Light Mood

I really love to be out in the nature, especially before the day begins. This is a good chance to capture backlight situations like this one, if you are in the right place at the right time.
So i don't stop saying it: In my opinion sunsets or sunrises are interesting light situations und not necessarily a special cliche. To a certain degree almost each kind of photography is a kind of cliche - for instance portrait shots. Do we stop taking portrait shots, because we are capturing a cliche? I don't think so - each face is unique and something special. And i feel the same about landscapes and sunrises. To me interesting light is never boring and i hope, you feel the same about this shot here.

Apparition

Sometimes the leave-dress of a tree looks like a ghost to me. Here i found such an eerie "robe", what do you think? A spooky apparition, with open arms?
... Fortunately wonderdog big Moses was with me - so the ghost had no chance and vanished somewhere in the wood... ;-)

Horizontal Sunrise

I am convinced: Sunrises ARE good light, beside the cliche. But i have also to admit, that i was more looking for the cliche ;-), when i was taking pictures in my early Fotocommunity ("FC")-times, in 2004/2005. Mainly, because our Northern German landscape is not so very attractive for classical landscape photography - so i had (and still have) to search for special light or special technical ways (motion blurness, zoom-effects, long time exposure, using open aperture and so on) for creating interesting photographs.
At first i was a bit disappointed here, because the clouds were completely hiding the sun - it was simply cloudy that day - no sunlight was visible. But then suddenly there was that small light slit - and it was probable just because of this cloudshape, that the shot looks so special.
Of course this is no photoshop work, it is a "one shot" image. To me this is important, if we want to call something a "photograph" afterwards: It has to be a one-shot-picture. My opinion is: A true photograph has to have an aperture setting and a shutter time, otherwise it is a graphic, a montage or a painting. So once again: This is - after my own definition - a photograph.

Between Winter And Spring

I shoot more and more pure b&w and very often with the "in camera"-b&w mode. It is simpler, quicker and you concentrate yourself more on the main image elements and their b&w effects.
So it is not only "the best possible" technical image quality, that is important. More important is in my eyes the best possible image composition. (Important is for instance, that the exposition is done properly and that the photographer uses the right b&w settings.)
The digital photography generally is very helpful for developing the right b&w-mode, because it offers the photographer a preview directly after our shot. So we can change our settings directly on location, if necessary. But we should not switch between b&w and colour too much - the Leica M9 monochrome for instance is based on the idea of reducing the view to the main aspects of monochrome photography without the possibility of shooting in colour. Less is more!
The "in camera b&w mode" of ordinary DSLRs is in my eyes the "poor man's" Leica M9 monochrome... ;-)

36 birds

The world sometimes is a big theatre - and here we see (more or less) 36 birds "on stage".
The big view is strongly recommended, so that you can count all my birds... ;-)
Seriously: I work on a new image speech and have to admit, that i still like the look of 50mm (or similiar focal length in crop format, like 28, 30 or 35 mm) for my photography.

I-Pointment

8mm offers us a lot of room around our motives, as you can see.
I like to use my wide angle lenses mainly for two reasons:
1. For showing classical landscapes and using the lens everywhere, where i have not very much space, f.i. in small rooms. And
2. as a tool for extreme compositions, as a kind of creative "fun" lense.
It is a lot of fun, to put different image elements together and play with perspective and space.
I also must say, that a very good wide angle lens without distortion is not always the best lens for such "games". For instance the 8-16 Sigma is almost a kind of "corrected fisheye" and maybe not the first choice for classical "serious" landscapes, where f.i. a 10-24 or 12-24 Nikkor is probable better. But when it comes to creativity and biggest possible image effect, the extreme lenses are more interesting in my eyes.
This is the reason, that i recommend landscape photographers 2 or even 3 extreme lenses: One for classical landscapes, one for creative landscapes - and maybe an additional fisheye for "extreme fun". :-)