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 !