About six or seven years ago, while visiting my birth country, Hungary, I started working on a photo thematic. I loved walking on the old streets of the Castle District in Budapest, and I was (and still am) amazed by the gorgeous – mostly antique- door handles many of the doors have there. In addition to finding more ornate and wonderfully unique handles in Budapest, I also captured some in Eger, Kőszeg, and in some other cities. I created some final photos, printed and shared them with a mentor of mine. He wasn’t very impressed…
Hungary
The pictures in this post were taken during the summer when I was visiting my family in Hungary. This was the second time I visited the “Fűvészkert”, an arboretum in Budapest. It’s a wonderful place for plant and flower lovers, with or without a camera. I spent a few hours walking around and capturing flowers with three of my Lensbaby lenses: the Twist 60, the Sol 45 and the Velvet 56. I hope you’ll enjoy the photos of the flora of the arboretum as much as I enjoyed seeing them in live.
Welcome to my August 1st Lensbaby Blog Circle post, which is a brief insight into the first few days of our annual family visit to Hungary.
My daughter and I arrived after midnight last Thursday, after a long, 26 hour trip (due to flight problems). Late morning on Friday we immediately headed to my brother’s weekend home by Lake Balaton. I took some pictures in his very nicely kept yard (his son was a great helper), at the lake in the morning, and some flowers during my walk. On Saturday we visited an adventure park near the city of Veszprém, where the cousins had a ton of fun playing together in a pond. We also visited another adventure park in Budapest on Tuesday. The following pictures were all taken with Lensbaby lenses, mostly with the Twist 60 and the Double glass. I hope you’ll enjoy a bit of European photography from me.
(Double glass)
In the spring of 2018 I was extremely happy to find out that I was one of the chosen Traveling Burnside Project participants. I was given a Lensbaby Burnside 35 lens to take pictures with partially in the United States, and then in Hungary as well.
I took all my Lensbaby lenses on my trip to Europe, and one zoom lens. Surprisingly, I left the Burnside on my camera for most of the time, and not just because of the project. I liked how light my gear was, I liked looking for the right subjects for the lens, and I started becoming more efficient with manual focusing as well. I found that certain topics didn’t work for me with this lens, but many others did. Obviously, the same can be said about any lens. I loved finding subjects where I could utilize the swirly effect.
I have been writing about my experience with the lens (all posts here), but as the end of the project approached I felt I should give my final thoughts about it.
First, I want to tell you where I felt I was most successful with the lens. I absolutely loved certain floral images the lens created. Utilizing the wide open aperture and the highest vignette setting I’ve created flower images that really wowed me. Some of the following pictures were created strictly with the Burnside, for others I used a +4 or +10 macro filter. My post-process tools were Lightroom, On1 Effects, and rarely Photoshop.
I took all my Lensbaby lenses on my trip to Europe, and one zoom lens. Surprisingly, I left the Burnside on my camera for most of the time, and not just because of the project. I liked how light my gear was, I liked looking for the right subjects for the lens, and I started becoming more efficient with manual focusing as well. I found that certain topics didn’t work for me with this lens, but many others did. Obviously, the same can be said about any lens. I loved finding subjects where I could utilize the swirly effect.
I have been writing about my experience with the lens (all posts here), but as the end of the project approached I felt I should give my final thoughts about it.
First, I want to tell you where I felt I was most successful with the lens. I absolutely loved certain floral images the lens created. Utilizing the wide open aperture and the highest vignette setting I’ve created flower images that really wowed me. Some of the following pictures were created strictly with the Burnside, for others I used a +4 or +10 macro filter. My post-process tools were Lightroom, On1 Effects, and rarely Photoshop.
Cemeteries in Europe are different from the ones I’ve seen in the USA. In Hungary, many people regularly visit their passed relatives in the nearby cemetery and take care of their graves. Not everyone, of course.
I thought that using the Burnside in the local cemetery could work really well. Yesterday I took off to make the visit there, but I had to turn back from the first bus stop due to the dark clouds and the thunder. We ended up with over 4 hours of rain and heavy storms, so the photo trip didn’t happen. But today was a better day and I made it to the cemetery.
First, I visited my grandparents’ graves, then walked around for an hour and kept looking for the right subjects for the Lensbaby Burnside 35 lens. I think I was able to find very interesting ones.
I thought that using the Burnside in the local cemetery could work really well. Yesterday I took off to make the visit there, but I had to turn back from the first bus stop due to the dark clouds and the thunder. We ended up with over 4 hours of rain and heavy storms, so the photo trip didn’t happen. But today was a better day and I made it to the cemetery.
First, I visited my grandparents’ graves, then walked around for an hour and kept looking for the right subjects for the Lensbaby Burnside 35 lens. I think I was able to find very interesting ones.