PhotoCosma is back on 1x.com

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 😉

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Dark Dreams Series

Old cabin in dark forest

The Dark Dreams series is something that’s been a work in progress for the last five years or so. The majority of photos from PhotoCosma have a dark and mysterious side but this is taken even further in the series. While browsing trough our portfolio in the early days, we noticed that there are some photos that work well with a darker edit and that don’t fit in any particular series, but could be used to create a story on their own. After some time we got our hands on a selective focus lens – a Lensbaby – and realized that this type of approach could bring a whole new dimension and really made sense given the fact that PhotoCosma is all about mood and atmosphere. It seems to me that it’s a great tool for creating surreal fine art photography and seeing the world in a different perspective. This type of lens makes the edges become out of focus so it seems the viewer is drawn into the frame. I think this is why these images are so powerful and alive, sometimes even inducing motion feelings. Everything becomes blurry, dreamy, soft and some have even told me that some photos give them a sense of nausea, anxiety and restlessness. Putting it all together we realized that this is how some  dreams that are surreal make you feel so the title stuck trough the years.

You can see selected works from this ever evolving series here: http://www.photocosma.net/portfolio/G00008kNAkAGjN00

Sea of Calmness

I sometimes find interesting or out of the ordinary details in nature when I expect them the least. It’s the case with this photo of a small frog floating on a leaf in a pond. I was searching for new ways of getting further up a valley, didn’t have too much success so I decided to sit down and catch my breath for a couple of minutes, near a pond in the forest. I noticed that a little frog was doing the same thing resting on a fallen leaf, so I grabbed my tele lens and took a couple of photos.

I like this image, to me it evokes some kind of calmness, tranquility. This little guy is in the middle of the pond, yet floats around calm like nothing else exists. Sometimes when I’m stressed this image comes to my mind. Gotta keep calm, or the leaf might overturn. Great advice learned from nature, like so many other useful things.

I even have a print of this photo, and it works as a reminder to keep calm. If you like it enough to want to hang it on your wall, you can get it here

 

Tree under starry sky

Tree under starry sky with red moon rising and falling star

I love the peace and quiet of the night. While I’m out photographing at night it’s almost like a form of meditation. This has to do with the fact that night photography often requires really long exposure times, but I think it also has something to do with the fact that one can see our place between the stars and realize that we are part of a much bigger picture. This feeling is the most intense at night while gazing at the stars.

The photo above was taken on such a night of wandering on meadows and watching the stars and it has received a lot of attention trough the years, turning eyes and also selling a few prints. I think the reason for this is that it has a great subject – a strange looking tree in the foreground that almost seems to literally reach for the stars given it’s shape, but also because it captures another moment: the red moon rising. A lot of people asked if it is the sun or the moon that is visible. It’s actually the moon rising at midnight. If it were the sun, the whole scene would be too bright and the stars above would not be visible. I usually like horizontal prints, but this photo looks great as a print because the whole scene unfolds vertically: the darker area with the bright stars at the top of the photo, the middle blue part that is lighter and has fewer stars, and the bottom red part that has just a few visible stars. The exposure time was pretty short for a night photo – 46 seconds, so the stars won’t appear as light trails – I think I’ll make a post about star trails in the future as it is really interesting waiting for hours to see the final result. The night holds many mysteries. And even though night photography is difficult and takes time and patience – it is really worth it. I especially like the fact that I bring to light scenes that would otherwise remain hidden in the dark and would never be seen.

You can license this image here: https://www.stocksy.com/750368

Print available here: http://crated.com/art/266374/tree-under-starry-sky-by-photocosma?product=PO&size=14%7C10