Barbapapa

Looks like we haven't had a dog for quite some time.

Skewed dog

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

While you were art

Slightly cropped. For the title, see here.

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.)

And yet another dog

The last one from this day. For now.

The 14th dog

Continued from yesterday. This dog wasn't sleeping, but it looks tired.

A man and his dog

I don't really know if the title of Thomas Mann's novella is appropriate here as I don't know if the man disappearing into the house really was the dog's master. But obviously the dog was pretty interested in him.

Lisbon in 1999 with the M4-P on Tri-X.

Yawn!

A bored dog waiting in a shopping center in Hamburg in February 2010.

M7, 35mm Summicron, Tri-X, Rodinal.

Model

I'm a bit in a hurry today, so I'll just give you another dog. This fellow - in Lisbon in 1999 - actually seemed to enjoy posing for the picture.

M4-P, Tri-X.

Watchdog

Guarding a shop in Rouen in April 1995. Or maybe just guarding the little guy? Or the guy takes care of the dog?

Shot with the Nikon on Tri-X, developed in HC-110.

Just do it

At the Christmas market in Ottensen in December 2009. The photo was unfortunately severely underexposed and I spent a lot of time trying to rescue it. It's barely presentable now, but - hey - it's a dog again...

Shot with the 35mm Summicron on the M4-P. Tri-X in Ultrafin plus.

Back to the roots

A funny picture maybe, and maybe it's pretty dynamic. And it's another hipshot. And it's a dog again.

But this photo is here mainly for two other reasons:

The first one is that it is from the first film I shot with my new Olympus XA. I wanted to have a camera that I can always carry with me in my jacket and got this one for less than 30 Euros (including shipping) from eBay. The jury is still out on whether I'll eventually like it. It certainly ain't a Leica, but if you get a camera for the price of a few rolls of film there isn't much to argue about.

The second reason, more important to me than the camera, is that I finally - after about twelve years - started to do my own film development again. It means I'm back to Tri-X, and this is the first roll - developed in our kitchen using a changing bag as a make-shift darkroom. Developer was Fomadon Excel.  Maybe it's kind of fitting that I'm posting this picture on my birthday...

The photo was taken a week ago (December 17, 2009) at the Lange Reihe here in Hamburg.

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.

Shot from the hip

If you haven't read Shots from the Hip by "Johnny Stiletto", try to find it in a used book store somewhere. It's fun. And hipshots can be fun, too. Sometimes you might end up with a photo you really like although you can't quite explain why. Well, maybe because a dog's in there...

New York in 1998 with the Leica and Tri-X.

The decisive moment

More often than not it's definitely worth staying with a potential subject and shooting until you know you've taken the photo you originally wanted (although maybe only subconsciously). I know that I don't do this often enough when I photograph - trust my instincts and be patient - but in this case I did. Looking at the contact sheet I see that I took a couple of snaps of this little guy (obviously because I like dogs) and then he suddenly decided to lift his leg. That's when everything fell into place.

The old Leica with Tri-X again, 1998 in NYC. (See also here.)

Accordion with dog

It's time for another dog photo. This is again from Lisbon and I hope it is another one which raises more questions than it answers.  I also like the shades of gray of the accordion and how the patterns of the cobbled pavement fit in with the composition.

I have two versions of this photo which are virtually identical except for where the dog looks to. I'm never totally sure which one is better, but I've chosen this variant today.

M4-P on Tri-X with 35mm Summicron.

A day at the races

Before I bought the M4-P, I briefly had a Russian FED 5 to see how a rangefinder feels. A girl I knew had to write an article about greyhound racing and asked me to accompany her and take some pictures for the article. In a bold move, I took the FED with me that I hadn't really tried before. I also used the Nikon, but this "action shot" was taken with the FED and eventually published in the magazine she was writing for.

By the way, note how irregular the negative border compared to the Nikon and Leica photos is...

That was on June 4, 1995 in Hanover, the film was 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.

Two dogs

This is not the first photo I ever took, but I think it's the first one I really liked and I still like it. Why, I can't really say, it's probably because of the interplay of lines and shadows and the perspective and the movement of the dog on the right.

Obviously, this wasn't a planned photo. If I remember correctly I was there (the photo was taken at the Maschsee in Hanover) with my girlfriend, probably sitting on a park bench, saw the dogs and took this snapshot. It was the only photo I took of this scene.

That was in February 1995 and the camera was a Nikon FM2 - my first camera and the only one I had at that time. The only lens I had (and thus the one I used) was a 50/1.8 Nikkor. Film was Ilford Delta 400 which I developed myself in ID-11. This was the 20th roll of film I had done since I started with photography about a year earlier.