Baibai 2011 - Hellow 2012

Die letzten Tage gehn vorbei.

Ein Grund sich auszulassen, was alles geschehen ist in diesem Jahr? So wie jeder Zweite jetzt mit seinen Schlussworten kommt? Nein, nicht so wirklich.

Trotzdem eine Möglichkeit sich Gedanken zu machen, wie man weitermachen möchte. Immerhin bringt eine neue Jahreszahl den Kalender auf "Reset". Die Altlasten bleiben jedoch, niemand erfindet sich plötzlich neu. Plötzlich muss es ja auch gar nicht sein, ist ja ein Jahr Zeit dafür.

Was mir viel gebracht hat war das Fotografieren. Das rückt jetzt 2012 auf eine Position, die sich definitiv vor meinem Sport befindet und knapp hinter meinen Freunden. Der Terminkalender wird voller, ohne mich dadurch zu erdrücken, denn erdrücken tut einen nur das, was man nicht so gerne tut, oder? Ich weiß es nicht, werde es jedoch herausfinden.

Als oberste Priorität gilt das ausprobieren. Für mich steht immer noch keine klare Richtung fest. Nicht was ich jetzt hauptsächlich fotografieren möchte, nicht ob ich aus dem Turniergeschehen im Kampfsport jetzt schon aussteige um mir den Frust der "objektiven" Schiedsrichter zu ersparen, nicht was es sonst noch zusätzlich zu lernen gibt. Ich habe ja nicht einmal eine Ahnung davon was es zum 1.Januar zu essen gibt!

Gestern Abend war ich mit einem guten Freund draussen unterwegs und das Kind hat sich wieder gemeldet, das alles erkunden will und dort hin möchte, wo man eben nicht hin sollte oder darf. Dieses Gefühl wurde vom Erwachsenen gebremst, der die möglichen Sicherheitsrisiken sah für Gerätschaft und Mensch. Sollte der Erwachsene nicht einfach mal 2012 wieder etwas stiller werden, oder sollte ihm mehr Beachtung geschenkt werden?

Definitiv wird es zu Konfrontationen kommen, nicht nur deswegen, sondern auch weil ein Punkt sein wird Menschen abzulichten die ihrem Tagwerk nachgehen. Dokumentarisch soll es werden. Mal sehen wie viele erklärt haben möchten, dass sie auf offener Straße ungehindert Bilder von sich erdulden müssen, solange diese nicht veröffentlicht werden. Dazu gab es gestern schon die ersten Kommentare, die ich mit Freude aufgenommen habe.

Um nicht zu lange zu erzählen, jetzt einfach mal Schluss hier.

Es wird definitiv spannend und wieder mal sehr langatmig mit vielen geplanten Reisen und Erlebnissen. Die Fragen werden sich schon noch beantworten, bis dahin übe ich Geduld.

Guten Rutsch !

Stu...Stu...Studio

Eine Premiere!

Michael im Studio.

Im Studio des Lichtwert Vereins in Karlsruhe um genauer zu sein. Dazu gebracht hat mich ein Kollege, der dort im Verein Mitglied ist. Thema war eigentlich ein "60'er Jahre Shooting".

Ich schreibe bewusst eigentlich, da es sich überhaupt nicht so gestaltet hat, aber okay. Mir persönlich ging es sowieso nur um die erste Studioerfahrung. Mit dabei, mein neuer Schatz, die Nikon D700. Danke nochmal an Alexander, von dem ich das schöne Gerät abkaufen durfte.

Der Lichtaufbau im Studio war uns im Allgemeinen vorgegeben. Wir konnten etwas verändern, aber nicht großartig. Weißer Hintergrund, einfaches Licht, zum Üben eben. Meine gewollten provokanten Posen kamen nicht wirklich zur Geltung, aber ein Bild war dann doch ganz gut, es stammt aus der vorletzten Session.

Brav, einfach, nicht so gewollt, trotzdem gut.

Abseits des vorgegebenen Lichtes hatte ich ein kleines Schmankerl dabei und konnte das Model zu dem anderen, schwarzen, Hintergrund bringen. Dort sind einmalige Aufnahmen entstanden !

Von diesen guten das beste auszuwählen war nicht einfach. Wenn man einen Fotografen danach frägt, wonach er seine Bilder aussucht, dann kann dies nur eines sein. Sein Gefühl. Es hat entschieden:

Es ist sinnlos zu fragen, was ich an den Bildern noch getan habe...

Nichts.

Sie kamen so aus der Kamera, nein, tut mir leid... sie kamen so aus meinem Kopf.

Versteckt euch nicht hinter der Technik, es zählen ganz allein Kreativität und das gewisse Gefühl das richtige zu tun und den richtigen Moment zu erwischen.

Ich lade euch auch weiterhin ein meinen flickr Account zu besuchen !

Fotobörse Darmstadt

Hallo!

Gestern fand in Darmstadt die halbjährliche Fotobörse statt auf der sich Jäger und Sammler jeglicher Formen der Fotografie treffen um neues, neues altes oder einfach nur altes zu kaufen und zu verkaufen.

Es war ganz schön viel los im Studentenwerk, wo die Börse beheimatet war. Je nach Stand hat das Ausmaße eines Volksfetes angenommen.

Ich selbst habe mir für eine 30 Jahre alte Canon AE-1 Programm ein 135mm Objektiv besorgt und dort gleich ausprobiert.

Außerdem hat es mir eine Kamera im Mittelformat (die Negative sind 6x6cm groß) angetan mit Lichtschachtsucher. D.h. man schaut oben in die Kamera rein und ein unglaublich scharfes Bild mit 3D Effekt. Mal schaun was es für eine wird.

Wer mehr über die Börse erfahren will kann es dort tun:

FotoBörse Darmstadt

The change

Genug Englisch gequatscht!

Ab sofort schreibe ich weiter auf deutsch, auch einfach wegen der Analyse meiner Besucherzahlen, die sich doch zu 90% aus Deutschland ergeben.
Sollte jedoch mal etwas dabei sein, was international wertvoll erscheint, dann entstehen davon 2 Versionen.

Im Moment arbeite ich an neuer Webseite und etwas analoger Fotografie. Am Wochenende sollten jedoch wieder neue Werke entstehen !

Soweit - Happy Shooting

hm...

I like this sentence I invented a moment ago:

"Deflection can roam our minds and frees us from the cage of the tasks"
- Michael Adamczyk

Ah yeah... I like to fload around.

It's been a while...

... since I wrote something new.
Actually I'm thinking about creating a new blog in german, so that I can explain myself better.

The last few shots are at flickr, where I've been walking around my hometown and explored the neighborhood by night. I kind of stucked right now and don't see the next step.
New projects are in my head and when the D700 arrives it will move forward with some shootings at a studio and a trip to journalistic photography.

So until then, check out my flickr stream, which can be accessed above.

International Motor Show 2011

Hey folks !

It's been a while since my last post. Meanwhile my iMac broke, so I had a hard time with alternatives.
But it doesn't stop me to move forward.

Yesterday my friends had a spontaneous idea to visit Frankfurt. Good idea !
After finding a car lot, what took 1 hour, we finally arrived at Frankfurt Fair.

First I want to say, that my pictures just contain concept cars. I don't want to take part in merchandising or anything else. All other cars there can be seen at your car centers.

So, station number one was BMW. There we were greeted by their concept e-cars. E for electronic, the way mobility is going. The car is kept in blue and white, typical company colors.

The BMW i8 Concept. Really nice car. A lot of glass and an eye for weight reduction, but there are some others which can outscore this. But a closer look at this i8 is worth it.

Did some shots of BMW's other cars, but nothing new to see. The commercials are telling everything.

The whole hall is rented by the bavarians so we moved on to another hall looking after some great pictures. We found one.

Next station: Ford.

Object of interest: Ford Evos Concept.

Really awesome light and a great moment where the name is reflected by the car. You don't see it, but the car has got 4 doors, the entire back area at a side is one. Some wonderful design work.

What should I say, words are unnecessary when you got this images.

To show just how awesome all cars looked I got a portrait of driver's buddy since 2007. He wanted to say hello.

Not really a concept car, but kind of. Let's see when they will be available.

As we moved on, there was a super scene. Audi was racing at the Frankfurt Fair ! I couldn't belive it, that you could enter the pit lane. Inside of all the action this picture emerged:

OK, just kidding :)

But the angle was perfect and a really hot hostess stood beside me and watched what i did. As if I show you the result! It's an DTM race car, so it's okay with me to show this. For non-racers, the DTM is the German Touring Car Championship ("Deutsche Tourenwagen Meisterschaft").

Next one is a partnership between Smart and BASF. A little favorite of mine, cause i work at the four great letters. First, take a look:

It has got the first production stage synthetic wheels, really lightweight. I pulled them up at their booth.
Next thing you can see, when you look inside the window. What looks like a honeycomb are transparent solar cells and transparent OLED's (Organic Light Effect Diodes)... wonderful. All in all this car was my personal highlight. Of course, an e-car.

My personal highlight hall was Mercedes Benz'. It has got three floors and a amazing roof. To show a bit of it, I made a panorama. It is not technical perfect, but shows the scenery.

Please click on it, so you can see it large !
(Blogger does not support such large pictures)

Mercedes Benz Panorama

And one from this wonderful roof (please also click on this one to see it in large, it's worth it!):

To end this story there is nothing better than a picture of what it's all about: motors!
We want power, efficiency and quality. Like a heart in us humans, the motor keeps on running everything.

A thanks to every engineer which creates something so many people are infected!

See you in two years at the next "IAA" in Frankfurt !

Saturday - simply a day

I was at a birthday last week, which began at a garden. We started with normal party pictures.
"Don't shoot me" "Ah, come on"... you know how people react at first.
Before night was there, something caught my eye. I love that phrase, something always catches my eye.
A garden cottage, which was itself proper colorless. And in front of it was a chair, bright red. At this moment my imagination set up the black&white picture for me. I did just one shot and was lucky to get this one as good as thought.

The party went on and we changed the location. Our way took us to a club in my hometown. There I had a nice experience as a party shooter. People are grabbing you from all directions to get photographed. Insane !
But it was all fun and so was our group.

One special picture is available in my flickr stream. This girl did the right pose at the right spot. She pulled me with her, I shot her and she left. All without a word.

Late at night or early in the morning, you can choose, I said bye to everyone left and went home.
At my way back the city was so quite like I never heard before. And there was another inspiring moment. The forms felt great and although it was 4 a.m. and I took 500 pictures I wasn't tired to take some more.

It was worth it.

Nicole

Hey you!

I had a shooting with a colleague this week. She is funny, easygoing and an amateur theater actress at the National Theater in Mannheim, Germany. So I thought about showing her as an actress. Starting with a "simple" portrait of her.

There she is, Nicole.

She did the make-up herself. I asked her if she could do this and she told me that they are learning to make up themselves at the theater. What I sometimes think, especially now since I'm shooting models, is that when women hear the word "Photo shoot" something in their minds just makes *click*. Maybe I write my thoughts in another post later.

So, we had a nice location in Frankenthal.

The next two ones are just different from their editing. The columns look so cool from the side that I had an idea of her watching out of these. The shot itself was really good, but it's a little better in black&white. Nicole asked me at the shooting if I could make one picture where you just see only one color beside black&white. So I took the same twice.

First black&white

And then duo chromatic

The contrast is different and the second has a vignette. I like both a lot and can't decide which is better. What's cool is that you can't really tell if this is shot in a small village or in a capital. For me, it looks like a setting of a movie. There we are again, actress.

The next picture is taken at a basement door which Nicole found at the side of a building. I could sit on the stairs, very relaxing. I placed the flash unit a bit more downstairs to get a dramatic feeling with her shadow behind and the structured wall in front . The idea behind came from detective movies. She says something like "I hear some none pleasant things inside".

So that's it.

If you want to see some more pictures, go to my flickr account which you can find on top of this page.

Thank you for reading !

Mannheim at night

Yesterday it took me to Mannheim. Our party capital nearby.
This night wasn't my night to party, I just wanted to take some pictures. My favorite football team lost against our worst rival, so there was nothing to celebrate. Next time maybe.

Near the historical water tower of Mannheim I got these people on their way to music and also most likely alcohol. In fact it seems that they were already a little drunk. Maybe you notice, that they were wearing warm clothes. It was freezing cold last night, although it's summer. That you Petrus...

Here's the picture:

The vision

Hey you there !

In the last couple days I was thinking about an option of photographing people. What I don't like is to ask strangers if it would be possible to take a picture. So this would become my new task. Ask strangers to take a picture.

With this in mind, my walk started at the front door of my place. It took me to the nearby island of my hometown, which lies in the Rhine. I asked 3 people and 2 couples and the response was three times ok. The 2 couples were to shy.

The first two pictures were quite cool, when I thought them up, but I didn't get them well. The third one was spontaneous. I saw a guy sitting in the sun on a bench at a distance of about 200 feet (60 meters) and there it was! A spectacular shot flashed in my mind. It was relieving that he said it's okay to take a picture.

That's how I take photos the best. Spontaneous. Here's the result, take a look !

Old school

I got one picture which fits nowhere.
It took me mentally some years back. Don't know if it's the old school bike or the modification which i've done. Black and white, low contrast and so on.
The bike tells a story about childhood and restrictions you learn on your way being a grown up. Play, but don't overdo it. It's a roller coaster of emotions. That's what I thought at home looking at this picture.

Somewhere special

Hey there !

A friend of mine had a great idea to spend the night with photography. We waited until it was dark to drive into the city and do something we never did before.

First to notice, we did some lightpainting, which was really funny by the way.
Second, it was in a car park on top of a mall, which was already closed. We took the driveway to get up and down.
Third, I did my first street photography tries.

So when my buddy tried his first HDR shots, I explored a view from over the top. Standing on a roof was a cool experience and the people looked so far away.

Without a little help from outside I would have stayed this weekend at home. What a shame.
So now there are a few cool pictures, which are worth to show. Also one which shows my buddy do some work. He was marked by this adventure too.
Lets see how he worked.

He didn't understood why I was photographing everything that came in my way. But at home at least I knew it when I saw this picture, which looks awesome for my opinion. A real pice of street photography.

We were on our way out of the car park right through this driveway you see above.
The feeling was great, we did a great job. He had a few RAW's for his HDR's and I had a few classy shots. Relaxed and cool was our way home.

Ah, you realize what I said at the start... We did lightpainting. Nah, more my buddy was doing lightpainting. All what I had in mind was to thank you early readers with my rare talents.

So thank you for reading and see you again !

Mirena

Hello everybody !

Thank you for visiting my blog. It's my first post and I'm very proud of it, because this will take my hobby to another level.
So lets start with Mirena, who did a great job as an absolute amateur. I had my friend Melanie with me which did the whole makeup and hair. Here's a picture of her work.

Thank you Melanie, you will get bothered from me a few times.

It was exciting to work with a makeup artist and an assistant, which was played by my best friend. He will be shown a few pictures later.

I would say that the first thirty minutes were just acclimatization and we tried a lot of poses, but none was worth talking about. So the grass started to bother me, a location change was needed.

Not far away were a nice simple background. First I tried to let Mirena sit down. But when she stood up we got the first real good picture and as I made it, there was the black&white right in front of me.

This is what came out.

I like this one a lot. It looks like a fashion shoot. This is what I prefer.

Mirena had a lot of fun, Melanie had a lot of fun, and my buddy, lets say he had also fun.

I didn't have done much work in advance, so everything what happened was just a reaction to our behavior. This gave room to improvisation. 

So back at the grass, now highly motivated. It took again a few repositions and a close-up until this was captured.

Okay, had enough of this outfit, we had to re-style Mirena to get a bit more out of her.

Not because she's not beautiful, just because the sun were leaving us and with it these bright colors. It was Melanie's turn to bring the color back in form of makeup.

After one and a half hour of shooting the girls began. My buddy recharged us with some beats from his Mac.

Played around with the timer. At least I captured the moment.

Like I said, the sun were leaving and we took a walk through the streets. Do here a pose, do there a pose, nothing special. But what's special is me getting in a close-up. I like this kind of view, because you get a feeling for the person standing in front of you.

Lets talk a little about my equipment, before I close this first post with my (personal and Mirenas thought) best picture.

I had with me my Nikon D3100 with the new AF-S 50mm f1.8 lens. On top I had a Metz mecablitz 44 mounted. That's everything. No reflectors or anything like this.

So here's the last one which closed this enjoyable shooting. Thank you for reading !