Sunday afternoon walk with Chris

This Sunday afternoon the weather was perfect for this kind of shots. Chris and I did some really cool combined effort shots and bubbled over with ideas for many more combined effort shots. You'll see those shots on our ChrisSan Photographers Blog sooner or later.

Some of those ideas are pretty simple and easily to do, others need months of planning and preparation (clothes, venues including permission, some peoples like violin players and pianists, requisites like the violin from Grandpa, hats and gloves, etc, etc).

Believe it or not, but I started a notebook just for those photoshooting ideas, which is a novum for me, as I never really planned photoshoots. I just take a camera with me and then take a picture if something picks my eye.

222 - Sneak peek from my hat photo shoot with Chris

Yeah, I'm a big kid and not a grown up. But who is watching us there? Is it a spy? Stealing our ideas?!

Post 200 - I can't believe that I'm already here

It's not even a year since I started this blog and I'm already at post 200. This is incredible to me. Because it took me a year to get to post 200 with my Triathlon blog. And my first two blogs never got over post number 5.

For one thing I'm sure it's because I just love to share my photography. It's much more fun to take pictures when you can share them with people who have the same interest. An old friend of mine (we know each other since 8th grade) asked me on my birthday dinner 2 weeks ago, what I take all those pictures for? What do I do with all those pictures? (She even made fun of my organized archive!)
I just had shown two freshly developed films with pretty amazing pictures. Chris (the digital photographer) loved them and was totally excited about the outcome. Chris and my jaw dropped on these questions.
It seems my old friend has no concept of what a hobby means to someone. She and her husband stopped taking pictures because they would only crowd the harddrive or the room (he used to take slides a few years back).
So after I had collected my scattered brain I said that I want to get better at photography, so that I can take part in contests for the fun of it (and the possible won cameras) and that I publish them in my blog. I don't think that she grasped the whole idea of just having fun while taking the pictures, to explore the possibilities and then sharing the excitement with other photographers. (Poor girl.)

So, I'm glad that I've got all of you photographers out there, to share the fun. Thanks for coming here.

Playing with Dunes

I've been to the Nuit Blanches Photographies yesterday which are pre-events to the F/Stop International Photography Festival in Leipzig. While the event was really cool, music and a photography projection between the stilts of a restaurant next to the Karl-Heine-Channel, I was surprised about the kind of pictures shown. Maybe I have become a snob concerning photography due to my own photography and all of the lovely photo blogs out there. But a lot of those pictures were average and plain boring. Most of them were with objects in the center. Quite a few had only the goal to repel you, it seemed. Almost all of them used cold (flash) light.

There was just one series that played with exposure time (long exposure, really cool stuff). Just one picture with double exposure (which was really good). And two portrait series with fantastic lighting and different picture compositions. Oh and one really nice series with flower still lifes. Except for that...

I'll definitely send in some of my lomographies next year. There is a good chance I make the cut.

Shadows in the Golden Hour

When the sun shines, about one hour before the sunset the light turns golden and soft. I love this hour and not only because it's perfect for taking pictures, but because it makes the world feel alright and wonderful, as if good things happen everywhere.

What is your favourite time of day?

Would you believe it?

While archiving tons of films and pics I found the said Sand Canyon pictures from several years ago.

And you know what? I must've had tomatoes on my eyes (okay, german saying don't know the english expression), those pictures were perfectly fine! This goes for a lot of other old pics too.

Just wanted to let you know. *smirk*

Oh, and I made my appointments for the application pictures, I'll get them taken on my birthday in exactly one week, wohoo. I can't wait to see the results.

Tree Light

Looking at the nightsky

The building is the "Uniriese"

Leipzig at Night series - Starting now

Do I really have to tell you, how ridiculously proud I'm on this shot? It seems I have to! Because I screamed of joy when I saw this developed pic. To me it looks like a night shot of a pro. (If you don't think so, keep your mouth shut, I don't want to know.)

I took it with my Nikon F90 and used an 800 ASA film.

Different Impressions

All of you probably know The Photodiarist. I visit her blog practically everyday and learn a lot about photography from her through her pictures. She takes most of her pictures in Black and White. Her pictures are stunningly beautiful.

Today she posted a series of beach pictures and we got into a discussion over them (read it all at her blogpost). My first impression was that beach pictures with lots of people should be in color, otherwise there seems to be something missing to me. Biana from A little something something brought up the idea of giving them a vintage color theme, which made me think, that if you turn the "pure" black and white into sepia this impression of something missing would be gone. On third thought, to me it seems that this impression of something missing was brought forth by the "plain" sky, there is no structure or depth to it. Well there was obviously cloudless sky, so what should provide this structure?

In any case this inspired me to play around with a picture and iPhoto (I've got Gimp but I simply haven't found the time to learn how to use it. *blush*). Here are five versions of the same digital picture I took one evening a few weeks ago. I would love to discuss them with you, so don't hold back your thoughts.

The original, no alteration.

Turned black & white.

Turned sepia.

Faded colors.

Saturated colors.

So what do you think works and what not? What impression do you have, when you look at the sepia or the faded or ... picture? How would you do it?

PS: You find my opinion in the comments. Please read those only after you made up your mind on the pictures impressions, as to not cloud your first impression with the other readers thoughts. Thanks.

Clouds 3- Villingen 2009

Nikon F90 with Nikkor 35 - 135 mm lens, 200 ASA

Sign

Nikon F90 with Nikkor 35 - 135 mm lens, 200 ASA

Clouds 2- Villingen 2009

Nikon F90 with a Nikkor 35 - 135 mm lens, 200 ASA

View through a room

Nikon F90,200 ASA

Clouds - Villingen 2009

Nikon F90 with Nikkor 35-135 lens, 200 ASA

The film was more then ten months left in the camera. I had totally forgotten about it.

Lomography with a Semi-Professional Nikon SLR

Don't ask me, I don't know what I shot here.
Nikon F90 with Nikkor 35-135 mm lens, 200 ASA

Koziol figurine - Sunlight Session

Nikon F90 with Nikkor 35-135mm lens, makro shot, 200 ASA

Dolfin Chocolate - before my tummy (Muahahahah)

Enough talked, here they are

the first shots of the sunlight session.

Nikon F90 with a Nikkor 35-135 lens, 200 ASA film, makro shots

Squealing with joy - the sunlight session

What fun!!!

It started this morning with getting the cameras, tripod and films ready.

"Mmmh, I definitely need more 200 ASA Films and batteries."

Took the stuff for the still lifes out: belgian chocolate, Othello chocolate cookies, the wooden bowl, etc


Since I needed batteries and films I went to the city by streetcar and bought them and Lunch. First I wanted to get thai food but then felt more like cheese. So I got myself 3 bagels, 100g of berry cream cheese and at the supermarket I bought Rocchetta Alta Langa cheese. Pure bliss. You gotta taste it. Yummy.

On my way to and fro the city I took several pictures with my Ixus (I don't leave the house without it).




After a nap, around 4 PM I started with the set up for the session. Since the sun finally was getting to the position to get the pictures.


My first setup for the test pictures. Not happy times. Because my camera was having one error after another and I'm not used to look through an eyepiece anymore. It took me about half an hour to an hour to figure out what the problem was, switching bodies and lenses. The batteries were the culprit. Mind you the display didn't say low battery, otherwise I would have changed them earlier. This is really annoying since the "old" ones were actually "fresh". Well, I won't buy Varta again. Now I've got Duracell in it and my camera works just fine. Bloody thing.

After that I just had to get used to working with a real camera again (Ixus and Lomo are really different than a SLR) and with a tripod and arranging also first time. Hard work, nevertheless I've been squealing with joy when it worked out. At the end of this part, I was back to my old photography savvy self. Naturally I heard really good music during this first session. Natalie Cole "This will be (an everlasting love)"

Some images of the sunlight session:






Now I'll eat dinner (bagels and cheese - I'm in heaven!)and wait for the sunlight to fade fully. Then it's artificial light: lamps, flash and candles. It will be interesting.

Okay, I'm hungry and my cheese is calling my name.