I discovered a new festival for me. It's called the Viru Folk Festival and it's held in Käsmu, a lovely little seaside village in Northen Estonia. It was my first time in the festival and in Käsmu. And honestly - I was completely blown away by how cute and beautiful everything was. 

I was also testing my new lens, Nikkor 18-140mm, which I got on the same day I went to Käsmu. It's not anything special, but it's price and quality were the best that I could find. I also tried to do something new this summer: tried new angles, switched to RAW (I know, I should have done that for a long time ago...), started to almost "get" the whole Manual-shooting thing, messed around with shutter speed, aperture sizes and different light sources (concert photos), didn't put my camera away the very second the sun went down etc. Still not a pro, but I feel I learned a lot during this summer. 

For some reason I think that Viru Folk's photos are one of the best I've ever (or at least for a very long time) taken. I'm really happy about them, I love the way the night-time concert photos look, everything felt new and great for me. I guess photographer's happiness really does show up on their photos... 

So yeah, long post is loooong! 

Something from this year's Folk Music Festival in Viljandi. I didn't take as many photos as I thought I would, because I bought a new lens just a few days before the festival. And it turned out to be a total bunch of no good. Eventually I took it back, cancelled the deal and had to go to Viljandi with my trustworthy 18-55mm kit lens... So I was really bummed out about the whole situation and I wasn't really trying. 

This is why I mostly hung out with my dear friends, trying to fix my mood and enjoy the holiday. But here is what I managed to click. 

Fetén Fetén (Spain) 

Last weekend I visited a really cool festival that was held in Northen Tallinn, in a subdistrict called Kalamaja (Fish House). Years ago, Kalamaja was in a really bad shape, but now real estate companies have fixed the place up and many young & cool people live in Kalamaja. Tiny wooden houses, green gardens, bicycles, artists, musicians, thrift shops... You can read more about Kalamaja in HERE. 

I think it was already the 6th Kalamaja festival and I was there for the first time. The weather was so warm and sunny, everybody looked happy and I really enjoyed myself. 

This yellow car represents the soul of Kalamaja so well! 

I haven't mentioned it, but I absolutely love good food and over the recent years I've grown really fond of food photography too. Since my BF is a cook, we sometimes work together at home: we find a new & interesting recipe, he cooks & bakes and then I take pictures of the result. We're proud food blog owners too. 

Here are some of my favourite photos of dishes we've done. I know these aren't very fancy and technically great photos, but it's a start! I'm still learning about styling, different angles and light. 

Sushi with cucumber, crab sticks and cheese spread/cream cheese

This is actually a very old photo, it was taken in 2011 and it was one of the first attempts to take proper pictures of food. A typical quick and random photo with weird props, but I like it. It was probably one of the first time when we made sushi too. I think I should take new sushi picture soon, just to show our progress in photography and sushi-making. Yum! 

Pasta with vegetables and chicken in my kitty-bowl. 

Another old shot from 2012. I actually learned to eat vegetables just like that. You just pop them into your pasta/rice/buckwheat and cook it for a while. Absolutely delicious. Here we used tomatoes, zucchini and grated carrots. 

Friday's Special - Pumpkin puree soup with croutons

First time I ate a puree soup... And I fell in love with it. Who knew it could be that tasty! 

Carrot puree soup with bacon

(and Sam's curious nose...)

We continued with the puree soups. This time we replaced pumpkin with carrots and added handful of bacon strips. Mmm... Bacon. 

This recipe didn't end up in our blog, because it wasn't really original and that special. But I really like how this photo turned out. I stepped out of my comfort zone, used a new angle and took many photos, just to get the right photo that was approved by the cook. 

Spicy chicken soup

It would seem that we really love soups... The truth is that we rarely make soup, but when we do, we try something new and of course try to blog about this. 

This is a nice creamy chicken soup with vegetables and chilli. A perfect soup for a cold winter evening and/or when you're feeling a bit ill. I'm not much of a fan of spicy foods, but this was really good. We managed to eat the whole potful of soup with just one evening... 

Chocolate and coffee cake with almonds

A cake made by my mum and I for my dad's birthday. We've made the same cake for many occasions over the years, but this time it looked so pretty that even I was surprised. 

I haven't taken any Important and Artsy photos during this winter. Mostly because I just didn't feel like creating anything and I was quite busy with my health (I started to do workouts again, yay!). I also wanted to continue with some random blog-challenge where you have to take photos of things you like/hate/want to do before you die etc. So I decided to put more energy into that project. I'm still not sure if I should post the whole challenge in here too or is it a bit too personal for this blog. 

But here are some random shots that I took this winter. Some of them are even from the 30 Days in a Blog challenge. 

Click to see bigger photos!

Sam. 

She looks kind of sad, like she didn't want me to take photos of her, because her fur was a mess or something like that. 

Something a bit blurry and quite Christmas-y. 

I bought Sam a proper cat-bed for Christmas. I wasn't sure if she'd give a damn about it or was it going to be a waste of money, but luckily she fell in love with it. 

I also learned how to take photos of animals: Sam looks so wide-eyed, because my BF was waving around a bunch of ribbons behind my back... 

Day 7 from the Photo-Challenge. 

A picture of your most treasured item.

January. Tried to capture the falling snow. 

More snow... 

Winterhall kitty. 

Backyard. 

Day 11

A picture of something you hate. 

I absolutely hate cold. Not just the -30 degrees Celsius kind of cold, I even hate summers where the temperature stays below 25 degrees. My home has to be warm, I hate many layers of clothes and I can't stand cold wind. 

Really cold weathers kicked in in the end of January. We moved our bed in front of the fireplace and tried one evening to take a picture of the glowing embers. Something from the dragon's nest. 

Day 12

A picture of something you love

Black tea with a slice of lemon and two spoonfuls of sugar. At one point I drank so much coffee, that I got sick and tired of it. So I switched back to my old favourite. Now it's like if I can't get a cup of lemon tea in the morning, I'm going to be really grumpy! 

This little fellow sat behind my window in February. He seemed really angry as if he was asking: "Where the hell is the fatback!? I want food, human!" 

I started to grow some grass for Sam. It was also a nice sign of spring in our home. 

I know, this is another cat photo, but... 

The main reason I'm posting it, is because this was the first really sharp photo that I managed to take with my Jupiter lens. Before that all my photos we kind of blurry and I was kind of losing hope of ever getting good at using those lenses. 

Getting stuff really in focus with Jupiter and Helios is still a bit of a struggle, but I can say that I'm finally getting better at this. 

So yeah, Sam and her fluffy winter coat. 

And whoever is checking out my photos from Ukraine - I hope you're doing well! 

14.01.2014

Tallinn