Not much to write about 2021, at least not regarding photography. But I finally managed to add SSL to this site, so you should see a little lock symbol in the address bar. And I updated my photography related app Yafra.
I’am listening to Linton Kwesi Johnson’s “Inglan Is A Bitch”, a song from the musical gem “Bass Culture”, I discovered only recently. The track might as well be titled “2020 is a bitch”. Personally, the year hasn’t been particularly bad for me(I am/feel privileged). But being in the Covid-19 pandemic for 6 months now has put the spotlight on so many shortcomings in our society that make me feel depressed. There is an ever growing gap between people like me, who are doing well and those that are being hit hard by the economic downturn. Global warming isn't an abstract thing in the distant future, it is impacting my immediate surroundings already, but people are happily buying bigger cars like there's no tomorrow. How is all of this going to turn out?
One month in the Hawai’i archipelago provided some expected and some unexpected photo opportunities.
Among the expected were beach, waves and surfers. Unexpected were rain forest next to dry eroding cattle pastures, wild chicken all over Kauai and an invitation to a sacred ceremony at Mauna Kea Protestors Camp.
Browse Hawai’i
These are some of the pictures from a three week cruise on a container ship
It is 2019 and this post does not take into account what is happening in the United States, Poland, Hungary, well, the world.
I have finally managed to get a photography related project off the ground. It is called Yafra and is an app that will allow me (and others, once it is release to the public) to record EXIF data for analog photography. I hope to release it early in March.
I didn’t take many pictures this year, apart from some iPhone shots during vacation. The battery in my Fuji 607 went dead, pushing Fomapan film is not a good idea, so I don’t have any 35mm or 6x7 pictures to publish here yet. The outlook for next year is better, so stay tuned.
update: When writing the initial version of this post, I thought mostly about analog photography. But I forgot about a digital picture that is even hanging as a dibond print in my room.
Apart from adding a bit of clarity in Lightroom, this picture ist straight out of camera.
I finally had my first two color rolls developed. I just dropped them at the local drug store and received the results a week later. They were processed by CEWE, one of the remaining large companies in Germany, that still develops film. One film was from last years visit to Australia, the pictures turned out ok, but none of them are real keepers. The other roll were shot in different locations this year and I am quite happy with these two:
This one was taken in Dortmund and I like the complete lack of depth in it (the rusty plates on the left are about 20m in front of the building on the right)
The Baltic Sea, seen from Ahrenshoop.
After receiving an LED light plate, I scanned a first batch of 7x6 negatives. See Brandt rusk factory for two new black and white pictures
My wife and I moved to Hamburg this summer. In our new home there is no space to set up a dark room, so no more printing of b/w pictures at the moment. For my medium format photography, I will probably adapt the proven hybrid process of developing film myself and then digitizing the negatives with a digital camera. Losing the darkroom is not a huge thing, because I'd rather go out shooting with all the great light up here in Hamburg.
... I posted a picture of a run over dead pigeon, stating that I was afraid that it was sign of things to come. Back then, I thought of plain violence. Although we had that in Germany with twelve people being killed by a terrorist attack in December 2016, I feel more alarmed and disturbed by what is happening in the United States right now. There is no obvious violence. But the possible damage goes much deeper, perhaps with a facade left intact, just like in the picture above.
I travelled a lot last year and finally accomplished something new in the field of photography. Leave the camera in the hotel and enjoy the day! I took less pictures than ever before while travelling, but was still happy with what I brought home and had a satisfactory rate of keepers.
My wife gave me the Polaroid above as a present to remember the time we spent together in Australia. I like the colors and natural vignetting of the Polaroid Type 600 camera.
My darkroom wasn't usable in the summer, because it still has light leaks. With fall approaching, it would be the right time to print some pictures. Unfortunately, this isn't going to happen before November. Stay tuned for some analog medium format color pictures (hopefully).
[Update]: My trip to Australia was great, but I only brought back one exposed roll of color film. It has not been developed....
Traveling through India for four weeks resulted in a lot of interesting picture. While still sorting the rest of them, you can have a look at the faces of Rajasthan
Having not enough time on my hands, I recently spent more time on my other side project and not as much on photography. That being said, my focus will certainly shift back to photography over the next couple weeks, although I won't be posting any new pictures or update this blog in August.
If the last couple of posts suggested that I currently enjoy shooting analog more than digital, this is certainly true. Nevertheless, you can expect a lot of hopefully exiting and interesting digital pictures soon.
Looking forward to posting again in September ...
First, I took some pictures at a 6,7km fun run. The next morning, I went to see the Impossible Project factory in Enschede, The Netherlands and in the evening I did some urban exploration at an abandoned rusk factory.
I printed my first 10x15 cm pictures from 6x9 cm negatives last week and was quite surprised that the first test print turned out completely dark.
It took almost two months for the Moskva to arrive from a remote part of Russia.
Yesterday, I set up a darkroom in the basement and did my very first print on Fomaspeed paper.
waiting for a parcel from far far away...
I haven't posted for a while and for several reasons. I spent most of October traveling South East Asia.