No diving

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

Old cars

I bought an old car last month, so I thought this would be the right moment to show a photo of two old cars I shot at the beach of Tel Aviv in August 1995.

(This is obviously the end of the NYC theme week.)

FM2, Tri-X, Rodinal.

A gap

I couldn't resist to post yet another one from Coney Island. I liked the light on that day.

Beach volleyball

Another one from Coney Island. Same day, same camera, same film.

Sea wall

A boy walking on one of the sea walls of Akko on August 17, 1995. I like the geometrical clarity of this picture with its pronounced highlights and shadows - something that's clearly easier to achieve in the South.

Taken with the Nikon and Tri-X developed in Rodinal. This photo was scanned with a scanner that can't reach as far as the negative's border, so what you're seeing here is a border which was added digitally. The photo wasn't cropped, though.

Wedding photographer

Taking photos of the bridal couple at the beach of Rügen while other people are doing other things.

In the summer of 2005, M4-P, Tri-X.

Snack bar

At Venice Beach in November 1997.

Shot with the M4-P on Tri-X.

Coney Island

A snapshot of two unknown children almost looking like one. A skewed horizon. Lots of parallel lines. Articulated shadows. The reflection of a beam of sunlight. Season to taste. That was the recipe for this picture.

M4-P on Tri-X in 1998.

Not a stray dog

It's time for another dog. Two actually, if you look closely. Taken at the beach of the Elbe river in Hamburg in 2002 with the M4-P on Tri-X.

Today's title is of course an allusion for those of you interested in photography.

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...

Siesta, part 2

This one is from this year's summer holiday on the small island of Wangerooge. Both my wife and I noticed this couple sleeping in their beach chair and the only camera we had with us was her GX200. My wife took a photo but didn't dare to move close enough to them, so I borrowed the Ricoh, crawled closer (feeling a bit like Capa for a few seconds), and shot this picture. Not a great photo, but I think it's kind of funny. And it's already the second photo in this blog of a siesta at the beach.

(And, while we're at it, always be very careful with cameras on the beach! Sand is at least as dangerous as water and it turned out we had to send the GX200 to Ricoh after the holiday because there was sand in the lens.)

ISO 200, f/10, 1/1000, converted to black and white using Silver Efex Pro. The focal length was 7.3mm which would have been 35mm on a film camera.

Update: This photo was published by Spiegel Online on September 28, 2010. I guess I'll rarely have that many people watching one of my photos again.

Abandoned swings

I'm not sure if I consider this a successful photo or rather what Mike Johnston calls a significant failure. What I do know is that I like to look at it, so here you are.

This was at Venice Beach, Los Angeles in November 1997 shortly before sunset, so obviously it was pretty dark outside already. That explains the silhouette-like look of the picture and that's what I like about it. And the geometrical pattern created by the palms and the swings. And the different shades of gray at the horizon.

Taken with (yawn) M4-P on Tri-X.

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

Vamos a la playa

In 1995, I was in Israel for three weeks. While I enjoyed most of the country very much, I found the beach of Tel Aviv strangely repellent, especially the way to the beach of which I took this photo (and two others which are similar). I'm not sure anymore (I once was) whether this is one of my better pictures, but there's still a good reason to add it to this blog:

Nine years later I sold it (together with a couple of others) to an advertising agency which used it to illustrate a story for an in-house magazine of BMW. OK, the photos were chosen because I knew the graphical designer who did the magazine and I had long since given up my plans to become a pro photographer, but still I was kind of proud of this. Other photos from the same spread will follow in the next weeks.

Taken at the end of August with the Nikon and the 50/1.8, film was Tri-X developed in Agfa Rodinal.

An almost pristine beach

We were on the island of Rügen in the Baltic Sea in the summer of 2005 when we saw this beach. The beach chairs were lined up with utmost precision and the sand was neatly raked. Although it was noon already, only very few people were around, and it seems these few didn't dare to bring any "chaos" into the system. Well, at least the beach chairs weren't ordered by number...

I took four shots from different positions to capture this and what you see here is closest to how it felt on that day. M4-P on Tri-X.

Siesta

I'm not Elliot Erwitt, but I also like to photograph dogs every now and then and this is already the third one in this blog.  It was sleeping, like almost everyone else, at a beach near Lisbon in 1999. The sleeping dog together with the dormant boats and the emptiness of the beach make this a very peaceful picture for me and that's why I like it.

Once again, this is the combo of M4-P with 35mm Summicron and Tri-X.

Addendum: This photo was shown on Herdeiro de Aécio in June 2011.