Somewhere in Berlin

The first photo in this blog that I worked on with more sophisticated means than dust removal and the tone curve controls in Lightroom. I obviously shot directly into the sun, and although the Neopan 400 (souped in Rodinal) I used was able to capture a lot of the dynamic range of the original scene, I had a hard time regenerating the mood that I "saw" when I took the picture. I eventually masked individual parts of the image and applied separate curves to them. Probably not a big deal for someone who works with the likes of Photoshop every day, but for me it was new and kind of a paradigm shift.

This discussion of tones might also be a good chance to finally mention Paulo Nozolino. I dropped the names of quite a few photographers so far, but neglected to name the one that - together with Klavdij Sluban - had the most impact on me lately. His book Far Cry is one of the finest I've ever seen, and almost every photo I know from him touched me deeply. A lot of what fascinates me about his pictures is in their tones. They are very dark, but at the same time they somehow glow. Hard to explain, you have to see it yourself - preferably in high-quality reproductions like those done by Steidl.

Number 200, by the way.