Wood Curtain

It is not so easy to photograph the pure plantation of the so called "woods" in Lower Saxony, where i come from. Simply because everything looks equal - everywhere you look, you see vertical lines, and a lot of disturbing "garbage" (dead branches etc.) on the ground. But sometimes the right light helps, to illuminate an area in a special way. You see here such an interesting light and interesting vertical lines (the image has rhythm), nevertheless the first post processing was not 100 percent successful: My processing for Art Limited caused a few artefacts, and so i put this image on my "to do" list. Yesterday was a good day, to make a new, corrected try and i hope, i was successful. The feedback at Flickr was good for this version, and i hope, that the reader of this blog also like this "new" and corrected version.
Have a good Christmas-time!

In the Fog

I like - as most photographers - fog. Fog is simplifying the composition, it creates a dreamy and artistic atmosphere. Sometimes even spooky or dark - and sometimes, when sun is banashing out the morning fog with sun rays, fog photos can look very spectacular. So i recommend every landscape photographer, to go out and shoot, when you next time have fog, as i did it 2 weeks ago. As usual the crop of good shots was a few times as big, as on ordinary walks. And i have to confess, that i especially like this image here more and more.
It was "love at second sight" so to speak, because at first i did not think, that it was the best shot of my "foggy walk". But in the meantime i like this abstract composition better than the other images - maybe because of the contrast between the (almost) dead tree and the living tree? I don't know, maybe it is just because of my personal taste.
Some other shots of this walk you can see HERE in my Flickr-workaccount (comment function disabled, because i want to concentrate my discussions on my main account.).

Embrace me

Maybe a bit belated for Halloween, but nevertheless weird and almost a self portrait (at least created with self timer), or what would you say? ;-)

"Street Photography" by Rui Palha

Going..., ursprünglich hochgeladen von Rui Palha

A dear friend, Streetphotographer-legend Rui Palha, has published a book with the title "Street Photography", which i strongly recommend to each true lover of street photography. Rui is well known for his elegant and sensitive street shots of Lisbon - his outstanding works can be viewn f.e. at Rui's Flickraccount.

You find a short video about the book HERE and you can order your copy HERE.
The perfect Christmas-gift! :-)
"Street Photography" is printed in a limited edition, so you should not wait too long with your order... ;-)

self

Here is another - more radical - post processing work of an older shot from 2009.
I think, it is perfect as profile picture in web 2.0 communities - a good data protection, me as human ghost in a more and more virtual world... ;-)

Singing the Blues

Found this cow yesterday "on stage" - this was my first actual Photo.net shot, and it seems, as if the users there liked it. I edited the original shot a bit, so this is the modified version. I also thought about a different toning (bicolour), but this looked a bit too artificial to me, so i left it with a classical sepia toning.

I am now full member of Photo.net

After a long search for a good community to show and discuss photography i just bought myself a one year subcription of photo.net. I did not find a better community, although photo.net is showing mostly placative shots. But on a good level - and i also found a lot of good photographers there.
In the last years i had to learn: THE perfect community for photographers will be probable only a dream - f.e. Flickr is the biggest community of the world, but i dislike the rubbish white background, which is destroying the tones of each low key or available light photo. And Flickr has a big problem with their mass of uploads. It is all too much there, it leads to flippancy and i dislike that too. Flickr is not bad as a second community and/or to stay in contact with good photographers - but to me it is "all too much" and to big there: Too much photos, too much uploads, too much groups, too much of everything. So everything costs too much time and you do not find the photographers and the images, you are interested in amongst this huge mass of shown shots - each new good image is erasing the effect of a good image, that you found before.
So you are drowned with contacts and photos there, and this is against my principles of "less is more". Even good photographers can't resist of showing shot by shot (because of the Flickr flatrate), and there are times, where you have to look at 40,50 shots the day of ONE single contact. Others are "only" showing 5 shots, but in the end your, lets say 40,50 contacts are presenting you 100 or more shots, day by day - around the clock. You know, what i mean with the "Flickr-too much-syndrome"? ;-)
Other communities have big problems with trouble makers, fake accounts and trolls, like the german "Fotocommunity", better known as "FC" (in these days it should be translated as Fake Community). The admins of the FC are totally cack-handed, and as if this was not enough: The price of a full membership is extremely high, you only get a handfull uploads the week, even as full member. So it is the other extreme to the Flickr mass of shots - and as a result of the trouble there, more and more good photographers have left the FC or have changed to a free account. So the FC is photographically becoming more and more uninteresting for engaged photographers. It is a place for newcomers, snapshooters and people, who are more interested in talking or wasting their time than in shooting. A vanity club on a very low level.
Some more minus points of the FC: As freemember they are adding a special advertising to your shots and they will delete your old portfolio, if you should decide, to go back from fullaccount to freeaccount. (F.e. Flickr will never delete any image of you.)
And their new google-advertising for freeaccounts can be very tasteless, f.e. if you are showing images of the KZ Dachau, it could be, that you find advertising for "holidays in Israel" beside your photo. So it is really unacceptable to me, to spend time and money for a new FC-account. Much money, less performance, very few number of good photographers - and a lot of trouble with all the well known idiots (sorry, i should have called them "experts") there, who frequently are showing their bad habits under the "gallery" images. I cannot take this community seriously any more.

Other communities are too small, too expensive or too far away from serious photography, so i hope, that i have found in Photo.net a good new community, where i can show my images and talk about photography. You find my new Photo.net-account HERE.

The Last Trip

Long time exposure with "zoom effect" (turning the focal length ring while exposition). I found this wreck accidentally in a dark and lonely small forest.
I was really surprised about this weird sight.
When i thought about the better times, that this car once surely have had, the idea for this composition was born.

Fern

This shot was made with my "old" 300D and the "old" Tamron 28-300 standard zoom.
I must say, that i was surprised, how much fun it was, to go out shooting with this old combination again. I felt "home" somehow - in the year 2004 i made almost each and every shot with this gear and when i viewed some photos of my archive, i decided to give this old combination a new chance, just for fun.
As i wrote: I am surprised about the quality. ISO 400 is okay (at least with a little post processing) and most of the shots were not shaken, though we had relatively dark light conditions today. The old Tamron lens (no antishake function) worked fine. 300mm focal length is a challenge for the photographer, but i made some good shots with "full length" and none was shaken, except one. In 2004 much more of my shots were shaken, it was because of the wrong settings (1/50 and 300mm is no good idea ;-) and i think, i am a bit better in holding the camera accurately, because of my practise since then.
In my eyes the 300D is a milestone in camera productions, it is probable one of the best and most successful cameras ever built. It feels good, the images are looking good - even after more than 6 years - and it is very easy to use. Not to forget the wonderful small file size, compared to "modern" dslrs. It simply puts a smile on the face of the user, somehow similiar to the old VW beetle compared to other cars.
Of course my Nikons are much better in noise behaviour and resolution etc. - but the 300D has a high "fun factor", in spite of the plastic body and the slow speed (2-3 seconds delay after switching it on).
So if you have an old camera somewhere hidden deep down in your camera bag: Give it a new chance and enjoy the simplicity of the good old days. I bet, you'll be as surprised, as i was! :-)

Foggy Tension

On a foggy winter morning i made this spontaneous composition. I love the fog, as a big photographic "simplifier" - here the tree in the middle of the image gave the i-point to the composition. I am shure, that this composition was much more trivial without fog.

Bottleshot

In my Flickr-group "creative landscapes" we have a bunch of relatively crazy photographers as members, who are showing a lot of inspiring images there, made in several different styles and with all kind of equipment. We have f.e. free hand long time exposures (Jon Brown called them eye twinkling "nopods", = no tripods) and all kind of artistic manipulations, shots, made by lens babies or tilt&shift lenses etc.
I thought, what would happen, if i'd use a drink bottle as filter?
Here you see the result - a landscape trough a drink bottle. I call it "bottleshot".

I swear, it was water - not a Vodka bottle... ;-)

Cloud Eclipse

I cannot say, that i live in a beautiful region. By no means. I live in the northern part of Germany, where the landscape looks more like the landscape of the Netherlands or Denmark: Everything flat und relatively boring. We do not have hills and our farmers are mostly not interested in an ecologically form of agriculture. They prefer the "industrial" way of agriculture and so our landscape becomes more and more the look of a "Teletubbie-Land", without trees and bushes, without wild animals and free nature. Very sad development.
So the landscape photographers have to be creative and tricky, to get interesting shots. I always call it a "challenge" for the landscape photographer, to make the best of the bad conditions, of the boring man made desert, the so called "cultural landscape"...
The good thing is: They cannot destroy the sky (yet), and such an interesting sky is very helpful for the composition.
And sometimes we are lucky and have good weather conditions like fresh snow, fog etc. - today it was one single cloud, which was darkening the sun for a few minutes. This was my chance for this composition and here you see the result:

Compact Camera

Usually i prefer to work with digital slrs, because of the low noise and the good DOF (= small). In spite of the technical predominance of dslr-systems there are some situations, when a compact camera is better: When you do not want to carry too much weight with you, when you need a discrete cam or when you do not want to use too expensive gear.
Modern compact cameras have reached a good noise level in the meantime - i especially like the Canon G-series. They have a popup Liveview, which is great for using spectacular perspectives. And the image quality is really astonishing. I once started in 2002 with a Canon G2 with my serious digital photography and still like the new G11, though i probable will not buy a new compact camera any more. I feel fine with my old G2 - it is a bit nostalgic for me, to go out and shoot with the G2 or the G6.
This shot here was also made with the G6 in 2005 - the users of the german Fotocommunity gave a so called gallery star to this image and i must say, i still like this image and my post processing work. My original title was "Aus Grimms Märchenwelt", which is translated "From Grimm's Fairytales" - and it is really a beautiful magical place, where i made this image.
For sidewalks and sujet-based compositions a good compact cam is in many cases good enough, at least if you have enough light. Because of the light weight there is bit a bigger danger of camera shake and you may get relatively easy an uneven horizon. But on the other hand it is a good feeling, to carry a feather weight cam instead of a big and heavy camera bag. So it can be freedom, to shoot with a compact cam, especially in the city, when big cams are not discrete enough for shooting people.
My dear friend Rui Palha loved in the past years his Olympus Camedia 5050 very much, though he uses in the meantime other cameras more often. But the results of the "Oly" were absolutely amazing, Rui loves the feeling of this cam - and many other street photographers are preferring compact cameras for their work. It is obviously the small size, that counts for street photographers.
Ricoh has a new gx-series with modules and its image quality is very close to a dslr.
A good compact cam can produce absolutely great results in the hand of a good photographer - and the good news is: There is no need to invest a fortune in a Leica M9! :-) Of course such a camera is on a marvellous technical level, but the right location, the right light of the sujet or the decisive moment is NOT built in - not even in a Leica. ;-) And this is, what's decisive for a good shot: Not the pure technical quality, but the composition and what's shown on the picture.
The easy use and the discrete look of a Leica M-cam once were the main reasons for many famous photographers, to use this cam. In the meantime ordinary compact cams are offering the same (and more) features for less money. There is - of course - a special magic in the feeling of a Leica M cam, and this is maybe inspiring the photographer. But i am convinced, that you can shoot amazing shots with a compact camera like the G11, good enough for prints even in magazines.

Waltzing

Landscape photography in my hometown means to make the best of the conditions, that we find on location. We do not have hills and mountains, we have only one nature protection zone, our wonderful Buelter Sea. But this sea is inside a moor in a nature protection zone, and i do not want to disturb the animals too often, so i search inside our woods for motives, which is a bit difficult. We do have mostly pure plantation forests there, where each tree is looking equal - big oaks and beech trees are getting more and more a very rare view, especially since the oil price is high and the people need firewood for their chimneys. Very sad, what they are doing to nature in my hometown, really. :-(
But i have to make the best of it, and the more ugly and monotone the location is, the bigger is the challenge for us photographers. Am i right?! ;-)
So what can we do, in case the landscape around us is ugly?
First of all, we can try to shoot in the right light. Almost everything can look good in the right light. Fog is also a wonderful "beautifier" for every landscape, and if you have a good sky (a big dramatic sky), this is very helpful either. We also can play with our camera, with long time exposures (in the last time i tried such shots free hand (inspired by my british colleagues at Flickr!), or with open aperture. Tele focal length is helpful to crop unwanted elements out of the composition.
Sometimes it is even an advantage to shoot in a coniferous wood, because you get good vertical lines (wherever man has "designed" something, you find these artificial clean even lines - that is the reason, that i like Friedensreich Hundertwasser that much... ;-)
In some cases you can use the ugly surrounding for melancholic shots or as background for posed model shootings in a special atmosphere. Or you shoot it as a documentary image as ugly as it is, for later comparisons, when it will look probable even more ugly then. If you don't think, that this is possible: Come to my hometown Heerstedt, and you will see, that this is part of the sad development, that i have to face each day, when i am out in the fields.
So it is possible to use the ugliness in a photographic way - but i would like it much better, if our people would not do such a big damage to our "Feldmark", as we call the countryside in german.

Captured By Winter

We currently have here in Northern Germany a relatively cold and long winter, a challenge to each photographer. You need good warm clothes if you go out and the batteries of your camera could get problems, if you don't protect it against the cold. Many new problems has the winter photographer to solve, before he is ready to shoot, that the summer photographer does not know.
On the other hand the winter offers us good motives like ice and snow. The best snow is the fresh snow - it is whiter than the old one, and if you are lucky, you have sunshine or fog, or both.
But even on a dark, grey afternoon ("evenoon", cause the sun goes down so early) you can find interesting structures, when the snow is underlining the branches of a tree, like you can see it here in this image. I also made several other abstract shots and it is always a good exercise for the eye, to find motives like this one in the chaotic textures of the winter wood.