2010-12-30

Park

One of the pictures that are more about what you can't see than what's on the photo.

2010-12-25

Night

From the hotel window series. Maybe you'll recognize the curtain.

2010-12-22

Saxes

A concert of The Screenclub at the Stellwerk in Harburg in October.

2010-12-21

Staircase

A bit more than two weeks ago I was in Cambridge again. Probably for the last time, but who knows...

2010-12-18

Yogurt

I'm unearthing a couple of older color photos quite some time after I stopped taking them. Maybe I'll try again one day.

2010-12-14

White line, too

A variant of this one, twelve years later. Did I make any progress since?

2010-12-13

2010-11-25

Hidden

A poster in Hamburg a few weeks ago.

2010-11-24

Blotch

This was almost ten months ago.

2010-11-23

INRI, 20% off

Seen in a shop window in Cambridge a few weeks ago.

2010-11-22

Form follows function

A bus stop in Hamburg, about a month ago.

2010-11-03

Karaoke

A photo that I only began to be really interested in and work on more than a year after I took it - although I had it at least earmarked back then. This seems to contradict what I once said about digital photography, but of course it doesn't. With enough discipline, digital photography can certainly "feel" like film photography.

2010-11-02

You can run, but you can't hide

A friend in Rouen who was trying not to be photographed. With only partial success, obviously.

2010-11-01

Wetzlar

Wetzlar in Hess, Germany is where Leica comes from, originally, and I was there for the first time about a week ago to view a Klavdij Sluban exhibition. The exhibition was in the Leica Gallery in Solms where Leica is currently situated (and where my M7 was built), but it seems they're now planning to relocate to where they came from.

2010-10-31

Halloween

Yesterday on our neighbor's balcony.

2010-10-30

Dress form

In September, for the first time of my life, I had the chance to see the studio of a custom tailor from the inside. I was in awe because not only what they make is beautiful but also because everything about the tools and the materials had an air of dignity and pride. I very rarely wear suits, but I was really tempted to get me one.

I'll probably show a few more photos from the same venue later.

2010-10-29

Planes

Shot in close proximity to one I've shown more than a year ago. And it's again a color photograph of a look into a shop window.

Except for adding a bit of saturation, this photo wasn't modified in any way.

2010-10-28

Sunset

Looking out of the window of a 747 into the sunset. Feel free to compare with this one. And please don't compare with this one.

2010-10-21

Bridges

The Manhattan Bridge seen from the Brooklyn Bridge.

And today's title is also the title of a Gil Scott-Heron LP from 1977.

2010-10-17

Central Park

One of the horses that tour Central Park each and every day.

2010-10-16

Textures

I forgot what I thought when I took this picture, but now I think it's about textures. I generally don't make conscious decisions when I'm pressing the shutter. In fact, I try to avoid thinking too hard and too long about a picture while I'm shooting. I prefer to be surprised by what I "saw" when I later see the contact sheet.

2010-10-15

White line

Of course, there's always Robert Frank's magnificent white line which makes all others look like cheap rip-offs.

2010-10-14

Raindrops

In the loggia behind our kitchen on a dark and rainy day last year.

2010-10-13

Jail

No, this is not a jail. But I always have to think of one when I look at it. It combines the fence category with the looking up category.

2010-10-12

Miss

There you have it again. Every now and then a photo which technically is a failure ends up as one that I like because it manages to capture something the "correct" ones don't. This also happens to me with other photographer's pictures and I guess they feel the same because otherwise they wouldn't have published their "misses" in the first place. At the Fotobuchtage 2010 here in Hamburg I had the chance to ask Paolo Pellegrin how he deals with this and my understanding is that his views are the same: if a photo "feels" right then take it, no matter how blurry, skewed, underexposed, or grainy it might be.

As one might have guessed, you can't really fake this. You can of course go out and deliberately use wrong shutter speeds or aim your lens into the wrong direction - but that alone doesn't make a good shot.

2010-10-11

See More

In 1996, a lot of the telephone kiosks in London looked liked this from the inside. That's probably different today - if they still exist at all.

But I'm not sure if currently I'd like to return to the UK and check myself. It seems the authorities over there are now extremely hostile towards photography and treat every photographer as a potential felon. Definitely not something a democratic country should be proud of.

Bruce Schneier wrote a good article about this topic.

2010-10-10

Shadow

It's some time ago since I posted the last self portrait and I'm not doing many of them anyway. But this one I really like. And please note that the light was exactly like this on that day - no dodging and burning or anything like that.

2010-10-08

The eye

Rhymes with this one in a way, although the former was taken in winter while this one I shot last Saturday when it was almost still summer.

And while about a year ago I thought I wouldn't return to the USA any time soon, I've been there three times already in 2010.

A few minutes after I took this picture, I had a very interesting meeting with Bill Franson who is a great photographer and now finally also has a nice website.

2010-10-07

Landing

Another one from the dove day.

2010-10-05

Looking up

As part of my ongoing introspection into what and why I photograph, I've added a new category looking up to this blog - because I realized that a lot of my photos, and especially pretty recent ones I happen to like, are about looking up in one way or the other. This here belongs to this new category. It was taken in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York on March 13, 2010.

Which, BTW, was the same day I met Magdalena Solé, a photographer I admire for her color pictures. I recommend looking at her website.

2010-10-04

October 4

Seemed like the perfect picture for today.

2010-09-23

Hat

A nice hat in a train in New Jersey.

2010-09-22

Skewed dog

Let me throw in another dog, somewhat similar to this one.

2010-09-21

Backyard ritual

After quite some time, a view out of a hotel window again. This time, it's the Ace hotel in New York, and the photo was taken exactly nine years after 9/11.

The title is the name of a song from Miles Davis' "Tutu" album, BTW.

2010-09-20

Brooklyn Bridge

I've been on this bridge a couple of times already, but I never took a photo of it that I liked. This one, from last week, is the first one.

2010-09-08

Fire lane

I love this one for its tonal values although otherwise there probably isn't much to write home about.

2010-09-07

An old favorite

This one has been hanging on my wall as a real (i.e. "wet") print for years and moved with us to three different flats. I'm not sure why it took me so long to show it here.

This is a streetcar you've already seen.

2010-09-06

Jesus

Again, actually. This time I spotted him in Akko.

2010-09-05

The theme, maybe

I've recently shown a couple of photos which are maybe kind of nice or funny but not really good pictures as far as I am concerned. I partially did this because some people actually asked me to revive the blog after the long summer break and I was flattered enough to do that.

But I generally agree with Mike Johnston that it's a worthwhile idea to shoot to a theme. At least I think that would be something I should personally strive for. And one of the goals of this blog was to help me in identifying such a theme. I thought about this in the last days and I might actually be up to something now. Not really sure yet (have to ponder this a bit more), but it has got to do with concepts like proof and evidence. And apparently windows and reflections play an important role and that's why I dug this one out from a few months ago. Let's see how this'll develop. (Pun intended.)

2010-09-04

Partly shorn

I always thought that I didn't know about Shaun the Sheep before 2007, but this photo proves that we briefly met in 1998 already.

2010-09-03

The Sea of Galilee

As seen from the Golan Heights - if I remember correctly. The guy with the megaphone is a professor of mathematics who gave us a tour while we attended a conference on logic and set theory in Haifa.

The hand on the right side of the photo of course wasn't intended to be there, but immediately when I saw it on the contact sheet, I knew I liked it.

2010-09-02

CE-50-54

They have pretty narrow streets here, I thought when I took this photo. I probably wouldn't park my Taunus there if I had one.

2010-09-01

While you were art

Slightly cropped. For the title, see here.

2010-08-31

Siesta #3

One of the first photos in this blog showed a sleeping dog. Here's another canine siesta.

(Hey, and I just realized this was picture #100 with the good old M4-P.)

2010-08-30

Documents

Seen through a window in Prague, sixteen years ago. One wonders what has happened to them since and where they are now.

Addendum: This photo was shown in the Bronx Banter in April 2011.

2010-08-29

Paws

I'd be interested to learn what the meaning of this tradition is. Seen in Méounes-les-Montrieux in 1995.

2010-08-28

No diving

I wouldn't have thought of doing it anyway. (You know where this is, don't you?)