Abstractifying perspective

Well, that is a bit far fetched. But still: If you use a perspective that you normally don't see in images it has the effect of putting the subject of your photography in a slightly abstract realm.
The following was a result of me constantly looking at the sky at a breakneck angle and shooting all the fascinating architecture that you encounter on a visit to Uzbekistan at an unusual perspective:



This elicited quite some Ooh's and Aah's from the group I was traveling with - and I was quite proud to have seen this. Although my neck still hurts ;-)

For more of my Uzbekistan images have a look here.

Fractal pattern

Uzbekistan is a treasure trove of patterns: All mosques, madrasas, and minaretes are covered inside and out with them. Some simply geometric others as abstractified scripture from the Koran.
This leads to photographic opportunities where the pure and simple geometric forms are so dominant that they appear like fractal patterns.
Have a look at this example:



Think of it as a Mandala, print it out in black and white and get your crayons to color it. Endless hours of mind-relaxing activity is guaranteed...

For more of my Uzbekistan images have a look here.

Real abstract

When visiting Uzbekistan I was overwhelmed by the intricate and colorful patterns used to adorn the mosques, madrasas and minarets. I got a stiff neck from shooting the domes in the Naqshbandi Mausoleum trying to find out whether two domes were identical. No they were not! See my Flickr album here. But then suddenly you look at a wall and all the color is gone. And you encounter strict black and white architectural details that are reminiscent of a modern minimalist artist:

 

And that was in the same Mausoleum which had the colorful domes.
Fascinating!

For more of my Uzbekistan images have a look here.

Too well known

Visiting Antelope Canyon was a dizzying experience: My eyes were constantly drawn up to the small strip of sky above me. And the images all the others before me have shot and published churned in my mind and made it hard to have an unbiased view of this wonderful slot canyon.
Our guide made it even worse in pointing out all the viewpoints that other (famous) photogs have taken and even told us how to set the camera (or phone) to capture that enigmatic view.
Well, looking up was a no-no with our tour-guide as one could capture the sky (gasp!) as a strong contra-light and that would probably cause problems. But it had the clear benefit of putting all other tourists out of the picture and capture the beauty of the canyon without them.
The following is just one example of the images I like from this tour. And it would be almost abstract if the canyon was not so well known.

 

Which is quite an interesting concept: "de-abstractification" through a high profile in public reception. Well anyway: The mystery of entering this canyon and looking at it in wonder was still there. And I hope my images can convey something of this unique place on earth.
For more of my images of the Antelope Canyon have a look here.

Back to reality: Layered Land

The land at the border between Denmark and Germany is so flat that it's hard to get more than a few thin layers of colors when you look towards the horizon. Look at the following image (or even better: click through to the large(r)  original) to see what I mean:



By the way: that is not a pano composite from multiple shots but simply a 8228 x 2185 pixel crop from a single shot at 92mm focal length.
Here you can nicely see all the layers from blue water at the bottom through dark yellow + dark green + yellow from the reed, then the light green from the meadow up to the light blue of the sky. Fascinating, flat but fascinating.

Vertical panning

Many associate panning with a horizontal movement. And there indeed exist a lot of long-exposure images esp. of land- and seascapes that blur the horizontal areas of sky, sea and beach into colorful stripes - more or less devoid of any structure. There are some impressive photos of this type out there but many of them I find lacking in structure/texture.
At the workshop I experimented with both horizontal and vertical panning but stuck to a relatively short exposure (around 1/4 - 1/2 sec) and also tried to have a short period of holding the camera still before starting the pan. I wanted to get at least some overlay of better defined structure over the blurred "background". With such short exposure you better move swiftly and the results have quite some variation. That means you need lots of shots to get the results you want.
I also found that with vertical panning I get more definition in trees, grass, reed as their vertical structure is better preserved. Still I needed quite some postprocessing with all the panning shots I did to recover contrast/pop and structure.
Well, enough words, here are some of the results…

First up a 0.4 sec shot which retains quite a lot of detail:



The same location at 1/4 sec but with a faster pan produces longer strokes from the bushes and trees making the scene a bit more abstract:



In both images I used a pretty strong grain (click through the images to see the larg(er) originals). It sort of "fixes the color to the canvas" and helps to mellow down the strokes which sometimes can look quite aggressive/scratchy.
You can perhaps see some of the "scratchiness" in the following shot:

What, no Emil-Nolde-Weather?

The next day of the workshop was dedicated to landscape photography. We started with a photo-walk from the Nolde Museum to a nearby lake and in the afternoon transferred to the North Sea hoping to capture a dramatic sunset.
But alas! The sky was blue and the high cirrus clouds did not look promising. As Heinz Teufel said: Emil Nolde wouldn't have gone painting landscapes on a day like this.
Well, we had to work with what we've got so here's my first try to capture the flat landscape:



The farm house is one of those often captured in Emil Nolde's paintings.
I used a polarizer and did quite some color-pushing in post to produce at least some expressionistic colors. But certainly this is not a model of a "dramatic" sky.
Still the shot captures the vast landscape under the endless sky quite well.

Here's a closer view of the same farm house:



As always: click through the images to enjoy the large view.