0609 - rural parking

September 06, 2012 in 50, architecture, building, car, countryside, facility, germany, house, ittendorf, light, light beam, nex 7, night, oldtimer, sel, sky, sony, timber-frame, tractor, village

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f1.8 | ISO1600 | +0.7ev | 1/20 | lightroom 4.1

of course you might believe that you know everything about your local environment. and then one day you break the usual habit and suddenly you find your way into a completely new world.

after a great dinner in a nearby restaurant that is operated from a couple from the alsace we had an absolutely necessary after-dinner walk through the villages. thereby a neat timber-framed building that i'd never noticed at daytime attracted our unrestricted attention. not only the great illumination but also the in front of the house parked tractor cut a great figure. in my opinion this was a really suitable scene for a rural village portrait.

marginal note: today in the afternoon very creative thoughts appeared in my brain, funnily while i was hoovering - tina would say that i should do this more often. some interesting photographic ideas were shaped to concepts. there's more to come.

cu, trshptr

0509 - backlit beauty

September 05, 2012 in 50, b+w, eyes, face, germany, grain, hair, high key, home, light, moment, nex 7, old photo, people, personal, portrait, sel, sepia, sony

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f1.8 | ISO1600 | spot metering | 1/30 | silver efex pro plug-in for lightroom 4.1

i really don't know if i fulfil my ultramodern camera's capabilities when i process images with results like today's. why do i sometimes want the results to look like photographs from the 70's? is it pure retro fashion or hipster culture? i don't think so.

first of all without the low light capabilities of my nex 7 i'd have never captured this moment on camera. the room in that tina was bustling around was almost completely dark, only the backlight of the terrace window in her back made for an illumination. furthermore the integrated spot metering mode of the camera made a perfect illumination easily available to me. so far, so good. finally the negative was quickly captured.

whilst post processing it should be the aim of the photographer to give the finished image the expression the scene had originally conveyed. if i look at my lady and see a soft, satin-gloss sepia face with an intimate expression, an analogue-like processing is simply appropriate. in my opinion it absolutely is, because the above-noted image shows exactly what i'd seen.

cu, trshptr

0309 - orange

September 03, 2012 in 50, bathroom, bokeh, bottle, brown, colour, contrast, flag, floor, germany, glass, home, light, nex 7, orange, reflection, sel, shadow, sony, still life

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f1.8 | ISO250 | -1.0ev | 1/80 | lightroom 4.1

while i was cleaning up my workroom today in the afternoon an empty flacon attracted my attention. every now and then tina beautifies not only our social areas but also "my private" room with useless but decorating stuff, as probably every wife in the world does. i've always liked the odour of the citron fluid in that flacon but today it unfortunately appeared empty and scentless.

till i'll have got anything appropriate to refill this nice, little bottle, a mix of rum and aperol had to satisfy for the daily pic. although this cocktail doesn't smell as good as an orange tree, it definitely looks as orange as the original fill had looked.

cu, trshptr

0209 - looking up

September 02, 2012 in 50, b+w, baby, boy, car, child, eyes, face, germany, grey, hand, home, light, moment, nex 7, people, personal, portrait, sel, sony

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f1.8 | ISO320 | 1/80 | lightroom 4.1

today was a very social day. after we had slept till almost noon and eaten an opulent breakfast, we went to the local wine festival with our neighbours and met some other friends. subsequently we continued the appointment at out place with coffee, cakes and parlour games.

today in the afternoon the particular was to get to know how (very) young children interact with such a big group of persons. my mate marcel's boy mika is currently at the age of one year - he is exploring his surrounding the entire time. his hunting instinct after our kitty nila was most amusing for us, he forgot simply everything around him when he spotted her.

additionally it was real fun to see how his mood was changing within seconds. anger and fun, disregard and admiration, all these lay close together.

cu, trshptr

0109 - to the last drop

September 02, 2012 in 50, b+w, drop, garden, germany, grain, grey, home, leaf, minimalistic, nature, nex 7, old photo, pattern, plant, reflection, sel, sony, texture, water

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f2.8 | ISO1000 | 1/80 | silver efex pro plug-in for lightroom 4.1

today was the long-awaited festival day, we were at the rock am see festival in constance. as i told you yesterday my nex 7 had to stay at home because i didn't want to mind out my equipment the whole day and night. anyhow i've shot a few pics with my smartphone (two examples on my mobile photography tumblr blog: the tree & tired).

the festival itself was brilliant. my favourites were itchy poopzkid, flogging molly, greenday and kraftklub - in that order. it was a lot of drinking, dancing and pogo. great fun with a few wounds in the aftermath which is perhaps down to the fact that we revved up to the last drop.

cu, trshptr

btw: the photography magazin fotohits gives away pro licences of the b&w post processing plug-in application silver efex pro, the predecessor of the current version 2. their promotion will be active till end of september, get your own key here if you want. today's pic was used for a first attempt working with this lightroom plug-in. i'm very satisfied with the results.

3108 - home time

August 31, 2012 in 50, abandoned, architecture, blue, building, colour, facility, factory, germany, glass, light, long-time exposure, markdorf, nex 7, night, pattern, red, sel, sony, window

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f13.0 | ISO100 | 5s | tripod | lightroom 4.1

finally it's home time. tomorrow we'll visit the local rock music festival in constance which will take up our whole day and night. the weather forecasts are very bad, it'll probably rain the whole time. so what? we'll be prepared. unfortunately the camera has to stay at home for that reason.

also the last employees had already left the offices when i took the night shot of an interesting facility in markdorf. maybe tomorrow there will be some of them among the 25.000 visitors.

cu, trshptr

3008 - behind bars

August 30, 2012 in 50, animal, bokeh, brown, colour, contrast, countryside, eyes, fisheye, germany, hair, horse, langenbernsdorf, nex 7, orange, portrait, reflection, sel, sony, texture

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f2.8 | ISO800 | 1/80 | lightroom 4.1

keeping of animals is a sensitive topic. who gives the mankind the authorisation and permission to cage up animals of any kind? is it the evolution, our superiority? or is it outright ignorance?

every human being on this planet has to answer this question for itself. basically there are different reasons for keeping and caging animals and i don't want to kick off a huge discussion about the reasonableness of caged pets. only one question: dear lovers of nature and animal protection advocates, why is it okay for (the most of) you to cage up these wonderful horses?

cu, trshptr

2908 - silent reading

August 29, 2012 in 50, bokeh, brown, candid, germany, hagnau, hair, high key, lake, lake constance, nex 7, people, personal, portrait, reading, rest, sel, sony, summer, sun

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f2.8 | ISO100 | +3.0ev | 1/640 | lightroom 4.1

it's quite possible that we've had the last day of midsummer today. probably for the last time of this year the air was pleasant warm and the lake's water invigorating cool. at the moment heavy clouds and thunderstorms are gathering over lake constance and south germany.

i'll definitely miss the daily short getaway on the lake when i'll leave the area around lake constance one day. tina was already on the lake when i ended today's work and enjoyed the silence by the water. she had soaked up the sun the whole afternoon and unfortunately her skin was already coloured in a kind of brown-red. for that reason she dressed with her white bike longsleeve and turned her back on the sun while she was reading her current (german) book "die unglaubliche geschichte des henry n. brown". she sitting in front of the glowing, silent lake was the perfect subject for today's candid picture.

cu, trshptr

2708 - summery enjoyment

August 27, 2012 in 50, blue, boat, friedrichshafen, germany, green, lake, lake constance, landscape, leaf, mountains, nex 7, people, pink, portrait, sel, sony, street, summer, tree

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f5.6 | ISO100 | 1/500 | lightroom 4.1

at odd times the actual state of our living conditions passes through tina's and my mind: fortunately we are able to enjoy the four seasons in a region where the most of the germans (and also a lot italians, dutch people, polish and other europeans) want to go for holidays.

the lake, the mountains, all the boats and (sometimes even) the foreign people mix to a great pleasure. being only half an hour on the lake in the evening compensates almost a whole exhausting work day.

today we've played the joker again and faded out the time at work with a relaxing cruise in a pedal boat.

cu, trshptr

2608 - brisk goings-on

August 26, 2012 in 50, action, bbq, bokeh, dinner, eating, face, garden, germany, grill, laufenburg, moment, nex 7, paella, people, portrait, sel, sony, summer, yellow

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f3.2 | ISO100 | 1/320 | lightroom 4.1

unfortunately the weekend is already gone again. it was very interesting for me to reside at andi's brother's family with some other friends of them (and now also mine) in one huge house directly next to the swiss border: altogether four men, three women and four kids bustled about the whole house and property to prepare and support the men's cycling ride on sunday and have a great time together.

after that the ride itself was a great pleasure: we worked through the distance of 100km in a group of eight riders. all of us reached the finish line without any problems. the only criticism we had was that we had to brave the storm which massively obstructed our progression, fortunately only temporarily. however finally we've defeated him in the downhill.

in the afternoon after the race there were usual brisk goings-on in the garden again. the women had already prepared the ingredients for a delicious spanish paella so that we only had to grill them in a huge pan on the gas grill. andi handled this job very experienced so that we could brace ourselves after the challenging bicycle ride in the black forest. of course the child might not be absent: they made for a quite busy atmosphere that is needed to have a really cosy surrounding.

cu, trshptr