Wealthy Varangian Viking (Tony Arndt). Decorative feather stitch on cloak, rings and bracelets are replicas of Scandinavian and Baltic finds, the Thor's Hammer is a Gotland replica, drinking horn Sutton Hoo replica, and his is shirt diamond twill wool with tablet woven silk trim. Photo by Kira Hagen 2013

Event Herald April 2013

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Some Moscow friends are doing Viking-themed entertainment evenings (“Поход Харальда” or “Event Herald” is the name of the group) and I’ve been doing a side of “your photo with a Viking!” as part of the entertainment. At the last one I got a bunch of the performers, and my husband who was in garb but just there for the medevouha (beer strength Russian mead) to pose for me. My lighting setup was a single Yongnuo 565 ex II on manual set on a stand about 3 feet from the models, using a shoot-through white umbrella for the big soft light. The warm tones of the wooden walls at Starry Melnitsa (Old Windmill) Restaurant complemented the historic garb nicely.

Wealthy Varangian Viking (Tony Arndt). Decorative feather stitch on cloak, rings and bracelets are replicas of Scandinavian and Baltic finds, the Thor’s Hammer is a Gotland replica, drinking horn Sutton Hoo replica, and his is shirt diamond twill wool with tablet woven silk trim. Photo by Kira Hagen 2013
My new garb (Kira Hagen 2013). Underdress linen-silk blend edged with yellow silk decorative stitches; hanging dress blue wool with tablet woven silk trim on top and silk embroidery based on a Birka find at the hem. Cloak trimmed with woolen yarn in feather stitch pattern. (The brooches are being pulled sideways because I didn’t fasten the cloak tightly enough.)
Guaita Tower, San Marino

San Marino

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The Republic of San Marino is a lovely little microstate near Rimini, Italy. Feeling the need to get away from another endless Moscow winter, my husband and I ran off to Italy for 3 days on a “Hot Tour!” that included airfare and a hotel for a ridiculously low price. We spent the first day exploring Rimini, the second in Urbino, and on the third took a bus over to the old city part of San Marino. It’s a beautiful fortified mountaintop full of winding streets and friendly people, with great restaurants and cafes and the best beer I’ve ever had in Italy.

I’m trying the beta of Lightroom 5 right now and all these photos have been processed and labeled using that software, so you can go through the photos and see at least basic explanations of what’s in them.

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Open Studio, January 2013

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Here’s the best pics from the January open studio day. Not many models but we had a lot of fun and will probably do another at the end of February. Dzhennet and Karina modeled in a variety of costumes ranging from Roman to fiddle-wielding fairy, a bottle of white wine was consumed, and much fun was had by all involved. The new light kit worked well, though it took a little getting used to; it’s 2 softboxes and a rim light, a grid and a set of gels in primary colors. I’ve got a small umbrella for my speedlight and am thinking about getting a really big one for the studio too.

 

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Viking Rus photo studio

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At the end of September, I hosted a photoshoot in my kitchen studio for the Runejar reenactment club. Having 15 people in my studio flat, plus shields, axes, and armor, was really something. Their group focuses on the 10th Century Viking Rus, but includes women doing reconstructions of Alania period dress as well . They use the Valknut, symbol of the Norse god Odin, on their shields and flag – you can see it fairly often in my reenactment photos, as I’ve gotten to be decent friends with some of the group members. Anyway, these photos were basically promo material for their October event, Zazime, which I’ll post about  soon (they are already photos in the Facebook Photostream section: Portraits and Event Photography).

 

Saklikent Dreaming - Glacial

Saklikent Dreaming

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Basically just messing around with some travel pictures from the summer school I worked at in Turkey – we did an excursion to this wonderful marble canyon. The walls were as sensuously curved as Classical sculpture, but there was a wildness too… Well, I was there at midday and the light was only so-so, and I was just scanning through my Lightroom presets and thought some X= presets (I have one called X=Polaroid+Blue but can’t find it on their site now; it might be a mod I did) made the stones look eerily bone-like.  So I picked out about a dozen images that suited the style, applied that preset, and then played with them until I liked them.

I’ve been struggling a bit with decisions about how extreme to go in post processing. Mainly, the rise of Instagram and quickie filters for cameraphone images now means that there’s a lot of work out there in a style I generally like – blurry, impressionist, old-fashioned… but done horribly. Cheaply. Badly. Flat colors, dead tones, lifeless imitations.

I don’t use them incredibly often, but I have a Lensbaby Original and a pinhole plate for my Canon 60D. Using the Lensbaby is like painting with fat, sloppy oils using long-bristled brushes. Not precise – not at all! – but beautiful in its imprecision. I think the software imitations are on par with those “Turn your photo into a real sketch!” apps out there – there’s just no substitute for attention to process, detail, skill, and simple passion.

Well, here’s the rest of the set. You can find them at in the  Saklikent Dreaming Gallery if you don’t see the embedded slideshow below.

Saklikent Abstracts – Images by Kira Hagen

Stony shores of Långvik bay near Helsinki

Finland, 2012

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Stony shores of Långvik bay near Helsinki[/caption]Just returned from a ten day trip to Finland with the family of one of my English students. We spent a good bit of time fishing off this island, catching one pike there. About where these wonderful rocks began, I handed off my pole and picked up my camera – hadn’t caught anything but weeds (lots and lots of them) anyway.

I’ve recently been going through some tutorials on image enhancement, and one thing I saw for really making a photo “pop” was pulling out the reds and oranges. I’m not sure if I overdid it here or not, though – the rocks were vividly orange, but not quite this much. We were out under midday sun and I’d much preferred to have been there during golden hour, which was unfortunately impossible. In this picture I tipped the lighting towards golden hour saturation, purely for artistic reasons. What do you think?

 

 

Late spring in Tsaritsino Park

Bought a secondhand Sigma 10-20mm f3.5 for my Canon 60D today

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After I picked it up I went to the nearest park and shot for about an hour and a half. Unfortunately, about 2 minutes in an elderly local English teacher glommed on to me and, asked if I minded her practicing her English with me for a bit, and then followed me around for the next hour and a half. Nice lady but I couldn't get to the backwoods parts of the park because she seemed determined to follow wherever I went and I didn't want to end up dealing with her breaking her hip in the back woods. Anyway, I'm very happy with the lens but going to super wide angle feels a little like learning a new instrument – composing for it seems to require a very different way of thinking. Any recommendations for articles or tutorials?

Oh, and I got invited to the elderly lady's next choir concert.

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Huge fire over the Moscow river

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saw it from where the green metro line bridge. Got my tablet computer/ ebook reader up to take this picture, then went back with my camera (but it doesn't auto-upload, and I haven't processed the pictures yet). I really hope this is just related to someone being incompetent, like most fires in Moscow, and nothing political… it's election day here. Can't find anything in the news about it though.

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Went out to shoot the park across the road (Kolomenskoe Park, Moscow Russia) with…

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Went out to shoot the park across the road (Kolomenskoe Park, Moscow Russia) with my lensbaby (special old-fashioned lens that gives a lot of blur). It was really cold. I like how the tunnel effect of the spot focus makes it look like Narnia or faeryland in some of the shots. Not a heavily edited shoot, just haven't had the camera out for a while for anything other than pictures of the school I work at. #ObscureCameraSunday

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Reenactors' kids have got to be about the happiest children on the planet

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This photo's from the Vyatka Guards festival in June 2011, near Moscow Russia. The little boy – his name's escaping me – spent the the entire day running around with a little wooden sword and shield after watching his dad's friends fight in the little battles. When he took on three larger boys and got trounced, he ran over to my husband, gave him the sword and shield, and then hid behind him. It was adorable. Tony pulled him back around, showed him how to hold the sword better, and sent him running off once his confidence was back.

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Sunset on the beach in Primosten, Croatia

New Site

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Sunset on the beach in Primosten, Croatia

After almost 2 years of knowing I needed to switch my site to faster hosting, I’ve finally switched to a new host and redone the site using a new theme. So I’ve probably lost some pictures and broken links along the way, but at least my blog is finally usable again!

So, let’s see – I’m in Moscow, Russia again and having a great time. Work’s going well and I’m getting out to a bunch of folk rock concerts and re-enactment festivals when the weather’s nicer. When it’s not, I’ve been getting a lot of knitting done. Only got into that last year when I was working in a difficult environment and needed a stress outlet… about 20 % of what I make actually fits but I just like doing something with my hands.

Actually my biggest complaint about photography as a hobby is that, with everything digital, once you’re on the processing stage (oh, post-processing, why are you never quick and easy???) it’s not a tactile art any more. Back when I was building folk instruments, I loved how everything came together – the smell of fresh cut wood, the curve of a shaving swirling out under the plane, the moment when the instrument was finally strung or headed and it went from dead inert matter to an almost living being as its voice sung out…

A camera is a lot more portable than a woodshop, though. This year Tony and I were based out of Russia all year, but traveled through Ukraine, Hungary, Croatia, Poland on stopover, Lithuania, and Estonia. Last year it was 9 countries. I’m very glad to be settled again but still be able to go adventuring a bit – just not sure if I’m ready to start accumulating large “things” again! But I’ve finally got a work visa instead of a business visa here in Moscow, so that means things will be a lot more stable now.