Halloween

Yesterday on our neighbor's balcony.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Central Park

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

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.

White line

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

Raindrops

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Landing

Another one from the dove day.

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.

October 4

Seemed like the perfect picture for today.