We decided to do something useful instead; so we visited the neighborhood of the house I grew up in, and took some photos of some good-looking scenes.

I have serious orientation problems, and I always had. I have a hard time finding my way at places I do not know well enough. My parents were annoyed of this, and did some serious — and, sorrily, completely futile — efforts to improve this situation. We went to the top of the hill we lived at quite frequently — soon it became my task to lead the family there. I got lost and frustrated fairly often — until I found a street with lot of stairs going straight up.

At the top of the hill is a small forest. There is a really scenic view, some really nice-looking glades, and a strange monument erected for the leader of the Hungarian Jacobine Club, Ignác Martinovics. I loved to play here when I was a child. I imagined this place to be a secret fortress among huge, snow-covered mountains, where warriors fight each other with stone axes. (I even made my own stone axe each time we went up there.) Now I saw it is still a popular place among young children. However, when it was time for them to have lunch, we were able to shoot some photos with V.

Then we had to hurry to Mum’s since she waited us with some superb lunch. So, in spite of the terrible and irritated morning at the photo course, we managed to have a really nice day at the end.

This day was about the light modifiers — reflectors, grids, umbreallas, softboxes and dishes. We had to make photos on the entire scene, and two closer ones on the models to be able to study the effects of the modifiers. Since we were insturcted to concentrate on the task and not to stop fiddling with the composition, the pictures, as photographs, are really worthless. Except the last one — this time I could not resist giving some instructions to the model. She said it was the best photo of her taken this day. I took it as a compliment, because some guys at the studio simply ignored the teacher’s instructions about fast and effective work. They acted as if they tried to shoot the title page of the Vogue instead.

Unfortunately, we simply could not bear to stay for the last two hours of the course. These “Vogue” boys and girls insisted on acting like idiots, and since the last part of the course was meant to be a kind of treat, we left and treated ourselves elsewhere instead.

The place was much better (and a bit cheaper) than the one we have used earlier. We instantly got four flashes, one was installed onto the wall and could be easily adjusted to function as hair light. It was also nice that we were allowed to work on our own, we need not ask for assistance when we wanted to change anything. (However, it was a bit scary to handle the several thousand dollar equipment.)

V. voted for soft lights and I gave in. However, it was mainly me who had the opportunity to set up the equipment, so I could still try some things.

For these two pictures (you may click on them for larger size) I have used only one softbox placed just left from the models. We used black blacground with a red-colored flash on it. It’s light can also be seen on the shadows – an unintentional, but still cool effect. (I still have to remember to deal with that next time, though.) The shadows are quite definite, but not two deep — had I not used a softbox, the right side of the picture would be much darker.

I also took advantage of this on the first picture. I made Ildi to turn towards the light — the softbox softened her features, too –, but the folds of her dress are still definite because of the lack of the fill light.

Here I used two softboxes. One (providing the key light) was lifted as high as possible to produce a sun-like effect. The other one – this is the fill light – was lowered down and aimed upwards. This combination resulted very soft, almost completely diffuse lights — only very shallow shadows can be seen on the face. The white lily also makes the model a bit more feminine. (You probably could not imagine how hard is it to get to a compromise with a model on the question what is the ‘graceful’ way to hold a flower.)

The concept of this picture was in my head all afternoon — however, when I got the opportunity, I still had to ask for the advice of the owner of the studio to make it real. Of course, I knew that I would need hard lights, but I wouldn’t have thought that one flash would be sufficient. With the rigid poses and the blank expression I intended to make the models as statue-like as possible. The light is coming towards Ildi (in white), from the right, flattening her expression even more. Yza, already in black, get’s much more shadow. However, I made her to turn her fan a bit towards the light, making her figure a bit more prominent.

(Many thanks for Ildi&Yza for helping us out and being wonderfully patient models.)

Unfortunately, after these really logical and thorough explanations, we had relatively little time to put our own ideas into practice. We were divided into two groups, five or six people in each, and the group had twenty to thirty minutes to make photos of the model. This meant that usually we could rearrange the flashes only twice, and we made all our photos under the same conditions. So, after discussing what kind of lights we wanted to use, our creativity was limited to the composition and the instruction of the model(s). However, I am quite satisfied with two of my pictures. Not because I think they are terrifying shots: I am just glad that I was able to understand the point of this three courses. (Some girls, for example, obviously missed this point, and instead of focusing on the lights, they played star fashion photographers, styling the models’ hair for minutes, and putting them into ridiculous poses.)

On this photo, the key light was set up by myself. The hard light (coming through a cell grid) is coming from the left. The model is turning away from the light, putting most of her face into shadow. The hard lights emphasize the texture of her sweater. I sat her facing the back of the chair, which made the pose much more feminine — however, I cut the composition just below her waist, so (hopefully) it’s not vulgar at all. The light at the background is coming from just the opposite side as the key light, making the contrast much more definite.

On this picture we were running out of time, so I did not have the opportunity to change anything in the lighting (and for the record: they are far too soft for me). All I could do is to arrange the models. With this composition, I tried to put some stress on the differences between them. At first they kept smiling — I had a hard time convincing them to put on a bit more serious expression.

Speaking of a white object on white background, we had to deal with the exposure first. Of course, the built-in light meter of my camera could not deal with the situation, so I had to give a little help with the exposure compensation function. Setting it to -2EV provided quite satisfactory results, many details can be seen on the fur of the seal and even in the snow.

(Truth to be told, she proved to be a bit dirtier than we expected.)

The second question was: how to take pictures of something that is hidden in a small building. First we tried working from the entrance tunnel. It looked really funny, but it was not what I wanted.

Then we cut a small window on the wall of the igloo: it was just wide enough to be able to push in the objective of the camera. This resulted in much satisfactory results: you can sense the inner space of the igloo much better (the entry tunnel is in the background):

This is the most interesting photo from that afternoon. This is the view from the end of the path coming down to the lake from V.’s house. It would be nothing special, but since I made a picture in the autumn, too, one can really see how different the scene is.

We also went up to a nearby look-up tower, so we could take photos from above, too. We could not decide what these almost perfectly round patches were on the ice. We had a small debate about what had left these footprints all around the ice. According to V.’s theory, some animal made the leaks in the ice, but I seriously doubt so. Experts wanted.

One evening we had a walk around the two lakes near the house. It was snowing for days, everything was covered by snow, that’s why it was surprisingly bright outside. I tried to make some photos, and I was surprised to make fairly decent images even with low ISO settings.

This image was taken with ISO64 with a 15-second exposure. I did not expect such good results. I was also surprised by the interesting white balance. This effect looked just liked the one of the street lamps — except there were no street lamps nearby.

I made a silhouette portrait of ourselves. I tried to use the flash, but the results were unconvincing.

A little later I found the source of the yellowish tint: a large city, Pécs is only a few kilometers from the lake. These photos were taken with ISO400 because I needed more flexibility with the shutter speed. On the first picture, the reflection of the city lights on the clouds is more definite. On the second one, the city itself can be seen near the lower edge of the photo.

Taking these pictures were challenging for two reasons. First, we left our tripod at home (I really did not expect midnight photography) . Secondly, it was too dark to use the viewfinder. I had to compose the picture with the “try and error” method. I searched for a fixed spot where I could put my camera (first we must have cleaned it from the snow), then I took a picture, viewed it and the repositioned the camera.

Arriving to the bottom of the Castle, I decided that this is the perfect time to make our first model photo project with V. Besides being a good photographer herself, she is also a great model.

The Castle proved the be a very good setting. It was easy to find nice-looking and stylish backgrounds. and there weren’t too many people around. (At least most of the time. There were times when I had to wait for minutes for people to be able to pass by.) The lights were also satisfactory. Bright sunlight makes things easy: you don’t have to worry about low shutter speeds. Of course, you better use the flashlight to soften up the shadows. This is what I did – I am quite happy with the overall effect.

We were experimenting a lot with a lot of poses and concepts. At last, we decided on a “relaxed and yet graceful” image, which made a nice and easily perceptible contrast with the ultra-conservative milieu of the Castle.

The majority of the pictures were taken at the ruins of a medieval monastery. A small part of it (the chapel) is still standing and serves as a museum. It was really nice to work here. It was not only a good background, but a wonderful stage. The model could easily play the intented imaginary situations, because it had many different and sometimes very special features. It was almost like working in an open-air studio.

When Leah was here from the States, I did consider showing it to her — however, since the temperature remained above 40 Celsius degrees all the time, I chose alternate programs instead. After all, getting a heat stroke among old pieces of stone surely wouldn’t have been fun at all. So on Sunday, when Mum suggested visiting it, I became fairly enthusiastic, especially because V. hadn’t seen it at all.

Going back to such an important scene of my childhood would have been nostalgic enough, but since I left my camera at home, I had to borrow my previous one from Mum. It was funny using this good old soapbox for making photos. I wanted to try whether I am able to make acceptable pictures with it, and after some practice, I seemed to succeed. Of course, on the scene, I could concentrate only on the composition, but after some photo editing at home, the results became quite satisfactory to me. These pics are much better compared to the ones I shot when last used this little Fuji. It seems true that if your pictures are not good enough, you should blame yourself, not the camera.

Back to Aquincum: it was sad to see that the local government doesn’t really care about this unique sight. The leaflet coming with the ticket is amazingly and unbelievably misinformative. There are very few information signs at the important sites of the ruin; you have to browse the miniature map on the leaflet for minutes just to find whether you stand in the hot-water or the cold-water pool of the bath. There is no designed route, your must wander around freely, sometimes finding, sometimes loosing the decaying paths; the ruins are dirty and neglected, and sometimes harshly violated. Some decades ago some crazy architectures built some brutal, concrete stairs above the bath, and scattered the site with “modern”, now rusting pavilions; they should have been definitely demolished by now.

There are some really good ideas, though; the exhibition is really nice, and there is a “chronoscope”. It’s a movable telescope, which instead of showing the ruins, contains a panorama picture showing the reconstructed sight of the city, so you can see how the buildings originally looked like.

With some proper management, it could be turned into a really spectacular sight of the town. Of course, it would definitely need an overall reconstruction and they should provide much more and much more organized information to the visitors. Someone should think it over what a curious tourist would like to do at the remains an ancient Roman city. I would also risk that there are even EU tenders for goals like this. And, although it’s a bit far away from the center of the city, it can be easily reached by public transport. And, on the very least, it is still a genuine Roman city.

On the whole, I did enjoy myselft, though; the place still has a very special athmosphere, and we had a lot of fun with Mum and V. I am always very impressed how much Mum is convinced that I can answer any questions with the greatest of ease — I have to admit that I am not remotely omniscient. I couldn’t even come up with a plausible theory about why the Romans insisted on being buried in stone sarcophagi. Shame on me.

So it was a real stress, I barely dared to download the pictures on my computer — surprisingly, the results are not bad at all. Far from perfect, of course, but there are pictures that I am really proud of. As a whole, I am satisfied with the results, especially because my pictures are supplemented by V’s. The two of us could cover the event really well.

Some rules for the future:

1. Always attend the wedding rehearsal. You need to know the place and you need to know the exact course of the ceremony.
2. Bring your own lighting, if possible. Two reflectors on the priest and the couple won’t spoil the atmosphere, but will enable you to use your camera optimally.
3. Don’t be shy; make it obvious that you are the official photographer of the event. After all, you are supposed to be the professional; your photos will be available to everybody, and if you are allowed to, probably you are the one who can make the best picture at any given moment.
4. Insist on having some time just to take photos, and do not be afraid to dictate. Arrange the people as you please — when the pictures come out, they will agree that you were right.