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.

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.

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.

Direction

Taken in Hamburg last year. I seem to like arrows.

Mailbox

Long time, no color... Well, here's one again, taken in Genoa in 2009. This is a picture that I sometimes like while at other times I think it is boring. Today, I obviously like it.

Another crosswalk

Do you remember the other one? This one is from Hamburg and was taken on November 26, 2008 (when it was almost dark) with the Ricoh.

Reflections

This is from the short phase when I was seriously experimenting with color photography. At the time when I took the photo, I thought it was great. A few months later I didn't care much about it. Today, I played a bit with the saturation and the tone curve and I now think it's quite OK although certainly not a masterpiece. Ask me again in summer.

Taken near Boston's South Station on July 12, 2009 with the M8.2 and the 35mm Summicron at ISO 160.

Display dummies

Life can certainly be easier if you're famous. If you are for example Miles Davis (without question one of the greatest Jazz musicians of all times), people will be interested in your ball pen scribblings and they'll end up in galleries. And if you are Heinz Schubert (a pretty good German actor), people will be interested in your photographs of display dummies and they'll end up in a book and even at the documenta.

I personally don't think that Schubert's photos are very good, but I like the idea of photographing display dummies and I do it myself a lot. (And I already did it before I knew he did.) I'll explain why I like it on another day.

Taken with the M8.2 (at ISO 160) in Genoa on July 5, 2009. The photo was slightly cropped.

Football

We'll have another World Cup this year, so it's high time to start with the preparations. My contribution is this picture that I took in Hamburg on June 10, 2009. The punchline, a bit hard to see at this size, is that the ball was Made in Italy.

M8.2 at ISO 160 with the 35mm Summicron, converted using TrueGrain.

Angles

The title says why I selected this picture. I was waiting for someone to walk by in order to shoot the person in the right position relative to the entrance - which already worked the second time I tried. Of course, in cases like this, digital photography is cool as you can instantly check whether you got what you wanted.

Shot in Hamburg on September 26 last year with the M8.2 at ISO 160, converted using TrueGrain.

Street jumble #2

A crossing of several elevated roads near Genoa's harbor on July 5, 2009. I had a "color day" and was thus looking for different motifs, but this one works much better in black and white. And it's of course both a strength as well as a weakness of digital that you can decide after you took the photo whether your picture should be black and white or not.

Taken with the M8.2 and the 50mm Summicron at ISO 160. I forgot how I converted the image to black and white.

Plane spotting

July 18 this year was, for the time being, my last day in the USA after having been there a lot in the last three years. I went to Revere Beach and was a bit amused by all of the planes from Logan airport constantly flying above the people in the water.

I only had the 35mm Summicron with me, so this is what I got. Taken with the M8.2 at ISO 160 and converted using TrueGrain. Rotated by one tiny degree to make the horizon level - the joys of digital image manipulation...

Crosswalk

This is the first photo on this blog that was cropped, albeit only by two or three percents at the top edge. I usually refrain from cropping and with film photos I'd rather not use a picture instead of taking something away, but in this case it was a digital photo and by cropping away a distracting car tire, the composition became much stronger in my opinion.

Taken on May 2 this year with the digital Leica and the 35mm Summicron in Oslo at ISO 160. Converted with Silver Efex Pro.

Do not enter

I took almost the same shot of this street in Boston about two months earlier, but as it was on one of the films that were X-rayed, I went back and tried again. In this case, I think the second attempt was better than the first one, so here you have the digital version of a photo that I originally shot on film.

Taken on December 13, 2008 with the M8.2 at ISO 160. Converted to black and white using TrueGrain.

Simplicity

Like many Italian cities, Genoa has plenty of buildings that decay with a lot of style - something I've rarely seen in other countries. Add the beautiful colors on a sunny day, and there are lots of places you want to turn into photos.

This here is a wall next to a restaurant and I like the "classic" simplicity combined with how the living plant contrasts with the "dead" walls.

M8.2 with the old 50mm Summicron at ISO 160.

Just blue

This is lake Mjøsa as seen from the Hedmark museum in Hamar, Norway on May 1 this year.  I almost feel as if I have to apologize for the boring postcard motif with the horizon in the middle. But the reason I value this photo is that (except for a bit of foreground) it only consists of different shades of blue. And that due to the slight fog the horizon almost looks as if it was painted and not photographed.

Shot with the 35mm Summicron on the Leica M8.2 at ISO 160. Except for the removal of some sensor dust spots and a minimal white balance adjustment the photo wasn't modified in any way and it wasn't cropped either. Posted while I'm in Norway again - Volda this time.

Window shopping in color

And now, as they say, for something completely different. Here's a photo which is a) in color and b) a digital one. I only started shooting digital in the second half of 2008 after buying a Leica M8.2 and only after working digitally for a while did it ever occur to me to try my luck at color.

Although the most important factor for me probably was my "discovery" of Saul Leiter.  His photos, and subsequently those of others like for example William Eggleston or Helen Levitt, taught me how beautiful color photos can be - something I had ignored for almost twenty years...

This particular shot was taken in Genoa on July 5 this year.  I had a spare Sunday before I had to give a talk at a conference the next day and strolled through the sunny city enjoying its beautiful buildings and colors.  This is a view into a shop window and I like how the reflections render the picture kind of mysterious. The photo itself is uncropped and hasn't been modified except for slight adjustments to the tone curve and the saturation.  I have to admit I forgot which lens I used - might have been my old 50mm Summicron.  ISO is 160.

One other thing that might be worth mentioning is that on this day I really adhered to the discipline of taking only one shot per motif and of not chimping.  It's my way of trying to work like in the olden (analog) days and I don't always succeed.  But if I do I always realize afterwards that it's the right way of shooting for me.