muser

April 07, 2013 in 35, b+w, backlight, bar, bokeh, candid, close up, contrast, eyes, face, friedrichshafen, germany, grain, hair, indoors, mood, nex 7, people, personal, portrait, restaurant, sel, shadow, smile, sony

this week my stinchen turned 28. and this year we will reach 3333 joint days. without you i would be nothing. you teach me the things i don't preside over. be sure, i'm going to look out for you carefully.

clashing horns

April 06, 2013 in 50, action, agriculture, animal, b+w, bermatingen, bokeh, candid, contrast, countryside, eyes, face, germany, grain, hair, light, nature, nex 7, old photo, portrait, sel, shadow, sony

a few weeks ago i stumbled upon google's nik collection discount: only 149$ for six pretty useful lightroom plug-in applications, srp actually round about 500$, that sounded too good. go for it!

today i'd like to show a first result, that was processed with the newer version of silver efex pro - i had used the predecessor for a while, too - and explain, with which workflow the shown sample, that was photographed today a few minutes on foot away from our home, was edited by me: firstly the import in lightroom, application of lens correction, convertion to tiff and transfer to sharpener pro 3 (part 1) for raw pre sharpening, in between buffering in lightroom, transfer to silver efex pro 2 and main editing, again fransfer to sharpener pro (part 2) for final output sharpening and finally export the image from lightroom to jpg. pooh, and all that with my good old laptop... i'm going to familiarise myself with the new software during the coming weeks and i will surely publish more samples.

crumb snoot

April 01, 2013 in 35, backlight, bokeh, brown, candid, colour, corridor, eyes, face, friedrichshafen, germany, hair, indoors, light, nex 7, orange, people, portrait, personal, sel, sony, wall, window, yellow, high key, children, baby

today, on easter monday, we visited our friends tanja and marcel, who recently had their second baby. during the afternoon i had the privilege of portraying the whole family, including my friend mika, the crumb snoot, and even his grandma and his grandpa. compared with his only a few weeks old sister, mika only seems to keep still, when he is sleeping or eating. so i had to take advantage of that circumstance for the snapshot above, although you usually should not photograph people at table.

kittens in da club

April 01, 2013 in 35, action, art, atmosphere, bar, bokeh, candid, cat, colour, corridor, contrast, darkness, deeper meaning, face, eyes, germany, fun, hair, indoors, kitty, light, nex 7, night, people, portrait, ravensburg, red, sel, sony, vintage, party, disco

some people represent the personalisation of self-confidence. regardless, of whether i like their doings, styles, apperances or whether there is a doubting soul underneath the cool exterior: just because of their bravery these people earn my respect.

cuteness overload

March 01, 2013 in 35, b+w, candid, face, germany, fun, grain, home, nex 7, portrait, sel, sony, indoors, cat, kitty, pet, animal, whiskers, vintage, old photo, eyes

as long as the weather will stay that grey and misty, our sweet kitty nila won't leave the flat very often. as a consequence we have to look after and play with her more often than usual. even so we are easily able to tap into her cuteness.

0902 - grain skin

February 09, 2013 in 50, beard, blur, courtyard, eyes, germany, grain, home, mirror, nex 7, night, personal, portrait, reflection, sel, self portrait, snow, sony, window, winter

grain skin - sony nex 7 | sel50 f1.8 | f1.8 | ISO6400 | 1/15

today i finally decided to make the next small (fun-) step in my photographic life - before the production of 35mm film will be completely discontinued anytime, i'm going to have at least one try with analog photography even this spring. therefor i ordered one role ilford delta 3200 Professional (b+w), kodak portra 800 (colour) and fujifilm superia 1600 (colour) each.

why such sensitive films? well, i want to begin (and probably stay) with a ultra-compact fun cam, something like a diana mini or any other lomography camera, since it has to accompany me to music festivals and other chaotic events where the nex usually has no place in. naturally you have to use high iso films if you want to shoot these lomo cams (fixed plastic lens, (almost) fixed, slow f-stop - f8/f11 switch, fixed shutter speed - 1/60) at dusk. although i definitely expect not less than blurred, grainy, absolutely poor exposed results of my coming lomo cam, i'm able to look forward to work with film. expectations can only be belied if they are exaggerated. actually i have only one expectation: with at a max 36 images on a role you have to think long and hard about your composition, which is why i hope to improve my photographic skills further.

with the intention to give high iso film a try sometime, i avoided to apply noise reduction to my self portrait already today. what you see is my grainy face in the double window of our kitchen with the idyllic, nightly yard in winter dress in the background.

2101 - cat's eye

January 21, 2013 in 50, b+w, bokeh, cat, eyes, face, germany, hair, home, kitchen, mirror, nex 7, nose, portrait, reflection, rest, sel, sepia, sony, whiskers

cat's eye - sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | f1.8 | ISO200 | 1/6

it's a good thing to share the flat with a kitty. whenever you are sick, the cat will befriend and care about you, if only by taking a nap on your stomach. although nila isn't resting on my body in the pic above, she basically acts as a great supporter in bringing me back to health.

0701 - reflection

January 07, 2013 in 35, beard, bokeh, deeper meaning, eyes, germany, home, light, mirror, mood, nex 7, night, people, portrait, reflection, sel, self portrait, sony, texture

reflection - sony nex 7 with sel 35 f1.8 | f2.0 | ISO1600 | 1/13

today was a good day. fairly old, pretty good memories appeared and caused a lot of questions in my mind. self-reflection is a process that i've internalised during my trainings, but this is of course way beyond looking at oneself in the mirror - have i changed for the better or the worse since a certain point? highly likely this question has to be answered by others.

any way, today is a very good day.

0201 - pantheress vs. lion

January 02, 2013 in 35, action, animal, b+w, cat, colour, eyes, fun, germany, home, movement, nex 7, nose, pink, portrait, red, sel, sony, whiskers

rednose bite - sony nex 7 with sel 35 f1.8 | f2.0 | ISO400 | 1/320

stacation has at least one big advantage - finally i find the time again to take pictures of our pets here in the yard. paulinchen, the white pantheress of our neighbours, is nicknamed burglar cat by us, because she is so interested in every corner of the yard that no opened door or window is secure from her invasion.

well roar'd lion - sony nex 7 with sel 35 f1.8 | f2.0 | ISO160 | 1/60

our lion like cat nila is actually fond of paulinchen although i make her look like roaring at anybody in the image above. just for the brief moment while she was yawning i had the possibility to portray her lion like. basically time is definitely one of the most important points if you want to shoot animals of any kind (pets are by far the easiest subjects for an animal photographer, of course) - at the best your time is unlimited.

2512 - yoo-hoo smile

December 26, 2012 in 35, advent, blur, bokeh, candid, christmas, colour, eyes, face, fujian, germany, hair, home, nex 7, night, people, portrait, sony, tree, winter

sony nex 7 with fujian 35 f1.7 | f1.8 | ISO1600 | 1/20

although you might think that the pic of our today's (second) presents hand out looks a bit like a frame of a posed scenery, there was truly not more than a yoo-hoo by me to attract tina's attention for a short time, this one (almost) candid image. your eye for the details - colours, lights, atmosphere and so much more - is the key to success.

my enchantress tina and i wish you all the very best!