From an inspiration to the implementation

Pictures from archives. Taken in 2016.

An image often starts with a whim. I see something interesting along my way to work, or when having a leisure walk. It can be just as simple as reflections on the metal plate covered wall. But for enthusiastic photographer that is only the beginning.

On photo editor I then let my imagination and previously learned tricks to complete the idea. Very often the colours are pale and contrasts flat on the original image. Sometimes they can be improved with particular tools to enhance the saturation and increase the contrasts. Sometimes curves tool does to job. And sometimes Photoshop or GIMP layer mode like 'Hard Light' is enough to boost the image.

My goal often is to "manipulate the image but not change it". This means I do not add or remove much, except some accidental small twigs close to the edges of the image, or small dust or dirt particles on the photographed surfaces.

I also may "correct" the perspective, for example to make the vertical lines parallel, or fix the tilted horizon. I have a somewhat "annoyingly absolute eye" for unlevel horizon, thus being able to see even less than 0.5 degree aberration from the absolute level.

Finally, on editor, I often find some surprising details which I did not notice when taking the shot. On the example image it was the clouds, which seemed to complete the original composition. I first planned to crop this into a square, but the original aspect ratio was almost perfect, and I only cropped the image to make the diagonal line of the roof to meet the corner.

All this makes the hobby of amateur photography so interesting. At one stage I thought the ideal is to record the reality as it is, not to change anything of it during post processing. But then I discovered the reality for me is the illusions and dreams I have, and those are what I want to share. So, the scene you see in the image is the reality how I like to see it.

In Finnish there is a word 'mielikuva', which means something like a 'mental image', 'vision', or a 'conception'. But it is also like a 'created image' one sees on advertisements, which try to sell us conceptions like 'family', 'freedom', 'beauty' etc. So, to "sell" something like 'futurism', which I kind of hope you to see on the example image, requires the boosting of such features like deep blue sky, going almost as black as space, and turning the reflections almost blinding bright.

But 'mielikuva' can mean also something like a 'favorite image' (mieli = favorite). In other words I'm sharing my favorite images as well.