I’m in a bit of a gloomy mood today, not only for yesterday’s depressing World Cup loss of Team Germany, that was well deserved and does not leave much room for any hope of going very far in this tournament.
I had this post on my launchpad for quite some time now. Trying to look at New York City in a very different way, I took a creative approach in post-processing. After monochrome conversion of my Olympus RAW files in Lightroom Classic CC, I played with selective blurring and darkening to create this moody series about some ironing NYC sites. To see them all continue after the jump…. Continue reading “Mysterious New York City”→
During my last transatlantic flight I watched “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri”, a quite impressive movie, for which Frances McDormand deservedly won the Academy Award in the category Best Actress in a Leading Role.
“Variations on a Billboard” is the title of the 22nd episode of my “Instant Inspirations”, my series for you if you feel you suffer from “Photographer’s Block” or simply want to shoot something that you have never tried. Or at least not recently (you can find all previous episodes in my Learning Center“).
I saw this huge advertisement on the side of high-rise building in downtown Portland. It caught my eye in more than one aspect. Even though it is obvious, I honestly saw it only when I processed the photographs on my computer. They eye wants to see what the eye expects to see.
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.
It’s the start of of a new week, albeit a short one here in Germany, as we’re looking forward to two bank holidays on Tuesday and Wednesday, to which I’ll be adding two days of much needed vacation. Throw in Halloween tomorrow, and there will be plenty of opportunity for photography the next days.
November is coming up, in Central Europe commonly dubbed as the most dreary, grey and dullest month of the year. To bridge the time until the start of the festive season, why don’t you take on some creative projects during November, whether it is taking your camera and go shooting some things you haven’t before (find ideas in my Instant Inspiration series in my Learning Center), improve your post processing skills, compile a photo book of your work, or try something completely different like sketching or sculpturing. Brighten up your November by doing something creative.
Fire Seat | 2017“Elemental” is the current theme of the weekly photo challenge (WPC) from Word Press’ “The Daily Post”. So I share four long exposure photographs representing the elements “fire”, “water”, “earth” and “air”. Anyone remembering the movie “Angels & Demons” ? First comes fire, where I experimented with long exposures to create the streaks. Image was taken with the Olympus PEN-F, specs are 1,6 sec @ f/2.8 ISO 80 (which is ISO Low on the Oly) and 30mm focal length. The rest of the elements you find after the jump…. Continue reading “Weekly Photo Challenge: Elemental”→
