Cloud of Life

There are definetely a lot of beautiful things to discover, even in the ugliest pure plantations of my hometown. Here i found (a few weeks ago) the first leaves of a beech - what a wonderful sight amongst all the monotone vertical lines of the pure plantation and all the bio-garbage on the ground. How much more sadly would the pure plantation look, if they also would cut these single beeches, that our ancestors once planted? I found a lot of little broadleaf trees, who were cut for no reasons, but being different to the wanted sort of trees.
I hope, that these wood owners wake up one day, that they are not only destroying the beautiness of their vegetation but also the ecological base of many animals - and to a certain degree also the health of their wood.

Fernscape

I was in the wood today and was crawling under the fern - so you see the result. :-)
The original colour image was set to mono and i also colourized and processed it a bit - it should be viewn in big and on a dark background (Simply click on "L" - and with another click on "all sizes" you should view it bigger.)

The Last Birches

When i started my serious digital photography in 2003, the whole place here was full with wild grown birches.
After 8 years, they all are cut except this small group. It is probable a matter of time, until they will vanish from the scenery too. So i thought, a blur and a bit grainy interpretation of this scenery, taken a few minutes after sunset, is the right presentation for this sujet. I also colorized this monochromatic photo, as you surely notice at first sight. The upper part looks, as if it is printed on wet paper, i recommend you to view this image in big, even with the usual loss in the image processing of blogger.com.

Jack Simon published his first book: "UNTITLED"

My dear friend and admired streetphotographer Jack Simon published his first book, which can be ordered HERE.
As reader of this blog you will surely know, that Jack is a great and sensitive streetphotographer.
If you not yet know his amazing shots, you can view Jack's Flickr-portfolio f.i. at his Flickr-Account.

Jack's book is printed by blurb and was chosen in a blurb contest to be exhibited at the Format Festival in England next month. Jack also has a small series being shown at the festival. This tells a lot about the quality of Jack's first book - he has obviously impressed the blurb people very much and i have no doubt, that his amazing photos will impress his readers as well.

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... ;-)