KliX's blog ^pro

This the title of the book I am reading now. Here is a link to the publisher's page:

http://www.merrellpublishers.com/books.php

I always admired impressionism as a school of art and I did not know that photography had such a movement and that it was struggling so early to acquire the title of art. It is fascinating what these artists were able to do using the Gum Bichromate and Oil Transfer methods. I firs knew about these methods by reading about the work of František Drtikol and saw some of his work. The picture to the left is one of the excellent work of Edward Steichen (self portrait) So, I would recommend this book to all those who are looking to additional dimensions in pictures by adding an emotional dimension to the pictures by taking them and altering them in certain ways to express a certain impressions / expression.

I am reading for the moment the following book on photography with Flash:

The Hot Show Diaries by Joe McNally

http://www.peachpit.com/store/product.aspx?isbn=032160248X

The author wrote the book in the form of a funny (well this is subjective, and one has to understand American slang) diary showing you different situations or assignments he had to solve and how he did that with small flashes (speedlights). It is especially handy for people use to Nikon systems (unfortunately I shoot with canon) This would give one surely some inspiration or even solutions to difficulties one had in exposure of certain pictures.

The book animated me to shoot a series of macros on my balcony. This was not the main intention in fact. I was just sitting there and reading the book while enjoying the beautiful and clear weather. I read perhaps 2 pages and then I was not able to resist grabbing the camera and shooting pictures of whatever is in front of me,playing with the flash a bit. The result was an aromatic shooting as I was shooting the plants on my balcony between plants of thyme, basil and chive as I did not have any hot babes in front of me to take pictures of.....

In My Balcony #2

KAHBRD#1

I went today visit an exhibition on "Czech Photography of the 20th Century":
www.kah-bonn.de/index_e.htm
It was quite inspiring and I was mostly inspired by the old techniques of printing like OIl Prints, Gum Prints and many other processes. I am going to process my pictures in a way that is inspired by these great old pictures.

The series is called KAHBRD.

There are fabulous works of different styles and schools reflecting the development of photography in the last century. Among them all, an although there are so many stunning works, I was especially impressed by Josef Kudelka's work that I saw in exhibitions in Arles in 2002.

The exhibition reinstated my big interest in B&W as well.

HI everybody,

I'll be away for 2 weeks and I'll come back on the 21st. Perhaps I'll have then a few nice pictures from Syria to share with you ;-) I wish you a great Easter

Omayyad Mosque Damascus - Syri…

Test print

I bought the other day a set of fine art print papers to print a few pictures to be sent to a friend as a gift. I soon had to figure out and after I wasted a few sheets of expensive paper (and ink) that it was not possible (or I did not achieve it) to make the prints look like what is appearing on the monitor, assuming it is calibrated. Today, I tested the assumption of the monitor being calibrated and this was was also not the case. So, I took a picture of Kodak Grey scale and standard colour sheets after I set up white balance to manual and took a picture. I soon had to find out that the picture on the monitor is lacking some yellow to appear more or less correctly like the original (I am working in indirect daylight now). I set up the monitor calibration what seemed to be closest. Then printed that out and it had a completely other appearance.

The question is do you have simple and reliable recommendation to calibrate the hardware and make sure that what the camera sees the monitor shows it and the printer prints it? How do you handle this if this is important to you?

Dear friends,

Last week I went to see the opening of a beautiful exhibition of the photographer Antonio Girbés. It is in fact the series "Untitleds" in this website:

http://www.antoniogirbes.com/

Would you please have a look at it and tell me what you think about the backgrounds? Have they been made digitally or rather painted? And if they have been made digitally then how? Any concrete hints and tricks? Please note that each one of these pictures was printed on the size of somehow 80x80cm, the lengthy one 160x80cm

I started a group called

Protests against war in Gaza (Group)

The aim of the group is to document the protests against the Gaza war. So, if you happen to have made pictures of protests against this war, you are more than welcome to add them to this pool

Today I particiapted in a demonstration against the Israeli agression on Palestine in Düsseldorf/Germany. There were something like 4000 remonstrants from all possible groups, parties and individuals, Germans, Arabs and Kurds, etc. I went there to demonstrate to the German government that I am totally unsatisfied from their position towards the aggression and regarding its unconditional support for Israel in general.

It was also a chance to take a few journalistic pictures.

Demonstration for Palestine in…

Stop the killing in Gaza

Well my friends, probably most thing I like is to look at beautiful pictures and share them with you. However, I do not feel like doing that now. I can't do this while people are dying in this horrible manner in Palestine (in this case Gaza) and nobody is moving or even trying to stop this mad killing campaign built on false propaganda and murderous and racist policy as Israel is doing and has been always doing since it has been founded and before that.

I am sick of this silence. You can look at this website (Electronic Intifada) if you feel like reading things in this context that are not mentioned this way in mass media.

After starving comes war. Till when are we going to keep silent?

I am asking myself a question all the time:
A few decades ago (and even still) it was not possible to obtain cameras with good optic or even other features to deliver a photo with good quality, objectively speaking, without distortion, blur, colour infringement, etc. Many people had to shoot with Polaroids, holgas, lomos, etc. Fascinatingly pictures came out that had bad quality but were regarded as art.
In our days, what are many people doing? I am shooting with an excellent camera and excellent lens and then distort the pictures to make them look old, blurry, vignetted, scartched, crossprocessed etc. Why are we doing this and not leaving pictures as they are?

I am converting my latest pictures into Polaroid like pictures with all possible distortions. In a way this appeals to me and in other ways I do not understand why I am doing this. Do you know why? Why are making pictures with cameras of poor quality, crosprocess them, scratch them although we have far "better" ones?

Rüdi

I mentioned in my last posting Richard Avedon's exhibition in Berlin. I came back home and went straight away to buy a book about the pictures. I came back with 2 books, one contained the pictures themselves and one written by Laura Wilson titled “Avedon At Work”. Wilson accompanied Avedon in his venture as he was taking the pictures. Work extended over 6 years in which portraits of 752 people taken on 17000 large format film sheets in 17 US states and 189 towns were taken. Of all this 123 pictures have been chosen for the exhibition and the books. The negatives of these pictures are kept in the archives while all others have been destroyed.

I was reading Wilson's book in the last few days and I was fascinated to read how a great photographer worked, how he looked for people to make portraits of and how he realised his work. I wondered about the immense will and discipline that drove a photographer to work 6 years on a project taking thousands of pictures, all taken in the same vision portraying people whom we tend to ignore: oil field workers, miners, waiters, drifters and many other professions. I was asking myself where did Avedon get this immense force from to realize such a project? I probably would not have enough discipline to take the pictures of the 10 people in the same manner. Wilson's book described also the lives of a few of these people I saw at the exhibition. Now when I look to the pictures they talk tome in a different way. Some of these pictures radiated such strong expressions and I was able to understand why after I read this book. What even more fascinated me was the process of selecting and then printing the pictures. Some pictures needed a few days of work till satisfactory results came out. Most of them had the size of 144x143cm. Lightness, contrasts had to be reset, parts were burned other were dodged in order to reach the expressions Avendon's wanted to have in his pictures. As I often strongly tend to doubt my photography and the sense of making pictures I felt really down as I read this. I usually make my pictures and don't think much about them. I also can't distinguish much whether a picture needs further work (mainly digital processing, of course in our days) or it is good like this, and why. Many questions pass in my mind when I read such things. Is it worth it making pictures in the way I was doing so far (which also was developing all the time) taking in count that I am an amateur and I should not be so hard on myself, or maybe it doesn't make sense to make any further pictures having realised how the real photographers work and how far I am form them? Or, perhaps I should work on photography trying to develop it become as good, at least in quality? If the latter statement is true then, how can I develop and learn how to make things in the “proper” way? These are big questions and I would be happy if the other members here would discuss with me about them.

Coming back to the books. I did not really touch the frst book containing the portraits. I was keeping it as a treasure for now till I finished the other book. Now I know more about the story and shall be looking at the pictures, perhaps everyday a few ones, although I have seen many of then in original size. I would like to add here that although the pictures in the book are excellent in the size of 26x32cm they are no way near the large size ones I saw in the exhibition. This is why I recommend to all those love photography, portraits in particular, and have the possibility to go to Berlin (or live there) to go to see this exhibition.

I think that this work is going to influence my pictures in the future. I only still don't know how.

Today I was in Berlin in a business trip and had extra 2 hours before my flight back so I jumped into the Martin Gropius building where an exhibition of Richard Avedon is taking place. I was stunned by the beauty of the pictures, mostly portraits made with a large format camera in B&W. I was feeling during this that there is no need to make any further portraits in this world. Avedon did it all. It is an amazing feeling to stand before of these pictures, the very large ones and the smaller ones as well. I really do not know how he managed to capture people like this. The series that really astounded me is called "In The American West" of "normal" people of all kinds of professions. You should see these large prints in their huge size in order to be able to feel their real beauty.

Another thought I had was, I think that is not possible to make such beautiful B&W pictures with a digital camera, at least not now, but I might be wrong?

So, those who love photography, especially portraits, and can afford it MUST go to this exhibition.

I am going to disappear from here for 2 weeks as I am going to spend 2 weeks of Holiday in Sicily. Let's hope that I'll have a few good shots to share with you when I come back

I go every now and then to work with the bicycle when I feel really active and the weather is kind to me. Today was one of those days. Please note that the distance is 12km each way, what is not quite short. The nicest part of it is the peace where I ride along the Rhine river.

I decided today to take my camera with me and take a few pictures of a subject I was thinking of in the last days: Ships and boats. So, I left work relatively early and went along the river, starting at the so called Rodenkirchen Beach. It is amazing to see how people are enjoying these lovely days with great weather. I decided to sit at one spot and shoot the ships always from the same angle, position, etc. I did that maybe for one hour or more, while waiting for ships, watching ducks and swans begging for some food, dogs running after objects thrown into water, children feeding ducks, etc. This all was accompanied with great music out of my iPod shuffle (listen to the music in the album) that made me feel really like holiday. I also shot a few people enjoying themselves around. One of the nice parts of this walk was stopping at a boat-restaurant where I ate a waffle with hot cherries and ice cream. Delicious. More delicious was the waitress. I asked her for a portrait and she agreed (I am not posting that here, not now at least, till she agrees). I saw on the way another nice old boa restaurant with pleasant colours with the Cathedral in the background in the horizon. I had to think of Mona Lisa and take a picture for her of "her" cathedral. The end of this "walk" (it was in fact a ride on the bicycle) was at the old port that has been turned mostly into a a complex of modern buildings for galleries, companies, etc.

So, I am going to show you some of these pictures here. Hopefully you would enjoy the walk with me as well.

Don't wonder. This is the name of the book I bought one week ago. It is a beautiful book of Photgpraphs by Bettina Rheims (probably my favourite photographer) and Serge Bramly. It is a combination of text, a modern narration of the story of Jesus life and the photographic interpretation. Well at least the pictures caused big trouble with the Church, I can tell you. Anyway, I sat in my favourite Café at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne and read in the book, listened to the Live Bossa Nova music and looked at the beautiful (and scandalous from Clergy point of view, or maybe blasphemous) pictures. The book was very suitable to the day today, as it is Easter for the Orthodox Church! I found the story of the birth and the escape to Egypt the way it was told touching, although religion and me are no good friends...

By accident I had my camera with me. Although I did not intend to make pictures today because I was exaggerating it in the last few weeks (and you are not seeing them on Ipernity ;-) ). I decided to make a story and shoot a series. So, you are going to see a whole bunch of pictures that have been uploaded today. They are all one story. So you should look at them in slide show (with music, if I manage to set this up). I wanted to show what people have been doing in this part of the town at a Sunday with a relatively nice weather. First pictures were shot by putting the camera on the table, aiming it a certain point, fixing the focus and using manual exposure and pressing on the button every now and then. So, best effect would be achieved by looking at the Slide Show. It looks then like a film. I wanted to show also what different people are passing by, age, cloths, origins and also which means of movement. After this series I shot skaters and bikers lingering around in the square. The third part was pictures of a Street performance of a funny comedian who picks an assistant from the spectators (usually a gorgeous young lady) and performs with her making people burst into laughing. Well, I saw his show many times already. Still I looked at it once more, initially because of the beauty of the young Polish assistant he picked. I then remained there and laughed with all these people while making pictures. The last part is sporadic about the passers by. Well, you might find out that the portion of young ladies is over-proportional in the pictures and you can blame it on the Spring (and hormones). Please excuse the incorrect exposure, focus or framing in some pictures as the circumstances did not allow to correctly set them up.

Well,I hope you enjoy the show!

gaza

 

The European Campaign to end the siege on Gaza.
Action on Thursday Jan. 24. To show solidarity with the people in Gaza, at 20:00 o'clock turn off the lights and light candles for 20 minutes.
Copy this image and use it as your avatar for a while or use the theme to create an image dedicated to the people in Gaza.
If you know of any other actions in the coming days to show solidarity with the people of Gaza please let others know and feel free to post them here.

about a 2 day business trip in Moscow (updated)

…read more

I obviouslay write only about this subject here ;-) No matter, I wanted to inform you that I am going to disappear for 2 weeks and fly to Greece where I am going to visit 2 islands (Naxos, Santorini) and maybe a third one (Amorgós). I don't think that anybody would miss me but if this happens you know teh erason for my disappearance. I might be posting some pics from there but thi smight be a complicated issue. Probably when I come back my pictures would have mainly 2 colours: White & Blue

Se you soon!