Are Barstad Photography

Portrait of the week

admin — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 18:28:05 +0000

I love Thomas’ expression in this picture. Taken in natural light in our dining room with the Leica M9 range finder camera. The Leica images certainly has it’s own classic look.

Hiking in Blefjell, Norway

admin — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 09:02:42 +0000

I went for a 17km hike in the Blefjell mountains a couple of weeks ago. The target was “Bletoppen” which is the summit in the range. On my way up I passed these falls. A long exposure time of 1,3 seconds was needed to capture the flowing water without freezing it.

Fuji X-100

admin — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 15:01:02 +0000

While out for a drive in the fog today, I drove by this lake 3km’s down the road from our house. Luckily I had the Fuji X-100 pocket camera in the car. I’m extremely happy with it.

Memories from Sweden

admin — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 22:00:09 +0000

It seems like an eternity since our summer holidays in Lysekil, on the Swedish west coast. Yet it was only 3 and a half months ago. It was sunny all days but two, but I still favor the overcast days for photography. Rain and wet conditions turn all the greenery in to a lush bright green color, and it’s always tempting to be outside.

Corporate portrait

admin — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 14:23:12 +0000

This is the first portrait in a series of corporate portraits. They are a lot of fun to capture, and I’m honored to be trusted as the photographer.

Fall photo shoot

admin — Sat, 22 Oct 2011 12:01:00 +0000

A cloudy day is a great day for outdoor portraits in natural light. And the fall colors in October is perfect. My sister knitted the beautiful sweaters they are wearing.

Göta Kanal, Trollhättan, Sweden

admin — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 21:16:34 +0000

I frequently travel to Trollhättan in Sweden on business. Not much to do after work, so I bring my camera along. This picture was taken 06:45 in the morning which is a great time to catch the morning mist.

Early snow

admin — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 18:45:58 +0000

I love the winter, and I love the snow. Not only is it beautiful. It’s also great for winter activities such as downhill and cross country skiing. Soon the snow will cover most of the country, and the kids will be out on their toboggans sliding down the hills. Snowmen will pop up in front lawns, and the dirt and leaves from the fall will soon disappear and be replaced by a clean white cover of fresh snow.

I can’t wait!

Broccoli kid

admin — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 20:55:05 +0000

Broccoli has to be a child’s worst enemy and this little piece brought out a lot of emotions. It took him a while until he persevered and ate it. He was very proud in the end, and so was I

Fototips: Selective Desaturation

admin — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 11:43:17 +0000

Have you ever wondered how to only have certain items colored in an otherwise black & white photo? I’ll explain how in a few simple steps in this photo tip. For this tutorial you will need Photoshop.

The picture below shows the final result. I did however add vignetting (the dark area around the edges, and a yellow tint afterwords to get the old fashioned look). This tutorial will only focus on how to make a B/W image with selected areas in color. Vignetting will be a separate photo tip at a later date.

Original image:

The steps are:

1) Open the original image as it was from the camera (in colors) in Photoshop

2) Create a copy of the original image as a second layer by clicking “Layer/Duplicate Layer” (from the top menu in Photoshop). Call it BW and press OK.

Your layers window should now look like this:

3) Make sure the BW layer is still selected. Then click “Image/Adjustments/Desaturate”. Your image will now be completely black & white.

4) In the layers window, click the grey square button with a white circle inside it to create a mask. Your layers window should then look like the illustration to the right.

5) Select the paintbrush and black as color.

6) Start “painting” all the areas you want to convert to the original color until you’re satisfied.

7) Finally; select “Layer/Flatten Image” to merge the layers. You’re now ready to save the image.

If you enjoyed this photo tip, you might also enjoy on of the other Fototips on the site.