On the road, January 2021
I’m always pleased, when I discover a bird in a photo.
The picture was taken while I was in a car. The world is black and white in winter. ❄️ Light blue might be a color that fits to the color reduced season. It’s very cold outside. It’s a good day to plan the year.
December 2020
Last day of the year:
2020 was a year with a lot of surprises. The red thread was a virus. Invisible and sometimes deadly.
Good-bye 2020.
2021 is waiting already to surprise us.
December 2020: Time to look back, time to plan. Time to think, Time to relax. Time to let go.
I discover my phone. I discover the colors during this season:
Fall is for me green, yellow, red. It comes with water. Sunsets fit so well to this season.
Sunflowers, and red leaves I combine with autumn.
Every day I go out for a walk to admire the nature.
Bright side of life, July 2020
Corona feeling, July 2020
A camera, blue hour and searching for ideas.
It helps to take the camera. What happens with no idea in mind?
Things happen anyway.
Just moving is enough sometimes.
The color of winter are brown, black, white. People often dress black or dark coats. To convert a color picture of winter into a black and white one seems as a tiny exaggeration of what already is. Everything is reduced.
… when you’re able to relax.
During summer time everybody can surf the ice river, but when it’s freezing cold it’s an act of heroes. Jumping into this cold river during winter surely strengthens the immune system, even though I think these men don’t waste a thought on it. They want to be on top of the water as long as possible. The next man is waiting already to jump and surf. There is no moment of hesitation. As soon as a surfer is under water, the waves carry him away and the next one is already in the wild water.
There are always enough spectators, too.
The froth was white, the diving suits of the surfer were black. Some surfboards were white, too. The color picture and the black and white picture were rather close together.
I’ve been very often at this rather famous location, yet each time I discover a new perspective.
You can never jump into the same river. This is so true.
A backyard from above. During winter time this place is deserted.
Today it even snowed.
I tell myself: Keep moving.
With black and white one can give the picture a dramatic touch.
I thought I would focus on black and white for one month only, but I’m not yet through with this topic. Some picture look so much better when the color is reduced. It gives room for imagination.
Drama, sadness, winter landscape look great color reduced.
The colors for winter are for me all shades of brown, black and snow white. This is already close to a black and white picture.
Eastern in Spain
Time flies.
I took this picture a few years ago. These days I edit it totally differently. I think it’s a classic black and white picture. Color doesn’t add anything. In black and white the structure of the dresses is emphasized.
Yesterday I waited for the S-Bahn outside of the city. There was a construction in the fields. Nothing and nobody was really outstanding. I couldn’t spot out a subject matter I wanted to focus on. Nevertheless I took a couple of pictures. At home I edited them.
I think that the blur shows the atmosphere there very well. Also black and white fits very well.
Since many many years I organize and edit my pictures in Lightroom. I also edit my pictures in Photoshop. Yet my very first step after each photo session is to upload my pictures in Lightroom.
One must understand that the original picture is stored either on the Mac/PC or on an external disc. Inn Lightroom are only copies. Nevertheless, if one is editing the pictures the original version cannot be seen anymore. It’s possible to reset the editing, but perhaps the intention is to create something new from the original picture.
The trick: Create a virtual copy. The original pictures stays untouched. Sometimes I use a picture for a composition years after it was taken. If I only see edited pictures it’s difficult to make choices.
When I start editing pictures, I first make a virtual copy. This is one of the habits I recommend do everyone.
Yesterday I flipped through old pictures. I was looking for pictures that could be look great in black and white, perhaps even more interesting than in color.
I was looking for true white in a picture and true black. This is one of the secrets, I think. If there is no black and no white in a picture one gets a picture with different shapes of grey. I looked also for empty space. Blurriness looks great in black and white pictures.
Each of these pictures above has a clear subject matter. The pictures are all taken during trips. The first one was taken in the US, the second one in France, the third one in Italy and the forth one in the US again.
Diving into the past is fun, but whenever I do this I feel the urge to create new pictures rather soon.
Another good question is what composition has the picture. Is there a frame within the picture? How much space takes the main subject matter? Can one realize the 1/3 rule?
Ideas for new pictures arise as soon as one is working on pictures. Ideas fade away when doing nothing. It always requires a certain amount of courage to create. The risk is low, but there. Not every picture is an eye catcher. Many, many pictures are average, yet it’s good advice to keep working. To educate the eye and to develop taste takes time and exercise.
This picture was taken 2019 in a rose garden.
Today I flipped through old picture to find pictures with high contrast. Almost all pictures look great in black and white when there is contrast. Blurriness and sharpness add something interesting to any picture, especially to black and white ones. If color is missing other visual tools become more important.
One of my fav tools is empty space. Everything is so crowded today. Empty space is true luxury. It gives time to relax. It makes the subject matter stand out.
Editing pictures is a long or shorter process. At the end I’m always surprised about the result.
Colors become grey if one converts a color picture in to a b+w one. So, when I like to take a b+w picture I look for dark or bright elements. The dark part in the above picture is the hut and the bushes and trees behind it. The place looks abandoned even though this is probably not the case. It’s winter time and most people hide in their homes. There is nothing to do in the fields.
An interesting b+w picture is more than a conversion of a color picture.
This picture was taken while I was sitting in the train to Berlin. From time to time I looked out of the window. One must be fast to capture a scenery when in a fast train. I love the blurriness as it’s a hint of the speed. The train had speed, but even faster runs the time.
The green of the grass in the foreground was very green. It was distracting. More interesting is the hut close to the woods. It shows human traces. One can sense the work that has to be done there.
A happy new year 2020.
I celebrated the last night in a village with about 4.000 souls. Nobody cares here about the dangers of fireworks. Here in that village people like the light games and the noise. I liked to take a couple of pictures. Who knows, perhaps it’s forbidden next year. More and more people see fireworks critical. There are always injured people after that last night of the year, they got injured by the fireworks. It’s difficult to cross out a ritual without creating a new one. One could share midnight food with the neighbors.
White frost is on the grass, the sun is shining. I’m ready for a walk.
