Hello and welcome to a new tale of truly yours. For those who were wondering, I am still alive and I even got out shooting some spring greens over the last few weeks. Spare time to post some extended reports on here was rare though and I’d like to apologize for that. I hope to make it up with some mouth-watering shots straight from hell’s my kitchen.

Some of you might wonder what’s the deal with me shooting food now. To cut the long story short, when the landscape and sky are rather dull, and quite frankly, they were pretty much all time this year, it’s great to have something to shoot in or around the house. While spring flowers like tulips and ranunculus have there fixed position in my yearly things to do in spring list, it’s always nice to venture out into a new field of photography. May it be the challenge of some sort, with its own limitations and a way to broaden one’s horizon or simply the fact to learn a new technique for a certain style of shooting which you can adapt to other fields of photography.

Fennel Orange Salad with cucumber, red onion and pear.

For me, it was kind of both. While cooking is nothing new to me, cooking for photos certainly is. I am not a professional food stylist my any means nor do I spill a gallon of motor oil over the salad to make it look, well, tasty. It’s rather the fact how you put the food on the plate. When cooking for friends, I take great care about how the food looks on the table. While you might think that is nothing different for photos, you err. Making food look good on the plate alone is one thing, making it look good in the photos you take is a different kettle of fish.

Beef, lettuce hearts, ripe mango, red onion rings, Parmesan cheese and mango garlic mayo between sesame and black cumin seed bun.

I am sure some professional food stylists and photographers will laugh at my approach but what do I care? Being a landscape photographer at heart, I tried to bring the basic principles of composition onto the plate, all spiced up by some high key treatment. These concepts, of course, are leading lines, some kind of foreground element that pulls the viewer into the scene and the rule of thirds. You can find these concepts perfectly illustrated and adapted to landscape photography in the article “Understanding Composition” at the Aperture Academy website which I highly recommend.

That being said, I hope you feel somewhat satiated and remember to try something new and challenging when the light isn’t just right and if you like, share your experiments here on the blog.

I’ll be back with flowers and waterfall pictures next week. Please excuse me while I plan my 3 month US trip this summer. California watch out! LOL

David

P.S. I also played around with the new possibilities of CSS3 and jQuery to add to my website later. Head over to the new and improved contact form and let me know what you think. It features my take at the iPhone unlock slider, which ironically doesn’t work on the iPhone itself yet but I am working on it.

Just wanted to wish all readers, followers, friends and family a Happy Easter weekend. May it be nothing short of quality time, sunshine, flowers and one or the other successful find.

Speaking of a successful easter egg hunt, here’s my free egg for you. Download the wallpaper below by clicking on it and saving it to your hard drive. To use the image as a wallpaper, just right-click it after it loaded, select “make desktop background” (or something like that) from the drop down menu and you’re good to go.

“Pastel Beauties”

Happy Easter!

Sincerely,
Bunny

Welcome to my world. Dark, muddy and bland.

This is what the spring here in the mountains looks like these days. I am not a whiner but it is quite depressing to see great spring photography from other parts of the world and you are only surrounded by uniform brown tone. Very soon I hope the spring flowers will pop here too and bring the color back to our daily lives.

Spring is also the time when the ferns are at their best. So every minute I have to spare I will be on the hunt of flowers and ferns at streams with good flow and maybe one or the other waterfall. To stay in the loop, you should follow me on twitter where all updates and photos are announced first.

“Sensual Curves”

Canon Rebel XSi with EF Canon 70-200mm f/4L @ 188mm, 1/160s, f/16, iso 400

But what’s with the title and all the jabber about spring? Alright, to stay mostly on topic, here are some pictures I wanted to share with you. Since the weather in my part of the world was not quite as spectacular awesome nice okay-ish for great photography, I opted for some more complex and abstract compositions of well known subjects; to show them in a new and somewhat unique perspective.

“Crystals”

Canon Rebel XSi with Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L @ 200mm, 1/800s, f/5.6, iso 400

The intention was to get in close, to bring out fine detail that often remains undiscovered in the grand landscapes but offers quite some interest. Whether it’s the striking snow drift that only reveals its fine structure under a certain lighting, ice crystals that form on a row of conifers or a strong pine tree that is struggling in a snow storm which brought a deep layer of fine snow.

“Tree of Life”

Canon Rebel XSi with Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L @ 200mm, 1/8s, f/22, iso 100

I decided to leave these pictures quite large to maximize viewing pleasure. Please allow the site to load completely to really discover the fine detail in these shots. I hope to have the website updated with all new shots over the Easter weekend; as well as fixed a few minor glitches. Thanks for reading and viewing and Happy Easter to you all!

See you around.

David

… or what to do on a cold day before year’s end.

Dear Mr. Blog,
I’d like to apologize for having neglected you so long. You have been a wonderful friend in these hard times and I hope our friendship will continue despite my poor interest in you. lol Okay folks, just trying to be funny but here is a short wrap up of how the past year ended for me. I did not realize until now that I have not written anything about my tour through the city of Dresden with David Bank from London and Matthias from Berlin.

“Dresden at Dusk”

Canon Rebel XSi with Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 @ 11mm, 8s, f/11, iso 100

David (the other one – not me!) was nice enough to drop by for a day worth of shooting in my current living room, so to speak. Being an architect by day and a photographer by night (or rather the hour before and after sunset, which is often referred to as Blue Hour, but more on that later.); his portfolio is filled with stunning cityscapes from all over the world. Names of cities that make every avid traveler’s heart beat twice as fast: Beijing, London, Madrid, San Francisco, Paris, Chicago, Shanghai, New York and Hong Kong to name just a few. You can check out his fantastic work on his flickr stream as his website is currently in a redesign state.

Alright, now let’s get serious about the photos and the blue hour. Our little group met at what is easily defined as Dresden’s icon: the Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady). The light was just shifting to an overcast gray but fortunately David and Matthias were able to grab some of the finest light of the day before I arrived to meet up with them. After a brief overview of what I had in mind regarding places to shoot, we made our way to the IT faculty of the TU Dresden which I thought would be an interesting subject for us to shoot. Luckily, we were able to get in and the architect in our group appreciated the contemporary design quite a bit. Yes, even the bathrooms are lime green. No, I didn’t get a shot from this very place but others sure did.

“The Green Chamber”

Canon Rebel XSi with Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 @ 11mm, 0.8s, f/10, iso 100

After exploring the building it was about time to get back into the historic city center, rushing past my beloved Starbucks and through masses of tourists which always seem to be there. In the coldest days, in the rainiest and even at 3 in the morning but that’s another story. We made it to Bruehl’s Terrace which should be the main spot for the evening, just in time for the beginning of the blue hour. (See the first picture of this post.) The blue hour is the magical transition from day to night and vice versa, after the sun has set or before the sun is about to rise and the sky is dyed in a steel blue curtain. For us photographers, this is the perfect time of the day to shoot cityscapes but don’t get me wrong, we also appreciate a nice sunset (which is just about to happen as I type this) or sunrise.

“Gold and Black” (… and a blue hour sky.)

Canon Rebel XSi with Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 @ 12mm, 8s, f/13, iso 100

The blue hour, also known as twilight or l’heure bleue, makes up for stunning city photography experiences. You can get elements in one shot that seem to be impossible at other times of the day. One of the major aspects of a great composition can be light trails from cars or trams passing by. You can create a sense of motion and these light trails can also be used as lines to lead the eye of the viewer through the scene.

“Passing By”

Canon Rebel XSi with Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 @ 12mm, 10s, f/10, iso 100

Such as in the shot above. I studied scene for quite a while before setting up for the shot and therefore knowing exactly where the street car would pass and where the lights of it would be. I composed it to have the majestic church sitting two-thirds horizontally, the golden glowing tower of the Dresden castle on the one-third axis vertically and the right face of the church on the two-thirds axis while the cars and tram passing are in some sort of “C”-shape to create impact. I have chosen a longer exposure than it would be necessary by adding a circular polarizer to the front of my lens to get longer light trails and to blur the detail of the cars completely to create this see-through appearance and therefore not to lose any detail in the historic architecture.

After we covered all the major sights of the city center, it was time for the last spot for the day. The view towards the city made famous by Bernardo Bellotto, better know as Canaletto, a Venetian painter from the 18th century. Night set and we were in desperate need of food and a cool one to call it a day.

See you next time with some more winterly shots to complete the winter wrap up. I promise that it won’t be too long.

Until then, happy shooting and never stop exploring.

David

Where has the time, in particular the January, gone? While I am unsure as to where it went, I feel obliged to let you know what I have been up to lately. As you might have recognized, shooting was not one of the things I have done in abundance but I did have a few fun shoots. Most of the time was spent with planning for the upcoming trip to the US in the summer months and working on presentations and the like for such “lame” things as marketing and market research, finance or business history. Being a full-time student, the time right before the exams is the busiest time of the semester and this is right NOW.

Anyhow, since I mostly wanted to talk about photography, here we go. After a rather brown and gray November and December, which given a normal year, are rather white then brown and muddy, it was the January that finally brought me the snow I was hoping for for quite some time.

But with the approaching snow, the good light faded more and more and instead of watching amazing sunrises and sunsets I’ve been constantly greeted with uniform, dull skies but these did not stop my from trying, to some extent.

The first image I want to share was taken on a hike I took earlier in the year. The fresh snow and below zero temperatures created an interesting backdrop for the single tree standing on the wide open range. The hoarfrost on the twigs resulted in a great contrast to the dark, ominous sky.

Canon Rebel XSi with Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 @ 11mm, 1/5sec, f/14.

Next in line is a study of the complex birch tree covered in heavy rime ice. A scene that is easily overseen by many but in situations of longer periods of bad light you learn to appreciate details and abstract views.

Canon Rebel XSi with EF Canon 70-200mm f/4L @ 200mm, 1/400sec, f/4, ISO400.

I have never been a wildlife photographer but as of late, blame it on the light and Canon for making incredible sharp lenses, I have learned to love avian photography. Photographing birds requires a completely different set of skills than landscape photography. Who would have thunk? I can see though how these two fields of photography complement each other and how learning and experimenting in one field can lead to an improvement in other fields of photography. Both, landscape and avian photography, require patience but then are completely different. When hiking and shooting in the mountains, shooting lakes and the like, it’s all about light, you “simply” have to wait out the bad light and hope the magical two minutes will happen. Shooting birds is different, your mind has to be in a constant hunting mode. Every second the bird can pop out through the branches and be gone a second or two later. There’s no reading books, no walking around, jumping up and down to keep you warm. It’s a tiring battle with critters weighing as much as an USB stick.

Canon Rebel XSi with EF Canon 70-200mm f/4L @ 200mm, 1/500sec, f/4, ISO400.

The shot above is of an Eurasian Bullfinch (Pyrrhula pyrrhula) in a thick forest of pines and easily the most colorful thing I have photographed all winter long. Getting this shot required even more than a little luck and patience. It almost cost me an eye to get close to the bird, crawling through the lower branches of pine trees to catch this beautiful male bird. Pine needles are weapons and should be put under restrictions. All kidding aside, Eurasian Bullfinchs are truly a challenge. They easily rank in the first spot when it comes to shy birds (which I tried to shoot) and are usually gone with the slightest unexpected movement or sound. Or maybe I should get some fancy pine and spruce branches to build my very own camouflage hat?

Canon Rebel XSi with EF Canon 70-200mm f/4L @ 200mm, 1/800sec, f/5.6, ISO400.

Another bird image and the last for today features a small younger Blue Tit (Cyanistes caeruleus) resting on a twig of a whitethorn bush.

Next challenge: Bohemian Waxwing (Bombycilla garrulus) if they will ever come that far south.

Since I promised to include a short trip report from yesterday on my flickr page, please prepare yourself for another episode of: “Photo-G goes Wild. Raw and unfiltered.”

Being greeted with clear blue skies I decided it was finally time for an extended skiing trip through the forests and fields around home. I had planned to go for two hours, shoot along the way and maybe extend it to three hours. What I did not plan happened. I left after a delicious lunch with green Thai curry and to blow it off (pun intended), no, this was not part of the problem. After passing the first mountain ridge and skiing downhill into the forest where I expected to see some wildlife, the blue sky was completely gone and a snow storm started to kick in. Thinking of nothing bad I proceeded through the forest up and down the slopes, finally arriving at the river where I hoped to see, if not photograph, Common Kingfishers and White-throated Dippers which usually are easier to spot now than in the summer due to the few remaining open spots in the river. While I did not see any Kingfishers I was able to spot one Dipper along the way and let me say this, it is truly an amazing animal. Diving into the ice cold water of the fast flowing river in search of little fly larva and other critters. I applaud you White-throated Dipper! If it was me, I’d have backed out. To cut it short, I was caught in a major snowstorm on my way back home, I missed my dear deer Janet and Janice standing only 30 or so feet away due to the high winds that were blowing snow in my face like mad and if that wasn’t enough punishment, I had to find my way home in the pitch-black dark without a headlamp – on skis two inch wide. Fun! I am sure there are more episodes to be shared.

Happy shooting my friends, fellow photographers and nature lovers!

David