Jim's Photoblog

New Year's Eve at our tree farm

2012-01-27T23:00:00.000+01:00

...and the photographer said, "Let there be light!" And there was light - and it was good. And the weather was great considering it was a winter day in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Due to an unexpected flat tire - aren't they always unexpected? - I didn't get to the party in the hills until around 4 p.m.

But I was still in time to relax and go up to the newly built platform to view the last sunset of 2011 with my sister and her family and friends.

And as we sat around the campfire, telling stories and making good things to eat, I looked up at the towering trees, the majesty of which caused my father to call our cabin and its surroundings "Chartres".

After the sun set, thousands of stars appeared that I hadn't seen in years. The light smog in Stuttgart doesn't allow for such wonderful night skies.

Three of us were playing with our cameras in the dark, so I decided to show the others about painting with light, using the flashlights that are so important to us out there in the dark (if you need to find something or go to the outhouse between 8 pm and 6:30 am). Jane held nice and still, so her facial features - especially her eyes - came out fairly sharp in this 35-second exposure.

35 sec., f13, ISO 400, 50mm

This next portrait looks strangely Middle Eastern. Kate's hair band looks like a turban and the fact that only her eyes were illuminated by Jane's flashlight makes the rest of her face look strangely secretive as if it were wrapped in a scarf. It's the opposite of the type of lighting you usually want for a portrait, but this image has stuck in my mind. That shows me that rules are made to be toyed with.

50 sec., f13, ISO 100, 100mm

Now it is up to you to guess how we made this next picture. Kate's flashlight shadow reminds me of Friedrich Schiller's profile.

Now we've got a very dramatic looking scene. It reminds me very much of a scene from an expressionistic drama. Wanna guess how we made that?

Finally, we did the type of light painting that some of you may have also played with. Kate stood still while her friend traced around her with a flashlight pointed at the camera.

Even in the dark it is possible to take pictures, ones that you can't take during the day!
The first day of the year we walked over our tree farm. Pictures from that hike will follow.

Tips for taking portraits at home

2012-01-15T23:33:00.000+01:00

Senior portraits

While I was in Virginia last week, I took some pictures of my beautiful niece Jane for her "senior pictures". That genre had escaped my notice, except for having seen her elder sister's pictures last year. I still don't really know if they are supposed to express something in particular. I just wanted to get some shots of her in her familiar surroundings and since I was staying with my sister that week anyway, we had time for two sessions.

Every experienced photographer will tell you that it's much easier to get pleasing pictures if your model is pretty. Well, that was the case here. The only stumbling blocks we occurred were 1) the cold weather, which pretty much precluded our shooting outdoors for extended periods of time; and 2) my limited equipment. For all the tutorials I've watched on one-light portraits, I still wish I had had a second one and my good Lastolite Trigrip reflector set. My umbrella and flash tripod would also have been helpful, but I was travelling light, so I had to improvise. One light only!

So as you see in the picture above, I wanted to capture her in settings that were important to her. Since practically everyone in our family is an artist - Jane included - we got a shot of her with her great brushes.

The nice mirror on her wall seemed like it would make a good frame for a photograph, so I set up the flash and a piece of poster board to the right of the mirror, the flash pointing into the large white surface to create a soft light and nice big catch lights in her eyes. But the light isn't what I like best about this picture; it's her pose!

Jane learned very quickly about looking into the light, keeping her eyes open and chin down. We were shooting with very little ambient light, so her pupils look large in the pictures.
For the next shot I put the flash behind her. I wanted a dreamy look, so backlighting seemed to be the way to go. The flash had enough power to light her face as well. Again, the natural pose here makes the picture what it is.

For some of the poses, she chose to smile sometimes and close her mouth for others. What a difference that makes! Here I prefer the nice, big smile!

Another big part of Jane's artistic and athletic life is dancing. She will graduate with honors in dance from the Culver Academies in June. So we took some pictures of her as the ballerina she has become. I like this introspective pose.

And here I put a snoot on my flash to create a line of light along her extended leg and her arm. It was also important to get some light on her left arm, too.

These last two pictures and the following one looked better in b/w than in color because you concentrate on the person and composition rather than the surroundings. The following picture shows Jane brimming with confidence, which is what a full-front portrait does.

Finally, here's the picture which Jane has chosen as her facebook profile picture. It's full of confidence, glamour, beauty and kindness. What more could you want in a niece?

Why am I so in love with this image?

2011-12-23T00:07:00.001+01:00

Who can tell me why?

R.I.P. Bill Martin (1930-2011)

2011-12-22T23:43:00.000+01:00

This is the last picture I have of my father and me. It was taken in Richmond this past summer.

Two years ago, after having shown signs of dementia for a couple of years, he posed for me in a photo studio in Richmond. He had on the same shirt that day, too! He was a real actor at heart. Even though he didn't make a whole lot of sense when he spoke back in 2009, he still had his sense of humor and charisma, as he did nearly to the end.

A few days prior to this session, I read some selections from his "stories". I published these wonderful stories from his childhood as Billy: Stories of my childhood and have done several readings of them in Germany and in the US. Here are a couple of photos from the reading.

My father and I with his second wife, Patti, at Book People, a local book store that helped organize the event.

My father at the reading after signing copies of his book.
The reading took place in the chapel at St. Christopher's School in Richmond, where he worked during the 1980s.

He was still lucid enough to be able to sign his name.

We all enjoyed the dinner afterward.

SOOC with the A77

2011-12-22T01:11:00.000+01:00

As I've written before, the Sony A77 can do some interesting things in-camera. While my photog friends are bending their backs over their tripods while taking seven-picture sequences for their HDR picture, I just press the shutter and my camera does all the work for me. No extra software needed! There are certainly differences in quality, but for a quick shot where you know there are going to be strong contrasts, this setting (which can be changed to Lo, Med, or High) is handy.

The medium setting makes for a nice, sharp, vivid, realistic looking picture.

The next two pictures - also taken with the HDR setting - give you an example of how you can provide more information in your pictures while still capturing the main scene.

With my camera still "stuck" in HDR mode, a peacock showed its glorious tail feathers, so my first snap was in that mode. Good thing he wasn't moving or there would have been some ghosting in the picture as the shutter clicked again and again. The shutter is very fast, but so is a scared peacock! The in-camera processing of an HDR picture takes about eleven seconds, so you really only have one shot at a bird (as you would, were you firing a rifle).

I was fiddling with the "picture effects" button and landed on "miniature scene", which blurs certain areas of the picture. As the peacock turned and headed up the hill, I got this shot of his behind. The miniature scene setting also adds a bit of vibrancy to the picture, which is nice here.

Here's another example of a scene where there were strong contrasts, so I zapped back into HDR mode.

There are two HDR programs on the A77. One is a picture effect that takes three shots and creates an "HDR painting" with enhanced details. That's what you see above. The other possibility is more along the lines of the real HDR process: three pictures are taken, whereby you can set the plus/minus exposure settings of the first and third shots (up to +/- 6 EV). Chosen wisely for the appropriate amount of contrast in the picture, this setting gives you a more natural looking HDR, as in the following. Using this setting, you need to be aware that the shutter speed will be slowed down on the third shot, so your subject should not move.

Again, as a point of reference, here is nearly the same shot with the HDR painting setting. The shutter does not drag for the third shot, so if your little girl is walking up the steps, she'll still be in focus:

Mondrian and photographic composition

2011-12-19T16:17:00.001+01:00

As a young high school yearbook editor in the 1970s, I learned to make layouts based on the style of art created by the Dutch artist Piet Mondrian. I had never heard of him before, but soon learned to appreciate the interplay between vertical and horizontal lines. My mentor Jim Palik taught me that in composition vertical lines create tension and horizontal ones create a relaxing effect in the viewer. Put the two together and you have an interesting composition. In music you might say that's how Schubert created interesting compositions by modulating between major and minor keys in interesting ways.
My photographic eye has been trained to take notice of Mondrianic patterns and these horizontal/vertical compositions.

The ugly building next to our grocery store is a motorcycle supply store. From the side, however, it is fairly interesting. Whether horizontal - like the layout of a book - or vertical, the eye whizzes along the lines, looking for a place to rest. The door and window here provide focal points for the wandering eye.

Even without Holland's national color in the scene, the opposition between vertical and horizontal lines - together with the organic line of evaporating rainwater at the bottom - creates an interesting, if minimalistic, composition. One might be tempted to think of the architecture in a Japanese zen garden.

After going out to capture beautiful bokehs at the Christmas market in Stuttgart last week, I was on a photographic high, having trained my eye for a couple of hours to pay attention to the background in the photograph. This picture came out of that stroll:

Of course, this is completely different, and yet my yearbook training also taught me that there has to be a dominant element on each double-page spread. A photograph or painting should also have something that grabs the viewers' eye, giving it a starting point before wandering across the rest of the canvas.
As I was waiting for the tram to take me home after that trip to the Christmas market, my camera was still hungry. As if knowing that my color-sated eyes needed a rest, it led me to a seemingly boring corner of the underground. As a father who is often on the go with a child in a stroller, I am familiar with the elevators in town. However, I had never thought of them as being worthy of a picture. On that evening I did.

The partitioning of the rectangle into strips of gray tones is soothing. Turn one on the side and you have something like a Rothko.

Rothko's work provided inspiration for the following composition of gradations, too - or at least my appreciation for this picture is strengthened by my appreciation for his work.

Sony A77, Minolta 50mm, f3.5, ISO 400, 1/640 sec.

One more picture seems to fit into the grouping, though it was taken above ground and consists mainly of vertical lines. Yesterday at the zoo the sky was overcast but all at once a beam of sun hit these columns and gave me a million-dollar lighting effect! The rose bush in the corner gives the eye a place to start. I just love the smooth gradations of light and hues in this! I'm fairly easy to please!

Tips for photographing at the zoo

2011-12-15T23:49:00.000+01:00

Stuttgart's Zoological and Botanical Gardens

Sun may be fun, but a gray day is in many ways prime time for visiting the zoo. No crowds to block your view or rush you along, so you can see everything at your leisure. Nevertheless, some animals are difficult to photograph. In the winter the ostriches are in a glass house and the giraffes are inside behind bars, so it's hard to get the whole animal in one picture. What to do?

Concentrate on the details. Pull out your telephoto lens - if you don't have it on already - and look for interesting parts of animals. You could even put together a collection of the animals' noses/snouts/ trunks/beaks! Or their ears. Or their eyes. Use your imagination!

Another type of animal that is difficult to photograph are the fish. The aquarium is very dark and the glass is often smeared by all the kids who have tried to get nose-to-nose with the sharks.

So pump up your ISO and look for a clean spot on the window (or clean it off with your sleeve). It is also helpful to put your lens (without the hood) right up to the glass so you don't get your reflection in the picture. Don't worry about hunting for the fish; they'll eventually swim right by you. Keep your finger on the shutter button and click away. It helps to keep your other eye open so you can anticipate when an interesting fish might swim by. An open aperture will allow you to use a faster shutter speed. This technique may also result in interesting shots you might not have composed otherwise.

Even the animals you might consider less interesting - because they aren't as exotic - can fascinate you by doing unusual things. This toad seems to be shedding its skin. It was pulling off a layer of slime and eating it bit by bit. Maybe it was an 8-year-old male. They've been known to do that, too.

I love photographing the pelicans. They glide through the water so gracefully and they are much larger than you would think. At the Wilhelma there are always several of them in the reflecting pool near the seas lions. Again, sometimes a detail makes for an interesting picture. The background here doesn't take the viewer's eye away from the main subject but somehow adds to the picture because it looks somewhat feathery, underlining the pelican's texture.

Or you may opt for more of the animal. They do have wonderfully beautiful feathers and magnificently strong wings.

At the other end of the pool is a 150-year-old building that serves as a beautiful backdrop, in this case to a cormorant plucking at itself.

Finally, when you run into areas of the zoo where there are flocks of birds or lots of animals in a herd, you may find it difficult to pick one out of the pack. There are a couple of ways you can attack this problem. Use a very shallow depth of field and then wait until one animal gives you its best pose while the others are not posing:

Or you can shoot into the middle and hope that the composition ends up being attractive enough to make the resulting photograph interesting. Here I think the heron in the foreground adds an nice touch, as does the black space in the middle:

On the edges of the flock or pack or herd you might also be able to isolate a couple of animals in an interesting pose.

What tips would you add to this list?

New Firmware for Sony A77 and A65

2011-12-06T07:24:00.000+01:00

When is an update really an update?

Tuesday, November 29, 2011, arrived for me with nearly as much anticipation as did October 21, 2011. The latter was the date I purchased my Sony A77 and the former was the release date for the (much needed) firmware update. The Sony user community had already compiled lists of firmware wishes even before the camera was available, these wishes being based on the preceding model, the A700. Then users of the new camera began noticing bugs that they thought should be removed with a new firmware update.
Firmware is the software of the camera. If you've ever re-installed the operating system on your computer, you know how scary it can be to lose all your files if you mess things up. With horror stories coursing through the internet about camera crashes (they wouldn't function after a certain sequence of buttons had been accidentally pressed), I was not the only one who was afraid to upgrade after the new firmware 1.04 was made available. Some brave (?) souls had already downloaded it from a Chinese server (!) and reported that it worked fine. Some software experts in the forums confirmed that the two versions were indeed identical. As for me, the promise of improvements in performance (for free!) outweighed my fear.

1600 ISO with Firmware version 1.04

When normal consumers speak of improvements in software or firmware, we project a lot of hope onto the software engineers, some of whom had, in this case, certainly been informed of the users' update desires. However, I imagine that many of the desired update functions could not be simply tweaked into the existing software. As anyone knows who has ever looked at a piece of computer programming, software is very detailed and cannot always be improved without running the risk of creating bugs elsewhere. Compromises must be made until a big update is made.
Here are the improvements that were supposed to be made, according to an official in the German Club Sonus:
1. Better response time when changing the settings using the (front and) rear control dials.
2. Improvement of the lighting using ADI flash mode.
3. Improvement of the MR mode (A77).
a) The saved settings won't be changed when you leave the MR mode.
b) The white balance settings from other shooting modes won't influence the WB in the MR settings.
c) The settings in the MR modes will not be kept when changing to other shooting modes.
4. The LCD won't be turned on when the camera is being turned off.
5. Change in the function of the AEL button when using spot metering: "AEL" will no longer be shown when AEL is pressed.
6. Change in the usage of the rear control dial when the shutter button is pressed down half-way: The rear control dial can be used for the the program shift function.
7. The Auto ISO settings can now be changed with the front control dial.

Those were the relatively exact changes that were announced beforehand. These are the vague ones that Sony reported when they actually released the new firmware 1.04:

The number of automatic compensation compliant lenses supported has been expanded.
- Vario-Sonnar T* DT 16-80mm F3.5-4.5 ZA (SAL1680Z)
- DT 16-105mm F3.5-5.6 (SAL16105)
Functional improvements.

Improvement of response time.
Improvement of picture quality.
Improvement of usability.

Here are my thoughts on these changes: Any new camera these days will probably have a few bugs when it first hits the market. The Nikon D90 had a much criticized video mode, even though it was the first DSLR to include video capabilities. The A77 is not the first SLT camera from Sony, yet it was supposedly fitted with a new processor at the last minute, which could explain some of the problems in the software. I cannot determine whether they were actually able to fix all the announced bugs. Number 1 may have improved a bit, though I seem to be the only one to report a positive result here. I've read that Number 2 has not been markedly improved. Number 4 seems to have gotten worse (see below). I can't judge whether Number 5 has changed. Number 6 seems to work sometimes; perhaps you have to develop a feel for which dials and buttons to turn and press.
I did not purchase my A700 until firmware version 4.0 was on it, so I did not have to suffer that camera's teething problems. One of my A700s has recently developed the typical control dial problem, in which one click of the dial can send the settings God-knows-where. But that seems to be a mechanical problem that can be easily - if expensively - repaired.
The improvements which Sony has claimed the new firmware will produce in the A77 are for the most part invisible to me up to now. Not only that, I've had a couple of errors in the past couple of days which I had not seen during the first weeks of camera usage. Once "Camera Err" appeared on the top display panel. My young daughter had reached over and taken a picture and had perhaps pressed another button simultaneously. I honestly don't want to find out how it happened. After turning the camera off and on again, it worked fine.
Since making the update, I've noticed that when I turn the camera off, it still sometimes displays what is in front of it (obviously only if you leave off the lenscap) until the camera has finally clicked off after the usual 8 seconds. That seems to happen when you turn the camera on and then off without having taken a picture. It is a bit disconcerting.
In addition, I noticed that when you toggle the manual focus to the ON position, the auto focus clicks back on when the power save time is up. This problem can be bypassed by setting the focus mode dial on MF when you are out shooting in MF mode. But toggle is supposed to mean toggle and tickle!
Speaking of the power save mode and tickling, once the camera has gone into the power save mode, the only way to wake it back up is by pressing the shutter (and waiting up to 3 seconds!). On the A700, any of the buttons would wake it up (quickly!).
Another thing that has been bothering me is that the supplied software Picture Motion Browser (great name, eh?) won't import my videos. And in order to be able to edit the AVCHD films, you need this software (or another kind that must be purchased).

Finally, the auto-focus has left me in the lurch several times. With its "TTL phase-detection system with 19 points (11 points cross type)", the camera was said to be very fast to focus. Perhaps this dark time of year has seen me taking more pictures than usual in dark settings - a real challenge for any auto-focus system - but I've been changing to MF more often than I ever did with the A700. I like the new three-zone system because it is much easier to position someone or something in the outer third of the picture without having to focus and then move the camera.

OK - I'm going to leave this post as it is and promise to continue with some of my favorite features and more pictures next time. I hope that the bugs I've described above are all either fixed by Firmware 2.0 or by more fiddling with the camera and getting to know it better.

RAW vs JPEG with the Sony A77

2011-11-29T01:19:00.003+01:00

Straight out of the A77

As a shooter of RAW (or Sony *.ARW) files, it was a bit scary to be out shooting JPEGs the other day. But I did it for a couple of reasons.
First, I had entered a SOOC (straight out of the camera; that is, no post processing) contest in the fun photographers' group I'm in (US Photographers in Europe) and was still in that frame of mind.
Second, I had read a lot about how blurry the A77's JPEGs were, yet also how poorly Lightroom renders the RAW files. So I had to do some practical testing in JPEG mode!
Finally, I wanted to try out some of the fun picture effects which the A77 offers: toy camera, pop color, posterization (color or b/w), retro photo, soft high-key, partial color (image retains either red, green, blue or yellow and makes the rest b/w), high contrast mono, soft focus, HDR painting, rich-tone mono, and miniature. This was something I had never had the option to get SOOC, so I decided to test my eye. You need to find the right situation to use such filters effectively.

In the digital age, when you shoot RAW files, you end up with a digital negative, with which you can do all the non-destructive post-processing you want in a program like Lightroom and never lose your original data. The files are larger than the compressed JPEGs and must be processed to some degree to look like anything at all. But the point is that afterwards you can (re-)create the picture that you (wished you) had taken with your camera. The emphasis with RAW is on the word 'afterwards'.
With JPEGs you have to do a lot of thinking beforehand, which is not necessarily bad. Some of the most personally satisfying photos I've taken were visualized and sketched out before I shot them. Since the camera compresses the image, little can be done to the picture in post-processing without damaging it. So it is best to set the white balance correctly and to have the creative style (vivid, b/w, light, clear, etc.) chosen with the particular motif in mind. That doesn't always work for my type of photography because I do a lot of spontaneous street shooting.

Down at Stuttgart's beautiful Christmas market, I decided to try some of the effects on the miniature train landscape that is built up there every year. First there was the in-camera HDR painting look. The camera releases the shutter three times and gives you one picture, the intensity of which you can set beforehand. With this effect, you can almost make a miniature landscape blend in with a heroic-looking backdrop.

The miniature effect adds vivid colors to the picture and defocuses parts of the picture that you choose. The effect is similar to what you would get with an expensive tilt-shift lens or with a Lens Baby attachment. You can clearly see what parts of the picture will be out of focus.

However, the idea is to make a life-size landscape or city-scape look miniature. This type of selective blurring can also be done in post-processing fairly easily.

In the picture below I chose to have the checkered man in focus and the passers-by blurred.

The selective blurring in the following picture also seems to be effective, especially when combined with the in-camera vivid setting.

Another effect I've grown fond of is the posterization effect. You can try it with high contrast colors or in black-and-white. It is good to have bright colors in the picture to begin with, but even if you don't the camera setting will create them for you. This plate of bread with red peppers, cream cheese and anchovies was set on a light brown table. Again, as with most of the other effects, you see what the picture will look like before you take it. The HDR and rich-tone monochromatic settings take three pictures and composite them in the camera, so you don't see the result until the processing has been done. Expect to wait approximately 13 seconds for the camera to do its thing!

The advantage of using the b/w posterization effect is that high-ISO settings are not a problem. What might be a potential problem with this effect (both color and b/w) is that the white parts have no information in them and cannot be changed much in normal post-processing.

These are the effects I would probably use the most because they are eye-catching and very different from what my normal post-processing work would show. The others are more subtle and require a bit more finesse. For instance, the retro photo look combines sepia tones and reduced contrast. This is one of the types of looks that you can get from an iPhone app and thus it is all the rage. I think I've seen too many of these instamatix pix to appreciate their novelty any more.

The A77 can also master many more in-camera effects, including panoramas, 3D panoramas and hand-held twilight pictures. I'll report on these after I've had more experience with them.

Light, light and light again!

2011-11-23T21:27:00.000+01:00

Light, light and light again!

Photography is nothing but writing with light, as the etymology of the word tells us. In the autumn the sunlight has a special quality that can't be captured in nature at other times of the year. Sometimes I ask myself whether it is the reflection of the sunlight on the yellow and orange leaves which makes it so colorful, or whether there are little particles in the air that function as a filter. But I'm no meteorologist; I'm a photographer. Joe McNally can tell you how to create a similar looking light with a couple of small flashes, but how do you capture the autumnal feeling of a scene like this?

Yes, you could paint the leaves of the trees any color you wanted in Photoshop, but could you render the light realistically? Is this picture interesting because of the colors or because of the light? Or is it more artistic looking and more pleasing to you in black-and-white?

I wonder if it is just the colors? Looking at my pictures critically helps me find out what is special about them. Does this split-tone picture have an autumnal feel to you? Why (not)?

Backlighting may have something to do with this fall feeling. A few seconds can make a big difference in either simply capturing a pretty face or creating a nice portrait. The sun broke through the chestnut trees from one second to the next here. Can you wish for better light, better colors, a prettier profile?

I've always done event and journalistic photography. It is rare that you are blessed with this kind of natural light when you are on assignment!

So there you have a homework assignment. Look at your own pictures critically. Is the light adequate or is it fantastic? Does it help light the subject or does it make the picture what it is? What could you have done to improve it? How, where and when can you find such light again?

Find it and shoot it!

2011-11-22T23:13:00.001+01:00

Find it and shoot it!

Once you find a good motif, take as many pictures of it as you can. "Shoot it to death," some might say. You know what I'm talking about. Perfect light, great models, plenty of time. A photographer's dream, right? I found that combination at the zoo last month, but I've also run across such motifs in the city and even at home.

Sometimes the "models" give you more than you asked for!

The light may change, giving the photographer and the viewers a new look at the monkeys.

I didn't think grooming was supposed to hurt.

After observing the alpha male running around the enclosure for a while, I was able to anticipate when it would jump.

If I had continued with my studies of biology, I might be able to tell you what the large male was trying to convey to the female, but I'll bet she understood his intention without a graduate degree.

The little monkeys were trying to climb up the steep cliff to where the others were sitting. When the one on the left slipped and fell, the other couldn't do much but hold on and watch.

Shopping and shooting at night

2011-11-21T15:36:00.003+01:00

Shopping and shooting at night

Twice a year (in April and November), the Swabians go crazy and let people shop until they drop (or until midnight, whichever comes first). A couple of weeks ago, I went shooting with my photo friend Stephen to further test the nighttime abilities of my new A77. I was using both the Minolta 1.7/50mm prime lens and the Minolta 4/70-210 zoom, also known as the 'beercan' (because it looks like one!).
Obviously, the zoomed-in pictures were taken with the beercan. I wouldn't normally post two zooms at once, but the one above seems perfect to illustrate this story. And the one below I just love. When you are hand-holding a long lens like that, it is difficult to hold the camera steady so you can get straight lines.

The city had paid for various types of illumination, mostly elfinly phallic orange cones, signifying...I don't know what. Firelight perhaps? The evening was mild for early November, so Stephen and I were able to enjoy the sights from 6:30-11:00 pm.

The evening was devoted to the retail merchants, who did a good bit of business that evening, even though their winter clothes - such as these hats - stayed on the shelf because no one really wanted to believe that cold weather was on its way.

Buy me!

We got something to eat after watching the St. Martin's Day parade march past the Neues Schloß in the dark. Not even 6400 ISO could salvage a good picture of that parade. It will remain a challenge for yet another year. Here's a picture for those of you who have never seen a German St. Martin's parade. It's usually very cold and the kids (and parents) are hungry and no one knows but the first verse of the songs that are being sung (badly) to the accompaniment of the cold, out of tune brass instruments.

The Königstrasse was full of people, including street musicians from Chile who play new age Indio music and dress up for the Europeans.

The city had also paid for a few special acts, such as the fire twirlers. They put on quite a show for the several hundred on-lookers. It was difficult to get a good place to watch from but with the flip-out screen on the A77 I could easily shoot above the crowd's heads.

Concert Photos

2011-11-20T15:35:00.001+01:00

Concert Photos

Tamron 2.8/17-50, 26mm, 1/50 sec., f3.5, 800 ISO

There is a talented young funk band here in Stuttgart named No Better Question that I like quite a lot. I got to know the lead singer last year while he was doing an internship at the DAZ where a photo exhibition of mine was hanging.
Since I've been comparing the quality of pictures produced by Sony's A700 and A77 cameras here recently, I thought I would continue that while offering my regular readers some real content. The first four pictures here were taken with the Sony A700 in May 2011 at the Jugendhaus Ost and the last three were taken with the A77 in November 2012 at BIX.

Tamron 2.8/17-50, 50mm, 1/50 sec., f3.5, 1600 ISO

In a live concert situation, you can not count on the lighting to help you. You have to help the lighting. How? Of course high-ISO settings help but you also need to observe how the light hits each of the players and from which angle it would be best to photograph them from. If you are allowed the luxury of being able to move around and shoot at will, you'll be able to find the right angles for optimally capturing the musicians and their instruments.

Tamron 2.8/17-50, 50mm, 1/40 sec., f4, 500 ISO

While preparing my first post with pictures from a concert, I learned that desaturating the pictures helps eliminate a lot of the noise that comes with such low-light situations. However, it really depends on the amount of light you have and where it falls. The picture below has a terrific spray of light in it.

Tamron 2.8/17-50, 50mm, 1/100 sec., f4, 800 ISO

Tokina 2.8/28-80, 80mm, 1/80 sec., f3.5, 800 ISO

Desaturating the picture above would be nearly as unpatriotic (for an American) as wearing that shirt would be. Plus, the lovely retro bronze color of the BIX interior is something I wouldn't want you to miss!

The next picture, however, gains little from the blue and purple colors shining in the singer's hair.

Tokina 2.8/28-80, 80mm, 1/100 sec., f4.5, 1600 ISO

This is what it would look like with a high-contrast black-and-white pass put on it. The viewer's eye can concentrate much more easily on the important elements.
In this last image, the high-ISO setting was required to capture the action with a relatively fast shutter speed. Again, the disadvantages of noise must be weighed against the ability to capture the moment. And, of course, you must know beforehand if you are going to use the pictures on the web or print them. In this case, the noise doesn't detract at all from the image quality.

Tokina 2.8/28-80, 80mm, 1/200 sec., f3.2, 3200 ISO

Count the zeros: Sony A77's 16,000 ISO (just sayin')

2011-11-17T23:27:00.003+01:00

Count the zeros: 16,000 ISO (just sayin')

You want real-life pictures of really high ISO photos from Sony's new A77? You have read that the details get lost when you get to 6400 ISO? Here are some pictures I took last week at 11:30 p.m. waiting for the last streetcar to take me home. Here is a series starting at 1600 ISO and going up to 16,000!

A77, Minolta f4-4.5/28-135 at 28mm, 1600 ISO, 1/15 sec., f5.6

A77, Minolta f4-4.5/28-135 at 28mm, 6400 ISO, 1/30 sec., f5.6

The advantages of lower ISO speeds are counteracted by the required slow shutter speeds, especially if motion is involved.

A77, Minolta f4-4.5/28-135 at 28mm, 6400 ISO, 1/60 sec., f5.6

A77, Minolta f4-4.5/28-135 at 28mm, 12,800 ISO, 1/125 sec., f5.6

A77, Minolta f4-4.5/28-135 at 28mm, 16,000 ISO, 1/160 sec., f5.6

I can clearly read the letters of the next arrivals and even the house number of the building 100 yards away. Here's a 100% crop:

A77, Minolta f4-4.5/28-135 at 28mm, 16,000 ISO, 1/160 sec., f5.6
100% crop

Yes, there is noise but there is also detail. And I didn't even post-process these pictures as much as I could have. I just wanted to show you that this camera can take decent pictures in very low light. How about yours? What do you do if you need/want to take pictures in the dark?

The new Sony A77 - a personal review

2011-11-16T21:32:00.003+01:00

The new Sony A77 - a personal review

Looking at home now on the shelf among a forest of lenses is my new Sony Alpha 77, the camera I'd been eagerly awaiting for over a year. The A700 which it replaces looks somewhat old-fashioned next to it, though the new creation also has a similarly robust magnesium alloy body with oodles of buttons at your fingertips, making it easy to change settings while still following your subject through the viewfinder. The first thing you notice different about the A77 is the gold sticker on top of the flash that advertises its "Full HD Movie" capability. The top display panel makes seasoned Sony users think "top of the line", and the fold-out rear display reminds some of us of our earlier models. The former is found only on the A850 and A900, but the latter could be found on every Alpha from the 300 on up to the 580. But there is a new twist to the display, adding a new dimension to live-view and thus self-portrait photography.

The first week I used the camera, I was slightly disappointed. I liked the smooth-looking video quality but wasn't blown away by the high ISO picture quality. I puzzled several friends with my luke-warm response to Sony's newest camera coup. Even though I very quickly became acclimated to the positioning of the buttons and learned how to avoid the lag of the electronic viewfinder, I just didn't see any difference in the picture quality. The files were twice as large as those of the A700 but I didn't seem to be getting my money's worth.

Since buying the camera on October 21, I've taken 3500 "keepers" and learned to love many of the camera's new advantages. On the other hand, I've also deleted over 1000 pictures, a ratio that I never had with the A700 but I'll attribute the high number to the learning curve and my not wanting to overtax my hard drives.

The new camera uses the same battery pack, can use the same A-mount lenses (though some Sigma HSM lenses may need a *free* update of the chip), and is also rigged to record data to the Sony Memory Sticks. However, A700 users who invested in Compact Flash cards will have to trade them in for the industry standard SD/SDHC/SDXC cards or the Sony Memory Stick PRO Duo/Pro-HG Duo medio. You can also use Eye-Fi cards in the A77, which allow you to upload the files directly to your computer or website. The size, weight and build of the cameras are very similar, so it won't take long to get used to the feel of the new camera.

So what's new? Read on. I had worked with my (three!) A700s for years and was very pleased with the cameras' performance. Ever since the Nikon D90 came out with video capability, I had considering switching brands on account of the ability to take movies with a DSLR. Then the accolades that Canon's 5D Mark IV had received for its video performance made me more curious than ever to try it out, even though two good friends with the Canon had rarely used the function. Well, the A77 has the best video capability of any digital camera currently on the market. It can take full HD movies using the AVCHD format at 1080 60i (NTSC) or 1080 50i (PAL), which means that the camera utilizes 1,080 scanning lines and the interlace system. An HD specification using 720 scanning lines and the progressive system is also available, as is the MPEG-4 format at either 1440x1080 (12M) or VGA (3M) resolution.

The A77 sports front and rear adjustment dials (as do the A700, A850 and A900), which come in very handy when shooting in manual mode at a concert, for example. This flexibility, along with the dedicated buttons on the back, let you concentrate on the world around you rather than on the menus in the camera. Furthermore, the EVF is predestined to allow the photographer to shoot in manual mode without ever taking his or her eye of the action. You see how much light is reaching the sensor because, as with the most user-friendly computer programs, WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get). In addition, the 100% coverage of the viewfinder is on par with the top-of-the-line cameras from the competition.

The A700 lacked the live-view function that my A300 and A550 had, but I got used to not having that capability. However, with a 19-month-old child, I find it is a real back, neck and knee saver: just pop out the screen and drop the camera to her level. And with all the political demonstrations going on where I live, the screen makes it easy to shoot over others' heads.

The tilt screen is good for getting down low

Getting the right shot when holding the camera over your head is made easier with the tilt screen.

With the A700 I rarely shot above ISO 1600, usually keeping it down around a maximum of ISO 1000 for indoor work. ISO 2000 was simply unusable in most cases. Outdoors on the street during the day I would, however, shoot in aperture priority at ISO 800 to assure a fast shutter speed and never had qualms with the resulting picture quality. The new camera, I hoped, would give me the ability to use ISO 1600-3200 like a Nikon D3s user; in other words, I was hoping for low noise in the high ISO range.
Confession: One problem I was having with high-ISO photos taken with the A700 was due to my faulty settings. I would shoot at ISO 1000 and underexpose the photo by -0.7 to allow for a faster shutter speed. To compensate for the dark picture, I would let the Dynamic Range Optimization to Level 3. If you want noise in a picture, this is the way to get it! I've since learned that I should have done just the opposite: Shoot at 1600 or 3200, turn off the DRO and over-expose the photo +0.3, thus effectively illuminating dark areas.

ISO 3200 is no problem for the A77 if you do not under-expose your shots.

I take a mixture of available-light pictures and flash portraits. Sony's wireless flash capabilities are not as advanced as those of the Nikons or Canons, but my HVL 58 can control my two HVL 42 flashes and my new radio transmitter helps me out with wireless flashing on sunny days or when a flash is positioned behind an umbrella. The external flashes can also be triggered by the pop-up flash on the camera.

Now for a bit of bad news (and how to learn to live with it): What I still don't like about the camera is that it takes a second or two to re-activate after awaking from the power save mode. I find this annoying when shooting brief bursts with pauses, be it at a concert or in my living room. Whereas a camera outfitted with an optical viewfinder (OVF) is always ready to click away, cameras with an electronic viewfinder (EVF) - including bridge cameras - take a little while to wake up. Solution: turn out the energy save mode in such situations! The battery will drain quickly if you keep the live view screen turned on, so beware and (always) carry a second battery with you.
I also miss the ability to change picture quality in the screen (function) menu, and I miss cRAW (a smaller, compressed - lossless - RAW format), especially since the 24.3MP RAW files on the A77 are approximately 24MB in size. You can, of course, shoot in the extra fine jpeg mode, but the downsides there are that you cannot as flexibly post-process the images as you can with RAW files and the camera does some of the processing (white balance, noise reduction, creative style, etc.) in-camera for you.
Unfortunately, the A77 does not include a remote control, so you'll have to keep yours from the A700 if you want to shoot remote, which is easy with the flip-and-swivel screen. The most recent firmware release (v. 1.03) does not allow tethering in LR, but this and some of the other little problems may well be solved by an update soon. Users are also hoping a few other slight nuisances will be corrected by the new firmware: the boot and shut-down times are too long; the menus and controls lag when you want to manipulate them with the control dials; the camera clicks back into auto focus mode if you don't take a picture for about ten seconds. The internet forums are full of lists of firmware wishes for the camera now - as they were, ironically, even before the camera was for sale!

Other camera makers offer a GPS attachment which you can put on the hot shoe. A Nikon unit will cost you $189. And both Nikon and Canon have put a GPS in a few of their new point-and-shoot digital cameras. Sony has integrated GPS units in both the new A65 and A77 cameras and even had one in last year's SLT A55 model. Now you'll never have to wonder where you were when you took certain pictures. I've read that if you have the GPS turned on, it may drain the battery more quickly, which makes sense because the camera is constantly contacting three orbiting satellites. Around town I have the GPS turned off.

It is time now to bundle some real-life pictures for you readers and post them as I used to. I hope you have learned something from this review and from the past couple of posts with the picture comparisons. For me the decision is clear: A77.

ISO 3200 and beyond with the Sony A77

2011-11-03T22:54:00.001+01:00

ISO 3200 and beyond with the Sony A77

ISO 3200, f7.1, Zeiss 2.8/24-70mm lens @ 26mm, 1/40 sec

You can push your Sony A700 to ISO 6400 (though the lines above and below the number in the menu seem to warn the user from doing so), but the Sony A77 goes all the way up to ISO 25,600 without any kind of warning! At that speed the camera takes 5-6 images and compresses them (with little "noise") into one smooth jpeg file. If you are in a dark church and want to photograph a figurine in the back of a small chapel, you can get a very nice shot with this feature.

ISO 3200, Zeiss 2.8/24-70mm lens @ 70mm, f7.1, 1/50 sec; AUTO ISO composite

But even one shot taken at ISO 3200 will be good enough to print once you have used your regular software to sharpen it and remove the noise. After extensive testing yesterday, I've learned a thing or two about high-ISO photography.

My pictures with the A700 were usually "noisy" because I'd try to achieve a faster shutter speed by setting the exposure compensation to -0.7 or even -1.0 and, since the pictures tended to be dark, I'd add dynamic range optimization to lighten up the shadows. This combination seems to be a real noise enhancer! The better solution would have been to shoot at +0.3, double the ISO and turn off the DRO. Got that? You can shoot at ISO 3200 outside during the day (as does Jay Maisel) and ensure fast shutter speeds while getting virtually no noise because the pictures probably won't be dark, and it's in the dark regions of a photograph that noise thrives.

ISO 3200, Minolta f2.8/28 mm lens @ f10, 1/60 sec. flash fired

Unfortunately, I cannot report - as I had hoped - that a new Zeiss lens costing €1800 did much better than an old Minolta lens bought second-hand on ebay for €90. I don't see that much difference once the post-processing has been done.

Minolta f2.8/28 lens @ f7.1, ISO 3200, 1/30 sec.

So - enough of this boring post. Pictures from real life will follow soon!

Sony A700 vs A77: More tests @ ISO 1600

2011-10-25T16:35:00.001+02:00

Sony A700 vs A77: More tests @ ISO 1600

From the new wing at the Virginia Museum in Richmond
1/40 sec., f5.6, ISO 1600, 70mm, Sony A700

In this post I'm presenting some pictures I've taken recently (Aug-Oct 2011) with both the A700 and the A77. All of these pictures were taken using ISO 1600, some inside, some outside, some at night or in concert settings - trying to get the whole spectrum of real-world photography.
I've processed them all as I normally would have, including noise reduction, sharpening, etc. The way I see it, if Lightroom can clear the noise in the pictures from the A700, it should be able to do so with those from the A77, too.

Construction on the Hugunot Bridge in Richmond, VA
1/8 sec., f8, ISO 1600, 10mm, Sony A700

The two pictures above were taken in fairly low-light situations. ISO 1600 allows you to use a faster shutter speed in daylight situations, as in the picture below. I like chasing pigeons with my wide-angle lens!

1/1250 sec., f6.3, ISO 1600, 10mm, Sony A700

Coming home after the Volksfest last month, I saw this half-collapsed couple in the underground station and thought it worth a shot. The A700 (and Sony 16-105 lens) did a good job capturing even the design of the treads on his shoes.

1/13 sec., f5.6, ISO 1600, 105mm, Sony A700

The next photo was taken in a typical indoor situation. There was some natural lighting coming from a skylight in the ceiling and artificial light which was in use for the film.

1/50 sec., f7.1, ISO 1600, 45mm, Sony A77

As I've written several times before, high-ISO photos often look much better when converted to black-and-white because the chromatic noise disappears totally and the rest looks like "artistic" grain.

1/100, f5, ISO 1600, 75mm, Sony A700

I am still testing my many different lenses with the A77. The following two concert pictures were taken with the Tamron 2.8/90mm and Minolta 1.7/50mm prime lenses. I hypothesize that the quality of the lens will prove to have quite an effect on the quality of the resulting photograph.

1/40 sec., f2.8, ISO 1600, 90mm, Sony A700

1/100 sec., f2.8, ISO 1600, 50mm, Sony A700

This picture was taken with Sony's Zeiss 2.8/24-70mm, the best lens in Sony's collection. I see a measurable difference in the quality of pictures I take with it.

1/100 sec., f3.2, ISO 1600, 60mm, Sony A77

And here's one last picture for all you camera freaks. I am not impressed with the quality of this high-ISO photo. I hope I learn some way to improve the quality with the A77.

Sony A77 - First test: High ISO

2011-10-23T19:08:00.002+02:00

Sony A77 - First test: High ISO

This is a test - only a test. Yes, I'm testing my readers' interest in camera technology and I'm testing to see whether other Sony Alpha photographers will be interested in seeing the results of my first days and weeks with the new Sony Alpha 77, which I purchased at Fotohaus Sänger in Stuttgart on Friday.

Frau Sänger called me when the camera came in because I told her I wanted to buy one from her. She received only two that she had ordered, the rest having been delayed indefinitely due to the flooding in Thailand. "So you're lucky you got this one. There won't be any more deliveries to Germany until after Christmas," she told me. The purchaser of the first of the two cameras was still at the cash register when I held my new camera in my hands. It felt good. A bit lighter than the A700, which I've been using every day for the last two-and-a-half years.

I was excited about the possibility of being able to make (HD) videos with the new camera and thought the specifications looked appealing. I had watched all the promotion videos and read all the available material before Friday afternoon, so I didn't hesitate. I took it straight home.

I spent the good part of Saturday at a good friend's 40th birthday party, which included an organ recital in the church where she celebrated with nearly 100 guests. I took the new camera and tested it in all sorts of different situations.

I was thinking that since the Sony (and Nikon and Canon etc.) technology has progressed so far in the past couple of years, I'd probably end up shooting jpeg files with this camera, if for no other reason than to save space on the memory card (and my hard drives). With the A700 I shot only RAW files, which averaged about 18MB per 12MP photo. With a 24MP APC-S sensor, the A77 files are nearly twice as large (24MB for RAW and 14MB for jpeg extra fine files). I post-process nearly every decent picture I take, so I am partial to RAW files and will probably remain so, but will either have to delete more before doing the back-up or be somewhat more frugal on the front end when taking pictures. However, that is difficult with this camera because it shoots 10-12 frames per second!

This first picture is an extra fine quality jpeg from the camera which I've processed a bit in Lightroom 3. I've uploaded the next three photos in full quality here so you can download them and peep at the pixels if you like.

1/40 sec, f4, ISO 1600, jpeg, Tamron 2.8/17-50mm lens at 50mm

1/40 sec, f4, ISO 1600, RAW, Tamron 2.8/17-50mm lens at 50mm

1/80 sec, f4.5, ISO 3200, jpeg, Tamron 2.8/17-50mm lens at 50mm

Here on the screen, you can't really tell a difference, can you? I have posted high-ISO pictures first because that is what interests me and most of the other Sony users at this point. How good is it in low-light situations? Well, it isn't a Nikon D3s, but then it only cost €1299 and not €3700. The jpeg shows globlike noise not dissimilar to the Panasonic Lumix FZ38 bridge camera I had for a while. The noise in the RAW files consists of fine dots of grain. Neither is what pixel peepers like to see, but after smoothing it out a bit in post-processing, it pretty much disappears.

Yes, you say, and with it disappears the sharpness of the image. True. You come out with a somewhat water-colory wash, but it's better than grain, most would say.

Grain. In the good old days of film photography, I usually used 400 ISO Ilford black-and-white film. I think I may have "pushed" a few rolls to 800 ISO. Then I had to write that on the roll of film so the processor would add an appropriate amount of developer to the mixture. And boy could you see the grain in the dark parts of those pictures! But back then (1989) people called it "artistic" and "interesting". There were even grainy filters you could put on pictures to make them look like that in print. And yet everyone is trying to fight it now.

These were the first three pictures in a series of test shots with the new Sony Alpha 77. Further shots will follow with various lenses, in different lighting situations and with different settings.

Walking from home to the Neckar

2011-10-19T18:21:00.001+02:00

Walking from home to the Neckar

Sunday was a beautiful day, so I took our toddler for a walk in her stroller down to the Neckar. When the light is right, there's nothing that isn't fun to photograph.

The 1950s-style diner in the parking lot of a motorcycle parts superstore provides interesting reflections.

Once we got down to the river, the autumnal light was in full force, urging me to notice nature's wonders.

The island in the river is home to an outdoor pool complex, which is protected by a row of poplar trees.

One bank near the island is home to the Suttgarter-Cannstatter Ruderclub, where rowers start and finish their trips up and down the river.

Walking back from Untertürkheim through Wangen, one can see lots of stone heads peering out from the facades of the old apartment buildings. It's worth a walk through there just to see the sculptures.

And there are always interesting surprises around nearly every corner, such as this entrance to an office building.

And finally, here's a quiz for you. Can you guess what this is?

What is this?

Another day, another demo

2011-10-11T13:50:00.001+02:00

Another day, another demo

This protester makes her position clear to the on-looking police officers. She doesn't want to have her city dug up over the next 10+ years in order to put the train station underground. Would you?

Following an alert on facebook at 9:15 a.m., Julia and I changed our plans and instead of going to the zoo, we went to see what the newest fence looked like. The Deutsche Bahn put a fence up the day after Germany celebrated its reunification for the 21st time. After showing some weakness by hinting that they had calculated how much it would cost to renege on their contracts (€1.5 bn), they countered with strength the morning after a long weekend. Several dozen protesters were able to situate themselves on the hill behind the fence before the last link was bolted shut. Then they were asked to leave.

Although the anti-escalation crew members were present and the police officers maintained their composure (for the first couple of hours, anyway), even the strains of an accordion player couldn't help everyone remain calm. Tempers flared in some cases.

Ever get the feeling someone else is listening in on your conversation?

A small group of students watched the demonstration while two squads of police officers prepared to march up to the fence.

Then one by one the protesters behind the fence were carried off to the police van, where their personal data were collected.

I heard someone say, "They get good-looking police officers so that the men don't act so aggressively."

I had to believe there was some truth to that theory when I saw the women in uniform up at the fence.

Helen and Harold Demure

Two protesters stayed up in a tree, assuming that it would be more difficult for them to be removed. They were finally brought down at 1:30 p.m.

The action is behind you!

The press was allowed behind the fence, as were several emergency medical technicians. However, then this EMT attempted to throw a safety rope up to the people in the tree, the police protested and dragged him off. He was very heavy and had a backpack on and took a tumble down the hill. I think I was the only one to get a picture of that.

Dietrich Wagner was left in peace and then left in peace

The 66-year-old protester who had nearly been blinded (he retained some eyesight in one eye but is legally blind) remained on the hill under the occupied tree, away from the main group of demonstrators. The police left him alone. On September 30, 2010, he was shot full in the face with a water canon during Germany's worst protest of the century.

The grass is not greener on the other side of this fence. Stuttgart has been split apart by this construction project. The past two days (Oct. 10-11, 2011) Stuttgart has been paralyzed by a strike by the tram and bus drivers. Yesterday there were 50 miles of traffic jams in and around the metropolis. Yesterday evening as I was going to pick up my son from the other side of town and had to detour around the weekly Stuttgart 21 protest at the train station, I tried to imagine what the traffic situation would be like with a huge pit in the middle of the city for 7-10 years and major delays and disturbances in public transport. That will be really messy. The two "stress tests" that the plans for the new train station have passed did not take into consideration the construction period and how it would affect the citizens of the metropolitan region of Stuttgart.

Modern weapons

A man who appeared to be the chief of police (he had about 6 stars on his shoulder) was positioned outside the fence and chatted amiably with the protesters, most of whom he appeared to know personally (from other demonstrations). Cell phones were in use on both sides of the fence, the police using them along with their radios to relay the newest commands down the line and the protesters to call other supporters. So who won at the end of the day? Well it is not as bad as in the Genesis song, "The Battle of Epping Forest", during which Peter Gabriel sings "There's no one left alive; it must be a draw. So the black-cap barons flip a coin to settle the score." However, the protesters were all carried off, Mr. Wagner rode away on his bicycle of his own accord and even though the police threatened to use mace (pepper spray) when the fence was nearly toppled, the day ended in a draw. It probably didn't hurt that the mounted police rode in to save the day!
The next day, a ditch was dug through the hillside so that blue pipes could be laid to pump out the ground water before the big dig. However, the following day the Deutsche Bahn was ordered to fill it back in.

My ABCs for studio photography

2011-09-23T23:53:00.001+02:00

My ABCs for studio photography

Some "Do"s and "Don't"s for the studio

A - Aperture. Yes, f5.6 will save power and you'll think you are getting an artistic depth-of-field, but f8 will make the subject sharp

B - Bend arms and legs. Basically, the rule is: "If it bends, bend it. If there are two of them, bend them differently." This refers to the model(s) but it might not hurt to loosen up the photographer!

C - Catch light. That's the white reflection of the light in the iris of the model's eye. If the eyes don't catch the light, they look dead.

D - Dream your shots before going into the studio and making them. Write down the poses, the position of the lights, and the effects you want beforehand.

I dreamt of this motif the night before the photo session.

E - Eyes. When we look at a picture of a person, we are drawn to the eyes first. Make sure that at least one (the near one) is sharp. The second thing we look at are the hands (see "H").

F - Fill the shadows with reflected light or a second light source unless you have a good reason to have harsh shadows.

G - Glasses present a problem because of the glare from the studio lights. Place the lights to the side to avoid glare and reflect soft light into the face. Or: Take two pictures - one with and one without glasses (and one with, one without flashes/lights) and photoshop the non-glare glasses back on.

H - Hands are interesting. Get the model's hands up around the face, in the hair, where they are visible. Give her something to play with using her hands.

H2 - A hairlight helps set the model's head apart from the background and gives the hair a nice shine. It doesn't have to be much, but it makes a big difference if it's there.

I - ISO settings should help you balance the shutter speed and aperture. If you shoot a model at 1/60 sec. all day, you're going to end up with lots of blurry pictures. ISO 400 will allow shutter speeds of 1/160 and f8 and I promise you won't have any noise. Go for it!

J - Just let the model have fun and you try to have fun and it will be an enjoyable experience. Let her know things are going well and act confident.

K - Know your camera. This is the first and great commandment. The second is like unto it...

L - It's not a photograph if there's no light. Think about it. Light is everything. Experiment with lighting effects but know the basics of what (parts of the face and body) you need to light.

M - Make pictures, don't just take them. Concentrate as much as possible on the details: background, hair, fill-light. It's better in the end to spend five minutes setting up a picture and getting one good shot than to shoot 30 pictures in five minutes and not get a single good one.

N - Never forget the rules from the letters in this list that make up your name. (It's a good place to start, anyway.)

O - Overexposure leads to blown out highlights that cannot be (easily) recovered in post-processing. Set your exposure for the highlights using spot metering.

P - A Pinnochio nose results when the model's face is turned to a 50°-85° profile and her nose extends beyond the line of her cheek. The nose then looks bigger than it really is.

Q - The Queen of England can be photographed from dead straight on and look like the strong monarch she is. Does your model have that kind of stature or does a slight turn look more attractive? (I'm taking bets on the latter.)

R - Raccoon eyes come as a result of the main light source being too close and high. Then you've got shadows from the eyebrows (and forehead bone structure) darkening the eyes.

The light source was too high, causing shadows on the eyes.

The light source was placed correctly.

S - "Suspect eyes" are those where you can't see the whites on both sides of the iris. Your model will look less like a criminal and more natural if we can see whites on both sides of her eyes.

Even with her face turned, we see the whites of her eyes on both sides of the irises.

T - Texture the light. Instead of having it bounce straight off the model, make it graze the skin, showing the body's texture.

U - Underexposure results in black clipping. Like the overexposed parts, these cannot be recovered in post-processing. Even in low-key photography, the gray-to-black area should ideally consist of a number of shades.

V - Vary positions, both yours and that of the model. However, remember that most models do not look their best when you are accentuating the mass of their thighs and looking up their nose.

W - The waist is often a sore spot, but did you know that it bends? Twist to the side and the hips and waist seem to disappear (or at least become slimmer). Have the model bend forward to get the chest results...uh "best" results and to help eliminate a double chin.

X - Experiment in your free time and watch others while they are shooting. When it is your turn with the model, you should have a plan.

Y - Yield to your first instinct.

Z - Zoom in from a distance and use 70-200mm rather than getting up close and using a wide-angle lens: it will make the model appear slimmer (if that's what you want).

45mm

157mm

Getting the light you want

2011-09-20T23:52:00.002+02:00

Getting the light you want

Fynn in my "studio"

My sister Susan is a widely acclaimed artist in Richmond, VA. She has a one-person show up at this writing with 50 of her own paintings of nude women. This past summer when I visited her in the studio she had built in her back yard, we talked about photographing her models. I'm a serious photographer and have spent the past two years reading everything I could about light and experimenting on average 3000 times per month with different lighting situations. I've come to know a little bit about creating lighting situations that provide me with the look I'm striving for.

Working with other photographers and two models in the studio

She bought two large lamps from Home Depot for her lighting needs. She usually only uses one bare bulb to light her models. As we looked through hundreds of images on her computer, one group caught my eye. "Yes," she said, "the sun was shining in through the window that day, so we used that light. It was awesome." It did look nice, but I immediately wondered why she didn't just stick a light outside (or behind a light shaper) to get that - or a similarly awesome - look every time! She thought it would all be too complicated. She wants to use the camera as an extension of her hand, she said, and not have to think too much. There is a fine line when you are photographing nudes, she told me, between doing your work and making the models feel comfortable.

Getting the pose and lighting right for Kristina

We talked about various ways to shape light, discussing the pros and cons of different types of light sources. All that, she admitted, would put her over budget. Besides, she can recreate any sort of mood lighting she wants when she is standing at the canvas. Like photoshopping, she can lighten and darken areas at will. So why was I worried about her lighting? My last thought was, "I can't wait to see her work once she starts thinking about light!"

The beach

2011-09-16T22:33:00.001+02:00

The beach

Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, is a wonderfully wide sandy beach on the Atlantic. It offers families a nice retreat from the likes of Myrtle Beach, Virginia Beach or even the Outer Banks, which fill up with rowdy groups during the summer months. Granted, it is risky to go to the Atlantic during the hurricane season from August-November, but the house was rented and the weather report looked good.
Little did we know what would happen to the East Coast three weeks later - when we were back home safe in Germany! Hurricane Irene tore up the coast, leaving trees draped over electric lines like wet laundry.

I grew up near Virginia Beach. My summer memories include sunburns, hot feet running over the dunes and learning where the "sand" in sandwich came from. But I also remember the elaborate sand castles our father built with us and the fun we had body surfing and collecting shells.

Walking up and down the beach has always been one of my favorite past times when I am down at the ocean, and this summer, with camera in hand, it was no different.

And as always, there were interesting contrasts in abundance! See the little wiener out there with his board?
With all these pictures of the sand and surf, I must admit that the image below, for me, says, "Beach" more than any other. What do you think?

Seventh heaven

2011-07-19T23:42:00.001+02:00

It was supposed to rain...

...but Pia and I were lucky. Nevertheless, we began our session inside upstairs in the Königspassage where the photo gallery LUMAS used to be. Not many people go all the way up to the third floor of Stuttgart's downtown mall to casually look at expensive furniture, Oriental rugs and model trains, so I figured we'd be left in peace.

And we were until the security guard noticed all the flashes going off. He warned us that no stores were allowed to be photographed if I were planning to publish the pictures. So be it. After that warning he let us be. In the picture above, we took advantage of the light coming in from the glass ceiling behind her.

I had previously envisioned a picture similar to the one above, which I took with my 10-20mm wide-angle lens, using the architecture of the place as a fitting backdrop for my seventh photo session with Pia.
If the weatherman had been right, we would have stayed indoors a bit longer, but as it turned out, we were blessed with a gorgeous - if somewhat windy - day. We ended up in the courtyard of the Altes Schloß, where a few hundred white plastic chairs were set up in anticipation of an evening theater performance. We couldn't have wished for a better backdrop! And Pia just happened to have a black dress on!

First we tried it with the sun on her face. Then I ran around to the other side and went for the back-lighting.

I love both pictures. What do you think? Which do you prefer?
After surfeiting myself on black and white, we moved over to the nice old stone wall of the castle. Once again, here are two shots showing the effect of lighting placement. (Both use only ambient light.) This first one is a shot with the sunlight behind me (though we had some cloud cover making the light soft).

And then I swung around to the other side to face the light and get some sunshine on her hair. When I saw the pictures on the PC at home, I was amazed at how well the light and the colors of the wall matched what Pia was wearing. And I love the nice contrast between the castle wall's rough stones and the smooth curves of Pia's face, hair and clothes.

The weather was still on our side so we wandered over to the Neues Schloß, Stuttgart's sightseeing center. Sounds busy, but few people actually go right up to the building itself, so we made ourselves at home there, taking advantage of the fountains for a splash of fun in the background.

All natural light

For this last picture, I was using my Sony 16-105 all-around lens so that I could get close enough to hold a reflector under Pia's chin to throw back some sunlight into her face. The catch-light in her eyes comes from the white reflector.

And to think we did all this in just two hours while taking care of my 15-month-old baby at the same time! What a life!

A good night

2011-07-07T16:34:00.003+02:00

A good night

Last week I went downtown because I knew Chicago was playing at an open-air concert. Chicago was the first big pop band I ever heard live. That was in Williamsburg in 1980! Camera in hand - as always - I walked around the Schlossplatz and listened to the music for a while before being drawn over to the Königstrasse, Stuttgart's busiest shopping street. There's always something going on there.

A man was air-brushing tattoos on young people, allowing them to choose among the hundreds of stencils he has on display.

There were about eight bachelor and bachelorette parties cruising the main drag, looking for action. The tradition in Germany looks something like this: the person who is to be married the following day goes out with his or her friends, who are all dressed up to be as conspicuous as possible. I saw everything from policewomen to men in pink T-shirts. The betrothed usually has a vendor's tray (Bauchladen) with little things like condoms, chocolate bars and little bottles of schnapps. The people ask passers-by if they'd like to purchase something from them to help offset the cost of the wedding/the first therapy session/the honeymoon, etc. The groups are always in a good mood and not too pushy, so it's fun to talk to them.

A very nice surprise on this particular evening was hearing the first piano player I've ever seen out on the street in Stuttgart. I listened to him for a while, donated what I could and moved on. Then came the main attraction of the evening for me.

An American was dressed up in Oriental garb and juggling with fire. It was just dark enough to make the shots interesting.

He had quite a large captive audience which was listening to the concert from a distance and watching him from up close.

Yes, he really extinguished the fire in his mouth!

Just before the grande finalé when he threw the flaming skewers high up in the air and then caught them, he made large circles with his arms as he danced to the music of drums.

It was already an hour after sundown, so I decided to call it a night. This man retired before me, though he forgot to put away his wallet before nodding off.

Model, model on the wall

2011-07-06T11:29:00.002+02:00

Model, model on the wall...

When you are taking pictures of attractive models and have lots of time on your hands and the right equipment, the job should be easy, right? It is certainly easier than it would be if some of these circumstances were different. Yesterday everything went my way but after three hours and 300+ pictures, I was dead tired.

And yet I still had to look at the pictures, select the ones I liked and process the best 10%. That's the approximate number of publishable pictures I usually get from a day's worth of shooting. I look at them all in Adobe Lightroom, and immediately give them an "X" (reject) or a "P" (pick) rating. I never delete pictures during a shoot. First of all, it takes up precious time. Secondly, looking at the picture on your small camera monitor, you never know if there might be something interesting somewhere in the picture that you will be able to use. Before I close Lightroom, I delete the rejects so that I do not back them up on the second hard drive.
Then I look at my picks (in this case, 113 of 338) and make basic adjustments. I usually start with cropping. I have to straighten many of my pictures and take away the "boring bits". After I've cropped the picture, I'll make other basic adjustments such as exposure, white balance, contrast, sharpness and a vignette (if called for). Once the picture is in pretty good shape, I give it a "one-star" rating. If the picture really jumps out at me and I say to myself, "Wow! Not bad!", then I give it two stars. I gave 37 of these pictures one star.

The background to this shooting started in April, when Kristina and Sönke posed for our art group in the studio of the Werkstatthaus in Stuttgart. There were a dozen photographers trying to get pictures of the two of them, either alone or together. This time, Sönke wrote and asked if I could take some full-body shots of him for his sedcard (a brief portfolio of pictures for models). Since our art group was looking for something to do, I organized it on the evening of our monthly meeting and three photographers (and one helpful assistant!) showed up.

The thing I learned about full-body shots is that you need a stool or chair to stand on if your model is as tall as Sönke, especially if you want to frame him in front of a nice background. In the picture above, the sun was being reflected from a tall office building across the street, throwing some nice, warm indirect light on the wall. So if the light was so nice and warm, why are all these pictures in black and white? You tell me!

After looking at all the picks of my pics, I saw what a difference good lighting made and how it looked even better in black and white. Of course, in photography lighting is everything, but I sometimes forget that when I have attractive people and interesting backdrops in front of me!

We walked over to the Hamburger Fischmarkt, which opens tomorrow on the Karlsplatz, and used its bright red and green tents and table cloths as backgrounds for our pictures. I thought they looked good together with the models' black outfits. However, in hindsight, I see that the people stand out more if there isn't a bright color vying for attention.

In other pictures, I just thought the simplicity of the lines and the basic atmosphere of the picture was better suited to black and white.

Backlighting
At one point, we were shooting with the sun setting at our back. We got something that looked like this:

Then we moved around to the other side and got some good natural backlighting. I prefer the lighting in the picture below. Of course, there was a little bit of fill-flash used to brighten up their faces.

After nearly three hours, they did a last dance together and while Bärbel and Michael got some more shots of Kristina while Sönke, I went over and got some pictures at one of the outdoor restaurants.

In the end we thanked the people from the Fischmarkt who let us hang out on their "sets". They were very nice and said they hoped to see us when the market begins on Thursday. Will do!

A good day

2011-07-01T13:33:00.001+02:00

A good day

Just as I thought I had lost the "street magic" that had accompanied my Sony and me through Stuttgart these past two years, it reappeared on a hot, sunny day earlier this week. In town with an old Minolta 100-300 APO lens, Julia (in her stroller) and I (with my gear) strolled through the Schlosspark and up the Königstrasse and back down through the park, resting on brown benches and stretches of green grass to watch (and photograph) the day unfold before us.

In the park we watched the pigeons bathing in the fountains. At 14 months, Julia is still pleasantly fascinated by the flying rats. This proud mama pigeon - or should I call her a dove? - was apparently waiting for her partner...

...who joined her on a neighboring fountain, came and left again.

When we walked past the train station into a back alley where the scaffolding was being taken down from a building that had just been refurbished.
About scaffolding: somewhere around 15 years ago my good friend Mil told me in passing that she had been having dreams about scaffolding (her house needed some repairs, but who knows what the deep-psychological reason for the dreams was). I latched onto that thought, bought a little Ricoh camera (back in the film days, I usually used a Nikon 4004s, which was too heavy to carry around everywhere I went in Freiburg). For about six months I took pictures of scaffolding all around town and made a calendar for her, interspersing haiku and other verses among the pictures.
I presented it to her at Christmas and as she saw the first two pages, she said, "Did I ever tell you I have dreams of scaffolding?" Well, as she continued to turn the pages, she finally figured out she had. End of story: the calendar cured her. She never dreamed of it again.
The lines and composition seem to work well in this picture.

Moving up the main drag (Königstrasse), I noticed some young men throwing heavy old windows into a dumpster. Anticipating the next toss, I paused and caught them in action. In a different setting, you'd think they were cheering for Dirk Nowitski - as the pretty boy in the background looks on.

Since I hadn't been to the middle of town in a while, I walked past my favorite camera store and up to a city block that is being torn down. The following picture somehow reminds me of all those 9/11 pictures we've all seen.

Strolling back through town after picking up the latest issue of "Luftballon" (for which I am the photographer), I saw this man taking refuge from the sun under a cardboard box by his fountain (for he is always there), where the words "too late" on the side of the font seem a fitting caption for this scene.

We ended our walk four hours later back in the park, where I thought these chaise lounges near the beer garden would serve as a nice background for the silhouettes of the two resting bikers.

So the thrill of street photography has returned, which makes me very happy. Tonight I'm going out on a photo walk with friends in Ludwigsburg. Pictures will follow!

Wide angle skies

2011-06-29T21:02:00.001+02:00

Wide angle skies

Once you invest in a super wide angle lens - 10-20mm in my case - you have the opportunity to see the world around you with different eyes. When I go through the city with my 70-300mm lens, I look into the distance and try to pick out interesting motifs. At 10mm, you capture the whole street and the sky to boot!
Back in college when I would walk across campus hand-in-hand with my girlfriend, my eyes often drifted up to the skies. To this day, when I see a beautiful sky, I think back to those days. Sunday evening I saw these small cumulus clouds forming around 9 p.m., grabbed my camera, a flash and two lenses and headed toward the quickly setting sun (sunset on that day in Stuttgart: 9:30). From the hill above our house I took the picture above at 9:11.
Then I walked toward the west, hoping to get the tower of the Gaisburg church in a nice silhouette with the clouds as I had once. Down in the industrial area near our house I was dwarfed by trucks and warehouses, though, which provided ugly foregrounds. But if I crop out the 12 trucks directly in front of me, the sky is pretty decent. What I first mistook for lightning turned out to be the truckers taking pictures of the sky with their point-and-shoots. This was not the time for me to teach a lesson on a camera's manual mode, nor was this the perfect pedagogical setting.

Around 9:40 I took a few shots and then watched as the orange color slowly left the sky. I figured I had seen the best of that evening's sunset already because it was becoming dark, so I headed back through the warehouses, getting some wide-angle shots of wood pallets and sides of buildings that I might be able to use as backgrounds in Photoshop someday. Someday when I figure out how to do that!
Then I saw that as the sky began to darken, the bright orange bottoms of the clouds turned dark red. I headed to the bridge over highway B10 and saw a wondrous sky just seven minutes later!

On the bridge over the Neckar River I used a much slower shutter speed than I had for the previous pictures, so it appears brightest of all. I wanted the river to have a smooth surface, which you can only get with a slow shutter speed. In any case, at 9:50 the sun was perfectly placed behind the bridge.

Review of "Another Day with Jay Maisel"

2011-06-23T16:24:00.002+02:00

Review of "Another Day with Jay Maisel"

If you missed this - and you probably did if you are here in Germany because the three-hour webcast started at midnight on June 6 - I want to try to summarize some of what was said so you can benefit from this master photographer's experience.
In a post from last summer just before the Worldwide Photo Walk, I wrote down some tips garnered from Scott Kelby's training video for street photography called "A Day with Jay Maisel": pack light, walk slowly, be prepared, look for the gesture, be open to new images, set your camera to guarantee you get the shot (high ISO and shutter speed), enjoy yourself and be friendly to those you meet (and may therefore want to photograph).
In this second video and webcast, the viewer goes away with even more of a sense of Jay's photographic frame of mind (pardon the pun). In addition, you got a sense of Scott Kelby's amiability, which at times borders on obsequiousness, though that is also part of the video's charm. Scott keeps coming back to the instructional purpose of the walk, putting easy-to-learn labels on what they are going after. It basically all boils down to gesture, light and color.

Equipment: Body and glass

1/320 sec, f5.6, 400 ISO, 300mm

Scott knew that the audience would be interested in their equipment, so he got those facts out on the table right away. During the webcast, a lot of people continued to ask what kind of camera and lens were in use. On the first walk, Jay and Scott had Nikon D3s cameras with 70-300mm lenses. This time Jay has left the second lens home, the 24-70 he had in his belt pack, and is carrying only a 28-300. I asked in the webcast if the quality of that lens was good enough (I am not familiar with that Nikon lens but know that such super zooms are often less than stellar in quality). He answered, "If it wasn't, I wouldn't be using it." With that kind of range on your camera, you can go out open to whatever happens. Otherwise, I think you would normally say to yourself, "Today I'm feeling like shooting with a wide-angle lens [or a telephoto lens]."
Something else Jay always leaves at home is his lens hood. At the onset of the first walk, he tried to convince Scott that it just made him look intimidating. Nevertheless, Scott had it on his lens (backwards) until Jay reminded him that he didn't need it.

A good day with Jay

1/1000sec, f8, 400 ISO, 135mm

As unspectacular as some of his pictures appeared to be, one got the sense that Jay goes out to have fun and doesn't like bowing to other people's rules. He shoots in dappled light. He doesn't shoot a pick-up game of soccer because it wouldn't be fun spending an hour trying to get a good picture. Scott, on the other hand, seems to know and want to adhere to "the rules", such as using a lens hood to fight flare and add contrast to your pictures. On the other hand, one of the rules Jay handed out on the first walk was that you should keep shooting and not look at the display so much during your walk. But this time they were both spending a lot of time comparing shots and checking what they had just shot.
One of the great joys of watching Jay take pictures is seeing the child in him having fun. He admits that he keeps shooting because he enjoys seeing something he has never seen before: a certain light, a combination of colors, an interesting gesture.
Again and again, we see Jay following an important bit of his own advice: If someone allows you to take their picture, make the most of it. He walks through the streets, admittedly "looking like an idiot who is having a good time" and thinks people will be least suspicious of someone (acting) like that. Now and then he finds someone who stands there and lets him take her picture. He takes several and then says thank you.

Cropping: Making the most of the frame

1/1000sec, f7.1, 800 ISO, 280mm

Jay teaches his students to crop in the camera. "It's a discipline," he says. "If you say to yourself, 'I'll do it later,' then you get sloppy." He said in the first video that he doesn't like it when people take quick pictures without framing their subjects carefully. In this video he talks about "watching the corners", especially with a wide-angle lens (because there is so much more in the corners to watch). If you have distracting elements in the corners and edges, then the viewer won't be able to concentrate on the main motif. Plus, "The center is going to work out; that's what attracted me in the first place." At this point in his career, he says he tries harder to eliminate bad elements from his photographs than to put good elements in them. How many of us can claim to take pictures that way?
Jay doesn't like using the word "composition" (though he studied art and knows very well how important it is) but rather "framing" and "cropping". "The composition is already there," he says, underlining the improvisational aspect of his sort of street photography.

Exposures: Catching the action

1/2000sec, f7.1, 800 ISO, 150mm

Jay brackets while shooting, so he takes three pictures of everything, and he shoots RAW and JPEGs. With the D3s, a 12MP camera, that takes up a lot of memory. At one point in the first half of the video he "runs out of film" and has to put in a new memory card. The D3s has twin card slots, allowing you to record the same data on two cards simultaneously, or RAW on one and JPEG on the other (which is probably what Jay does), and transfer data from one card to another. So either he was using relatively small cards (8GB or smaller) or we didn't see but a fraction of the pictures he took that day.
He says his assistants post-process his shots to make them look like what he originally saw. He doesn't like to spend time in front of the computer; he'd rather be out shooting.
He shoots at ISO 1600 (on a sunny day!) and sets his aperture at f11-14 so that he can capture the shots he wants. Scott was using a lower ISO and realized that was reason his shots were not as sharp as Jay's. Jay seems to not listen to what people write about the physics of optics. Apparently, most lenses are sharpest two stops down from their maximum open aperture. He also doesn't care much about separating his main motif from the background (with a wide aperture) because at f14 everything is going to be sharp.
With the D3s there is practically no noise at 3200 and even 6400 is still acceptable. He admitted to having shot a concert at 12,800 ISO. For a full-frame 12.1 MP camera that goes up to the equivalent of ISO 102,400, what would you expect? In the meantime, I've been shooting with my Sony A700 increasingly at higher ISOs during the day and must admit to having caught some things that previously would have been too blurry.
He pointed out that most prize-winning pictures are "shitty technically" because that's not what counts. The gesture is more important than the technical side - "it's the picture not the pixels"!

Inspiration: Staying fresh

1/1000sec, f6.3, 100 ISO, 17mm

For inspiration, Jay suggests going to a good museum. Of course, looking at the works of masters of photography such as Henri Cartier-Bresson will both keep you humble and show you that great moments of truth can be captured with a camera if you are skilled and prepared. One of his favorite pictures is Arnold Newman's photograph of Igor Stravinsky at the piano. He's motivated by the possibility of seeing something he's never seen before. What keeps you going?
You get good at photography by putting in your time and doing a lot of hard work. Social networking will help you make money, but it won't make you good, says Jay.
If you want to have fun, stay open to what happens in front of your lens when you are out on the street. Jay says that to learn the craft he would send students out on three different walks, each time concentrating on one of these three aspects: gesture, light or color.
So now you have your assignment - get shooting (and have fun!).

P.S. On the Digital Photography School website I saw a video of Leica photographer Eric Kim walking through the streets of L.A. snapping away. His style couldn't be more different from Jays. Check out the video here. An in between approach can be seen in this video about New York Leica photographer Jeff Mermelstein. I like what he says about his attitude toward his photography: "It's what I do. It's my way of responding to people." I think if we (amateur street) photographers were able to convince ourselves that we have a right to express ourselves through our artwork, then we would have fewer inhibitions about what we do.

Painting with light

2011-06-12T18:17:00.002+02:00

Painting with light

First attempts at a new artistic endeavor are bound to be disappointing unless you have no expectations. And I think this can only be the case when you are playing and not working toward any particular goals.
Of course "photography" means "writing with light" and serious photographers should always be aware that the light is the deciding factor in every picture they take. However, sometimes a motif - taken at an event, for example - needs to be captured and the artistic aspects of the photo become secondary. In such cases, a bit of luck may help turn a pictorial recording into an aesthetically pleasing piece of artwork.
At our art group's "happening" on Friday, June 10, at the appropriately named Lichtbildnerei, I did some light painting in performance with the people in attendance. Audience members who had never seen it done before seemed intrigued by the idea and had a chance to try it out themselves.

Before the performance, I practiced a bit at home first. This motif was on a 1978 record cover. Can you guess which one?

I think the most interesting designs are made when you outline - or form a pattern - with light close to the object. As in the first picture of Patrick above and the knapsack below, these detailed lines add little light to the picture as a whole, appearing more like a skeleton. I found f10 to work well on pictures lasting over 9 seconds. Of course it depends on the amount of ambient light and the distance of the camera to the object, as well as the intensity of the light.

Try it out yourself! Just put your camera on a tripod and set the shutter speed to at least 10 seconds or BULB if your DSLR has that setting so you can use your remote control. Make sure you are wearing dark clothes and try not to get yourself between the camera and the light. Have fun!
The picture below is a montage of four pictures - one for each letter - that I did for my artist friend. However, instead of painting the letters with a flashlight, I moved the camera and used a streetlight as the source of light.

Reflets dans l'eau

2011-06-08T23:13:00.001+02:00

Reflets dans l'eau

(Reflections on the water)

We have finally had some rain in Stuttgart after three very sunny months. Aside from getting caught out in a hailstorm on the weekend, it's been refreshing for the flowers and for allergy sufferers. For photographers, it's always nice to have more interesting sidewalks to pace.

The water in front of my door in the Neckar River provided a beautiful canvas for me recently. The river was calm, barely a breeze ruffled the surface.

The contrasting colors of the trees on the two banks made for a nice composition.

As the sun set, the sky provided all the colors one might need for a pretty scene.

Presets

2011-06-05T00:37:00.001+02:00

Presets

Vibrant

As I've suggested in earlier posts, once you've found a suitable motif - one that captures your fancy - then go ahead and "shoot it till it's dead". What you will then have is a collection of very similar shots and, if you're lucky, you may find all of them interesting. But your friends might not think that 77 pictures of your kid eating spaghetti are as captivating as you do.
One possible solution: presets. Most programs with which you process your pictures have presets that give your photos a certain look with one click. Just like the presets in your camera which can make your pictures extra vivid or sharp or full of contrast from the onset, post-processing presets - which you can also create yourself - provide you with time-saving steps for giving a group of pictures similar properties. For example, if you are planning to show a half-dozen pictures together, you may want them to share a similar color spectrum. Smart phones have apps that give the photos a blurry green, artsy-retro look. I'm sure you've seen them on Facebook. I am not sure why blurry green pictures are supposed to look artistic, but then there's a lot I don't understand.
Back to presets: In Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop or many other photo processing programs, there are presets available for free on the web or in magazines and they are fun to try out when you have a series of pictures you want to play around with. I even had one of mine published in the Dec. 2010 issue of Digital Photo. However, I believe the real art comes when you have your own vision and create presets for your pictures yourself.

High contrast

On a sunny day at a bike fest, it seems to me that high-contrast pictures are called for, whether they have bright colors or almost none. Bikes have lots of lines and curves and they look coolest when you can see them clearly. Right?

Low saturation

You may, on the other hand, want to play with the opposite of what you would normally choose and see if you feel the look and the content are in accord. It's OK if they aren't; many people will then be able to recognize it as art.

Blue look

Here you see several different looks that I tried out by starting with existing presets in Lightroom and then tweaking them to my liking.

Framed

This one, for example, had a pretty cool black frame-like vignette around it that would have taken me several minutes to create myself. Again, you can keep some aspects of a preset - the coloring, contrast, vibrancy, clarity, etc. - and change others to your suit your aesthetic sensibility.
These last two pictures below have very similar contents and yet each one has a fairly different feel to it. Can you put your finger on what the differences are? Which one do you prefer? Why?

Riding high

Riding low

Backlighting

2011-05-28T13:37:00.002+02:00

Backlighting

Recently I was showing some of my current favorite pictures to a friend who has 50 years' experience in the field, both as a photographer and teacher. She picked up the prints and looked at them with a poker face, giving me no hint as to her judgement. Then she lay them down one by one, as if she were showing a Las Vegas dealer her royal flush and said, "Backlighting, backlighting, backlighting, backlighting, backlighting!"

Although I was certainly aware of the advantages backlighting can lend a photograph, I hadn't noticed that my favorites this time were all backlit. Soon afterward, I set out with my favorite model and tested some frontlighting and backlighting situations.

Fiona was up on Oma's balcony where the evening sun shone right into her face and, as a bonus, light was kicking up from the yellow-and-white striped awning below her. It was as if I had a 20'x40' California Sunbounce right under her chin! The combination fills her eyes with light and creates a pleasant golden patina on her skin.

Then we went out front and she rode her roller back and forth - first into the light...

...and then away from the setting sun. As could be expected, she had to squint her eyes a bit when facing the bright sun. On the other hand, there is a nice catch-light in her eyes, making them look alive. The golden tint of the sun can be seen on her skin and on the foliage behind her. Her hair nearly blends in with the background in some places.

With backlighting her hair stands out clearly from the background and there are no harsh shadows on her face. There was still enough ambient light to make her face clearly visible. If that hadn't been the case, I'd have had to work with a flash set-up. In contrast to the photo below, the one above has her positioned almost directly between the sun and me. In the picture below, the sun crept onto part of her face. If you don't meter for such highlights, the details get lost in the bright areas and there is nothing you can do to get them back.

Backlighting is an advantageous lighting situation for your models. In the studio, a "kick light" is directed at the back of the subject, usually to highlight the hair and separate the model from the background. In outdoor situations that is not always possible, but by having your subject between yourself and the light and carefully metering for the highlights, you can capture some of that studio feeling in your photos. Backlighting is so popular in glamor photography that it is often coupled with decreased clarity (a slight blur) and brightened corners to add that dreamy look to the picture, as in the photo below.

Sometimes backlighting makes the picture what it is; without it, there would be less to enjoy!

Sängerkrieg der Heidehasen

2011-05-26T23:09:00.002+02:00

Sängerkrieg der Heidehasen

Imagine Wagner's Meistersänger von Nürnberg sung by children acting as little rabbits and you may be able to imagine what I heard in Obertürkheim last weekend. But this was special because even the audience got to get into the act by singing the third verse of a German folksong after the entrance march.

Every Friday since Christmas the children's choir has been rehearsing the musical by James Krüss under the guidance of Ruth Kurz. Sometimes the afternoons grow long and it takes a great deal of concentration to keep up with the intricate musical and theatrical details.

The victorious Meistersänger, as it turns out, is the handsome young Benno Herz, who also had a speaking role in last year's musical, Löwenherz.

With singers ranging in age from 6-12, pulling everything together must have been a real challenge for the music director as well as for the theatrical directors, Sabine Strizelberger and Uschi Osdoba, who spent an intensive, long weekend in April rehearsing with the children in a village in the country. For many of them, this was their first time away from their parents so they learned about being on their own, too.

The winner of the singing competition gets to marry the princess - as in all good fairy tales, right?

But during the singing competition, two wonderful songs were sung by the twins, Katharina (above) and Minja (below) Bosien. Katharina did a great job sounding like a warbling old Eurovision retiree.

And Minja's rendition of her song certainly would have won "douze points" from Finland, which has a taste for this style of music.

One of the greatest rewards for attending - and photographing - children's stage performances is capturing some of the real moments that the kids offer us.

And of course they seem especially cute if the child is your own!

It was again a pleasure to watch Emma Herz perform. She has such a wide range of facial gestures and incredible stage presence. I predict a great future on stage for her. She is Benno's big sister.

After two performances - with the main roles being played by different people each time - the curtain fell on this production. What lies in the wings for this troupe is anyone's guess, but it will definitely be worth attending!

The Red Wheelbarrow

2011-05-26T18:35:00.001+02:00

The Red Wheelbarrow

so much depended

upon

this red wheelbarrow

razed by time,

hanging now

from the junkyard

wall.

(With apologies to William Carlos Williams)

I've never understood why Williams' original poem was so important and taught in English classes across the country. But somehow it has stuck in my head and when I saw this mess of a wheelbarrow hanging over the wall of the local junkyard, I thought of it.

Portrait of a lady in Esslingen

2011-05-18T15:56:00.002+02:00

Portrait of a lady in Esslingen

A fellow artist from the Stuttgart region needed a profile picture for her upcoming exhibition, so she asked me to take some pictures of her. I was delighted at the request because I had secretly been hoping to be able to do so. I hadn't seen any photos on her website or facebook page that did her justice, so I set out to change that.

She lives an hour east of Stuttgart, so we decided to meet in Esslingen, where she teaches once a week. With my little girl in tow, we strolled through the picturesque town on the Neckar River, setting up the lights whenever a nice background presented itself. In the picture above, you can see the river and a half-timbered house behind her. What you don't see is the kindergarten class that passed by right behind me, making it difficult for Gabriele to keep a straight face for this shot.

A stone wall leading up from the river into the old town served as a nice backdrop to this "American" portrait of the artist [edit: This is a medium shot. An "American shot" goes down to the knee. My lens was not wide enough for that and wide angle lenses shouldn't be used anyway when taking such portraits]. Granted, the background may seem inconsequential here, but I think the feeling it conveys does add a nice touch.

There was a beautifully weeping willow tree hanging over the river which provided a wonderful background and natural light softener as well. The green leaves go well with both her eyes and the jewelry she is wearing.

The technical side of the tale
In 90 minutes we were able to shoot in seven different settings. It was something I had always wanted to do - walk around a lovely town with a nice, pretty, patient model and make the most of the situation.
Since you can never count on the available light to be shining in the right direction with the right intensity in such situations, strobes and reflectors are a necessity. I had a big white Lastolite trigrip that I either flashed through or used to fill the dark side of her face. A strobe flashing into an umbrella provided the catch light in her eyes most of the time. A second flash was used for fill, too.
I had to set up the umbrella or hold the reflector close enough to her eyes to show up, so I was fairly limited in my use of lens. I chose the light and bright Minolta 1.7/50mm for the first two pictures here and switched to a Tamron 2.8/90mm for the last two. Prime lenses are great for such jobs because you have already set up and don't have to move around a lot. Besides, if you are holding a reflector or flash in one hand and the camera in the other, it is difficult to zoom in anyway.

In the end we were both satisfied with the results. Now on to the next challenge!

Lemon concentrate

2011-05-11T14:51:00.005+02:00

Lemon concentrate

Lemonade serenade (thanks to Liz for that caption!)

One of the photography groups I'm in pursues one particular theme at a time, trying to come up with a series of pictures that exemplify that theme. After the catch-all "Time", which resulted in some interesting photos, the present focus is on the idea of "Concentration".
However, after a few meetings the results were somewhat meager. So last month the leader sent the group members home, challenging them to photograph a lemon. I had heard that you can really learn about lighting by taking pictures of an egg because you see how the light forms around it as you move either one. So I figured this challenge was similar.

Then it hit (or rather tickled) my bilingual brain: "lemon concentrate"! The double-meaning of the words is present in German and English, so I figured the pun was intended. In any case, it made for an interesting evening of lighting experiments in my studio!

My daughter tried some lemon juice recently and got her first concentrated shot of sour juice!

I'll end this blog with a little tip from a friend of mine: If you want to know where the light was set (where it was coming from), then follow the shadows and you'll find the light!

Reflections, Part III

2011-05-02T09:23:00.023+02:00

Reflections, Part III

The Germans say, "Alle guten Dinge sind drei", which roughly translates as "Three's a charm". Since I've gotten positive feedback on my reflection series, here's a third part for you before I move on with more architecture photos.
The third piano piece in Debussy's "Images" is called "Poissons d'or" and provides the listener with the impression of goldfish (like the koi above) darting through a pool (like this one in the Wilhelma Zoo here in Stuttgart). The reflection of the lines from the glass roof emphasize the message that these fish are indeed captive - yet have a captive audience!

In this atypical image of a Ford with automatic transmission parked in front of a corrugated aluminum house with iron bars on the windows, only the tiled roof seems to belong in Germany where the picture was taken.

Alanis Morissette might have sung, "Isn't it ironic that one-of-a-kind people are the ones you'd want to clone." Well my friend Jim is one of them. He and I went to a wonderful photo exhibit by Rupert Leser in the Haus der Geschichte in January and then went for a walk past the Staatsgalerie because it was such a nice day. The world famous architecture of that building (first brought to my attention by my step-brother Ken, both an architect and an outstanding artist) provides the reflection collector (my Sony Alpha 700 and Minolta 28mm lens in this case) with a series of growing - or, if you read right to left, declining - figures.

The florescent lights inside the museum provided the sun rays or crown (cloud?) of thorns (take your pick) in this pic.

This may be my choice of picture to hang over my sofa in a large format. I like the minimalistic, washed out, desert-like look to downtown Stuttgart in this picture. Now if I only had room on my walls!

Moonrise followed by sunrise

2011-05-01T23:03:00.001+02:00

Moonrise followed by sunrise

Last night my photographer's sixth sense kept me awake or at least woke me up at 5 a.m.
On my way downstairs I looked out the window and saw this:

Over the next hour I checked out nature's wonders and headed out again with my Tamron 70-200mm and let my click-click at 6:15 play counterpoint to the birds' lovely chirp-chirp.

Reflections, II

2011-04-30T16:01:00.003+02:00

Reflections, Part II

Germany is well known for its automobiles and, at least where I come from, for its solidly built houses. This combination can be captured in a single photograph and, depending on the quality of the light, can give the viewer a surprise as his eyes wander back and forth from the surface of the window glass or polished exterior into the car's interior. Try it yourself:

Obviously, not every car parked in front of a house in Germany was produced here. And not every house was made by German labor. I'll bet you already knew that!

And not every car with a Mercedes star on it is a Mercedes! Can you guess what make the car above is? Hint: it was co-manufactured by SWATCH.

The right angle and lighting produce a visual ambiguity that create a new figure in the viewer's mind. I particularly like the contrast between the round steering wheel and the rigid steel bars on the gate.

As many different makes and models of cars there are in Germany, there are even more styles of homes. Regional styles of architecture vary due to a number of factors, including availability of building materials, amount of destruction during the war, wealth of the population and personal taste. The picture above shows what I consider a typical Stuttgart apartment building with its flower pot on the trash bin encasing.

This compact car looks futuristic, in contrast to the building it was parked in front of.

How many visual layers do you see in this picture?

I see the interior of the car, the Mercedes parked to its right, the reflection in the right-hand side mirror, the reflection in the driver's window and the reflections in the cars parked to its left.

The rear end of a flat-back car is also a rewarding surface for reflecting on your surroundings.

Most of these pictures were taken with a wide-angle lens (Tamron 17-50mm), which gave me the ability to capture a lot of glass from relatively close-up. As you can see in this last picture, there is usually only about 5 ft. of sidewalk between the cars and the building.

So grab your camera and see what surprises await you on the streets near you!

Reflections, Part I

2011-04-28T16:01:00.001+02:00

Reflections, Part I

One of my first favorite piano pieces was Claude Debussy's "Reflets dans l'eau" or "Reflections on the water". If you don't know it yet, listen to this recording by the inimitable Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli. In this impressionistic piece of music you can close your eyes and imagine different intensities of light bouncing off the rippling water.
Every day we are confronted with reflecting surfaces of buildings, cars, sunglasses, etc. We usually take them at face value, but it is fun to allow our brains to connect the surface with the reflection, which is all the camera knows how to do.

The tension with which these panes of glass were framed results in a playful collection of individual views of the surrounding trees and houses.

Birds of warning fly through the landscape of stone and glass. The sunlight in the photo's upper third adds a pleasing variety of saturation to the bricks in the picture.

Here is another example of the beautiful weaving patterns that bent panes can produce. I also like the third visual plane in this picture: the staircase inside the building which offers its own set of lines.

These birds seem to be at home flying through the urban clouds. The sweep of the reflection and change in saturation toward the bottom of the panes contrasts with the right angles provided by the frame.
Once again, it is worthwhile to see the reflection for what it is, or even better, notice how it interacts with the reflecting surface.

Architecture photography

2011-04-13T01:15:00.001+02:00

Architecture photography

An old friend of mine from high school, David Lamb, does architectural photographer. I'm sure he could teach me a lot about the rules of that genre. I've noticed that buildings have been catching my eye more and more lately: the patterns, the light, the reflections in the windows, the size and shapes relative to the surroundings, etc.
Well, this post about this one picture is to form a segue between my street photography and a few posts about architecture photography as I now understand it. Here is a picture right out of the camera.

Why did I take it? Because I could; the two women were not looking my way but added an interesting contrast of curves to this cubist backdrop. Click!
I immediately picked up on the potential of the converging lines: sunlight dropping down in the top right corner and dark railing rising up at the bottom right. And I liked how the brownish-grays seemed to match. Now what was I going to do with my two unsuspecting models?

I decided to simplify things and make it only one. Single girl in the city. I blurred the background, gave her some clarity and saturation, and tried to maintain the converging lines.
"But she's walking out of the picture," you say.
Right. Don't want to break that rule (because there's no good reason to)!

So I positioned her vertically at the back-end of the picture, saving the converging lines. Looks better, don't you think? Then as a last version, I tried a square crop to see what that would look like.

In this one she is still walking out of the picture, so let's zoom in a bit and get her back where she belongs.

No more converging lines, but I think the rising railing works well to hold her up in the picture. What do you think? How important is a crop?

Window shopping

2011-04-08T22:58:00.001+02:00

Window shopping

You could buy a big window in this shopping cart!

Germans like to really let it all hang out sometimes - but according to a pre-arranged schedule, of course! In this case, Stuttgart decided to let people shop in the downtown area until midnight...once. You Americans may be saying "So what?", but in a country where opening times for stores are more complicated to read than operating instructions for a GM Hummer ("Get in. Guzzle. Get out."), this was a pretty big deal.
I don't know who was responsible for the weather on April 2, but it was perfect so there were thousands of shoppers, strollers and partiers downtown on Saturday evening. Fifty regular sized shopping carts secured with bike locks and filled with dirt and spring flowers were set out on the Königstrasse the week before the BIG EVENT.
I didn't really know what to expect and had no particular plans, so I was pleasantly surprised to see the Stuttgart Ballet performing in the window of the Breuniger Department Store.

They had choreographed a piece for twelve dancers especially for this day, performing the ten-minute dance four times. I caught the last performance at 8 p.m.

We don't normally get to see the dancers so close-up, which is perhaps a good thing if you like to imagine that the dancers float effortlessly across the stage. I'm here to tell you that these dancers are a mixture of muscle and muscle. Oh, and did I mention: muscle?

In order to entertain the audience, which they knew would consist mostly of casual passers-by, they added a light touch to the piece, dancing in five inches of popcorn and at one point sucking up some kernels and spitting them back out. As much fun as the audience was supposed to have, it looks like the ballet world is opposed to looking like it is having fun. Not a smile, not a smirk, not even a glimmer of humor could be seen in the eyes - not even from up close.

These pictures were perfect candidates for black-and-white processing because the colors were not interesting and the contrasting light and dark skin tones are what grabs the eye.
In Monday's newspaper the performance was reported on and there was a picture of me holding up my camera above the bobbling heads in front of me. I've drawn an arrow to make it easier for you to see me.

See the popcorn? Now go make yourself some, grab a coke and watch a short movie of the dance project.
After the performance, I walked through Breuniger briefly for the first time in my nine years in Stuttgart. This high-end department store certainly caters to people probably much different from me. I felt uncomfortable being in there after two minutes. (I'm just saying that €120 for a nylon jacket in the "College Look" for seven-year-old boys is at this point beyond my comprehension. And €50 for shorts for six-year-old girls? Sorry, I don't get it.)

Julia's baptism

2011-03-28T23:38:00.002+02:00

Julia's baptism

This past weekend we baptized Julia April in the Gaisburg Lutheran church, which is where Fiona was baptized as well. There were several well-equipped photographers in attendance, so these pictures are mostly theirs (M. Volz and B. Demmer). A wonderful collection of Jim Palik's photos can be viewed on his website.

A neighbor said to Bianca recently, "Oh, a younger third child! Third children are the ones you can really enjoy. You work so hard with the first one, then you struggle to juggle two. By the time you get to number three, you know how to do everything. Enjoy her!"

Julia responded to the first notes from the organ with keyboard-like arm movements. When Bianca's choir, Stimma Dizza, performed, she scooted right up front to help conduct.

Dear friends of our served as Julia's godparents. Barbara and Bianca sang in a church choir together when they were in their teens. Christine and I went to William and Mary together and have been in close contact ever since she moved to Germany in 1989, a year before me.

We had a wonderful brunch up in the woods behind our house at a Turkish-run retreat house, the Waldheim Raichberg (check it out!). There Julia was showered with gifts and attention.

Our friend Jim enjoyed giving Julia some special grandfatherly attention.

For once I was paying more attention to my daughter than to my Sony.

A power nap at two o'clock was enough to get her through the day just fine. I've never seen a baby enjoy a day as much as Julia did this one! And I think that helped everyone involved enjoy it that much more.

Where do the children play?

2011-03-26T15:12:00.002+01:00

Where do the children play?

Remember the song by Cat Stevens? All about rolling on roads over fresh green grass? This picture seems to capture the spirit of that song for me. Fiona and her friend Sarah were skating on our street the other day, always on the look-out for cars, even though we live at the end of a cul-de-sac. Well, this is where our children play.

The song continues: "Get what you want to if you want, 'cause you can get anything." With today's advancements in technology, we can burn oil and make cars move and even split atoms to release energy. We can, but should we? As Yusuf Islam wrote just before the oil crisis of the 1970s, we can apparently get anything, but is it the responsible thing to do?

And yet when we think of an honest man doing an honest day's work, whom do we think of? You may be like me and picture the construction worker, who just does his job, laying brick on brick to build a house. Sometimes I think we're all a little bit like the main character in "Smallcreep's Day", a book about a man who works in a huge factory but doesn't know what the end product is. When he gets curious and sets out to find the answer, you can imagine what happens.
But shouldn't we all be a bit more like Pinquean Smallcreep, a bit more curious about what happens at the end of the line? Otherwise, our knowledge will remain veiled from us and from those around us.

Cat Stevens' song continues: "Well you've cracked the sky, scrapers fill the air, but will you keep on building higher 'til there's no more room up there?" That is a good question. Where is the limit? Aren't we at a point now where we're just cleaning up after ourselves? You know we've gotten to a scary point in civilization when young people are told that the most secure job they can aspire to is "nuclear waste management engineer". (I almost wrote "safest job"!)

The gaps in our knowledge are not easy to fill, though scientist are making progress every day.

"I know we've come a long way, we're changing day to day. But tell me, where do the children play."

Studio II

2011-03-23T22:23:00.001+01:00

Studio II

Last year I rented the photo studio in the Werkstatthaus for a day and, with the help of Jim Palik, set up the lights and photographed several of my friends who were kind enough to come and pose for me. I remember it being hard work - not something I would like to do every day - but the rewards of the crisp pictures were great enough to make me want to do it again.

From April 2010

A year has passed, my knowledge of photography has improved, and this past weekend I was at it again. This time, however, I was leading a workshop for photographers who wanted to learn more about studio lighting. The participants were mostly members of an art group I belong to at the DAZ in Stuttgart. I had booked two models through a casting agent and a make-up artist through the Model-Kartei to help us out.

Kristina and Sönke

As you can well imagine, a photographer's job is made much easier when the subject in the picture is something or someone people want to look at anyway. The Alps at sunset taken from an airplane. The Great Wall of China. An attractive model. Well, we had two attractive young people there, and Alessandro had them looking good for the cameras. He also took some pictures, staying with us the during the entire shoot.

I decided against using the strobes because with even a half-dozen eager photographers wanting to snap pose after pose, you need continuous light. Everyone jockeyed into position to get a fair shot of the couple. We pretty much ignored the rule whereby you have one main light and one fill light and have the model look into the main light. I think we ignored lots of rules of studio photography, but part of the learning curve here was dealing with the pressure of having someone standing there in front of the lights who is waiting for you to do your work while they do theirs. It is hard work for those on both sides of the camera.

After an hour, Cihan (in the white cap above) designated himself the group's director and, together with Bärbel, started to make up little scenarios which allowed Kristina and Sönke to become involved with each other and ignore the cameras to some extent. The pictures improved greatly from that moment onward.

The Werkstatthaus is a beautiful old villa on a hill with picturesque staircases and interesting hallways. We took advantage of the windows and the stairways, using available light. When the golden sunlight shone in through the window in the studio, we were all in awe of the wonderfully strong highlights and shadows it produced.

Most of my favorite pictures were made possible by the beautiful light from the windows.

Some artistic pictures resulted from my keeping my eyes open. Here Kristina is reflected in the abstract painting on the wall.

I was trying out a new lens (f1.4/85mm by Walimex, a Korean manufacturer) to see how sharp it was at around f2 under good lighting conditions. It did fairly well. The couple pictures above were taken with it. When I shot into the light late in the afternoon, though, it flared even when I stopped it down to f8. But the result was artsy!

In two weeks our art group will meet to discuss workflow and post-processing of pictures. Please leave your comments here with any tips you have.

Kölle Alaaf!

2011-03-14T10:05:00.001+01:00

Kölle Alaaf! Karneval in Köln

After attending the small town parade with friends on Sunday in Forsbach, I took the train in to Köln for the largest Monday parade in Europe. I didn't want to catch candy or see the clever political parodies on the floats. I just wanted to take some pictures of the people who were there. What were the costume themes this year? How rowdy would it be? A sunny and rather warm day for such a parade - where the winter is supposed to be driven out - is a rarity, so I just had to go!

The light streamed into the train station through the high glass wall facing the cathedral. The guests arrived out of the dark tunnel into the sunlight, offering a wide range of delightful costumes.

Some people may have had second thoughts about being seen in public with their friends, but that problem is nothing that can't be solved by a shared bottle of something that warms from the inside.

Many people milled around the square between the station and the cathedral, waiting for friends or action or both.

Of course when you are expecting record numbers of visitors, the security must be tight. Even little leopards were not allowed to mount the steps to the bleachers to see the parade. You need special permission for such luxury.

And for the big people there were big police officers who appeared to be prepared for anything.

As the afternoon progressed, the sunshine seemed to have helped this officer see the humor in being shot at by a clown's toy arrow. (Actually the clown was aiming at the bottles lined up next to the policeman.)

Remember how the Germans used to make fun of the big eyeglasses worn by Americans? Well, they are in fashion over here now. To what extent was Ingrid Michaelson responsible for that?

Ladybugs, princesses, smurfs, hippies, vampires and devils were all well represented this year. The cell phone appeared to be a necessary accessory for everyone.

I wanted a picture of a devil with the cathedral in the background. Katja, whom I met there, was nice enough to pose for me. (I tried to send the picture to you, but your e-mail inbox was full!)

Forsbach alaaf!

2011-03-12T23:20:00.001+01:00

Forsbach alaaf!

For those of you who aren't acquainted with the intricacies of the Rhineland dialect, "D'r zoch kütt" means "Der Zug kommt" or "The parade is coming". The first tractor usually has a sign announcing this so that the people can start getting into position.

Position? What's the best position to watch a parade?, you ask. It depends on who you are and why you are there.

For the people who are lucky enough to live on the parade route, that means serving up glasses of Kölsch - the beloved regional brew - to friends who stop by to visit.

For traditionally dressed parade-goers, who have seen this procession 35 times already and have good connections to the people on the floats, it means downing another glass of golden and looking for a place in a clearing. You see, the special guests may have large boxes of assorted chocolates or soccer balls thrown to them from their friends on the passing floats. In Forsbach this year they were even throwing packages of cocktail tomatoes, eggplants and avocados!

For viewers, it means "Carry on as usual" because they've been preparing for this moment over the past two months, increasing their alcohol tolerance levels at parties every weekend since Christmas.

For fathers of little children, it means you make sure your kids are out on the curb in the front row where they'll be able to catch the most candy.

For Carnival Connoisseurs "D'r zoch kütt" means to start singing along with the first band you hear at the end of the street.

For those who are accompanying out-of-town, first-time Carnival guests, it means you had better give them a bit of reassurance that you are glad they are there and whatever you do in the course of the next hour or two is nothing more than a result of the effects the alcohol has had on you.

Even first-graders know what "D'r zoch kütt" means. They've been watching the parade from their father's shoulders for years and are happy to finally be able to stand up front on the street with their friends and fill their bags with candy.

What did you say? Huh? Oh, the bands are loud. Yes they are. Even the babies need to wear protection at the Kölner Karneval!

The Aftermath

When the parade has passed by, the clean-up crew is right there to sweep up and make the street passable once again. Children do a good job of picking up all the candy, but the wrappers and broken glass is the job for the men in orange.
The children each leave with a couple of bags full of candy which they will dump out on the living room floor (reminiscent of American Halloween rituals), sort the edible from the inedible and then commence to beg their parents if they can have "just one more".

Achieving goals

2011-02-26T23:34:00.002+01:00

Achieving goals

Dan Moore and Leonard Nimoy

When I was in high school, I shared a room during my senior year with Dan, who was a film freak and a Trekkie. I admired him - then as now - for his devotion to and enthusiasm for his passions. When John Williams, the composer of the "Star Wars" theme played in nearby South Bend with the Boston Pops, Dan took a bus up there and somehow finagled his way into the green room where he got to shake Mr. Williams' hand and take some pictures of one of his idols. When he got back to our room that evening, he discovered that his camera didn't have any film in it. He cried and I felt sad for him until two months ago.

Dan behind the camera in 1990

In his Christmas card he reported that he made a film with John Williams and got to take the picture again - after 30 years! The year before that, he was involved in the making of the "Star Trek" movie and sent me the picture of him and Spock along with the attached note. What a present! Dan is a video operator in L.A. and has worked with Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise, Tim Burton, Leonard Nimoy, Steven Spielberg and many others. Following his passion has helped him achieve his teenage goals - and aren't they often the ones we're secretly most passionate about?


At our tenth high school reunion with fellow roommate Mark Johnson

I've written about having achieved one of these secret teenage goals: becoming a Genesis roadie. Well, connected to that dream was the idea to take photographs at a Genesis concert and have the band use my pictures in their program.

Well, last March I took pictures at two shows put on by Martin Levac and band. He is a Phil Collins look-alike/sound-alike/act-alike and I like what he does! A wonderful musician and a warm, generous man, he and his manager allowed me to take pictures at his shows in Stuttgart and Mannheim. I sent him the best pictures, as agreed, and today in the mail I received a signed copy of the program for his upcoming tour.

I was blown away to see that he had used five of my pictures in the program and, of course, given me credit.

Page 7 of the program


Page 11 of the program


Page 12 of the program

To round out an awesome day, I went to a concert performed by the SWR Vocal Ensemble, which sang an a cappella versions of several songs by Gustav Mahler, including "Urlicht", "Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen", the Adagietto from his Fifth Symphony (with a text by Eichendorff which Richard Strauss used in his Four Last Songs!) and "Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen", which Maureen Forrester told me was her favorite song by Mahler.

Oh, and to make it a perfect day, we picked out a secondary school for our son. He'll be doing lots of art the next eight years!

So I will end with one more picture from Martin in Mannheim (which he will revisit on March 7, 2011) and wish you all a good night!

Protest

2011-02-25T13:21:00.001+01:00

Protest

At the end of March German citizens in Baden-Württemberg will go to the polls to elect a governor (Ministerpräsident). The man currently serving a term in office was not elected but was installed after the previous one was sent to Brussels to be the EU commissioner for energy.

This poster reads: We are the people - Stop S21

The German train company's plans to put the Stuttgart station underground has got the residents of this state's capital up in arms. The Swabians are known for their "Kehrwoche", which was explained to me by a Canadian friend thus: "You sweep the stairs from top to bottom and then throw away the matchbox full of dust in the trashcan. Outside you sweep until enough neighbors have seen you to provide an alibi in case someone should accuse you of having passed on the sign without doing your duty." You see, the person who is in charge of cleaning the snow in front of the house and sweeping the stairwell passes on a "Kehrwoche" sign once the work has been done.

Demonstrators hope to sweep out the old government

Many people in northern Germany aren't even aware of this custom, but that did not stop the protesters recently from waving their brooms and mops in protest. There were just over 13,000 people at the demonstration, which started lat Saturday at the Schloßplatz in the center of town and then paraded through the streets past the train station.

The protest moves into the streets

A marketing firm volunteered to create a logo and then came up with this bright green color which can be seen on scarves, umbrellas, protest buttons and posters. It is a gentle reminder of which political party has promised to stop the project, should they be elected in March.

Blinded by the light

2011-02-09T16:31:00.005+01:00

Blinded by the light

(or: Enlightened by the Blind)

When I was 15 and everything around me was full of sexual innuendo, Manfred Mann's song "Blinded by the light" continued - to my perked-up ears - "wrapped up like a douche in the middle of the night." I didn't know what a douche was but it must have been something private and feminine because the Massengale TV commercials sounded 100% conspiratorial against my teenage curiosity, not wanting to let out any secrets that would put me anywhere close to an even level with a 15-year-old girl.

But that is all beside the point here. This post is dedicated to all you blind photographers out there. Here's a success story about one of them.

| Artists Wanted | In Focus : Pete Eckert (Lo-Speed) from Artists Wanted on Vimeo.

For the rest of us, this artist's "painting with light" that he can't even see (yet can somehow hear) could be interpreted as his throwing down the gauntlet at the rest of us sighted camera-toters. Should we make more effective use of our eyes? Or should we perhaps also go blindly where we have not yet gone?

You could take that challenge literally and try closing your eyes while taking photographs. Or you could perhaps open up your other senses to what is around you. Feel something before you photograph it in order to become more aware of how the light should fall on it so that its look better portrays how it felt to you. You could open your whole self to the temperature, the humidity, the slant of light, the ambient sounds and, in some cases, even the tastes of your photographic subjects. I posit that being aware of the essence of what we photograph is the first - and very necessary - step toward becoming able to portray it in an effective manner.

There. I said it. Now I have to go out and try to prove that I've understood it. But first let's see if there are any shots I've already taken in which I remember having done this.

This beat-up little butterfly was trying to escape the hot, humid house it was trapped in. It flew up the safety glass, scanning the surface in search of the freedom it innately sought. It's wings suffered with each attempt at escape. Here it is about to land again and catch its breath for another go at it.

The butterfly exhibition was in a hot-house that was set to 99% humidity and about 95° F, which was not all too different from the weather conditions outside the house that August day in Richmond. I think I felt like this butterfly, wanting to escape the oppression, especially when the misters began to spray a fine cloud of rain over my equipment as I quickly fluttered by them on my way to the exit.

When I process an image harshly like the one above, I am trying to represent what it is that I interpreted into the scene before me. Looking out of the fourth-story window of Stuttgart's town hall, I watched the people come and go in this urban landscape, unaware that they were being observed. But weren't they somehow aware of observation, as if they were following others and themselves? If you look closely, you can see their cloned Doppelgänger.

Here the winter is in full swing yet the hope - or memory? - of a warmer season is present in the picture. The stern steps gently give way to the drifted snow, becoming one with the frozen water on the lake.

This picture tells a story that is often observed in places of transition (in this case the Stuttgart train station). Someone waiting, ticket in hand, for the mode of transportation that will eventually take them to another place. This passenger does not quite look like she is relishing the thought of traveling, especially if she is going to be expected to be as perky as the woman on the billboard.

And, finally, a sunset silhouette of God's house, showing lots of space in heaven above. The spacial emphasis here is clearly not on "house," yet the eye is attracted to all that is happening in the busy bottom third of the picture. I believe, however, that there is a part of us that can - perhaps subconsciously - appreciate the peaceful, swirling space above it because we need this idea of freedom to live in peace.

2011-02-03T14:03:00.002+01:00

The Creative Life

Four windows

The creative life can leave you temporarily if you let it go. Some days you may not feel like drawing, singing or taking your camera with you. "No," you think, "today I'm not feeling creative." But you ARE creative all the time. It is just a question of the following equation: attitude + manifestation = creativity. No one else is necessarily involved in the equation, especially not critics. "What would others think if I wrote about this or photographed that?" Nonsense! Don't listen to these policemen in your head. Just go ahead and follow your positive inner voice, allowing it to get out and create. Find a (physical and mental) space for being creative and then use the tools at your disposal for manifesting the idea.

Building

The picture above was taken right before I walked into a photo store to turn in an expensive lens for a repair. "One last picture with the Zeiss lens?" I thought as I backed up on the sidewalk opposite this new building. The picture was recently chosen by a photo editor friend of mine as one of her favorites in my collection! You never know what other people will like - but it doesn't really matter as long as you enjoy it!

Building and cement pump

So show the work that thrills you (not necessarily what you think will thrill others) and let the fans start lining up to get your autograph!

Wall

2011-02-01T16:08:00.002+01:00

Found light

There is a movement in art - I've probably written about it before - of which my mother is a big fan. It is called "found art." She frequently asks us to send her gum wrappers, tickets and scraps of paper that we find in German gutters. She makes collages out of them.

As a photographer who learned to work with ambient light, I still look for potential catch lights and nice lighting when I am walking around. Often I'll be sitting across from someone in the streetcar and the sun will shine in a way that makes me want to ask permission to snap away. "But what would people think?" I ask myself. When I'm on the town with my daughter, it's different. When I asked Fiona to stand next to these bar stools in the theater café, she obliged. What resulted was, I think, the most beautiful picture I've ever taken of her.

Back to "But what would people think?" Well, what would they think? I've come to the conclusion - in part thanks to my elder sister's recent declaration of "I am an artist" - that it is my job to take pictures wherever I am. That's the way I express myself.

Some people express themselves loudly in public places.

Some do it in Internet forums.

Others do it in print.

Still others let their needs be known in more physical ways.

In the picture above, I was taking part in a photowalk (one of my favorite past-times) with a fotocommunity group from Kirchheim. We saw this attractive woman and her dog and asked if we could photograph her. She said yes. What did she think? I don't know. Unfortunately, she was gone before I could give her my card.

In the above photograph, I pointed my 300mm telephoto lens in her direction and, although she was taking pictures of passers-by on the Schloßplatz like me, she was signaling that she didn't want me to take too many pictures of her. Perhaps she wanted to see my business card first.

Speaking of cards, I've handed out my cards to people whom I have wanted to photograph and asked them to check out this blog and contact me if they were interested in having their picture taken. As yet I've had little luck, but I feel the tide turning.

2011-01-26T23:39:00.000+01:00

As the crow flies at sunrise

The morning of December 21, 2010, Fynn and I drove up to the Rotenberg to observe and photograph the solar eclipse at 9:15. Temperatures were below freezing, making it difficult to enjoy being up there. Besides the vague idea I had about taking pictures of the sun without looking into the viewfinder of the camera, we were not prepared to watch the spectacle. We brought some cereal boxes to make pinhole viewers, but it had been 40 years since I last used one so they were useless in the end.
However, a nice woman came up to us and let us use her protective glasses to see the sun. It was indeed an interesting sight. We came off the mountain ready for a warm breakfast and I thought I hadn't really gotten any good shots of the eclipse. I followed a crow through the vineyards in the valley near Uhlbach and think the austerity of those pictures sums up how the cold felt. Interestingly, the light in these pictures of the crow does not look anything like that in the sunrise pictures.

When I looked at the pictures of the sun (1/4000 sec; f32; 300mm) on the computer and turned up the clarity on them, we could actually see the bite that the moon took out of the sun that morning. All in all, it wasn't as spectacular or thrilling as we had expected, but it was a nice father/son/sun thing to do!