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.

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! :-)

I left Art Limited

Well, i tried it - but in the end i decided, not to stay longer at Art Limited. Why?
It is not very different to the FC, where everythings works because of vanity and comments, not because of the photographic quality. Okay, Art Limited has members on a much higher photographic level than the snapshooter-community FC - but you get most of your Art Limited comments as a replica to a former made comment and this costs a lot of time, to "feature" your photos by making contacts and writing comments. I don't need that any more, and i also deleted a lot of shots at Flickr. I will leave at Flickr a gallery with some placative shots, so that my friends can find some images in the web, but i concentrate myself more on real photography, and it leads to nothing, to spend too much time with the web communities generally.
I also erased my Fotolia images - i don't want to sell my images in this way. Maybe i will make a second try at Fotolia, but for now it is just a huge flood of images, and all i have got there were a few clicks and a lot of wasted time. I don't need that. ;-)

Between the Meadows

These two trees here are looking wonderful, especially in the evening light - but generally we lost (and still loose) many trees, which is a pity in my eyes. Some farmers (not all) have no sense for trees, they use the chainsaw and "redesign" their meadows to a kind of green desert, without bushes and trees. This does not only look very ugly, it is also a big sin against the nature. So i hope, that they come to their senses again: Nature does not need man - man needs nature!

Light On A Pyramid

Found in Fishery Harbour of Bremerhaven...

Still Alive - still attractive?! ;-)

I just got a Mail from the Flickr-Team, that someone has put my image "Still Alive" in his gallery. I appreciate the new attention for this relatively old image and thought, that this is a good reason to show it again on my blog... ;-)


By the way: The gallery function is new at Flickr. You can build a gallery with images of other members and your own photos and give it a name or a topic. So this function is something in between the well known fave-function and forming a group. With a little more time i will check this out by myself.

The Negative Trend

Photography means a life long learning process, this is for sure. As you can see on my last submission, i am a photographer since August 1978, when i spent my confirmation money for an Olympus OM-2. I never regreted this investion, but my photography really developed since December 2002, when i started seriously in my digital photography. I officially joined the German Fotocommunity in January 2004 (my equipment was a Canon 300D) and learned a lot there. But it was time to leave the FC in 2008 - and it was the right decision. In the meantime i have learned a lot in post processing and composition, and i don't think, that i am on the top of my development. I believe, i am just beginning. :-)
With my "Lutz Breden unplugged" account at Flickr i want to concentrate myself more on the real good photographers - and the same with my work: I love nature and i love it, to take landscapes in the early morning, when everything is silent and the day is awakening.
But on the other hand, these kind of images are nothing special - though some people like my way of shooting landscapes. But in the next time i want to develop my personal style a bit better. There are some shots in my portfolio, that are hopefully very good, but i am not strictly enough, to shoot more of these kind of shots. Sometimes i cannot resist taking pictures, that are only looking good. (A kind of FC-desease... ;-) In the next time i want to shoot more radically, i hope, that i can make some new and good experiences...

Wood Impressions

Since i was a young child, i love the wood, from the very beginning of my childhood. The animals and plants were always intersting to me, and i always loved - and still love - the dark and cool atmosphere of the wood, though we have in Northern Germany mostly coniferous woodland and only at the edge of our forests small stripes of deciduous wood. I loved to climb on trees or explore the wonders of nature - sometimes i found a feather or new - to me unknown - plants, mushrooms or flowers. Sometimes i even found dead animals or new buildings - this was always very exciting to me and my friends. I am very thankful for my childhood in a small village, because me and my friends had so much nature to explore. The wood was full of miracles and it was great fun to walk through the woods of my hometown.
This evening i was in the mood, to walk again a few minutes in one of these childhood-forests - and i was astonished, how similiar it looked to the time of my childhood, in the 60ties and 70ties. In the 80ties is looked totally different, because of a big clear felling, but in the meantime the wood has grown again and it almost looks like it looked when i was a little boy. This was the inspiration to me, to create a bit a spooky atmosphere on this shot, because i felt very small and little, then, when i entered the realms of this dark wood with the big trees. For children the wood is probable a bit darker and the trees are bigger than for grown up people.
One word about my used camera: I made the shot with the Oly E3, which is always a good companion, especially when it must go quick and i don't want to wear heavy gear. Together with the "kit lens" :-) 12-60mm and the built in vibration reduction system it is a very good and easy to wear "All in one"-solution. I do not need a tripod or additional lenses - the D200@18-200 is for some occasions my alternative to the E3, especially because of the bigger tele focal length (f.e. if it could happen to shoot wild animals or when i am out on big areas, where i have to shoot very long distances), while the Oly@12-60 offers good perspectives with the popup-liveview-display. The Nikon is better in noise, the Oly is more robust and water proof, its 12-60mm lens is almost a macro lens.
Both systems are great "1 camera/1lens for the whole shooting"-solutions, but this time i preferred the Oly, mostly because of laziness and because i used it not very often in the last weeks. I was in the mood for fourthirds, so to speak. ;-)

When The Wind Whispers In The Trees

Digital b&w photography means to me, to use Photoshop more to increase the authenticity instead of creating so called "new worlds", which is photoart in my eyes.
Nevertheless all b&w photographies are to a certain degree "artificial" and not "real", because we see colours in the real world, and b&w photography is unable to show them like they look. But the loss of colour concentrates the view more on the essential things of an image, at least if the photographer has composed his image well.
It is the job of the photographer, to decide, if a photograph works better in colour or in b&w, and it is very important, to dose the post processing right, so that the beautiness of reality is not falsified by post processing (darkroom or photoshop) more than necessary. It is part of the magic of photography to me, that the illusions, that we see, are created by perspective, time or visual laws, not by the clone brush or "copy and paste"-work of photoshop. This makes an image cheap - while to know, that an image was mainly "painted by light", can be very fascinating. Only a fool will say, that it does not matter, how an image was made, if it looks good. There is a whole world between truth and illusion. To a certain degree each photographic process is a lie, only a copy of reality, not the reality itself. So a "photography" cannot tell the whole and complete truth - that means, that no image is able to tell the whole story, the whole truth. But that does not mean, that it makes no difference, how much the photographers is "cheating". A good and authentic photography tells us at least the "photographic truth", which means, that the image shows no willful manipulated/painted content beside the basic photographic work, like croping, contrast, sharpening - and to me dodging and burning, softening and minor retouching work is also "allowed" (i cannot see, that it is important for the authenticity, to show a hotpix or disturbing artefacts), while bigger manipulations like the cloning of trees, masts or other image elements are strictly forbidden.
I hope, that i could fullfill my own criteria with this image, which is telling you hopefully this -better to speak "my" - photographic truth.
Some remarks about the shot: It was made in the garden/park of our KASBA discotheque, when i stood under some big trees, waiting, that the rain stops, that started a few minutes before. I thought, that i could use the time, and so i shot some long time exposures. It was the wind in the trees, that looked interesting to me. The bigger branches moved less, than the smaller branches. And the wind was "whispering" at some places more than on other places, f.e. the fern in the foreground was moved more than the plants in the background.
I think, that it is very important to know, that i did not create the blurred spots with Photoshop - it was all done by the wind, not by me and Lightroom/ Photoshop helped me, to make this visible.

At the Dike

I visited the coast again, not for long, and not even at a good daytime - but i brought some interesting shots back home, because the light was not too hard - though it was about noon, when i was on location... So light is a bit similiar to weather: There is no "good" and no "bad" weather, only wrong clothes. ;-)
Here you see a composition, i made right behind the dike, i have to admit a certain dose of drama here ;-):

The following images are showing the twilight-like light conditions, one in vertical and one in horizontal format:

Last not least i captured some sheeps - with their intelligent facial expression they sometimes almost look human to me... ;-)

Karstadt has busted!

The big german warehouse Karstadt has busted, they have no money to pay the rent for their houses. One more desaster, that we have to face in these days of financial crisis. In my eyes Karstadt is not only victim of management mistakes, but of our modern web-commercial activities - the people are buying always the cheapest stuff, and with the help of the internet they can easy find the cheapest shop. So WE all killed Karstadt and we should not shed crocodile tears about the lost for our city centres. We all get, what we deserve - and many more shops will follow Karstadt and Woolworth.

So i believe, we must rethink our own behaviour as customers, if we want a more human city atmosphere. How about not only buy the cheapest stuff? How about going to the shop close to you, even if you know, that the price is a bit more expensive than the cheapest price recherche in the web. If we all act like hungry grashoppers (in german we say "Heuschrecken"), we will erode our environment totally blank and clear.
So i think, we should return to buy shoes in a shoeshop, we should avoid to buy in the big chains and support more the small shops - and we should buy in our region.
It is f.e. idiotic, to buy frozen beef from Argentina in Northern Germany, instead of buying german beef here in Germany. (And of course also reverse: South american beef for South America.) Even if it is a bit cheaper: It does such big damage to the nature and i will stop this silly behaviour as much as it is possible to me.
I am convinced: We all (me too) are responsible for that, what happens in our world. It does not make sense, to put the finger on others. WE are destroying the nature, WE are acting like financial sharks. WE with our "cheaper-cheaper-cheaper"-behaviour are the true robber barons, and only we can stop this terrible development.
Less is more - this is not only a good rule in photography.

Old Hunting Lodge

This is the old hunting lodge in "my" wood, as i call the big wood behind my house. You see, it is a dark and a bit scary place and it is also a bit rotten in the meantime. I already know this hut for many years (for almost 40 years). In former times it was hidden behind a fence, in the meantime the fence is broken and you can go directly around it, this allows me to take pictures there. It is a perfect background for many images and the darkness allowes long time exposures as you can see on my previous post. The blurness in the leaves on this shot is also a result from the long time exposure.

Which photographic community is the best?

In the last months i have thought a lot about the right image management and the best way of using the big communities for my photography. When i started with my digital photography more seriously in 2004, i was only active in the Fotocommunity (FC), and all my images were shown there. I learned a lot from my FC-friends and i am very thankful for the critical or encouraging remarks of my friends there. We used the FC "behind the scenes" for a critical exchange about our works, and i think, this was the time, where i learned the most about how to let images look good. We had the FC-gallery as a public area and "motivation zone" for our works, and i have to admit, that me and my friends supported each other in word and deed - it was always a big pleasure to gain a "gallery star". Unfortunately there are some birth defects in the FC, and these faults were leading to my first turning away of the FC in the end of 2005.
The first big mistake of the FC is: You cannot delete ugly remarks under your images by yourself. You have always to contact the admins, and it is clearly visible, that a few admins cannot control a commmunity of several hundret thousands of users.
Second big mistake: Everybody is able to create a fake account within a few minutes. With these fake accounts you can make trouble under other images - and because of mistake nr. one the photographer must look on remarks like "Sneaky little trash image" for the rest of his life, unless he is "running to mummy" (calling the admins for help).
Mistake Nr.3 is, that they have a lot of packs there, making trouble with other packs (because of mistake 1 & 2), especially in the gallery votings. It has nothing to do with constructive critics, when so called "street photographers" are writing destructive and condescending remarks about the works of nature photographers - it was in many cases the result of personal frustration of some people. In the end they had so many discussions with 200, 300 or more comments, that it was a big waste of time, to take part on this "discussions". I have to admit: Because of my temper i sometimes was argueing there too often, especially when my friends were attacked before. It was leading to nothing, and i regreted it afterwards, but now i think, the trouble is one of the principles of the FC. They probable think, that the users are more active, when they have such ugly discussions, but this works only for a short period. On the long run it is a shot in the foot, cause many ambitious photographers were leaving the FC. Simply, because they have better things to do, than to argue with boneheads.
In the autumn of 2005 things were escalating, when i made some suggestions who were pasted by several tenthousands of users. I was simply phrasing 4 points, to have a better and more constructive gallery voting, my so called "reform ideas", but the FC-admins did nothing, to improve the gallery voting. Main problem there is, that they are publishing under each image the name of the photographer, so that the voters (who are deciding about success) can vote for their buddies or against their "enemies". As a result of this idiotic system they have big brawls there, even today they have a lot of very destructive and ugly discussions between the users and some well know trouble makers, while the FC-admins seem to have no problems with the institution "gallery voting" or "voting center", as they call it in the FC.
You can find my reform ideas even today in many FC-profiles, because up to this day they changed almost nothing in their gallery voting. The old packs are still active there, but the whole FC has become boring, compared with 2005, because so many good photographers have left the community.
In a final big uproar (end of 2005) i left the FC for one year, came back for one year, saw, that nothing had changed (except the fact, that in the meantime many good photographers had left the club) - and left the FC for good afterwards.
In the meantime the number of comments and the quality of the shown images in the FC has gained a very low level. The FC has given away the chance of being a photographic hometown for good photographers, they concentrate their attention on newbies and hobby snapshooters. Very sad, because i like the way, how images are presented there - the dark grey background is much better than the bright white Flickr-background. But i have to face the facts: The FC admins do not want to change a bit there, and so their community has totally lost the attraction to me.

Then i tried some other communities. Here is my personal subjective judgement:
Photo Points should be called "Photofriends", you will only find "nice comments", and the people there are friendly and good fellows - but not very interested to improve their photography. Nevertheless Photo Points have some good artists there, and they are showing not only mainstream-images, but more seriously pictures, selected by a jury.
Sternview - is a german "clone" of Flickr, but only a poor copy in my eyes. Especially the bright white background shows, that they are not interested in photographic issues. I believe, Sternview was more founded, to sell the "Stern Magazine" and get some images from the hobby snapshooters. The photographic standard is not very high. The same with
Chip Fotowelt: Commercial interests, very much advertising, mainstream and colourful images manipulations instead of good photography. Forget it!
Photo Sig: Club of frustrated amateurs. At Photosig you get comments and critics - but on each image, even if the image is perfect. :-) They would criticize the best works of photo-history there, Henri Cartier-Bresson would get tipps for making his images more interesting... :-) They have also a poor level there, the admins are interfering very much (f.e. one female admin told me, that Ansel Adams was no good photographer in her eyes (though she called herself a professional - i wonder in which business. Obviously not in photography.). I remember one hot discussion with an hdr-freak (a candyman from USA, creator of the most ugly and artificial images, that i ever saw), who was trying to give me lessons about good photography. He found, that my images needed much more hdr and tonemapping...
In my eyes photosig is more something for hobby snapshooters, who have fun in discussions, even if there is nothing to discuss.
I tried some other communities (i still have an account at Fototalk and at Art Limited) - and i will probable try out some more in the future, but Flickr is - so far - the best community for photographers, simply because it is the biggest community - you can find everything there. Professional photographers will find good contacts, and hobby snapshooters can use it for "awards" and "invitations". I use it for an exchange with some dear contacts, that i made there in the meantime. For example my Flickr-friends Michal, Rui and Rob are very good photographers, each new image is interesting and inspiring to me.
But because you have a kind of "image flatrate" at Flickr, there is the danger of inflation. So many images, so many contacts and groups. It is sometimes really exhausting.
So i remembered the old quote: Less is more!
I reduced the number of my contacts, made a new account ("Lutz Breden unplugged") and in the meantime i hide the less interesting images after a little time. So i show not longer more than 200 images, but at least 20,30 images. It makes it more easy for my visitors to take a look at my portfolio and i can be sure, that they will view the most interesting images, not only the latest.
For the future i will concentrate myself at Flickr on less groups, for example AoL (Art of Landscape) and SVS (Something very special, my own foundation) and few good photographers. I don't want to waste to much time with vanity comments.
Beside my Flickr-Work i will build up my own website (www.lutz-breden.de) with a collection of my best images.
I think, this is the best way to use the web for ambitious photography. Each artist needs a feedback and some good words from time to time - but base flattery or feedback of bad photographers is more or less a waste of time.

New Start for this Blog

I have decided to post here on this blog in the future mostly in english language, because most of my contacts are international - and in the meantime i am able to write much faster in english, than in former times. (Thx to many Flickr posts...)
If i nevertheless make some mistakes, i was glad, if you would correct me. It is not always very easy, to write in another language than the mother tongue. F.e. i wrote in many of my posts "watch this shot in big" - a Flickr-contact told me, that american and english countrymen would have used "VIEW this shot in big"... So i hope, that i will not forget this hint and i try to avoid similiar mistakes. ;-)
The same with reading. I understand the sense of many comments, but if some people make remarks in colloquial speech, i sometimes have to slow down my reading speed, cause i have to think about the sense of all the abbreviations and hidden jokes.
So in english language things you must treat me like a 6 years old child. I hope, that i can grow up a little, in the next years.
;-)