Tomorrow is my last day here in Frankfurt/Germany. I will be going to live in Japan for one year and my journey will begin in Russia via Trans-Siberian Railway. I will be on my way to Kobe for the next 30 days, staying in Mongolia and China for a week respectively. I hope to take a lot of interesting photos which I hope to be able to share with you when I will finally be in Tôkyô.

I took this photo of Keiko in June, hanging out at Main river in Frankfurt. If people let me just do my stuff with camera and flash and everything is relaxed, I think a lot of nice shots can come to existence, like this one. It’s nothing spectacular (besides her attractiveness, beauty and absolutey amazing eyes) but a simple honest portrait, snapshot like, edited in a nostalgic style.
Reminds me of the good times here…

Lighting Info: Flash handheld left.

Postprocessing: Retouching, color correction, conversion to GIF and back to JPEG..

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I was busy the last weeks with a huge assignment from my local hair stylist called “Relax’N”, for which I already did their advertising photo.

This time we had 11 models, including both hair stylists in various (lighting) settings for three day shootings. Sometimes you have to go save with the light, don’t have a lot of time, other times you can create something more interesting.

There are a lot of pictures to be posted on my Flickr-stream the next few days.

With these shots of three men and three women I was pleased because they look nice and professional, and I love that the models don’t smile but sometimes look a little bored or without perspective.

Lighting info: Flash through umbrella high left, goboed flash back right, goboed flash for the background

Postprocessing: Retouching, sharpening, tonecurve…

Ladie’s version:

Since I am in London for a week now there will surely be some updates, finally. So I finally get to post this picture from around two weeks ago, that I did together with Manuel Hossfeld, fellow photographer and strobist.

The idea was to use these small light sticks that people take to concerts or so. The difficutly here is obvious: Trying to get the weakly glowing sticks to become vibrant while not getting distracted by a background that is too bright, and then lighting the subject accordingly.
What I really enjoy here are textures of the cloth on the head of the subject (that’s me by the way) and the jacket. The wide angle gives an aggressive feeling. Lot’s of things learned on this shooting.

Strobist: SB right high on head, left low on shoes, in the back.

Postprocessing: Different layers of exposure and contrast.

With Manuel Hossfeld

Long time no update.

I graduated a week ago and am now officially M.A. (Master) of art education and japanese studies. Currently working for a few weeks at a “normal job” and saving money to go to Japan again. So, quiet busy.

I did have an assignment a few weeks ago though. A local hair stylist just opened up and asked me to take a picture for an ad. Since it had to be done quick and it was just for a local newspaper I didn’t go for something totally wacky edgy, but something that would make people feel that these two hair stylists are young, pretty and have self-esteem.

Sometimes I wish I had more strobes and more time. I would have loved to sculpture the hair saloon with light, because it is quiet fashionable and would need more attention than just a overhead strobe…

Strobist: SB-28 through umbrella high, camera right; SB-24 in the middle of the room aimed at ceiling; SB-600 far right as a kicker (didn’t trigger)

Photoshop: Vibrance, Saturation, Contrast, LAB-Curves, Sharpening etc…

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The above photo is my choice, they used a different one for the advertising:

They are very friendly and the service is great. You can feel quiet at ease, as their name suggests: “Relax’N”. Located in Oberrad / Frankfurt am Main (Germany). Give them a call:
069 – 59 60 74 67

Photoshop – I have a love/hate relationship in the sense that I prefer rather ‘original’/raw pictures. I like to plan things ahead and would rather use photoshop as little as possible, preferably not at all, like with this photo of my hair styles shooting. But on the other hand it is fun and can have such an impact on your photo. And you never have anything raw – every picture has to go through the settings in your camera, white balance, developing (either real or virtual), and in modern age it even depends on the monitor you use how the picture will look like!
In this case I was just doing some personal portraits for my pretty cousin Julia and liked this picture so much that I wanted to add something and make it really pop. I wanted to try something different than my usual postprocessing and I like the effect the blur has on the image…

Strobist: (lightly diffused) SB-600 camera left

Postprocessing: Colors, Contrast, Blur, Retouching etc…

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I was location scouting with my fellow photographer Manuel Hoßfeld yesterday without any real equipment but my camera. The east harbor of Frankfurt is an amazing, mysterious place at night. So many cargo boxes, train tracks and lights – and this old, rusty bridge. I love how – yesterday with almost full moon – the colors mixed and made this bridge shimmer and give highlights and shadows.

Postprocessing: Different layers of contrast, color intensity, crop etc…

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I worked on my own logo for some time and you might have seen it as a watermark in the recent photos and also here. I used the traditional emblem of my family on my father’s side, which was used (and maybe created) for the printing company that exists since 1892 now – although the company itself is not in my families hands anymore. I wanted to change it to my personal liking. So I put in the buddha head and changed some symbols, so now flowing water and an eye are included. It looks so iconic, it’s almost embarrassing.

Pattern credits to: patterns.ava7.com

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I heard of people throwing their precious digital cameras around with a slow shutter speed to get some crazy images. I am not in the mood to break my Nikon D300 plus equipment worth thousands of  bucks for some gradients, but I figured I could try it out with my good old cell phone. If it’d break I’d just stop sending stupid text messages and finally get back to natural and healthy communication.
Well, it didn’t break, so here is the gradient, which I find pretty intriguing, especially since it would take so much more time to do it in Photoshop. Here, it took only a second and a good catch in my backyard. And unhealthy communication survives…

LoFi: Nokia 6290

Post: No

After I “finished” learning today (one is never finished) for my exam on Thursday (which is a lame explanation why I don’t post so often anymore), I thought, I’d give myself a treat to play around with some light and make a self-portrait. Since a few weeks I am thinking more about light in terms of molding the surrounding to my liking than rather just take the environment and use it as a backdrop. I want to achieve these splashes of light that only randomness and chances make possible. I have a lot of ideas and plans for future series and single photographs and maybe I will have more time in the next month to experiment some more. If you interested in a shot of the lighting setup, click the image to go to the Flickr page with additional shots and info.

Strobist: Triggered with Flashwaves; Snooted SB-24 behind radiator on the floor, snooted SB-600 camera right as rim light, snooted, diffused SB-28 camera right infront of me.

Postprocessing: LAB curves, sharpening, skin smoothing, a little desaturation, retouched part of the radiator

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I feel so pop artsy, so connected to Warhol and all this movement whenever I take these crappy little images with my cell. Sometimes I only have my cell phone camera with me and it serves me only as the worst replacement you can think of for a Nikon D300. But often I find the pixelated, blurry pictures compelling, because they are so basic and reduced, even ugly.

If you concur or want to change your mind, take a look at the Lofi set on my Flickr stream.

Lofi: Nokia 6290

Post: Curves, Vibrance, Saturation