about the creepiest places they’ve visited, and they shared stories from around the world. While none of them spotted any “ghosts,” their images certainly raised the hair on the backs of our necks. Read on if you dare.

1. “You have to wait for nature to give you the perfect conditions.”

andreiuc88

6 Photographers on Shooting Their Favorite Creepy Places — Wait for Nature

Image by andreiuc88. Gear: Nikon D7200 camera, Sigma 10-20mm lens. Settings: Focal length 18mm; exposure 1/80 sec; f5.6; ISO 200.

What’s the story behind this photo?

I have been exploring a specific forest and photographing it for the past ten years. I live in the northwestern part of Transylvania, Romania, so there were always mysterious legends and myths about forests. That helps me set the mood in my mind.

On early autumn mornings, I go out and look at the mountain where this forest is. On this particular morning, it was colder than usual, and the rain was pouring. The whole mountain was shrouded in fog, and I knew it was a great day for mysterious forest photos. I always go out photographing with my brother, so we got our equipment and drove to the forest together.

As we entered the dark woods, I felt like I was in a surreal world with a haunting silence, full of mystery and wonder. After walking and taking photos for some time, we got to a place that has these old, ancient trees with twisted branches. This added to the spooky atmosphere and created a scary scene. I told my brother to walk between the trees, and I took this photo.

The light coming from the front transformed the trees into silhouettes, and the light was pretty dim, so it almost looks like a night photo. I love the surreal, dark mood and the overall atmosphere.”

Read the rest on the Shutterstock blog: https://www.shutterstock.com/blog/photos-favorite-creepy-places

 

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Moody Autumn Vibes

I’ve recently edited a new series of mysterious forest photos. I always take and edit dark mysterious forest photos, but these seemed to fit together so well that I’ve decided to make them available in a Halloween Forest pack on Creative Market. I like that marketplace because it gives me total control over what I upload and how I organize my photos.

Here’s the Halloween Forest pack 2018

If you want it for your dark moody projects you can get it on Creative Market in two different size options:

High Resolution

Low Resolution

 

Stocksy Top 5 of the Month – August 2018

Hello everyone and welcome to autumn! A bit later this month, but here is my Stocksy United top 5 for the last month, August 2018. There are enchanted woods, moonlight photos, abstract details, unknown hidden scenes and magical lights in the forest. Don’t forget to use the “ANDO20” code when purchasing your first photo from my Stocksy gallery!

Old Tree In Enchanted Woods

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Old Tree In Enchanted Woods

Dragonfly In The Moonlight

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Dragonfly In The Moonlight

Abstract Background With Polygon And Sphere

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Abstract Background With Polygon And Sphere

Into The Unknown

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Into The Unknown

Magical Light In Forest At Night

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Magical Light In Forest At Night

10 years of PhotoCosma

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Journey through the unknown

Exactly 10 years ago, on 10 August 2008 me and my brother started a journey. This journey would become one of the most important part of our lives, it would take us through places we never thought we would see and feel. Not long after we started it, we went to the more mysterious and atmospheric side of photography, seeking a particular feeling that unifies our work. That’s the path that we are still on today and I can’t believe just how far it has taken us. It became the main way of expressing ourselves and to create surreal mysterious worlds. I’m really proud of everything we have accomplished!

To celebrate 10 years, our website has a special new look that makes is easier to browse through the collection of images we’ve made over the years, and a lot more content and updates are coming soon!

Thank you to all that have supported us through the first 10 years of PhotoCosma!

www.PhotoCosma.net

New photos on 1x.com

A while ago I wrote that we’re back on 1x.com. Last week 2 photos got accepted and are now part of the published 1x collection. They are both part of a new series called “Visions” that has been a work in progress for some time. The series are mainly surreal  ethereal dark fine art images (even more than our regular ones). There has been a few images that are going in that direction lately and getting two images from the series accepted on 1x is a great way of starting it:

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Critical Mass
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Personal Singularity

 

Stocksy Top 5 of the Month – June 2018

It seems that the top for last month has taken a turn for the dark. There were a lot of great new additions to the Stocksy collection in June but these seem the most interesting because they go hand in hand and they all share this dreamy dark surreal esthetique. It’s almost a mini series of surreal imagery. The only image that is a bit merrier is the one with the winding road going through the enchanted forest, but it too is full of mystery. Here is my Stocksy Top 5 for June 2018:

Dark man silhouette

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Dark man silhouette

Abstract fire texture background

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Abstract fire texture background

Dark angel concept

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Dark angel concept

Winding forest autumn road

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Winding forest autumn road

Dark surreal ghost

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Dark surreal ghost

Stocksy Top 5 of the Month – May 2018

I was away for some time and realized that the month is almost over and I haven’t posted the last month’s Stocksy top 5. Even though it’s really late this month, I had to do it as it has some great images. Either one of this images would also look great as a print:

Breathtaking view

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Breathtaking view

Dreamy night

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Dreamy night

Dark silent mountain landscape

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Dark silent mountain landscape

Night search

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Night search

Predator and prey

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Predator and prey

Stocksy Top 5 of the Month – April 2018

I’m back with another Stocksy United Top 5 of the Month – the April edition. This time it’s about mysterious dark lakes in the forest, spring pastures with trees in bloom, gorgeous autumn mountain sunsets, creepy crawlers and night photos of river under the stars. I’ve also had some photos added to the curated feed lately, more that in the past. It’s great that Stocksy is finally expanding its vision into promoting dark, ethereal, mysterious images. Here is my Top 5 for April 2018:

Mysterious dark autumn forest lake

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Mysterious dark autumn forest lake

Spring fairy tale

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Spring fairy tale

Late autumn sunset with cabin

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Late autumn sunset with cabin

Creepy crawler

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Creepy crawler

River and mountain under the stars

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River and mountain under the stars

PhotoCosma is back on 1x.com

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Out of This World – from 1x.com

I’ve been an active member of One Exposure (1x.com) from 2008 and until sometime in 2012. In that time I’ve learned a lot, got frustrated a lot, saw a lot of great images, met some great people, grew up as a photographer, established my own style and when I became skilled and confident enough to know which photos of mine are good and which ones aren’t I noticed that the curation process doesn’t always work so good.

1x.com is a curated photography gallery so the level is usually higher than on any other online galleries that I saw. Only a small percentage of the photos (some say 3%, others say 5%) get accepted to be part of the gallery. That’s both good and bad. The gallery looks great and a lot of the photos they accept are extraordinary, but curation takes a great deal of subjectivism and the curators will favor and accept a certain style and category of photos. There are a lot of photos that should be accepted and aren’t, just like there are some photos that maybe shouldn’t be accepted – so the curation process is not perfect and it get’s frustrating and unfair a lot of the times.

That being said, it’s still one of the best photography galleries on the internet and the majority of time I’m glad of being a part of it. I have 17 photos that are accepted and curated on 1x.com and a total of 25 photos in my portfolio. I’m expecting these numbers to increase. I have also made my photos on 1x available as high quality fine art prints.

I’m confident that this will again be a great experience and that my images will find their place once again in one of the most interesting online galleries. I’ll let you know how this goes 😉

Stocksy Top 5 of the Month: January 2018

It’s time for the Stocksy United Top 5 of the month – January 2018 edition. I’ve had a hard time choosing between 23 new accepted images that were added to my exclusive Stocksy United collection. There are some surreal landscapes (something in which I have a lot of interest in lately) and abstract winter details. One of the winter details –Abstract winter texture background  was also added to the curated feed by the Stocksy editors. Here are My Stocksy top 5 for the last month:

Mysterious apparition at night in winter forest

Man in surreal forest at night
Mysterious apparition at night in winter forest

Hand shape in snow

Hand shape on windscreen in winter snow
Hand shape in snow

The perfect storm

Surreal landscape with heavy storm clouds above meadow forming the perfect storm
The perfect storm

Abstract winter texture background

winter background detail with abstract lines
Abstract winter texture background

Surreal river waterfall

Surreal mountain river waterfall in autumn forest
Surreal river waterfall

So this is it for this top, but join us again next month for another top5 and in the coming days for something new and interesting we’ve been working on.