Mornings can be hard; The unread paper in one hand, the camera in the other, eyes still tired, brain slow - the night was just too short. Only 1 minute left until the train leaves. Fumblin' with numb fingers at the f-stop dial, knowing that some DoF is needed. 06:06 - just getting two shots.
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this photo i took already in june, but only now, reading hans-michael koetzle's "photo icons" and the chapter about louis jacques mande daguerre's image "boulevard du temple" (1838) i noticed the stunning similarity in the poses. you can find a reproduction of this image on the website of timm starl.
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the rainy weather continues, but, having adapted to it at least photographically (and anyway sitting in the office during the day) i do not mind that much any more.
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starting my journey to the east coast of sri lanka always is a train leg to munich airport. now train for a long way was a authochtonous, down-to-earth affair, 'deutsche bahn', 'österreichische bundesbahn' and so on, where the nationality in the name quite often meant also basic facilities. but already decades ago it started to change with the introduction of the ice-trains here in germany, where the 'fahrgäste' (including the word guest) sudenly became passengers. and since some years in the trains we also enjoy bi-lingual announcements of the next stops.
well, the construction of salzburg train station still shows it's origins from quite some time ago, and the railway station shows its old character, 'railjet' naming of the train or not.
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over at paul lester photography, paul praises david du chemin's just published book 'within the frame'. living in germany, i probably have to wait some more days until my copy arrives. the pieces david offered to read in advance sound as motivating as paul's reflection of his first glance does, so waiting for a book this time is a bit harder than it uses to be.
developing my visualisation powers, not yet my vision, this year seems to be much easier than a year ago. and the unexpected thing is that my interest in photographic gear becomes lower than during the times i had experienced as photographically fruitless. even my love for photo magazines diminuishes, probably because i see clearer now what is just featuring new things, sometimes plainly and painfully superficially.
sofobomo for me is planned as a further boost of my capabilities. in the past months i have tried to compile coherent series and learnt a lot out of that: when shooting i have to have this purpose in the back of my mind. just shooting plenty does not guarantee the connection between good single images. in the meantime i use my free minutes like today when commuting to sharpen my sight and my sensibility for gestalt and color.
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carl weese made me rethink my decision to convert my hometown monstrosities to black and white. yep - the german saying that someone has tomatoes on his/her eyes seems fit here: i was so concentrated on that wideangle effect and the dynamic lines that i just did not pay attention to the subject: overdone color to the perdition of our kids optical systems. so i will re-work my raw files and possibly re-shoot the subject.
in the meantime one of the reasons to carry my camera everywhere: the commuting train to munich is not so banal when shot in the morning light where the blue of the sky nicely complements the striking red of the waggons. and i confirm on oath that i did not touch the saturation slider.
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commuting once a week to the office by public transport offers photographic opportunities (it is a burden, too - 2 hours in early morning buses/trains, well, some of you will know). carrying the camera with me every week did not really pay out, in spite of all efforts. this week i got this picture when waiting at a crossing, getting the bus driver lightened by the reflection of the headlights in the white train surface, with the dashboard lights adding some surreal glow.
technically it is more than astonishing: 5000 ISO is a sensibility we could only dream of in film days, but also beeing able to use a shutter speed of 0.4 sec (on a 16mme wideangle) without tripod, thanks to in-body-stabilisation is a great achievement. so i have to make even better use of these possibilities.
diverting from my usual techniques i used bibble to convert the raw file. the current 4.1 version lacks the wonderful region tools of lightzone, but has a much better noise reduction on noise ninja basis. and, it is available for linux.
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