@valo
@valo
There are times when you have a dream There are times when you have a dream. You do lots of hard work. You are on the right track. And suddenly, lightning strikes out of a blue sky. Trees and rocks collapse on your way. You barely survive. At least you did, after all. Time to go on with the journey. But how? The road is blocked. You try pushing away the boulders but they don’t move the tiniest bit. You are powerless and scared. The path to your dream practically no longer…
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Depression Versus Sadness — Do Not Ignore the Warning Signs Way too often, we hear others saying, “Oh, I’m so depressed”. While emotional distress should never be downplayed, it is essential to remember that depression is not sadness. It is a mental illness that can affect anyone at any time. In fact, depression affects about 20% of people worldwide. Sadness is part of life. Mishaps happen, challenging situations occur, and it is okay. One can be in a bad mood for a while…
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Is the tea coming out of the teapot or the other way around? #Photography #teapot
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Coming up with ideas for the title of abstract art is a major challenge. Here I can see a flower in the centre surrounded by outflowing streaks. Maybe they are sending energy from the flower to your soul. Or maybe my imagination is totally out of control. #abstractart #digitalart #abstract
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Can you guess what is the subject in this photo? I boosted the colours but the circles formed when I used a 50mm lens on a reverse ring to get very close. The depth of field ended up really shallow and it made this nice abstract picture. #photography #photo #abstract #macro #pink #yellow
@valo
I’m amazed at what AI can create just from a simple prompt. I asked starryai to create an artwork of photorealistic magical Milky Way. I like the colours it chose and the beautiful glowing stars. #digital #art #digitalart #Milkyway #magical #AI
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Will you believe me if I told you that this picture is not made in Photoshop? I did post-process it, of course, but I only set the white point to be on the trees. I know that some of you are already thinking that this wouldn't be enough to create this photo. And you are right. I used a camera whose IR filter is removed from the sensor. There is one more trick. This isn't an ordinary multispectral photo. I also used an orange filter. The trees appear pink straight from the…
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Do you believe in magic? I did some long exposures and used a torch and a laser to light up the glass ball. The rest is pure physics. Well, with one exception - as you can imagine, it's impossible to restrict the torch and the laser from lighting up the table. I solved that issue by taking a separate photo without using the torch/laser. Then I stacked them in Photoshop and masked everything outside the ball, making it look neat. #Photography #magic #glassball
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Here are some cute mushrooms that I captured last autumn. I’m not quite sure about the species but they're cute. And I still remember how they felt to touch - rubbery but not really bouncy like many others. #Photography #Mushrooms
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Here is another family of brown mushrooms. I actually don't know what this species is. As a true mushroom lover, I have a book on the mushrooms that grow in my country, but I admit I haven't looked up those particular ones. Nice big bunches were growing on the roots of the many trees in the area. If you look closer, you will spot a few small, really cute additions eager to see the world. Well, as much of it as a mushroom can see given that they are completely stationary…
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Today we have another abstract artwork that looks a bit like a flower. Or maybe it's a star. Or a star-shaped flower 😃 There is a strong contrast between blue and yellow, yet it somehow feels balanced and peaceful. #Fractalart #art #starshape
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Some years ago I was walking at the seashore. It had been hot for many days in a row, and the water level had dropped noticeably. It is always very windy at that particular beach, and the sea waves had managed to carve beautiful ridges in the sand. As the sun was setting, the low angle of its rays was making the shadows long. #Photography #seashore #seawaves
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I like abstract art and I like bokeh, so I decided to combine them. I put an extension tube to a 500 mm mirror lens and these are the results. Some people don't like ring bokeh, and I agree that it doesn't work well with some subjects but here it makes the photos mysterious. #Colourfulrings #Abstract #Photography #valo
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The aurora borealis, also called Northern lights in the Northern hemisphere and aurora australis in the Southern hemisphere, are a unique phenomenon that occurs thanks to the solar wind. The Earth's magnetic field directs particles coming from the Sun towards the magnetic North and South poles. The particles give off some of their high energy to molecules in the upper atmosphere, which gets re-emitted in the form of light. In addition to the typical green, there is also red…
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It was a nice cool summer evening when I was enjoying the sunset by the sea. As it hid beneath the horizon, the sky started glowing in bright orange-pink tones. It was magical. The original photo wasn't particularly spectacular, though. It was a bit too bland compared to what my eyes saw. Thankfully, post-processing managed to bring back the beautiful colours. A duck family passed by, and I was taking multiple frames, hoping that they will end up in a good position for my…
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I love film photography. It is a true test of a photographer's skills. I was visiting a museum and saw this nice clock inside an old tram. Time has stopped long ago. No point measuring it anymore. #Photography #clock #time
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Dahlias are a classic photography subjects and for a good reason. I particularly like the pink-and-yellow kind. Sadly, I don't have a garden of my own, but there were some in the nearby park. I wanted to capture the petals from upclose to show to beautiful gradient from yellow to bright pink. Luckily, around the dahlias there was fresh grass. Perfect - pink on green is a great combination as those colours are complementary and create strong contrast. I'm really happy with…
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I love trains! And I love film photography! Combine the two and we get a photo like this one. I visited a train museum. It was fairly dark inside and I only had ISO 100 film, Kodak TMax 100, so I had to be very careful about camera shake. My hands are really unstable but to my surprise, it worked out better than expected. It was worth risking a ruined frame. #Photography #train #kodaktmax100 #valo
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Yes, this photo is heavily overprocessed, but the extra colours make the blossoms pop. It takes a while to choose the right setting but sometimes I allow myself to just waste some time and relax. The photos came from my phone, so I put them through multiple apps to make them look less like snapshots. The sky is the limit with what you can do. #Photography #Cherry #Valo
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Ultramacro, shallow depth of field and bokeh circles create magical patterns. Here I used a food dye and let the powder slowly dissolve, forming beautiful traces. Usually, photos of dyes are taken from further away to show the dripping patterns, but why not try something different? #Photography #abstract #Dye #ultramacro #valo
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To me, one of the best things about holidays is the moment when you come back home. Yes, the holiday might have been nice and long-waited-for, but it always feels good to unlock my front door and step into my own area. What speaks clearer of travel than aerial photography? #photography #travel #plane #holiday
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Hiking in a lush forest is among the most relaxing experiences, particularly on hot days when the trees are dense enough to create thick shadow and keep the heat at bay. This particular forest doesn't exist anywhere. It was generated by AI. #Forestlush #AI #relaxing
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Several years ago, I visited Salerno, Italy, and really enjoyed the area and the warm weather. Thankfully, it was not in the middle of summer with blazingly hot days. The city is located on the Tyrrhenian Sea coast of southern Italy and has a population of about 130,000 people. It is a popular tourist destination because of its beautiful beaches, historical landmarks, and tasty food. I was actually on a work trip, so I was not able to spend the week relaxing at the beach,…
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This soft fluffy ball is not exactly a dandelion but some plant relative to it. I have no idea what its name actually is but it does not really matter. What I know is that it was even softer than dandelions, and focusing on the fuzzy ball was quite tricky. #Photography #fuzzyball #valo
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On a cold but sunny winter day, I bundled up in my warmest clothes, thickest gloves and my wool hat and grabbed my photography gear. I decided to visit a river forming rapids with water running fast enough not to have frozen. The temperature was well below zero and even though the photos are old, I still remember the frigid air biting at my skin as I made my way to the river. The wind was making it feel even chillier. When I eventually made it, I was delighted to see the…
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Scientists are using various instruments but I did not expect that an AI can create them in such a realistic style. I used starryai to create them with the respective string. #art #digitalart #AI #science
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Wild irises are starting to form their buds and soon they'll start blooming in pretty yellow. While waiting, here is an old picture of a purple one in a park. It's slightly front-focused, though. Back then I was relying mostly on autofocus, so it chose the centre point, i.e., the petal to be the focal point. But hey, if you look back and recognise your newbie mistakes, it means that you've learned something, after all. I refreshed the old snapshot in Luminar and the deeper…
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Some critters have been impatient and tasted this mushroom already. Boletes grow widely in the forest in my country, and many people collect them. Somehow I feel guilty to pull a mushroom from the ground and prefer to admire them and take photos instead. I again went wild with my photos but I wanted to mask the fact that they are taken on my phone. #Photography #mushroom #Forest #valo
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Removing the IR filter from a camera makes it possible to capture infrared and UV light in addition to visible light, i.e., the picture is multispectral. Fun effects can be achieved by using filters, such as a 950 nm IR filter. The longer the wavelength, the darker water becomes, vegetation turns white, while subjects appear softer. #Photography #UVLight #wavelength #Beach #valo
@valo
Rivers meandering through broad, open meadows create beautiful landscapes. The rivers provide a source of water for plants and animals, while the meadows offer plenty of space for grazing livestock and wildlife. #art #digitalart #landscape #water #river
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As a continuation to a recent post of mine - how AI interprets the string "astronomical instruments". I'm amazed at how realistic it made them. For the second picture, I simply told it to create "planets and stars". It did quite well. Maybe there is a world where you see many moons at once that fill up most of the sky. #art #abstract #digitalart
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If I didn't know that I used an ISO 100 film, I would have assumed it was something like Kodak 3200 developed to ISO 3200 in Rodinal. Well, at least I would have been right about the developer. The film is Agfa APX100. It's cheap compared to many others at the moment - two rolls of it are cheaper than a TMax or a TRI-X. #Photography #Kodak
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It’s nice to look back at older pictures. Well, this one is just a few months old. I like the young leaves of trees in spring when they are coloured in pretty yellow-green. Oh, and they’re usually soft to touch. Just have to be careful not to damage them, they’re much thinner and more fragile than fully grown leaves. #Photography #youngoak #nature
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After yesterday's AI artworks about scientific instruments, here come some alchemy-themed ones. #art #abstract
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Remember eight years, three months and 14 days ago how you messed up? **You used the wrong verb tense when speaking to your boss?** Ouch, it was so embarrassing; you still get shivers from the very thought… Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? Sadly, it’s the reality for some people (such as non-native speakers). Yes, it’s simple to say — it doesn’t matter; it happened so long ago, no big deal. The aforementioned boss almost certainly has forgotten the situation. Yet, these…
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Abstract art deserves to be processed in Photoshop, too. When I was drawing it in Weave Silk, it was already looking like a flower. I thought, hmm... how do I make it stand out better? I inverted the colours, so the usual black background became white. But also, I ended up with green lines around the flower - just like leaves. The centre became black - just like on a poppy. What was missing was just some extra highlight of the petals. I took the brush and obtained what you…
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This artwork turned out just like the glow in a plasma globe. It wasn't intended but art sometimes has an opinion of its own. Plasma balls glow as a result of the high voltage running inside a noble gas. It causes what is known as corona discharge that might be seen on high-voltage power grids. Oh, and by the way, ozone generators also employ high voltage in the same manner, however, probably you don't want to risk putting your fingers anywhere near 10 kilovolts. #art…