Traurig / Sad

Es stimmt uns sehr traurig, dass unser armes altes Hundle in die ewigen Jagdgründe eingegangen ist. Das Alter und ein schwaches Herz haben unserer Ira den Rest gegeben. Sie lebt nun nur noch in unserer Erinnerung und in Photographien.
Hier ist ein Bild von ihr. Ich würde als Titel nun "Go West..." verwenden.
Sie wird einen Platz in der Ausstellung bekommen.

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It's our sad duty to announce that our poor old doggy Ira has passed away. Old age and a weak heart finally has got the better of her and she now lives only in our memories and the pictures that we have.
Here's one of them. I would now change the title to "Go West..."

She'll have her place at the exhibition.

Auswahl / Selection

Endlich ist die Auswahl der Bilder für die Ausstellung getroffen! 48 sind natürlich viel zu viele, aber beim Aufbau der Ausstellung wird dann final entschieden, welche an die Wand, und welche Bilder in die Mappe kommen.
Inzwischen sind auch alle gedruckt und die meisten gerahmt - jedenfalls die, die sehr wahrscheinlich aufgehängt werden.
Übrigens: Eines der letzten Bilder, die es in die engste Auswahl geschafft haben war das Selbstportrait unten. Nun mag man sich fragen, was das mit "Natur - inspiriert" zu tun hat? Ja, ich bin tatsächlich kein großer Freund von Selbstportraits, aber der Schatten auf dem Acker in der tief stehenden Wintersonne und dieser seltsame Wirbel um meinen Kopf verbunden mit der Zwei-Farbigkeit befriedigte meine Suche nach "natürlicher Abstraktion". Also, wer wissen will, wie ich in Natura aussehe, der muss mich schon in der Ausstellung besuchen kommen...

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Finally the selection process for the images has come to an end! 48 pictures are too much, naturally. But the final decision as to which ones will find their place at the wall and which ones will end up in a portfolio will come when we set up the exhibition room.
All images are now printed and most of them framed - at least those which have a high probability of being displayed on the walls.
By the way: one of the last images that made it on the short list was this self-portrait:

You may ask what that has to do with "Inspired by Nature"? Well, I'm not normally into self-portraits, but my shadow on the earth and the strange maelstrom around my head captured my eye and the natural two-tonedness aided my quest for abstractification. So if you want to know how I look in reality, you have to come to the exhibition: I'll be there!

Horst Schäfer

I had the chance to meet Horst Schäfer in person at the opening of the new exhibition "eyes wide open" in Erlangen, where some of his images were shown alongside other local photographers. He was the senior there and I very much liked his images.
Horst Schäfer was born 1932 and started as a photog in Düsseldorf (just like me, in Düsseldorf I mean). He soon went to New York and made his career there and at other places in the US in the 20 years between 1961 and 1980. After that he returned to Germany and now works and lives in Nuremberg (just like me, again).
I asked him how he goes about catching the images that made him famous, most of them not studio work. He replied that he just captures the moment, not planning what to shoot and seldom returning to a scene to wait for better light or other changes in conditions.
That sounds like a photo-journalist to me and while some of his images in the exhibition clearly show this freshness and spontaneity many photos have a "planned" and well thought-out look. But that only shows that the real photographic artist can combine the spur of the moment, the one-time chance, with the professional eye for perspective, framing and a feeling for "the moment it clicks".
Great work!
Horst Schäfer's Website is here.

Below is an image by Horst Schäfer:

Natur - inspiriert

For English version: see below!
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Endlich ist die Entscheidung für den Titel der Ausstellung im Zeidel-Museum gefallen:
"Natur - inspiriert"
Als Photograph begeistert mich vor allem die Natur: Bäume, Blumen, Landschaften, der Himmel, die Wolken – aber auch die Spuren, die der Mensch hinterlässt.
Hier kann man jeden Tag Neues entdecken: das Licht ändert sich, das Wetter, die Jahreszeiten – und natürlich die Natur selbst!
Ungewöhnliche Perspektiven bekannter photographischer Themen zu entdecken, das Spiel der Farben oder des Lichtes einzufangen und in der Abstraktion auf das Wesentliche zu reduzieren, sind die Elemente meiner Arbeit.
Von daher war es am Ende einfach, den Titel für die Ausstellung zu finden. Inzwischen läuft auch der Druck der Einladungen, als Key-Visual habe ich übrigens dieses Bild verwendet.
Und die Auswahl der Bilder ist auch fast schon fertig, der wesentliche Teil schon gedruckt und gerahmt.

Die Spannung wächst...

----English version--------------------
I've finally come to a decision regarding the title of the exhibition at the Zeidel-Museum:
"Nature - inspires" or if you like "Inspired by Nature"
These are both correct translations of the German title and I like the small ambiguity of that.
As a photog I'm inspired especially by nature: Trees, plants, landscapes, the sky, the clouds – but also the traces of human "intervention".
Here you can discover a new angle every day: The light changes, the weather, the seasons – and nature itself naturally!
To discover unusual perspectives of well known photographic topics, to capture the play of colors or of the light and to distill the essence through abstraction are core elements of my work.
So in the end it was easy to find the title of the exhibition. Currently I'm printing the invitations using this image as key-visual.
And the selection of images is almost done, too, as well as printing and framing most of them.

The anticipation grows...

Nikon 35mm madness

Having had the chance to test all three current 35mm Nikon primes on a D300 and a D700 did throw quite a spanner in any other photographic work I would have liked to pursue. I'm still not through with writing up all the results from the various tests, raking up almost 900 shots in the course of the action! But I can now at least show you some concise comparison of those three lenses. Have a look, you're in for some surprising results!
As 35mm is sort of an universal focal length that comparison was pretty important for me. It confirmed that my choice was excellent, and I'm looking forward to putting the new gear to good use - after I've written up the rest of my findings...
If you're interested in all my lens-reviews, have a look here.

My first (solo) exhibition

Woohoo! I've been scheduled for my first solo exhibition at a museum: The Zeidel-Museum near Nuremberg which is mostly about beekeeping but has a large room set aside for display of various local artists too. The exhibition will be in May. I'm thrilled and excited!
Now the most pressing concern is about which images to display...
...and what title to give to the exhibition...

Traces of light

Saw this just today and grabbed my camera. It was too strange looking to pass.
Pure traces of light on a very simple background: white tiles.



Can you guess what this is?