Rusty Autumn Mountain At Sunset
Mysterious Forest Lake Reflection
Stocksy Top 5 of the Month – October 2018
Tag: mystery
Shutterstock Blog Feature -Creepy Places
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
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
10 years of PhotoCosma
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!
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:
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
River and mountain under the stars
PhotoCosma is back on 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 😉
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 😉
Winter Dusk
This winter wasn’t particularly rich in snow or very cold for that matter. There were a few photo opportunities but with snow only lasting a couple of days at a time, we had to plan everything really well. It was also the case with our last trip, one close to home but higher in altitude. The day before it was raining heavily and we kept watching the forecast as well as the weather outside. At night the rain turned to a heavy snow storm. By morning everything was covered with a thick layer of snow. The roads were bad but we managed to get up in the forest mountain not far from home, now covered in snow and fog.
The higher we went, the thicker the fog became. We kept going through the fog and it started snowing again. The blizzard had knocked down a lot of giant old trees and there was a strange sense of danger lurking through the snow covered forest. Later into the day we reached a clearing near the top of the mountain just as light began to fall and everything was turning blue. The gentle hum of the wind in the trees was the only sound we could hear and the atmosphere was really heavy. No human in sight other than us, no man-made sound, everything seemed so far away and muted. It was almost like we were hearing some sort of white noise. Lonely trees with strange shapes grew out of the snow like antennas to the sky getting lost in the fog. Everything was overwhelming. Got as many images as we could before the light started to fall. When out photographing it is easy to get lost in time, but as the night drew closer we had to get back on lower grounds and back into this world.
For the next couple of days after something surreal and intense like this, everything seems to be at a lower volume and running at a slower speed for me. Maybe this is the consequence of visiting another world. I hope the gate opens again soon.
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
Abstract winter texture background
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.
Works featured on book, album covers and posters
These are some examples of book, album covers and movie posters made with photos from PhotoCosma. Over the years the list has grown, there are more out there but these are some of the most representative ones. Some were commissioned, others were made under my supervision while others were made with images purchased through various agencies.
The majority of the covers featured here are made by adding text to my images while others have bits of my images and bits of images from other artists . Here are some photos from PhotoCosma used for artworks:
PhotoCosma 