Author Archives: Darko Stankovski

Blog renaming

If you actively follow this blog, you have noticed that I have changed the name. The reason is that I am meeting a lot of amazing people, taking wonderful pictures that I unfortunately don’t post much here. When it comes to tell how to find my blog or Facebook page, Darko Stankovski Photography is not easy to remember. I was conscious of that.

So I choose to seek something easier to remember. Art of Dad is consistent with may main blog.  My name is after all not that important. If you really want to know it or want to check if this is really my blog, check the signature bellow.

About Darko Stankovski

I started to take photos with my father's Canon AE-1 as a kid and never rally stopped. I love to explore new techniques and will use this blog to post some tips. I can't really qualify myself as I enjoy landscapes, portraits, stages and toy photography. If you want to stay in touch, you can follow me trough those link.

Does social networks drain us from our blogs ?

So, my last post on this blog was more than 9 months ago, for Christmas. The previous ones where for Thanksgiving. Does this blog really makes sense ?

I have to confess that lately, I posted most of my photography on my Facebook page. As English is not my native language, I write my opinion on other subjects on my French blog. So does this blog really makes sense ?

Well, I could have closed this blog without any notice, after all, there is only 10 visits per week on those pages. But I want to give it another chance. So, stay around, I should post some stuff soon…

About Darko Stankovski

I started to take photos with my father's Canon AE-1 as a kid and never rally stopped. I love to explore new techniques and will use this blog to post some tips. I can't really qualify myself as I enjoy landscapes, portraits, stages and toy photography. If you want to stay in touch, you can follow me trough those link.

Santa getting ready

Merry Christmas (D.Stankovski)

He just have to load his sled and he is ready to come to your place. Have a Nice Christmas !

And yes, the Power Droid powering the Christmas Tree is inspired by a picture from Chris McVeigh 😉

About Darko Stankovski

I started to take photos with my father's Canon AE-1 as a kid and never rally stopped. I love to explore new techniques and will use this blog to post some tips. I can't really qualify myself as I enjoy landscapes, portraits, stages and toy photography. If you want to stay in touch, you can follow me trough those link.

One months after Canada, it is time to wish a Happy Thanksgiving to their southern brothers 🙂

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving (D.Stankovski)

This time again I set up the scene with the great table of the Thanksgiving Feast polybag (40056). The Tomahawk warrior is the only northern native american I have and with the revolutionary soldier they come from the Minifigures Series 10.

And this is the first picture I’m publishing taken with my brand new Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II Lens. Cheap, noisy, but great 50mm lens.

Can you recognize other objects of other sets I might have used 😉 ?

About Darko Stankovski

I started to take photos with my father's Canon AE-1 as a kid and never rally stopped. I love to explore new techniques and will use this blog to post some tips. I can't really qualify myself as I enjoy landscapes, portraits, stages and toy photography. If you want to stay in touch, you can follow me trough those link.

This is disturbing for some of us, but the Canadian thanksgiving is today.  So, Happy Thanksgiving Canada.

Happy Thanksgiving Canada

Happy Thanksgiving Canada (D.Stankovski)

As I brought my kid to the LEGO Store earlier this month, I found the Thanksgiving polybag which provided everything I needed for this nice picture. Well, for our friends from Canada, i had to add the standard cliche like the lumberjack or the fleece jacket.

As you may have noticed, I started playing with some of Nik Software and used Color Efex Pro on this one to try to give some kind of old style.

About Darko Stankovski

I started to take photos with my father's Canon AE-1 as a kid and never rally stopped. I love to explore new techniques and will use this blog to post some tips. I can't really qualify myself as I enjoy landscapes, portraits, stages and toy photography. If you want to stay in touch, you can follow me trough those link.

Instagram add an embedding feature

Instagram is a nice image-sharing social network. Yes, social network, not just a filter app. Those who don’t use Instagram only see the image filtering feature. But Instagram real asset is to share pictures with the other users. Instagram started as an app. Recently, they developed users pages where you can access all the pictures from a user from the web. And this is where you can find my page.

Now, Instagram just added a new feature : you can now embed any Instagram picture in a post. is that so useful ? Continue reading

About Darko Stankovski

I started to take photos with my father's Canon AE-1 as a kid and never rally stopped. I love to explore new techniques and will use this blog to post some tips. I can't really qualify myself as I enjoy landscapes, portraits, stages and toy photography. If you want to stay in touch, you can follow me trough those link.

Happy Father’s Day

Next sunday, in many countries, it’s Father’s Day. So here is my contribution for that day.

Jor-El and Kal-El

Happy Father’s Day (D.Stankovski)

There is a technique here I use for toy photography, that is the black background in daylight. Yes, this picture was taken at noon without any background.

The camera was set in manual mode. The speed was set at 1/250 with an aperture of f/32. This also allows me to have both faces in focus. As LEGO minifigures are plastic toys, a diffuser must be used to avoid reflection.

The new Superman movie, Man of Steel, will be released on June 19th. As LEGO does have the license for this movie, they are offering under certain conditions the Jor-El promotional minifigure. Of course, this is an impossible illustration as Kal-El never knew his father. Well, lets see if we’ll see the Fortress of Solitude in this movie.

So, who will be at the theaters next Wednesday?

About Darko Stankovski

I started to take photos with my father's Canon AE-1 as a kid and never rally stopped. I love to explore new techniques and will use this blog to post some tips. I can't really qualify myself as I enjoy landscapes, portraits, stages and toy photography. If you want to stay in touch, you can follow me trough those link.

Transitive property of picking things up

What happens when you watch one of your favorit show and hear an epic quote like this ? Of course you want to picture it. Then you realize that you got your son a Lego set with everything you need. Then you take the picture.

Transitive property of picking things up

D.Stankovski

Continue reading

About Darko Stankovski

I started to take photos with my father's Canon AE-1 as a kid and never rally stopped. I love to explore new techniques and will use this blog to post some tips. I can't really qualify myself as I enjoy landscapes, portraits, stages and toy photography. If you want to stay in touch, you can follow me trough those link.

Save on Adobe Lightroom as it will remain out of the Cloud.

Yesterday, there was an awaited hangout on Google+ with the Lightroom team. It was supposed to ba about the features of Lightroom 5 but of course, the first question was about licensing model. The answer is that the software will remain under the perpetual licence model. There will not be exclusive features for the Cloud based offer.

In the meantime, there is a nice offer on Amazon UK where you can get Lightroom at 25% off. The offer ends Wednesday may 29, 2013.

You can watch the hangout on their Youtube channel.

Even if we can trust Tom Hogarty about this, of course no one can predict what will be Adobe’s  decision in a few months or years. Lightroom is available as a Perpetual License model for now. So even if you can still manage your collection using Lightroom, the lesson to be learned those last days is to always have a way out.

Are you Lightroom users ? How do you manage your collection ? How do you process your photo files ?

About Darko Stankovski

I started to take photos with my father's Canon AE-1 as a kid and never rally stopped. I love to explore new techniques and will use this blog to post some tips. I can't really qualify myself as I enjoy landscapes, portraits, stages and toy photography. If you want to stay in touch, you can follow me trough those link.

Simplifying your Workflow with Automator

Automator robotAs a tutorial for photographers, my post about how to rename image files may be scary. To be honest, I do not launch a terminal on every import on my computer. Using softwares trough the command line may sound old fashioned, unfortunately, that’s the way you can get the best of them. As you saw in that post, once you defined the behavior of the tool, you will use the same command. Of course, it is ridiculous to launch a terminal and type it every time. There are some ways to incorporate them in your Workflow, and a really easy one for Mac-users. We simply have to use a little known tool, Automator. Automator is a tool that makes easy the creation of worflows for automating repetitive tasks. Exactly what file renaming is. Lets see here how to use it. Continue reading

About Darko Stankovski

I started to take photos with my father's Canon AE-1 as a kid and never rally stopped. I love to explore new techniques and will use this blog to post some tips. I can't really qualify myself as I enjoy landscapes, portraits, stages and toy photography. If you want to stay in touch, you can follow me trough those link.