Author: akilian

After coming home before Christmas I kind of fell in love with this city again, so I thought I will share a bit of it with the world. My city, Krakow, is the second-largest city in Poland and used to be the capital until 1596. It’s home to the Jagiellonian University, one of Europe’s oldest (founded in 1364!), the largest medieval town square in Europe, and a castle where according to legends we used to have a dragon. We also have plenty of art galleries and museums (as Krakow is known as the city of culture), as well as lots of obwarzanki, and many many pigeons (according to another legend they are cursed knights which obviously makes sense). Sometimes from a hill we have you can see the Tatra mountains if the air is clear.

Here is some shameless Krakow propaganda 🙂

For all of those who are flying home for the break, but not only! I also discovered I have so many sunset photos that I will make it a separate post. For now though enjoy some of my favorite skies from the past few years 🙂 (some of them you already know but they just fit the category way too well)

I wish you all safe travels and happy holidays! You know where to find me: @akilian.jpg / akilian@umich.edu

– Tola

I think that after all the snowfall we got recently we can confidently say that fall is officially over. As we are in this period of awkward transition between fall in winter when all the colorful leaves are gone but it’s still not cold enough for snow to stay on the ground, I’ve decided to post a little tribute to the Arb in colors and specifically my first ever walk there this semester. Enjoy and, well, happy finals week, I hope the happy bright colors make it a bit better 🙂

If you have any questions, comments, or just want to chat you can find me at @akilian.jpg on Instagram or at akilian@umich.edu 🙂

These photos are probably one of my favorites that I’ve ever taken, but it took me a long time to figure out how to get there. With astrophotography you don’t only need an insane amount of patience, but actually good equipment to start with (most of the photos from Peru I took with my friend’s Canon, as all that my old Sigma caught was dust that had maybe 33% chance of being actual stars.) Then you also need a perfectly clear sky, probably away from cities and any lights that would create distraction, as well as good air quality. Once you gather all of this: you’re good to go! (Don’t be discouraged if it doesn’t work out the first time though, scroll down to see what 90% of my photos from that night took) I’ve wanted to do astrophotography in Michigan at some point so I think I will try to combine it with a little more detailed tutorial in case anyone wants to give it a go! My best tip for now regardless of the equipment you’re using: play around with settings. From the images I present here you can see how you an bring out a variety of colors and shades from total darkness (the editing was minimal! Mostly contrast, but I did not change the colors or whatsoever so you can really see how powerful changing the settings can be with astrophotography.)

Today’s post features one of my favorite subjects to photograph around the world: doors. I don’t quite know why, it’s just very interesting and can tell a lot about a given place.

With any questions, comments, or remarks – you know where to find me 🙂

Instagram: akilian.jpg