Michael B. Rasmussen

FrozenSolid photo challenge Winner

After 2 long month my first photo challenge is finally over and the Grand winner is Rick Lee.

© Rick Lee

Rick is a American based amateur photographer, with a passion for photography and have an amazing portfolio on Viewbug.

If you are on Viewbug I recommend you to go and follow him, to both keep up with his work, and support him by voting on some of his other work.

I chose Rick's photograph as the grand winner, because I think i captures the very essence of the challenge of something Frozen Solid. The 2 huge trees covered in heavy frost and the cold natural blue tone Rick has captured, just makes this photo perfect.

You can view Ricks stunning photograph here along with peoples choice here FrozenSolid

Congratulation Rick.

One of the most popular photogaphers on Viewbug 2014

Got the most amazing email from Viewbug today. Telling me that I was one of the most popular photographers in 2014.

Being insanely busy at work, I decided not to click the link on my phone and decided to wait until I would get home from work.

As decided I didn't open the link until, but I was like a kid on Christmas eve, and just couldn't wait, so most of my day went thinking about this, and actually decided that I probably would be in the top 50%.

Finally I got home, walked Loki talked with my wife, had dinner and the I finally had time to my computer and look how high I had ranked.

And to my big surprise I was ranked in the top 10%.

I would like to thank everyone stopping by my profile, who gave a like, a peer award or left me a comment. If it weren't for you I wouldn't have gotten this far.

If you want to join Viewbug please use this link to give me some refferal points: http://www.viewbug.com/invite/token/e9kMRHMvU4

Thank you

Michael B. Rasmussen.

Wild and stormy seascapes photo challenge

I just launched a new photo challenge over @ Viewbug.

Share your best photos showing Wild and stormy seascapes before February 12th, 2015

Prizes:

Grand winner: Is the ultimate challenge winner and will be rewarded with 300 points.
Peoples choice: Challenge champion and will be rewarded 200 points.

Come join the fun: Wild and stormy seascapes

FrozenSolid photo challenge Voting open

Voting is now open in my photo challenge FrozenSolid over @ viewbug.

Take a minute or 5 and head over there and vote on your all time favorites.

Thanks

Michael

Just published "The Atlantic Wall"

I just published a new story @Worldly called The Atlantic wall".

I recently was so lucky that my wife had to go all the way to north Jutland for work. She asked me if I could take a couple of day off to go with her, obviously I didn't hesitate a second because it meant that I would have the opportunity to get a couple of days with my camera, and I knew that the Germans build a massive bunker fortress in the area under world war 2. Thanks to Google maps and lots of reading I went well prepared for this photo trip into history.

To read the whole story head over to www.worldly.com and take a look.

Michael.

Sponsorship

Lets face it, Its unbelievable expensive to be a photographer. I am constantly in search to raise money for travelling and at times I need to upgrade some of my gear.

If you like my work, I mean really like it there are several options to support me.

Buy some of my work on Fine art America.

1. Fine art America: Nature Photos
2. Fine art America: Nature canvas prints
3. Fine art America: Nature framed prints
4. Fine art America: Nature prints
5. Fine art America: Black and white photos
6. Fine art America: Black and white canvas prints
7. Fine art America: Black and white prints
8. Fine art America: Black and white framed prints

Buy some on my work on 500px

1. My 500px profile
   
2. My 500px prime profile

Donate 10 Eur

Donate 50 Eur

Donate 100 Eur

Choose how much you which you will donate.

Thank you for a fantastic year 

This year have been amazing, I think its been one of those years Ill remember and look back at in many years to come.

During 2014 I have meet so many new friends and discovered some of the worlds most fantastic photographers, from who i have learned and found great inspiration to my own work.

I want share some of my own highlights of the year, both photographic and social. But you are in it for a long one, so before you begin go get a cup of coffee, and get comfy :-)

January started just like any other month, but I discovered a new location where I got some great landscape photos, and slowly started working in colors again.

I didn't at all put my b&w on the shelf, but slowly went into b&w rehab with some fallback. Mostly because these photographs just begged me to be developed in b&w.

February was mostly filled with b&w, I was really struggling with colors this month. I think the main reason was that hen in good old Denmark there aint that many colors during the winter, where everything is mostly, brown and a boring pale grey sky.

I did spend some of February exploring a new side of me, abstract photography, I really learned to enjoy this artistic approach to photography, because it forced me to think different and forced me to visualize the development, while composing the photo.

The photo above is what came out of my abstract mind, after many..many trial and errors. Even though my wife hates it, and gives her the chills it is probably one of my most popular photos from 2014. I really got good feedback from all over with this photo, and it even won the award "Won Great Shot on April, 2014" over at Viewbug in April.

I did take and develop one of my personal favorites in February taken at the Estuary by Bjørnebæk.

March I really struggled the colors where getting back in nature, but no matter how hard I tried I kept failing I just couldn't get the colors right.

I visited Næstved harbour and got some fantastic long exposures.

I kept on working with the colors, and at the end of March I ended up with these 2 color photos which I'm really happy with.

April turned out to be just great, my wife and I went for a needed small vacation to Langeland, where we finally could get some time off together and relax, I obviously brought my camera and I got some of my best long exposures of coastal scenes. One of which later in the year would win Photo of the month in Cewe photography competition "our world is beautiful" but ill get back to that later on.

I kept on working a little with abstract photography, trying out different styles and I got a couple of cool shots by adding lots of camera movement while using a slow shutter speed.

In April I finally found time to go visit Faxe limestone quarry, a fantastic location and just a great experience for every nature lover.

I published an "experience" on Worldly about my trip to Faxe limestone quarry, if you would be interested in reading it later on.

May was a little slow for me I didn't have much time to go out and shoot, but I found a few interesting subjects, which I think are often overlooked.

June summer finally arrived with lots of warmth and long days with light long in to the evening. I spend hours walking around the old military training area with my dog Loki.

July was just fantastic, I went on summer vocation to beautiful Norway with my wife, mom and our dog Loki. In our new car a Dacia Duster SUV which we had just picked up a week before we had to drive. It was an amazing experience to drive on vacation in a brand new car. And Norway is just about any landscape photographers dream location.

We started off in Oslo where we visited Vigeland Sculpture Park and the Olympic ski jump center Holmenkollen.

After Olso we drove north west to Kaupanger, where we had rented a vacation house, It turned out to be a perfect location for a base camp, we had about an hour drive to the beautiful Jostedal glasier.

And Urnes Stave Church the oldest stave church in Norway.

And about 2 hours to the beautiful Jotunheimen National park. which was an amazing experience to drive over.

August was just crazy, At first I was contacted by Skye Laudari from Worldly, about an interview to their spotlight on their blog, apparently they really liked some of the "experiences" I had made on their site, this was both really exiting and scaring at the same time. I have never been interviewed before, and on the same time focus was going to be on me. But after thinking a little over it i accepted their request and went all in. You can read the spotlight interview  "The World As You’ve Never Seen It" on their blog.

In august I decided to give my flashes a go again, I have tried so many time to make some good light with my flash guns but I just couldn't get them to work previously. But I gave it a try and got some pretty decent shots of my wife's guitar.

Then I had a dream come true, something I had dreamed of getting ever since I got my first Canon DSLR. Again my wonderfull wife went all in an bought me the EF 70-200 f/2.8L lens. I had dreamt of owning one of these for so many years 15 to be exact so it was so unreal to actually mount it on my camera and know it was mine. The first thing i did after getting it was taking a trip to the Royal Hunting Grounds.

September really called for crawling around on my belly in the mud shooting mushrooms. Earlier this year I had acquired a couple of remote triggers, for my camera and flashes so it really gave me some creative opportunities. 

September also brought me my all time favorite season to walk the coastline, and just be enjoy the silence, and beauty.

And finally in September i won photo of the month inCewe photography competition "our world is beautiful" with this photograph. 

October brought me to Melby Outskirts a old military shooting area, that now is a huge recreational area perfect for hiking and explore nature. 

November was also a crazy month again I was spoiled by my wife, this time for my birthday wich is November 30. But way before my birthday I got the coolest present ever, a Fujifilm X100S a small camera I had been wanting for a long time, so I have one to bring with me on small trips, and walks in the city.

December last month of the year, and I just hit a wall, I had no inspiration and couldn't find any anywhere. It actually happens to me almost every time I get a new addition to my gear. But thanks fully at the end of December we got some snow, and I as of writing this seems to have found my inspiration again.

At my birthday I also got a Sigma 1.4X EX DG APO teleconverter, and this tiny red chested tit visited me yesterday

To sum it all up ITS BEEN A FANTASTIC YEAR and I wanna thank you for reading, and following me.
I wish you and your family a Happy New year and a great 2015. 

I cant wait to see what amazing adventures 2015 will bring.

Installing Lightroom Presets

The Lightroom preset folder is by default located in C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Lightroom\Develop Presets.

So unless you have followed my guide on how to move your preset folder you should just download the desired preset and extract it to that location. 

Start up Lightroom and go to develop module and use your desired preset. If you have moved your preset folder just copy the preset to the new location on the external harddrive. 

In my case this would be F:\Lightroom_presetfolder\Develop Presets.

Now if you got a huge amount of presets you should consider sorting them into sub folders to easier locate them inside Lightroom.

Just right click your mouse and click new folder then call it what ever you desire. There is lots of cool and free presets on the internet. I also have a few free presets here on my blog.

Moving Lightroom preset folder to external harddrive

As a followup on my guide on how to move Lightroom to another drive I came across a obstacle I hadn't seen coming. How to handle your preset folder especially if you work on a external hard drive. Lets face it its really great to be able to work on multiple computers but not so much if your favorite preset is sitting on your laptop.

After googling around for a bit I found that the simplest solution would be to make a symlink (symbolic link). Pointing from C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Lightroom to your preferred location. I am now storing it on my external drive along side with my Lightroom catalog and raw files F:\Lightroom_presetfolder.

Before we make the symlink you have to make a backup of your Lightroom preset folder and make a copy on your preferred location. Navigate to your folder C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\Adobe right click the Lightroom folder and copy it to your preferred location, I wanted it to be on my external had drive so I just copied it to my F drive and named it Lightroom_presetfolder to be able to find it easier when needed.

After copying the folder I renamed the original Lightroom folder to Lightroom.bak, just as a precaution if a file got corrupted during the move.

Now it is time to create the symlink witch i super easy on a windows computer, open a comand promt by typing cmd in search right click cmd.exe and press run as administrator, copy the following to notepad and make sure you alter the red highlighted to your preferences.

mklink /D "C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Lightroom" "F:\Lightroom_presetfolder"

You should now in your C:\Users\\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\ have have a symbolic link looking loke a shortcut and a folder called Lightroom.bak.

Tadaa that's it launch Lightroom and verify your presets are working and they are all there. if you ever want to roll back or regret all you have to do is delete the symlink and rename the Lightroom.bak to Lightroom.

Moving Lightroom to another drive in 5 easy steps!

Ok lets face it I love Lightroom and use it all the time, when I develop my shots, been using it for about a year now. My problem was that way back when I first bought and installed it I did it on my laptop trough a issci drive on my nas, not the brightest idea in the world but it's been working, My problem was that I have a really good desktop pc with a huge 23" monitor which would be awesome to work on at times.

So after searching the net for a while I found that the easiest solution would be to invest in a external hard drive, so I did and it arrived at my house yesterday, and I was ready to get into business, and moving the catalogue, files and folders to the new drive.

Ok so here is the challenge how do you move 1 TB from a network attached drive to a external hard drive without risking any data loss?

I was thinking a log time about letting Lightroom handle the file transfer, but if i did it that way and something went wrong I wouldn't have any backup.

Here is how I managed to handle the move:

1. If you are working on your laptop and like I did had your photos on a external nas, do yourself a favor and connect a network cable to speed the transfer up.

2. Prepare your new external drive, most are formatted and are just plug and play. Test your drive on both computers you want to work with Lightroom on, and make sure when attached they have the same drive letter. (If the drive letter does not match fix it inside computer administration).

3. Copy all you image files and folders to the new external hard drive. It is important you copy the files and don't cut them, just in case that something goes wrong.

4. Copy your Lightroom catalogue .lrcat, Lightroom-2 Previews.lrdata folder & Lightroom-2 Smart Previews.lrdata folder to the new drive. Here it is also important you copy the files and don't cut them, just in case that something goes wrong.

5. When all the file transfers are done open your external drive and locate your catalogue. Now DON'T PANIC when you look at your folders inside Lightroom you will get a question mark saying that Lightroom cant locate your images. Now you just right click the top folder and press "locate missing folder" and navigate to you image folder on your new external drive.

That's it now when you need to edit your photos on either your laptop or desktop you just attach your external drive and navigate to the Lightroom catalogue on the drive and double click it from there,

Remember to read how to move your Lightroom preset folder, othervise your lightroom settings wont be transfered between computers. Read here