0110 - nowhere to run

October 01, 2012 in 30, cathedral, church, contrast, door, italy, light, moment, monument, mood, movement, nun, partial coloured, pattern, people, porto venere, portrait, reflection, shadow, sigma

setup: sony nex 7 with sigma 30 f2.8 ex dn | 30mm | f2.8 | ISO1600 | 1/30 | lightroom 4.1

subsequent to a long travel you always have to evaluate a great many pictures. thereby sometimes a few ones attract your attention although they hadn't struck initially. today an image of a hurrying nun that is leaving the cathedral of porto venere caught my eye. in my opinion the harsh post-processing fits the moody scenery very well.

probably tomorrow or the day after a walimex / samyang / rokinon pro 8mm f2.8 fisheye lens will arrive for an extensive test during the coming days. for that reason i'm going to work especially with this very special lens for now and according to that the next postings will be concerned with the apparently excellent little fisheye lens. i'm curious how the fisheye will match the nex 7.

cu, trshptr

1709 - zest for life

September 17, 2012 in 35, action, b+w, baby, blur, bokeh, child, flight, fujian, fun, germany, hand, home, moment, movement, nex 7, people, portrait, sony, tree

setup: sony nex 7 with fujian 35 f1.7 | 35mm | f1.8 | ISO100 | 1/160 | lightroom 4.1

attention: next up is strict personal content, maybe you'll be bored to death.

i'm 28 and childless. the thing is not that i don't like kids. quite the contrary i really enjoy the presence of babies and children. at the present i'm simply not yet prepared to give the majority of my personal freedom up. indeed likely a time will come when i'm differently minded. so basically it cannot be ruled out that tina and i will be parents somewhen.

till then i delight in my mates' kids. although mika is definitely not the easiest baby around the world he's simply cuddly and absolutely lovable.

*boringandstrictpersonalcontentoff*

cu, trshptr

btw: i especially like the technical imperfection of today's pic. the blur expresses the joy, the movement of the captured scene and his zest for life perfectly.

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

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

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

3107 - cute nagger

July 31, 2012 in 30, animal, b+w, cat, courtyard, eyes, face, germany, home, moment, nex 7, nila, nose, personal, portrait, reflection, sigma, sony, whiskers, window

setup: sony nex 7 with sigma 30 f2.8 ex dn | 30mm | f2.8 | ISO640 | 1/60 | lightroom 4.1

sometimes our little kitty nila creates the impression that she is the most unviable creature on earth.

two minutes after she has left the flat she sits at the window again and mews for me to open it up. two minutes after i have left the yard she sits at the window and mews for me to open it up again. two minutes after she has got separated from me or tina she sits at the window and mews for anybody to open it up again... and so on and so forth.

again and again two minutes in her life, in which she always seems to remember the centre of her doing.

most times our little kitty nila creates the impression that she is the most amiable creature on earth.

cu, trshptr

1907 - nose against window

July 19, 2012 in 30, b+w, cobble, decay, fun, germany, glass, grey, markdorf, moment, nex 7, people, reading, reflection, sigma, sony, street, townscape, urban, window

setup: sony nex 7 with sigma 30 f2.8 ex dn | 30mm | f2.8 | ISO100 | 1/250 | lightroom 4.1

today in the afternoon i met the myopic gran in markdorf while i was strolling about the streets. she is known all over in town. most of her time she sits at the bakery's and tries to read the newspaper which is displayed there. because of her malfunctioning eyes it seems to last hours till she has coped with reading the press.

it was the first time that i've seen her in the street, of course when she was reading again. unfortunately she is in a bad condition: she is myopic, a bad walker and realises almost nothing and nobody around her. maybe all of her senses go down bit by bit. but despite the physical decay she is really cuddly: funny to see how she pressed her nose against the window... and satisfying to assess how she masters her life after all.

cu, trshptr

3006 - scepticism

July 01, 2012 in 30, air safety, blue, chaos, cloud, eyes, face, flight, hair, light, mirror, moment, nex 7, people, portrait, reflection, sigma, sky, sony, trip

setup: sony nex 7 with sigma 30 f2.8 ex dn | 30mm | f2.8 | ISO100 | 1/800 | lightroom 4.1

today in the evening we fortunately landed safely in portugal after we had to stomach a very turbulent flight from memmingen to faro. i've never seen clouds like that, 6 to 8 kilometers high cumulus clouds were piercing through two to three layers of cirrus clouds. we really had an unbelievable view through the windows. sadly the employees of the airline had forgotten to clean them, so no picture of this spectacle turned out really well.

anyhow the little lady in front of mine marveled at the view, so please think your way into her mind by interpreting her facial expression.

cu, trshptr

2806 - that's it

June 29, 2012 in 50, action, b+w, bokeh, contrast, eyes, face, germany, hair, immenstaad, moment, nex 7, people, personal, portrait, public viewing, sel, smoker, smokers´ corner, sony

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f2.0 | ISO800 | 1/80 | lightroom 4.1

halftime. short break. time to catch a breath. time to have a cigarette, even for non-smokers. disillusion already at halftime.

yesterday italy operated simply more intelligent than our team. tactical clever, mersiless effectiv, simply great: for long periods they have played masterfully. despite a huge bunch of opportunities our attackers didn't bring about to net. and if you don't score you won't win.

now i wish the italian team the best of luck to beat the spanish. contrary to all other teams the italians have managed to improve their performance with each match. on sunday they will have to perform once again.

cu, trshptr

0306 - ladies at their best

June 03, 2012 in 35, b+w, bokeh, contrast, eyes, face, fujian, fun, hair, high key, home, light, minimalistic, moment, mood, nex 7, people, personal, portrait, sony

setup: sony nex 7 with fujian 35 f1.7 | 35mm | f1.7 | manual focus | ISO1600 | 1/20 | +1.7ev | high contrast monochrome jpg | cropped and optimised in lightroom 4.1

time flies, on a large and also on a small scale. it's been round about seven years that tina's best friend jeen visited us in hamburg for the first time. it's all water under the bridge.

but time flies in microcosm, too. just arrived some blinks later the weekend and their flying visit are gone again. nevertheless we four had a great and impressing time with talking, laughing, eating and drinking, sightseeing, boating and fortunately a bit sleeping. there's a reason for that: tina and jeen are a bit like chalk and cheese and jeen's boyfriend is simply a terrific choice, we and especially i really enjoyed the time with him.

even if today's picture's technical implementation can be allocated to the "fun and imperfection" - category, i really go for the moment i captured with my fujian toy lens: today i wanted to play around with the high-key effect for what i overexposed the ladies sitting in front of a window by round about two exposure values, using the high contrast monochrome mode in my nex. afterwards while post processing i raised the exposure and the different values for black and contrast once again in lightroom. it's a first high key attempt, not more, but i like it! whereas this might be down to the wonderful ladies...

cu, trshptr