Month: May 2018

Headin’ Home

Headin' Home | Seattle | 2018
Headin’ Home | Seattle | 2018

There is the saying that every journey starts with the first step with putting the sunglasses on your nose. That’s what I will do today, as in about three hours I will head to PDX airport for my flight back home. Well, home is not exactly right, as in Amsterdam I will make a connection to Zurich where I will meet The Significant Other and the Big Boy at the house of friends, where we spend the weekend. Weather in Switzerland should be nice as well, so I might keep the sunglasses on all the way 😉

Olympus OM-D E-M1 with the mZuiko 12-100 mm F/4. Image specs are 1/500 sec @f/5.6 and ISO 200.

For  tips and inspirations around photography in general check out my free Learning Center.

Wish you a great Thursday!

Marcus

Related Posts:

A Street Photographer’s Dialogue

Street Photography Quick Tip 7 – Work the Scene

Street Photography Quick Tip 8 – Capturing Gesture

Instant Inspiration (8) -Make a portrait of a stranger

16

The Hood and the Moon

Supermoon | Oregon | 2018
Supermoon | Oregon | 2018

While driving back to Portland yesterday evening on Interstate 5 I noticed the Supermoon rising behind Mount Hood as I was already approaching the Columbia River. This was a too awesome opportunity to pass up. I took the next exit and drove just a quarter mile up a road to where I had the first unobstructed view of the big volcano.

Shot with the Olympus OM-D E-M1 with the mZuiko 12-100 mm F/4. Image specs are 1/320 sec @f/5 and ISO 200, at 100mm focal length, the far end of the zoom. I promise this is no Photoshop, it really was like this. I only slightly increased clarity when RAW processing in Lightroom Classic CC.

For more about this majestic mountain see the links to earlier posts about “The Hood” below

Wish you a great Tuesday

Marcus

Related Posts:

The Hood and the Flowers

Monday Mountains (5)

Around the World in 12 Days – Hiking on Mount Hood

Ski the Volcano

21

A Whale of a Day

Orca Whale | Stuart Island | 2018
Orca Whale | Stuart Island | 2018

Sunday morning I headed out to Fidalgo Island to do some whale watching out of Anacortes. Although I did not have to wait to get on the boat to sea any first whales. While doing a little hike to Porpoise Point near Rosario beach in the morning, I spotted some….Porpoises playing below me in the water while I did a picknick on the cliffs. The whale watch tour starting at 4pm in the afternoon was a four and a half hour trip on a larger boat. Obviously, nothing ever is promised when viewing wildlife (I learned this during many hours driving through the African bush without seeing as much as a hair of an animal). But I have to say, it turned out to be a whale of a day. See a few photos after the jump… Continue reading “A Whale of a Day” →

25

The Classic Seattle Night Shots

Blue Hour
Blue Hour | Seattle | 2018

I know there is the theory saying you should try to find an individual angle in your photography, not going after the shots that million others have taken. Thank heavens it’s just that…a theory.

Of course I went after the two classic night shots of the Seattle skyline. The first from Kerry Park was taken with 1/6 sec @ f/4 and ISO 500. I took it handheld, camera tightly tucked against the body, arms resting on the railing of the viewpoint. As I have written in other posts, getting tack sharp images with 1/6 sec handheld is no big problem with the Olympus OM-D E-M1 combined with the 12-100 F/4, where image stabilization of the camera are added to the lens internal image stabilization. Amazing technology. It was that crowded at the viewpoint that it would have been difficult to set up a tripod anyway.

Night Lines
Night Lines | Seattle | 2018

The second classic night shot of the Seattle skyline is from the 12th Avenue bridge across the I5. You have Century Link Field (home of the Seattle Seahawks) to the left, the Interstate 5 and Seattle downtown. Image specs here are 4 seconds, f/7.1 and ISO 200. As I wanted to capture the light trails of the passing cars I used a slow shutter speed of 4 seconds with the camera on a small tripod. I would have loved to use a longer shutter speed, but the problem was the bridge was vibrating with passing cars. Anything longer than 4 seconds always resulted in shaking from a passing car. Still, I’m quite happy with the result.

Any reason not to go for the postcard shots?

Wish you a splendid Sunday!

Marcus

Related Posts:

My New York City Eye Opener

Instant Inspiration (10) – Nocturnal Skyline

StoNur on the Road – Shibuya Crossing

Namibia Explored – Quiver Tree Forest

27

Hello from Seattle

Black and White
Black and White | Seattle | 2018

The Emerald City is actually pretty grey today. Which is not a big problem for a street photographer. Although I must admit, I went up to Kerry Park viewpoint in Queen Anne to capture a beautiful vista of the Seattle skyline. While the panorama looked quiet dull in all that grayness, I captured beauty of other sorts. Can’t help, somehow this scenery with the two ladies, posing for a friend shooting them with a cellphone camera, reminded me of Natalie Portman in “Black Swan”.

Photo taken with my Olympus OM-D E-M1 and the mZuiko 12-100mm F/4. Image specs 1/250 sec @ f/5 and ISO 200, 100mm focal length. I shot wide open at f/5 to throw fore- and background out of focus and direct the view on the faces of the posing ladies. Still, everybody can see where the photo was taken. Framing with the onlooking family adds interest to the story.

In the morning I toured the Boeing wide body factory in Everett, now I’m roaming the streets of Seattle. Just taking a coffee break in the MoPOP down below the Space Needle. I thought to use their free WiFi to upload this single shot and say “Hi” from the Emerald City.

Wish you all a great weekend!

Marcus

Related Posts:

A Street Photographer’s Dialogue

Street Photography Quick Tip 7 – Work the Scene

Street Photography Quick Tip 8 – Capturing Gesture

Instant Inspiration (8) -Make a portrait of a stranger

9

NYC Experience – Memories

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Resilience | New York City | 2018

Day 2 of our week in the Big Apple was full of memories for me. We took the subway downtown to the World Trade Center. As a seventeen year old exchange student in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains, my host family took me to my very first visit of New York City, back in 1984. My host-dad was a sheet metal worker, and I vividly remembering him taking me up to the observation deck of the Twin Towers and telling me full of pride how he helped build the towers. I’ve returned to NYC many times, and each time I see the skyline I miss the elegant silhouette of the Twin Towers. During my last visit in 2012, the new One World Trade Center was almost finished, the memorial fountains in the footprints of the old towers where already there, the 9/11 museum not yet open. To see how it looks today continue after the jump… Continue reading “NYC Experience – Memories” →

24

Weekly Photo Challenge: Twisted

Legs
Ricoh GR II | 1/40 sec @ f/2.8 and ISO 200, 18 mm focal length

“Twisted” is the prompt of this week’s WPC. And I have just the right street photographs for this challenge, with pedestrians having a twist and doing the twist. Both images were taken in Portland, which is also a good fit for this week, as this is where I currently am, doing another two-week work stint in the Pacific Northwest.

The Move
Olympus PEN-F | 1/250 sec @ f/5.6 and ISO 1600 |120 mm focal length

The good news is I’ll be enjoying the long Memorial Day weekend over here. I haven’t decided on any plans yet, but there will be plenty of opportunity for some extended photography. And the weather should also be quite ok. Now I just need to make it into the weekend….

Wish you all a great Wednesday!

Marcus

Related Posts:

Willamette Blue Hour

The Streets of Portland – Finally

The Hood and the Flowers

Hiking on the Oregon Coast

10

I wanna be loved by you

Love Attack
Love Attack | New York City | 2018

Those commuters for sure seem totally ignorant about that love attack from their right side. Or maybe nobody dares to look anymore? I took this is the new subway station below the Oculus near the new World Trade Center. Image specs are 1/125 sec @ f/4 and ISO 250. After RAW conversion I corrected the white balance in Lightroom CC, so it correctly shows the white marble of the station, not the yellowish color that the automatic white balance gave me. A good example why shooting RAW makes so much sense, when it comes to correcting the white balance in post processing. No chance to get this straight in jpg. While the AWB typically does well outside, indoors with artificial light in often is lost.

Another point fo discussion in this image is whether to clone out the tubes of the roof construction that are visible in the top right. Cropping does not work here, as you would lose the leading lines of the walkway and the electronic billboard. So either leave them where there are, or take the work laborious approach to clone them out, without disrupting the lines of the marble tiles. I decided to leave them. Although a bit of a disturbance of the otherwise clean composition, the eye doesn’t really notice them. I would be interested in your opinions, leave them in the comment section.

Have a great Sunday!

Marcus

Related Posts:

My New York City Eye Opener

NYC Experience – Night in the Station

Weekly Photo Challenge: Lines

NYC Experience – DUMBO

21

The sun is coming out again

Summer Smile
Summer Smile | 2016

After a few intense days researching the impact of the new European GDPR law going into effect next week (May 25th) my initial slight panic attacks have subsided. I think I think I know what requirements I need to fulfill in order to make my personal, non-commercial blog compliant, at least to a degree where I feel comfortable. There is still a lot of uncertainty out there, but I think it will be a process where we all (bloggers, lawyers, service providers) will need to learn how to adjust to adhere to the principle of data privacy, which, and I hope we all agree to this, is doubtless necessary, considering the recent data scandals of Cambridge Analytica and the likes.

After my initial rant about WordPress / Automattica I must concede that WordPress has come out with tools that we can use to mitigate a few of the GDPR induced challenges. As of me writing this post, these tools have seemingly come out only in the English version of WP, but should be available across all WP platforms shortly. You can read the WP announcement about this privacy and maintenance release here. Also, Automattica is now providing a Data Processing Agreement that will be signed by both sides (unfortunately only available for paid plans (so far)). So things are progressing, there, but should be monitored closely.

So what were my initial activities? I did some upgrades to the pages “About Me” and “About this blog“. As this is a personal blog I am not required to have a detailed, official contact page (Impressum), but I want to make sure people can understand who his behind this blog and  how to reach me. And I want to make clear that this is a personal blog with which I do not pursue any commercial interests. I also want to explicitly state that this blog about capturing life in the streets as it happens is an art form, as also recently stated by the German Constitutional Court. This should give some freedom about posting photography with people in it. As before, I have a clear statement that if anyone thinks a photography of himself or others is inappropriate, this person can contact me and I will take down the photo without discussion (has never happened in two and a half years of blogging – fingers crossed).

The other change is the publication of a Data Privacy Statement, which I understood every blog should have, regardless if commercial or personal. Again, there are mixed opinions out there, and I’m no lawyer to judge objectively. As personally I don’t have a problem with that I created a statement. There are German IT lawyers who offer for private bloggers for free the generation of a tailored DP statement based on a questionnaire they have on their website. You just copy it on a word press page including the reference to the generator website. I added some information I regarding the purpose of my blog and my service provider Automattica, including a link to their GDPR privacy page. Unfortunately for my English speaking blogger friends, this DP generation service is only available in German language. Research the web if in your country similar services are available. I will do a translation of it in the next days, as even a German blog in English language needs also to have an English DP page. The German version of my Datenschutzerklärung you can find here. It is also accessible form every page of my blog via the side menu on a PC and bottom menu on the WP mobile version.

DISCLAIMER: This is a best try at putting together a compliant DP statement, I am not a lawyer and the page has not been created by a lawyer. If you want to have a legally checked DP statement, you will need to spend money and go see a lawyer, that can create  a legally foolproof page tailored to your exact situation.

The next thing I will do later today is signing the Automattica Data Processing Agreement and send it to them for counter signature.

For now I will not turn off any features of this blog, and will wait and see how things will eventually fall into place and what needs to be done.

With my implemented measures (that were not all that complex) I feel comfortable taking the “Streets of Nuremberg” into the GDPR age. I will stay on top of this DP issue and improve this blog as I gain more knowledge. I will continue to write about it here and share my experiences.

But the good thing is I continue with my blog which I am passionate about.

The sun is out again!

Have a splendid weekend!

Marcus

Related Posts:

Datenschutzerklärung

A Blogger’s Nightmare

Happy Birthday, Streets of Nuremberg

Learning Center is online

16

Weekly Photo Challenge: Liquid

 

Backlit Fountain Street Photography

“Liquid” is the theme of the WPC Weekly Photo Challenge this week. So let it be wet! My title photo is a street photo from downtown Nuremberg.  The image was taken with my Olympus PEN-F with the mZuiko 14-150mm F/4-5.6. Image specs 1/250 sec @ f/5.6 and ISO 320. Have I mentioned before I am a big fan of shooting into the light? You just have to make sure you measure for the correct exposure, as back-lit images tend to be too dark, as the camera “sees” too much light, especially with matrix exposure metering. In these situations it is best to switch on center weighted or even spot metering and put your metering point(s) over the area you want to have correctly exposed. In this case I exposed for the hair of the girl, which had a great midtone contrast.

For a small collection of more liquid street-, landscape- and travel-photos I invite you to look after the jump…. Continue reading “Weekly Photo Challenge: Liquid” →

44

A Blogger’s Nightmare

Get out of my way

I am sure that, if you are a blogger yourself,  you have a big red mark on your calendar for May 25th. Because this is the date were the new EU data protection regulation (GDPR- General Data Protection Regulation/DSGVO-Datenschutz-Grundverordnung ) will come into force. Although, while primarily governing the handling of data privacy in the EU, it will practically affect everyone in the blogging world, because you are affected when your blog handles data (like logging of IP-addresses or e-mail addresses) of EU citizens.

When you search for GDPR in blogging forums (like the WordPress support forums), there is a lot of confusion about how to handle that situation. Some fellow bloggers already have deactivated their blog or are planning to do so.

While I always had the nagging feeling I need to revise the data privacy statements of my blog to comply with the new laws, I was not worried too much as the “Streets of Nuremberg” are a purely non-commercial, private blog in which I share my photographic endeavors. But recent posts from fellow bloggers and a face-to-face meeting with fellow local Street Photographer Kai (Kosmophil.de) just yesterday really got me worried and into action mode, as looming penalties (especially for blogs with commercial orientation of any sorts) are really severe.

I’m not a lawyer, and I can’t write the umpteenth article on how to bring your blog in compliance with the new law. And after half a night of research, there are many useful tips and guides to be found in the net, just search for “GDPR” (english) or “DSGVO” (German) and “blogging”.

I’m still in the process to determine what adjustments I need to do on my blog, just to be on the safe side and not run blindfolded into a possible legal trap.  Just by researching the web, all those things like a button “Follow via E-Mail…”, all social media sharing buttons,  allowing comments with avatars could potentially pose a data privacy problem, and bloggers need turn those things off or at least make their readers aware of it, which requires an updated data privacy statement on the blog. So I will dig deeper into the requirements and derive my personal measures I need to put in place.

My blog is hosted by WordPress.com (not to be confused with WordPress.org) and the company running it (Automattic). I would assume, that a service provider taking my money will take care of all the data privacy topics that run in their backend.  And WordPress itself has announced new features in May (oh by the way, this topic can only be found in their English support forum).  But ten days before the new law is put into force, no real help/tools is available so far.

I had a one hour chat session with their support today, asking for the availability of automated tools and a data privacy contract between them and myself as contract partners, confirming they protect the private data of my users that is logged in the background by their servers.  In the end, they referred me to their updated DP statement: Automattic and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The support said more will become available as we approach the May 25th deadline. I was totally disappointed they let (even their paying) customers walk that thin line. Not that we didn’t have several years to prepare for the new laws.

I see a lot of  panic and fear in the community, but I am quite confident that myself and all others who have behaved legally so far, with some changes and adjustments, can continue to blog without running into problems. But we first need to navigate through this period of uncertainty.

I hope I did not spoil your day with this post, but I would like to raise your awareness to this looming topic, and encourage you to do some research of your own into whether you might be affected and how you can adjust to avoid any legal trouble after May 25th.

I will continue to write about my experiences and activities regarding GDPR compliance, so stay tuned.

Have a nice Tuesday

Marcus

Links to relevant WordPress.com support sites:

https://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/gdpr/

https://privacy.blog/

https://automattic.com/automattic-and-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/

 

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