The Making of "Midsummer Sun"

Winner of our August, 2016 "Celebration" photo contest

By Tapio Kekkonen in Photo Contests on Oct 5, 2016

"Midsummer Sun" by Tapio Kekkonen

First I want to thank all of you who liked this photo and gave it your vote.

It was quite easy to take this foto. This situation is real as you can see from the very relaxed attitude of all my friends who I have to thank also.

We had gathered together to celebrate the midsummer evening by having dinner on the beach of Varisniemi in Hanko town in Finland. This is perhaps on of the most beautiful places in this country. My Pentax K-3 was on a tripod so that I could be also be enjoying this nice moment and the offerings on the table. By just taking some photos with remote the trigger I got this photo which took the first price in PentaxForum's contest "Celebration".

Shooting data: Pentax K-3 with the HD Pentax-DA 20-40mm F2.8-4 lens. Aperture F6.7, shutter speed 1/250s, and ISO 100. Fine tuning done with Photoshop CS6. Not much was needed, mainly a tighter crop and the removal of some distracting elements:

RAW image before tighter crop and clean-up

Hanko and champagne bottles on a table at the sea side must be something very nice and photographic as I got also first price on the contest "Table and Chair"' with such an arrangement (see The Making of "Pentax Table"). That photo, however, was much more challenging since it was quite dark and I was standing in water with my gear.

-Tapio Kekkonen