2007 - experimental views

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f2.0 | ISO320 | 1/80 | lightroom 4.1

weekend time is visiting time. this weekend two fellow students are visiting me at lake constance. christian, who is the father of a two and a half year old, cute boy, hasn't been at my place since more than two years. and i've not seen karl, who is also a father since more than one year, since we ended our movement to the lake in summer 2009. a long time passed since then, but luckily we are still on the same page although we three are completely different as different can be.

after they'd arrived at my workplace, i've showed them everything in my company, the facilities and the beautiful surroundings at the lake. when we came home tina had already prepared the dinner so that we could directly have a seat for a great spaghetti bolognese and some beers. in the evening we visited the opening of the exhibition "experimentelle 17" and ended in a tiny little bar with another beer.

the vernissage gave variety in modern, experimental art: iron structures, paintings and sculptures of well- and also little-known artists are exhibited at five places at the lake constance for two months from now on. the work of peter casagrande was the most impressive one: he works with huge canvas and glaring colours, beautiful to look at. however the work of andreas lau was the most interesting one: as an example he creates plastic, three-dimensional images with dozens of multilayered dots with different diameters in front of a shadowed background. really formidable!

the image in my pic shows a blurred child, that is traversed by some parallel lines. if you view this image at a remove from some meters, the child is clearly visible. however if you see the painting from up close, everything blurs to a coloured mass. also very formidable and a top implementation by the artist!

for logical reasons i used the topic and the kind of implementation of "the child", my favourite exhibited painting, as an opportunity to implement my daily pic also of this character. my pic a multilayered, partly blurred, candid self portrait of tina and me in the environment of the exhibition.

cu, trshptr

1607 - plump vs. lean

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f8.0 | ISO100 | 1/640 | lightroom 4.1

during the last few weeks i've begun to be satisfied with the technical implementation of my pics. slowly but steady i have a handle on my nex 7, i do not have to think about its operation anymore. conversely i'm really impatient of a few of my daily pic ideas or/and the composition of these images. precisely because there is a lack of interesting photography opportunities in the area around lake constance - besides the often shown and captured idyllic scenes - the collocation of a well composed image has to be reconsidered again and again. as from now i want to take into account all factors: concentrate on the full details, compose a statement and affect the viewers, if possible.

let me begin in a small way: some parts of our societies discriminate against people, that are plump or lean. the most people do not have the balls to voice this, what makes them appear even more ridiculous. fortunately there is a lid for every pot, as you can see in the image above. everybody has to have the right to exist regardless whether he, she or it is thin or fat, black or white, tall or small.

my story may seem quite a stretch, sorry, but this is what i've thought when i spotted the scene today in the afternoon in markdorf. cultivated coexistence, nothing else matters! no fence between the individuals, no podium for anybody, because there is no right or wrong. so as you can see the composition of today's pic is still not perfect, but the architectural circumstances were set... ;)

cu, trshptr

1507 - preparation

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f2.0 | ISO500 | 1/80 | lightroom 4.1

one time a year an open-air cinema event is conducted in our small village bermatingen. a visit to a movie is nothing out of the ordinary, but an open-air cinema is always somewhat special. we got excited about this special kind of event already in our youth, because one of the few drive-in cinemas is located only a few car minutes from our hometowns and we have been there many times in our youth, by car and also by bicycle.

an open-air movie enjoyment is completely different to an indoor session: anyway it is especially cosy, the people are allowed to smoke and if the weather is suitable you can see the stars in the sky. and if the movie is as good as the yesterday's one - "intouchables" was shown - everything is inherently consistent.

as a sideline i have observed the preparation work of the operator of the movable cinema equipment some minutes before the event started. the used system still works with film roles that had to be fixed in the projector. of course the operator managed this task very meticulous and experienced.

cu, trshptr

1407 - spanish folklore

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f2.0 | ISO400 | 1/120 | -0.3ev | lightroom 4.1

open air music, some beers and the setting sun - that's how an evening at the weekend should be. and if the music is spanish folklore and the beer tastes fresh and delicious, it would not have taken much for completing the vacation feeling.

unfortunately i don't know who the two guys are that made music yesterday afternoon near our home, but what i know is, that they are really good at playing their instruments and conveying the local mood of the iberian peninsula. thank you for the pleasant evening!

cu, trshptr

1207 - roosting

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f5.6 | ISO100 | 1/1000 | lightroom 4.1

behavioural pattern of creatures aren't always easy to see through. today i've observed a bulk of birds hopping between powerlines. really funny how they've acted - once a bird had departed, suddenly an indefinite number of his buddies was following him. in this kind the play has perpetuated and i'd watched them some minutes more, until i got my camera and captured the scene in a picture.

cu, trshptr

1107 - humanoid camera

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f2.8 | ISO100 | 1/13 | lightroom 4.1

when you are an ambitious photographer that is willing to learn constantly, at some point you will realise that you have begun to see your life only in frames. this is basically not so bad, you learn to handle this circumstance.

whereas the point to feel pressured by the obligation of capturing a suitable pic per day is a real problem. i ran into this issue some weeks ago and believe me, especially for an absolute beginner of serious photography this burden is definitely not conducive to obtain the best possible results and to learn the hobby in a relaxed way. you try to figure out if any, really any object would make a good scene - this is an exhausting process!

learning is known as a process whereby you improve your skills with every fault or problem you did. you have to be fully aware of this case, otherwise your expectations on yourself will always be unaccomplished. my personal aim of this photography project is the self-discovery which kind of photography i like and what kind of photographer i am, too.

in the course of this i sometimes feel like a humanoid camera.

cu, trshptr

0807 - natural evanescence

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f1.8 | ISO100 | 1/400 | lightroom 4.1

no matter how bad the mankind worries the earth, the natural regulation will gain. although this means that the mankind itself will go down, the nature will survive even if maybe only in an other form and not before dozens of centuries of regeneration.

that's why these days flowers stand not only for beauty but also for evanescence. as long as light incides on the earth flowers will come round again and again. and when the light will forever disappear at some point, the time will also stop at this time: there is no need for beauty in everlasting darkness.

cu, trshptr

0707 - depth

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f2.0 | ISO100 | 1/4000 | lightroom 4.1

unfortunately vacations seem to end always in the high of the personal emotions. just when we felt comfortable with the whole surroundings in lisbon, we sadly had to depart to faro to catch our flight to memmingen.

summarising can be said that the south of portugal is also definitely worth a journey or a even longer trip in vacations. thereby both the southern region around the algarve and the north around porto have their special issues and pros and cons: as i had supposed the southern landscape is more rocky and touristic than the rest of portugal, on the other hand the north-south shore of the north is more suited for surfing.

the duel between the cities porto and lisbon ends up in a tie: both cities are located at the atlantic coast and at the mouth of a big river. both profit from the maritime influence of the seafaring, the fishing and a dozens of thousands of seagulls. porto convinces with its naturalness and unobtrusiveness, whereas lisbon scores with its variety and a great nightlife. i think i'm going to see over both of them during the next years surf trips again.

a special detail of lisbon's townscape are its streets: cobbled streets and steep descent make your life a living hell if you are old and it teems down so that the cobblestones become slippery. what appears for the visitors as an eye candy, discommodes the lives of the local citizens. good if you can move hand over hand along a dozens of bollards.

0607 - pulling the strings

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f2.0 | ISO100 | 1/4000 | lightroom 4.1

the tram of lisbon is world-famous. the "carros eléctricos de lisboa" are operated by electricity already since 1901. due to the partially historic transport fleet and the interesting routing across the hilly townscape of lisbon the tram is very popular with the tourists.

besides the obvious points of the tram as a wonderful infrastructural feature of lisbon it attracted my attention with its spiderweb of contact wires that is pulled across the whole city centre and in that way indirectly influences the townscape. in spots only one ring sticks a lot of wires together. amazing thing!

cu, trshptr

0407 - arco da rua augusta

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f2.8 | ISO200 | 1/20 | lightroom 4.1

for a beginner like me it isn't that easy to develop a different view on the common and sometimes most photocopied scenes of the world. there is a repugnancy: you want to attract the viewer but you don not want to bore him with well known images. for lisbon i especially set my sights on keeping the number of pictures within a limit and additionally i want to try to avoid pictures that in this way were shot already thousand times before.

let's get started with a view of the ceiling of the arco da rua augusta. it is a triumphal arch-like, historical building and visitor attraction on commerce square, built to commemorate the city's reconstruction after the 1755 earthquake. it has six columns (some 11m high) and is adorned with statues of various historical figures. originally designed as a bell tower, the building ultimately transformed into elaborate arch within more than century-long delays (source).

cu, trshptr