Street | Urban | Travel | Photography by Marcus Puschmann
October is slowly coming to a close. And what a beautiful month it has been. I have read that it will be the warmest October ever in Germany since weather recordings started back in 1881. Fall colors are stunning this year. No reason to travel elsewhere for that, Franconia is enjoying its own Indian summer. I took the photos in this post in the woods behind the house, using my iPhone 12 Pro Max. My daily 5K walk has become my personal color rush.
Continue reading “Color Rush”
We’re back in Nuremberg after a great weekend in Berlin where we visited close friends. Besides spending real quality time together I also got some street shooting done when we headed into city center after we did a fun tour riding a rail trolley (Draisine) in the afternoon.
This street photo I took during the blue hour near the Alexanderplatz. I loved the color contrast between the blue light outside in the street and the yellow light in the shop window. Then I merely waited a few seconds until a subject arrived on the scene (didn’t have more, as the others in the party, already starved, where rushing towards a nearby Vietnamese restaurant that we always visit when in Berlin).
The photo was taken with the PEN-F and the 12mm F/2. Image specs are 1/250 sec @ f/4 and ISO 1600. When shooting people in the blue hour, don’t even try to get the white balance right in order to get correct skin tones. That’s why it is called blue hour 😉
That’s “Monsieur Vuong”. Same camera/lens combo, specs 1/20 sec @ f/4.5 and ISO 1600. As I’ve written many times on this blog, instead of complaining about cars parked in the wrong place in front of your subject, use them to your advantage. Have I mentioned I love reflections?
There is more to come from our Berlin weekend, stay tuned!
Wish you a great Sunday!
Marcus
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It’s been almost a week since my last post, but it was an intense work week in the Pacific Northwest, that, combined with a bad case of jet lag, left no room for blogging or venturing out with the camera. I had to wait until my return trip to Nuremberg to put the PEN-F and the mZuiko 17mm F/1.8 to work, albeit in one of my favorite connecting locations, Chicago’s O’Hare airport. The colorful tunnel between concourses B and C of ORD Terminal 1 is a great place for some street photography. For a few more photographs taken yesterday continue after the jump…. Continue reading “Travel Day (13)”
We are on to Day 2 of Cassia Denner’s 10 Day Photography Challenge, with today’s theme being “Something Red”. Well, technically my entry is multicolored, but when walking up to this bar scene I knew I had to get that shot of the bright red star on the green wall while connecting through Amsterdam Shiphol the day before yesterday, already with the challenge topic “red” in mind.
This is one of the examples where everything comes together, colors (green and red are complimentary, sitting on opposite sides of the color wheel) and a multi element composition (rule of thirds, leading lines, and you could argue to see a Fibonacci spiral from the black star to the wall red star to the counter top red star curving on the bottom up to the guest sitting leaning over to the bar top).
Image specs are 140 sec @ f/2,8 and ISO 200, shot in P-Mode with my Ricoh GR II.
Today at 1:20 pm my flight back to Amsterdam and eventually Nuremberg takes to the sky again, after exactly 50 hours on the ground in the Rose City. I should be back home in time for a late Saturday breakfast.
I wish you all a great Friday!
Marcus
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In time for the weekend here is episode 21 of my “Instant Inspirations”, my series for you if you look for something to overcome “Photographer’s Block” or simply want to shoot something that you have never tried, or at least not recently.
Not every photo you take needs to make perfect sense. That is, making perfect sense to the outside world. It only needs to please you, make you happy. If someone else likes it, that’s a bonus.
That said, you are not limited to taking “conventional” photos of people, landscape, architecture etc…shoot it all! Whatever visually stimulates you, take a photo of it. Don’t be shy, the limit is only defined by your own taste. Try things out! Let interesting colors, shapes, textures and juxtapositions that catch your eye get your creative juices flowing. Be a visual artist. Go out and experiment and have fun! You only need to please yourself!
The “Hands” shot above I took last night with my iPhone while at dinner with two of my awesome colleagues here in Portland. We were enjoying a fab dinner in a Peruvian restaurant (Andina) in the Pearl District. We were sitting at a copper plated table, and while enjoying wine and great talks I observed my friend Anton lay out the shape of his hand with the chips of the cork from our wine bottle. The mixture of colors, shapes and textures really triggered the desire to take out my iPhone and capture that for my eyes visually appealing scene. Just for myself. And this is what I did. It was my creative moment on an otherwise quite unnerving day of project work, and it made me happy. And this is exactly what photography does for me.
For some more examples of random creativity and links to previous episodes of “Instant Inspirations” continue after the jump….. Continue reading “Instant Inspiration (21) – Shoot what attracts your eye”
Street Photography Quick Tip 11 – Using Color Accents
My Street Photography Quick Tips are short, easy to read and easy to use tips that I think could help you while shooting in the streets. Today’s post is about using color accents to add interest to a street photo.
Working with accentuated colors can really help to make an image pop out. In this example the bright red of the lady’s dress is picked up by the bright red flowers decorating the window sills of this historic guest house in Nuremberg’s neighboring city Fürth, and continues to the upper part of the photo with the red beer advertisement (I have no clue though why in the motherland of local craft breweries someone needs to advertise with Spanish beer). So the red color accents guide the eye of the viewer through the image.
Try it yourself! Take your camera, hit the streets and have fun searching for motives with accentuated colors.
The photo was taken with my Olympus PEN-F with the mZuiko 14-150mm F/4-5.6 travel zoom. Image specs 1/60 sec @ f/5.4 and ISO 1600 (it was already getting dark, thus the high ISO). Focal lenght was 60mm (equals 120mm full frame equivalent). Raw processing in Lightroom CC.
Find all my other (free) Street Photography Quick Tips in my Learning Center.
Have a great week!
Marcus
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Street Photography Quick Tip 2 – Another way to shoot inconspicuously
Street Photography Quick Tip 6 – Shoot in a station