The Real Thing

Celebrating the end of Prohibition (90 years ago)

Song and dance were the name of the game at NEAT's Speakeasy 2018

Sometimes the universe allows good things to happen to good people. Tiffany is a good person and last Thursday night she showed it. After a year of dreaming and months of preparation, she got the acts together and got the people motivated to dress up and have fun (What, in Germany? Well, OK, if I must.). Musicians and dancers graced the stage of the Theater am Olgaeck for over two hours of song and dance like I've never heard about - much less experienced - in Stuttgart.

Nelly, the proprietor of the Theater am Olgaeck, joined in the fun.

Friends from the mafia brought in plenty of moonshine

Anika Kopfüber's flappers flapped

Salvatore sang about Carina...and a lot of other girls!

Three ladies - a blonde, a brunette and a red-head! Prego!

The Nonos accompanied Tiffany throughout the evening

The musical star, Kimberly Trees, treated the audience to a couple of hot numbers.

Janine Grellscheid brought Cabaret to the Speakeasy!

Max Oisin added a couple of jazz standards in his inimitable style.

Adrienne Sorg provided us with a Vie en rose

Tiffany and Salvatore performed "I Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby"

Sylvia Owens sang her heart out with "Oh When the Saints Go Marchin' In"

As the night drew to a close, even the aisles became part of the dance floor

It was a total performance with the audience having as much fun as those on stage.

The after-party chill-down was at Hillson's Bar, where Applaus Gin provided us with a taste of their finest liquor.

I guess you had to be there!

Behind the lines

Experimental music and contemporary dance: Georgia and Germany

1/100 sec, f4.0, ISO 10,000

This past weekend Russudan Meipariani and friends performed an evening of original music compositions and dance to full houses in Scheer, Schorndorf and Stuttgart. In Schorndorf I was positioned right next to the dance floor and fired off 2500 photos.



I was aiming to save only the highlights, so the camera was set to -1.7EV most of the time.

1/500 sec, f4.0, ISO 5,000

After a while, I realized that, thanks to the WISIWYG electronic viewfinder, it was helpful to toggle the AEL and shoot at a certain exposure as long as I was pointing my camera in a certain direction.

1/250 sec, f4.5, ISO 4,000

I was shooting into the lights most of the time. I did some experimenting with shutter speeds varying primarily from 1/30 to 1/500. Did I want to capture motion in the hands and legs or stop them in their tracks with a fast shutter speed? In the best case, I'd get something like this:

1/200 sec, f4.5, ISO 10,000

The colorful dresses and waving hair of the beautiful dancers were so intoxicating that I couldn't stop taking pictures.

1/400 sec, f4.0, ISO 10,000

The f4/24-105 lens was perfect for the dance performance. I took a lot of the photos at 24mm in order to capture the entire scene - musicians and all seven dancers, who were spread out over the 8x8m dance floor in the Versöhnungskirche. I took about a third of the photos in APS-C crop mode so that I was shooting from the center of the sensor. I was thinking the image would be less distorted and of a better quality at a high ISO. It also crops the picture tighter when I want to concentrate on just one or two dancers.

1/250 sec, f4.5, ISO 4,000

After analyzing my statistics for the shoot - something I like to do - I see that most of the best pictures were taken at somewhere between ISO 4,000-10,000 and at either 1/125 or 1/250 sec, with a slight preference for the shorter exposure. That means in order to capture this kind of motion, one needs speed and a sensitive sensor.
I was shooting with a silent shutter because I didn't want to disturb the performance. The only picture which showed signs of rolling shutter distortion was the one below, where the dancer's hand looks strange; however, that could also come from the angle and normal movement. In short: the silent shutter worked like a charm!

1/250 sec, f4.0, ISO 10,000

A tightly cropped photos sends a different message from one with a frame of empty space around it. And when you get the fact, the open eyes and a hand all in one frame, you are pleased as punch!

1/125 sec, f4.5, ISO 5000

Martin Zentner was sitting in another corner taking pictures throughout the performance, too. His photos on Facebook show these dancers from another perspective - and with the light shining on them (as opposed to shooting into the light). His photos turned out incredibly well! Check them out.

Speakeasy

Have you ever heard of a speakeasy? Back in the 1920s the US federal government outlawed, by enacting the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, the production, transport, and sale of intoxicating liquors (though not the consumption or private possession thereof). Did that stop Americans from drinking alcohol? Nope!

That just means there were private parties where liquor "appeared" (for it couldn't be transported) and was consumed, often with jazz musicians and dancers providing entertainment.

Well...my friend Tiffany is totally into that era now - as a singer, an artist and a spirit - and is throwing such a party in Stuttgart in November. As a warm-up to this mega-event, she got friends together for a photo shoot in an awesome old apartment. We had a great time getting into the spirit!

Tiffany and Andrew get into the spirit(s)

My son Fynn was my second shooter for the first part of the evening and used a manual-focus f1.4/85mm lens with a star filter on it. His pictures captured the perfect soft look and feel we were looking for (see above). 
Mine, on the other hand, were so sharp that they didn't look like they fit the 20s look, but with a bit of post-processing I was able to get relatively close (below).

We also were afforded the luxury of having many models (dancers, actors and other good looking people) to play along, so we set up some scenes to look like a speakeasy might. 

The real party will also be a golden opportunity for photos. I'll keep you posted!

Autumn 2018

Exhibitions x 3

This autumn I'll be showing some of my work in three different exhibitions in and around Stuttgart. 
The first one opened on October 17 at Café Künstlerbund to a full house - even two of my children attended! The collection of art there shows a high regard for aesthetics and technique. The nine American artists displayed some of their best work - including photography, oil painting, encaustic and multi-media drawing. 

The café is open from 10 am until midnight. Give me a call and I'll meet you there for a drink! The show runs through November 10, 2018.

The following evening, October 18, 2018, the German and American Artists Group opened its first fall show at the historic town hall in Bad Cannstatt at 6 pm. Twenty-eight artists are showing their fine art on three floors. The new commander of the US Army in Stuttgart - who has family roots at Lake Constance - gave the opening speech.

As guests enjoyed the buffet, fellow artist Michael Nothdurft exhibited his prowess on the classical guitar.

These art works were on display through October 29.

On October 24, 2018, the same group hung a different set of works at the Deutsch-Amerikanisches Zentrum for a three-week long show!
Brian Cann showed seven photos from his new series "Nudes in landscapes," and I showed a bit of my "Hot pepper" series, so it was quite a sexy show!

In addition, Aylish Kerrigan sang two dramatic songs and the buffet was a work of art itself. Friends came and were introduced to the other artists. That's how a nice network is created.

Ups and downs of the Wasenfest

Living in the proximity of the Cannstatter Wasen since 2002, I've heard and seen a lot of the high-life there, some from my window but most from the pavement on and surrounding the good old festival grounds. I've written about it a number of times, as a search for "Wasen" on this blog will show.

The Wasenfest and Frühlingsfest (Sept.-Oct. and April-May every year) are among the largest folk festivals in the world. Over 4 million guests enjoyed the beer and rides during the three-week fest last fall and, on account of the perfect weather in early 2018, 1.6 million visitors made it out to the spring fest.
My friends' and acquaintances' opinions are split on this issue. Some wouldn't miss it for the world; they seek their fortune there and their children look forward to riding the Ferris wheel and eating cotton candy with friends twice a year.

Others look forward to getting sloshed with their colleagues in the huge beer tents; for 16 year-olds it's a right of passage to fill up with a couple of liters of beer with your classmates and then try to hold it in on the most extreme rides. Judging from the ground in front of the roller coasters, many don't succeed.

Still other friends find it too loud and too full of drunken nuts, especially in the autumn. Tourists arrive in their smelly "Oktoberfest 20XX" T-shirts when that fest is over and keep on drinking in Stuttgart. The subways are full of traditionally garbed twentysomethings and smell of alcohol six weeks a year.





My photographer friends go there, as I do, to shoot the action and, after dark, the lights. Lights, camera, action!
For years now, I've shot the standard motifs and come to know the faces of the people working there. I sometimes talk with the workers when I'm walking around before it gets busy. They are often Romanians, as is the man below, so we talk about the delicious food in his home country.

 But another aspect of the whole business has come to fascinate me. They begin building the "tents" - 5,000-square-meter buildings - several weeks in advance and it takes them just as long to deconstruct. Behind all the shine is a life on the road for the workers and owners of the rides. The buildings, the rails, the haunted house - they all have to fit on trucks and are moved to the next fest until it is time to return to Bad Cannstatt. And every day before the visitors arrive, they wash their stands and make them as attractive as possible.

This year when the festivities were over, I wandered across the grounds and got some shots of the take-down. Behind one of the largest buildings is a room where the waiters can rest.

 Inside one of the beer tents.

They need a lot of equipment to move a roller coaster.

Everything must go.

Water is not the most important liquid at the fairgrounds, but it is important!

Back to nature

The great thing about having a new camera is that it gives you new impulses and a renewed interest in capturing images. The mighty resolution and astonishing crispness of the Sony A7iii and the 24-105 lens have drawn me into the countryside lately. Without an idea of what I was going to photograph, I simply followed my lens and pressed the button. This is the first nature series I shot.

The sky was overcast but it was dry and bright. In order to catch the detail of the underside of the leaves, I overexposed by +1.7. I love the element of purity coupled with the spring buds, and yet spider webs can be found creeping all over the leaves and branches.

The images above live from the negative space surrounding the branches. Then I saw layers in the pictures, which add depth to them.

It's amazing how relaxing these images are for me to look at. After all those years shooting in the city and the evenings at events, being out in nature and looking heavenward is teaching me to relax and enjoy everything around me.

My settings for the Sony A7M3

Recently my friend Jim Palik moved from Canon to Sony after over 40 years with the big gun. At 75, he says, you start to think about how much weight you are carrying around and the Sony mirrorless camera is much lighter than the 5D Mark II. So we went down to his favorite camera store and he bought the A7M3, a Sigma adapter for his Canon lenses, a Sony 64 GB SDXC memory card and an extra battery. Now he is ready to get out and play!

But first I promised to tell you readers (and Jim) what settings I've decided to use for my camera - the menus inside and the customizable buttons and dials on the body.

First of all, I've never noticed that the camera added movement to the picture when it was taken on a tripod with Steady Shot on. Therefore, I'd recommend simply leaving on the Steady Shot. If you are using a lens with stabilization in it, you can easily turn that off if you like, but the chances that I would forget to turn it back on are so great that I would prefer to just leave it on.

For the first time, I've chosen to change two focusing settings with this new Sony camera. The focus peaking feature has been highly praised over the years and I've usually had it set to High and turned the color to Red. However, that was using the AF-S focusing mode. With this camera I've begun using the DMF function and have turned off the (distracting) red focus peaking. The camera focuses and then moves to manual focus mode so that you can check and perfect the focus point if necessary.
Why did I do this? In the past it was somewhat bothersome to do this because when I adjust the focus manually, I have the camera zoom in on the subject so that I can see it better. However, the zoom area is not always where I want to focus, so I had to fiddle around with the toggle switch and by then the camera had either zoomed back out or the subject had moved. But with the new touch screen, it is easier to move the focus area to the desired spot, even while you are looking through the viewfinder.

However, when I am shooting sports or some other active subject, I move to AF-C and can easily focus-follow the moving person or animal with a quick click of the button inside the big control wheel. I have set C1 to Focus Mode to make this change easily.

Speaking of zooming, at the baseball game last week I often opted to shoot in the APS-C mode from the center ("sweet spot") of the sensor, resulting in a 10MP image which is basically a digital zoom. The advantages here were three-fold: I could crop the picture in-camera, the images wouldn't take up as much space on my hard-drives and the buffer didn't fill up as quickly. I have the AEL button on the back (top-right) of the camera set to one-click zoom because in the menu (Camera 1, first page) I have set APS-C/Super 35mm to "Auto" and "Manual: On". The AEL butt on is then set to "Full Frm Sel."

So where is my AEL button? That is on the front under C2. I wanted to be able to zoom and click the shutter at nearly the same time, so I set the zoom button to the back. But for AEL, I can have that up front. I prefer AEL toggle so that my other fingers are free to make other adjustments after I've made that all-important exposure adjustment.

I usually shoot in Wide Focus Mode, making adjustments later manually. Since I change this setting relatively rarely, I have it on the C3 button, which requires a bit more fumbling about to find and change. Zone focusing is a good choice when simple compositions such as landscapes are in front of your lens. Simply jog the Multi-Select Button left or right, up or down to change the zone. The same works for the Flexible Spot (mine is set to "Medium") or the new expandable flexible spot.

When I want to shoot in Manual Focus mode only, I click on the AF-ON button on the back, which is pre-programmed to turn the automatic focus on and off anyway. I'm used to having this function there, so I don't have to think about it any more.

The trash can/C4 button is also customizable. I want to take advantage of the new touch screen for focusing. There are times, however, when I don't want to have it on. So I simply press C4 and it turns off.

The next thing I have programmed is the Multi-selector, which I press to set the Eye focus. I haven't used it as much as I had originally hoped to, but when I do more portraits, I'm sure I'll be turning it on more frequently.

Finally, the control wheel is set like this for me:
Left is Drive and Right is ISO. Why override the icons painted on the camera body here if there is no good reason to? I don't have to change ISO with this camera very often; it is usually set to Automatic 100-8000 because I've found everything within this range to be good. I might raise the minimum ISO to 200 or 400, but that's just out of habit. Having the Auto ISO Shutter Speed minimum set to Fast or Faster does the same thing.
Pressing the bottom of the control wheel changes my silent shutter function. Read all about the pros and cons of that here. That post also explains when I want to turn it off (or back on). I've recently realized, however, that when using the LA-EA4 adapter with the A7iii, the set-up makes a click when you take a picture. The shutter is no longer silent.
The top of the control wheel cannot be changed. It always changes what the display looks like: graphic display, all info or none, level, histogram, blank (off - such as for night shooting). These settings can be changed on the second Camera menu on page 6 (DISP Button). Set the display and viewfinder to show different things if you so wish.

My Function Menu looks like this:
Top row -
Auto ASP-C (in case I end up accidentally zooming too often, I can easily turn off the function)
ISO Automatic Shutter Speed (usually set to FAST)
Focus Area
Metering Mode (usually matrix)
Picture Effect (rarely used, but it is otherwise hard to find and turn on; only relevant when shooting JPEGs only)
Live View Display (important to turn off when using a flash)

Bottom row -
DRO (usually AUTO, but unnecessary when shooting RAW)
Priority Set in AWB (Standard; read more about this setting improvement here)
White Balance (AWB, though I sometimes change it to Flash when shooting primarily with a flash)
Picture Quality (RAW)
Creative Style (Standard tends to be the best, but I think you get a bit more light if you set it to Light in darker situations)
Grid Line (usually on Thirds, but turning it off can give you a feeling of freedom with your picture composition)

Furthermore, I stay in airplane mode unless I want to use my phone to transfer the GPS coordinates to the metadata in the pictures I'm shooting. I have tried this and it worked perfectly. Why don't I do it all the time? It drains both batteries (phone and camera) if on all the time.