Hello. Here come some rooty tooty fresh and fruity pictures for your amusement. Enjoy.
Schlagwort: Agfa Rodinal
08/2014: Running through the sand
Hello folks. Time flies and so this post is about both some older stuff from summer and some recent things from the current semester. Hannover, District Ride, family time, new friends, workshop, some sunny days on Island Rügen, artsy fartsy designers stuff. Have fun looking through this one!
Side note: Although the comments section does not give it away, i keep getting more and more feedback on the blog. Not only from photo people but also from friends and strangers i did not think would be interested in this kind of photography. This makes me very proud and encouraged about the whole “project”. I sure do all that for myself to a large part, but its cool that actually other people are interested in this too.
Its a lot of work from shooting to publishing a finished blog post: about 10-12 rolls of film to develop (which makes about 20-30 pics per roll that are published here), 400 frames to scan and catalogue, tag and post process, about 200 to upload, import in the blog and about 150 captions to write. Since im kind of diligently about this stuff, it takes about 1-2 months for me to complete a post (shooting the actual images – the most important part of course – not included). So if there are at least a few others besides me who like this stuff, than it makes this all feel worth it. Thanks a lot for that.
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Olga “copying” some pages.
Erlangen, Orangerie hall, that grand piano makes a nice still.
Gettin some vitamins!
Next (early) morning, around 6am at the train station. Stephan and i drove up to Hannover to check out the department for Photojournalism. The department hosts a portfolio review meet once a month so we thought why not get some fresh air? Oh and dont wonder, i shot some trix with the hexar (above) and some Ilford Delta 3200 with the Leica M6 (these three frames).
Early morning in the ICE, talking photo stuff and arranging series of pics to show at the meeting.
Beautiful middle Germany. You dont usually get so see such landscapes when going by car or bus.
Welcome to Hannover.
07/2014: Balloons & Coffee
Constantly shooting all kinds of stuff. Here are some more frames from Summer 2014. And i also found another great piece of music for this post, the new David Guetta single. lol.
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Cruisin around the Dutzendteich.
On the menue: Nothing.
Returning empty beer cartons.
August Critical Mass Nürnberg.
Critical Mass passing our street. The Hexar was somewhat irritated by the fly screens.
In a park. An interview of some poetry slam dude.
Got something for me?
Printing some stuff at uni + shooting some Trix in the Leica M6 (ID-11 since i ran out of Xtol)
Graduation exhibition. Some of us younger students did checkout and sold tickets and exhib catalogues.
06/2014: Blicke schärfen
The semester is over, projects are finished, exhibitions closed, equipment cleaned up and stored. We are not traveling much this summer except for a trip up to the Baltic Sea in September. We both work several days a week and do much work on the apartment. Theres a lot of family and friends and chillout time. Holiday season stuff. Im shooting all kinds of stuff with 35mm and medium format, b/w and color, and develop a lot of films at home.
Also i hope to finish work on the darkroom an my uncles place this summer. Its actually ready for use except for the tap water supply and waste water disposal. Were gonna have to split cut the pipe and install a water faucet with proper fittings. Also im planning to install a small submersible pump inside a big tank right under the sink and connect it to the sewage water pipe. We’ll see if i can show some documentation of the progress in the next entry. This one right now contains a lot of street and family pics and some exhib stuff from the semester and also some of my work for 2nd semesters photoclass portfolio.
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Starting with some random street frames. Leica M6 + Kodak Tri-X in Xtol.
I almost always take this shot of people. I find it kind of interesting.
Walking around with Stephan.
Stephan taking a shot, maybe for our double exposure series for photoclass?
A small tree abused as a trashcan and also chained up in Gostenhof.
And suddenly i started taking portrait format frames again.
A test print of my poster for our typography “Type 2″ exhibition of few weeks ago. The grey is pure red actually.
Policemen checking the ID of some guy.
We were having some drinks at this place when i noticed these two behind us, brother an sister i guessed. Seemed like he just stepped into her life after a lot of years and so they had a lot to talk. Later, they started calling other family members like their mother (i suppose). Now thats quite a nice story for such an average picture right? Anyway, i did not want to get too close and disturb them since it looked like kind of a intimate moment for them.
Construction site at the red light district (more like a softcore version of the actual red light district).
We were back at the train station when i saw this guy. I speeded up to him to take a shot, although i wasnt sure if the negative would hold all the detail. In scenes like these there is no time to hold on, fiddle around with your cam and starting to compose a nice image. You just make your best guess for toh lighting and shoot. Luckily the timing was good (decent light situation) and theres all the detail in the picture that i wanted to capture. I did a 24x30cm print and it looks very good with plenty of structure.
Since the weather was so sweet that evening, we went for a walk at the “Steintribüne”, which is part of the former nazi party rally grounds. Today, the area is used for big events like “Rock im Park” or the DTM (German Touring Car Championship). This was days before the start of the DTM, so most of the track barriers and audience stands were already set up. I took some shots with the leica and also some Polaroids with the Hasselblad 500CM.
More barriers.
Back in the city. Thank god for this beautiful weather these days.
Guys playing on their phones.
So there was a big public transportation strike in the city and the place got more and more crowded with people waiting for one of the few buses that were still running. Those bus lines often headed to places like the airport or the outer districts, but it seemed like people just gave up and took a ride on those buses, just to get ANYWHERE away from the main station and to keep moving. I took the bike.
I almost felt a little ashamed, taking pics of frustrated and trapped people and after that just hoppin on my bike, casually riding away.
Some service workes tried to calm down some people or to give adivce for the best alternative routes to take.
He got lucky.
Random frame in on of the labs.
Neustadt Kirchweih time. Carnival rides is a serious business.
Im afraid there is no proper way of translating this sign…but its from 5pm to 9pm fyi
Think. About what?
People watching the fireworks. An OK shot i think, regarding that it was pretty much completely dark (focusing fun!) and i had like 1/8th at 1.4. Printed it, looks nice. More tonal range than you’d get from the scanned version here.
At campus. Kerim being happy. We’re ALL HAPPY STUDENTS HERE so lets put it on big banners to show how cool IT IS TO STUDY HERE. YAY!!! LETS PARTY!!!1
Some film and room+space design class people were shooting a Hundreds music video the other day. First things first, catering.
Basti holding some wall thing.
It was Saturday, and while the film guys prepared their shooting, the photoclass had some fun in the studio.
Another one.
Police set up a little bike parcour course for the kids at the marketplace.
Lots of mid-grey tones i thought.
So the DTM was here and i felt like checking out what was going on around the place. The event area itself is pretty secured, people like to be amongst themselves (pretty expensive tickets also). So at some points of the track, people were standing outside and trying to catch a look at the touring cars. Great scene for a print. I should – oh wait thats right, iv’e already done a print of this since we got this super cool automatic dev machine at the uni lab. Actually its about 30 years old and close to its total breakdown. But before going back to conventional handmade dev, we keep using this monster until it literally falls apart. Well see if Stephan and i will be able to organize some new equipment for the lab, but its all about the money in the end, which is sad. The darkroom process is so so so beautiful and full of things you need to know about “making” images, i for once would love to do some color printing or fiber or toning or or…This so has to happen, ill keep you informed.
So, back to some pics. Another one of the “audience”.
At another edge of the track, also blocked for pedestrians. These two checked out what was going on, then turned back around. I kind of like the frame, those barriers give it a very graphic touch. I was also very lucky with the arrangement of the trees above. Printed.
I think somebody died here.
Came across this scene later.
Went to grab some things at the groceries store when all of a sudden it started raining LIKE REALLY. People were totally surprised and started running for cover.
CHECK IT OUT, how much GERMANY can you spot in this frame?
Finished the roll with some water-buried spoons.
Next day, next roll. Switching to TMY (TMax 100 = TMX, TMax 400 = TMY, TMax 3200P = TMZ) for fun. As i mentioned in a previous entry, i find TMY to show not as much of a “film” character as Trix or Efke, but damn this film is good. Grain: What grain? Tonality: Kicks ass.
Look who professionally fixed her window 🙂
Michis ROCKWALL for our typography exhibition. The letters are freaking huge actually, we barely managed to fit all of them in my car to get them to the campus.
Olgas bike got blocked, lol.
There was a nice festival in the Südstadt district so Stephan Tanja and i met to check it out (=to grab as much food as we could and lurk around with our Hipster cameras).
Changes are these are father and son.
Stephan with his Nikon.
Funny dudes.
All kinds of different cultures, bonding and living peaceful side by side. How can that be such a hard thing to do in so many places?
Tanja fiddling around with some film.
People selling some stuff.
I told Tanja that i found it fascinating to get that much stripes in a single frame. But also Tanja herself and the guy in white on the right and the one on the left in the very back of the scene somehow complete this one i guess. Well its just a snapshot after all.
Tanja proudly presenting her Voigtländer TLR, very VERY old model.
I keep thinking about how people percieve me when i photograph them. I dont know, i do not try to hide or to be invisible like some sort of stalker. I just am there and do what i do. Of course, i try not to distract people since i want to document, but i am still there and whatever happens, happens. I like those little eye contacts, smiles, talkes, gestures, even rejections, conflicts and so. Its a very humanistic approach i think. On the other side, some people like to shoot people with tele lenses which i find kinda weird. Or maybe its just me? Time to think some more.
Chris joined us later and we decided to have a beer. Tanja making her cute face.
Walking back home.
Subway station near Anselms place.
The next day we met again at the festival for some more snacks and pics. Good times.
Yeah not an interesting frame. Just letting you know, i happend to get me a ND 0.6 filter for the Nokton (= -2EV so ISO400 -> ISO100) from ebay for 1€ lol (and its a quality one). That means shooting Trix and TMX with even less DOF (depth of field) in bright daylight. Works perfectly.
Paramedics hanging out.
Some type and shadow stuff.
Switching tu Fuji Acros 100 and the Konica Hexar AF.
Taking an family portrait.
Walking around with Franzi and Stephan and some random guy, taking some pics.
Businessman with a german-flag-colored tie.
Flag-style berries.
Funny dog.
We met two friends of Stephan by chance. The recorded some footage for a skate vid.
At the trainsation. Tanja was taking portraits for photoclass. Its always challenging to ask people for one or two portraits, you never know how they react. Tanja was turned down a couple of times at first but she did the right thing and kept going, so kudos for that.
From the hip.
It was that time of year again, i cant believe how time flies. Academy of fine arts annual exhibiton.
What an inspiring place. The academy is located right beside the zoo, lots of green, lots af trees, lots of white and lots of glass. We live about 500m from there, across a small woodland.
Some exhibs at the gallery of AdbK photoclass.
Sunlight and some framings.
If you understood all of it, it would not be art.
At the Academy of Music.
As i walked around i found this “smoking area” that i found hilarious. Its located at the very edge of the place. Then i realised that place is the colleges informatics faculty.
A random still life from the 500CM.
THIS is the shit.
And THAT is the shit.
Some pieces of Jennys “Typomania” project for the type exhibition. Laser cut letters ararnged as viruses. Definitifely the shit.
Sonja took this one.
Stephan looking at some contacts. I find it interesting how people tend to develop their own processes in terms of darkroom safety and handling films and equipment. Those are not our films but i find it funny how some people just dont give a shit.
I did some prints for the semesters portfolio, double exposures and “abused” medium format. I included some scans of the prints further down this post.
Family visit.
That night, Germany won the world cup. We went to the city center to check out the madness.
People came from all directions.
Then the Autokorso started and there was no more way out.
This man mounted some flowers or something on his wiper blades. Whatever.
Television interviewing some fans.
They probably got a lot of hugs that night.
The place got more and more crowded with happy peoply.
Party madness! We met with Stephan later and took some more pics (i ran out of film and shot some stuff with Stephans cheapo digicam). Stephan mentioned that it is kinda sad that people would occupy the streets for some stupid “game” that is mostly about advertising pure capitalism but not for important things like anti-war, politics failures, total surveillance of citizens, human rights and so on…
So after some years, i just sold this gem. It is a beautiful beautiful workhorse with a fine lens. But to me it always felt like a studio or tripod camera and so i got rid of it. Never thought i’d sell a Hasselblad though 🙂 Awesome thing, every photographer should use one of these at least once.
And so, after trying MF SLR und RF (the big Fuji GSW690III) i got back to the system that i personally like best: TLR. I got this one at a local camera store. Its a Rolleiflex 3.5F late planar version with coupled meter (working perfectly!) and its close to mint. Just that much, it did cost me the exact price i sold the 500CM for, so its a fair trade in the end i think. By now i already shot some with it and the results are just awesome.
Here are some digitals from our Typography exhibiton.
Simon and his Avant Garde airplane.
Michis Rockwall with nice background ambient lighting.
Katharinas Kabel-Table.
Jennys Typomania stuff.
My Avant-Garde-rebranded consumer goods with posters and exhib pieces.
Lennys FF Info information wall with letters from all of our fonts and some background information about each one, arranged as takeaway notes.
Oh yeah, Michi got anoter professional film camera from a serious camera store called “flea market”. Its the FUN ENDITION!
The place got tagged with stickers from Max’ installation.
Everybody taking pictures.
Closeup of the lasercut letters.
Chris. So here are some images i made for 2. semester photoclass, starting with some double exposures Stephan and i did (We had to each expose a roll of film, then wind it back, switch rolls and expose them again. So its pretty much pure luck what you get, but thats the challenge and fun part about it. Film was some Ilford FP4+ and we went for about -1 or -2EV for the single shots so that the exposure was pretty good in the double-exposed frames.
Human // Nature. We were also pretty lucky with the perfect overlapping alignment of the frames. I did some prints on my 30+yo Tetenal Speed grade 3 and 4 paper (24x30cm) and later scanned the prints on some huge epson flatbed (holds A3 at least, forgot the model no.) at uni. The quality is actually very good, way better than id expect. Of course, with every step you get more and more dust on the image wich is a problem (neg front and back -> neg holder double glass sides so 2x top 2x bottom side -> enlarger lens front and back -> the paper itself -> scanner). But since we had to hand in a paper portfolio and i had to do prints anyway, i decided to digitalize them instead of doing neg scans, you know, for the fun.
Simona
Stephan
This is a photogram for the human rights topic.
And finally some of the medium format stuff. Cut-up portraits arranged back together as a new image.
Oh, here come the first frames from the new Rolleiflex. Uncle getting some presents. Film was TMY in Xtol.
My sister.
Getting used to TLR again. I really really would like to try a prism finder on this, but they are ridiculously expensive.
Andrea, my other sister, and Boerge. They just got engaged.
Streets.
Erosion. I put some cheap APX 100 in the Hexar AF. I was not sure whether its and old or new version of the film. Old one is said to be better. So actually, the new one alway has “New Emulsion” printed on the carton and the back says “Made in E.U”, whereas the old on says “Made in Germany”. Also, the font on the film itself is serif on the old film vs. sans-serif on the new version. Just so you know. Anyway, i developed this in Rodinal 1+25. I find that lower dilutions show more grain but also more tonality. And hey, grain is not a real problem with most ISO 100 films.
Lenny on the phone. We prepared another barbecue at campus. Tones are sick in these frames, almost like al Delta 100.
Teamin up.
Had some initial troubles with the veggie grill (we ran out of charcoal).
Student council bosses supervising the event. Faggets 🙂
Sonja with nice glasses.
He preferred fish.
Then this dog joined us. I guess he belongs to a student but i was never really sure. Nice fellow though.
Beppo in all his beauty.
Hair and flare.
Michi and his nice Rollei 35. Out of nowhere, the meter started working again. Michi was happy like a little child and started taking frames. But then the meter was dead again. Sucks. Contact wires i guess.
Enjoying some grilled corn.
What is left from the Type2 exhibition.
Dang, i ran out of Xtol. So i went through my photo stuff drawer which holds all kinds of spare parts, accessoires and other crap and found a pack of Ilford ID-11 which basically is Kodak D76. Yay! Oh yeah, and some Agfa Isopan from the 40s O_o
Empty tuna can on the street.
Somebody threw away a box full of fruits. Wtf.
Lucky charm on a car window.
Religion stuff.
A random still.
Somethings not right with that Porsche.
Our godparent certifications for little Mikes baptism. We had to get them from our local church to be able to become godparents. Yep, thats Germany. Thanks for looking!
05/2014: Two Lovers
The last weeks have really been exhausting, but in a good way. Since we’re doing real projects in classes instead of taking exams or tests, the semester ends with a big bang and everybody is hasting through the labs and hallways on their way to finish all kinds of exhibition stuff, portfolios, posters, web pages, essays, darkroom prints, movies or installations. People are stressed because of tight schedules, frustrated because of problems with computers, printers, programs, enlargers and all kinds of other stuff and at the same time happy because the semester is almost done and the summer season is ahead of us. I will post more stuff i did in photo class and typo class in the next blog for i’m not done with my portfolio yet. So here are some pictures covering the past months from mid-semester until now.
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In typography class.
In the studio, working on some large format table top stuff. The whole process is sooo daaamn slow, especially when you’re used to shoot rangefinders, but the quality you get of those huge 4×5 negs is just worth it.
It was that time of year again. Makes a nice composition.
In a bar. 1600 ISO at 2.8, i think about 1/8th. So yeah, i decided to get a Nokton again, i just need those two more stops.
OstAnders festival at Studio Eins. Some of us showed some (digtal) prints or illustrations.
Anselm approving the setup.
Lonely beer bottle.
At Neues Museum. “Unschärfe” (=blur) was an installation inside and outside the museum. I also took a photo of the installation object, a huge room made out of steel grids and used it for a dyptichon for our human rights topic.
This dyptich i shot for the human rights topic. It is in fact a small piece of colour negative film, regularily exposed with a small pinhole camera i made from a 35mm film can (black one of course). The top part is actually shote inside the “Unschärfe” construction.
Some plants behind frosted glass. Looks haunting somehow but interesting at the same time. So i took a frame at 1/15th or so.
Silly subway stuff.
People reading.
Another Olympus XA artwork. It seems to have some trouble transporting the film for the first 1-3 frames. Looks funny though.
Kids drawing. Thats some HP5+ Stephan lent me btw since i ran out of trix.
Cig break.
Another election. Discussing who to vote for. Pathetic.
The smaller the camera, the harder the focusing.
They built a wall around a tree, how nice is that.
Jonas and his digital pinhole cam. What a cheater 😀
Guess what, election. This time at the faculty. Some of us volunteered as election workers.
Back in photo class. We listened to some lecture about great photographers. Tanja all of a sudden pulled out a blank loaf of bread and a knife and was like “whos hungry?” and started cutting some slices. What a moment!
Olga and i went to the yearly “mobility flea market” to get a bike for her.
Printed this one.
Finally, a friend for my old bike.
Saturday morning at uni, Fachschaft breakfast time. Andi also brought some board games for the students to play in the community room. Its actually like a kindergarden but with typography and stuff…
Beppo and Basti, newly elected leaders of the student council.
Oh noes!
Kornmarkt blues.
I wonder who arranged this and why.
Improvisation.
Hanging out after class. Kentmere 100 in Rodinal (Hexar AF).
Smooth light that evening. Shot from our bedroom window.
What a statement! And such nice structures too.
waste removal coming through!
Two lovers.
Buddy for sale.
I thought that was a funny moment.
Sometimes i like to take a picture that is nothing special but has a single small detail that makes it less boring.
More Altstadtflohmarkt impressions. Stephan bought this very old portrait. The technical quality of this little piece was just impressive.
Some happy people spreading the joy.
Basti, Stephans roommate.
Inside the comic book store.
Back to good old Trix+Xtol. Hanging out at uni, David enjoying his summertime coffee.
A poster at the academy of fine arts. Susi and i were there for a lecture about icons in photography.
Taking portraits.
Benno, shot with the M2 + Xsync-connected lighting.
Litte Mike discovered his hand.
Julian
Illustration exhibition of two great graduation works at Neues Museum. Prof Ackermann holding the opening speech.
Great use of space and arrangement of exhib pieces.
We went to Kulturgarten later for a beer. Sometimes i does not matter how good you try to hide, you just fail.
Basti in busy work mode.
That night there was a big storm outside and we watched from the window. I thought why not capture a lightning strike on film, should be bright enought to illuminate the scene. The first frame came out completely dark because i missed. This is the second try. 1/8th of a second at 1.4.
Shooting some footage for Cast class at Idas and Sibylles place.
Kafka, who was our actor. Killer dude.
Thank god the final scene takes place in a Biergarten!
Goin’ fishin’.
More family time in my uncles garden.
Looking up.
Since i have left some rolls of TMY (= TMax 400), i shot one for fun. This is shot from the balcony, looking down in the hidden garden.
A heart-shaped cake for Günter.
Best buds?
Shitting pigeons. Already printed this one. Well, Tmax definitely has its advantages. A very modern look and just non-existent grain. I still prefer the Trix’ character though.
At the bus station. Shitty weather.
Some lines
Getting ready for Rock im Park.
Machines blocking the way for cyclists.
The other day, Olga got sick.
Back in the lab! Its Fuji Acros time! Leica M6 and Nokton.
Another christian-ish pic of Christian.
Franzi and her Pentax ME.
Tanja jumping in the frame.
Some place at the border of Nürnberg. People running up the hill.
People fishing.
Some frames from the Volksfest in spring.
Especially when shot in bright sunlight, Acros is just superb!
More trees for Nürnberg.
Duzy hurt his leg.
A man enjoying the sun, view from the lab in the little yard.
Thanks, i think i get it now!
Walking around, taking some pictures.
At another market, women hanging up some baby stuff.
What a lovely flag.
We enjoyed some of the warm days at Naturgartenbad, which is just a great place to relax and spend the whole day at. Shot some Delta 100 too.
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Edited version.
Untouched raw version from the LS-40 (=Nikon Coolscan IV) + Vuescan. Delta 100 is just good stuff. And seems like it loves HC-110 for development. Oh yeah, after using a dedicated film scanner for some time now, i have this hint for you: If youre struggeling with the quality of your scans, throw your flatbed in the trash (talking 35mm here) and get a real scanner. If your scans are still no good, your process most likely sucks. Check every step, like EVERY step: Camera working properly? Film stored correctly? Chemicals fresh? Dev process going well? How about your temps? Using wetting agent? Please please dont get disencouraged by all this stuff. But theres just some parameters that you should take care of if you want good quality (technical quality) negatives. However, having fun is still no. 1 on the list of course!
More hanging out. Olga looking at my grandpas sketchbook from the 40s and 50s. He made the last sketches in this in 2006 which is kinda cool.
We spent the next day at Tanjas parents’ house she was keeping while they were on vacation. What an awesome place with all kinds of trees, bushes and beds.
View from the greenhouse on the beds.
Mandy, the dog, was exhausted because of the sunny weather. Shes 18.
Another frame for the “Metering-on-my-hand” series.
Its beautiful because its in b/w.
We also took some portraits for photoclass with the 500CM. For the human rights semester topic, we had to abuse a roll of FP4+ 120 film negatives mechanically after development. I decided to cut up some portraits and mix the parts back togtheer into different portrait-like close-ups. I’ll do a scan of the print to show it in the next post probably.
Before destroying the negs i made sure to do a proper scan of every portait, just in case…
We went to the graveyard later.
So i worked on my project for the typography exhibition and cut some posters and stuff. Since i couldnt find a proper mat to cut on, i just grabbed a random magazine and cut on its back. Later i realised it was some LFI issue. Sorry guys.
The next day, i decided to take some photographs of the Rock im Park aftermath after work. The weather was perfect for Delta and i found some beautiful stills…
The whole area was of course cleaned some hours later, but still.
Some guys deinstalling some beams.
Beer can art.
I wonder what party was going on here a few days ago.
The pure joy of nature. Already did a print. Some weeks ago, i bought some packs of very old (30+ years) Tetenal Speed paper from a former photographer. Very nice guy. The paper is quite old and has gotten about 1-2 grades smoother (that makes a grad 4 back then a grad 2-3 today and so on), but all packs were still sealed and stored correctly. Turns out these old packs of Tetenal (24x30cm and 30x40cm) still work nearly perfectly. And also, now that i finally do darkroom prints, it turns out that my negs are already pretty solid for printing, which is great. For example, the print i did of the above frame on some grad 3 speed paper turned out almost exactly like the web version, lookwise. Deep blacks and rich highlights, though theres a lot more shadow detail in the print than in the scan. So im glad that all the time i intuitively edited my scans to a print-ish look, and not to something completely different. Sure, dodging and burning, multigrade and fiber is still to come, but for now i’m perfectly happy with what im getting out of my negatives.
On top
Some strange people lurking around, looking for empty bottles and all kinds of stuff, gathering all kinds of crap like rats. Kinda interesting.
More people enjoying the green fields.
Some people looking for bottles on the left side, some weird dude taking a sunbath right in the middle of all this crap on the right side. Man do i love people.
Ok, next weekend. Visiting Olgas family again. (Back to Trix)
Happy grandparents.
Behind the scene.
Back to work.The Designers Night, a huge exhib at campus, was about to begin the next day. The team did some final installation work.
We also rent some oldschool couches and armchairs to set up a 70s style “chillout zone”. I wish we couldve kept these forever! Damn fire regulations.
Chef 1 and Chef 2.
The girls working on their exhibition stuff + Anselm on framing stuff.
Who would not want to move in here right away?
The WM was about to start.
Designers Night 7 exhib opening.
Beppo, head of team DN7 aka. space design class holding his opening speech.
Benno with a print from Lenny’s type/print experiment.
Back home, we invited Olgas family to our (not so) new place to have a nice barbecue together.
Olgas dad took some shots too!
I always find it hard to meter inside tents or bright rooms or such, it is way brighter than the meter says and i often end up with very dense because 1-2 steps overexposed negs. These could be “restored” pretty good using curves in Lightroom (because trix is killer!) but the overall tonality suffers a lot, of course.
The next day, we went for walk outside the city.
What an impressive secluded place. I like to come here every now and then, just the wander around and clear my head.
Leftover asparagus.
Neighbours keepin it classy. Shooting some TMax 400 again.
“Funny” postcards. Reminds me that theres actually “designers” that “design” this kind of stuff.
Working on our group presentation for idea development class. Michi got himself a nice Rollei 35 from ebay for 25€. What a sweet little thing with a mighty little lens.
Lilit and Beppo, doing nothing.
Curious tourists.
More presentation work. Man skyping with his daughter? (i guess) in the back.
Wasting more frames.
Whörd subay station, Beautiful light due to some glass construction on top.
Basti the thinker. So, nokton wide-open. Bokeh: Depends. Looks disturbing in one shot (above) and perfectly even in the next (below). Sharpness: Pretty good imo.
Somebody got a nice present.
Walked around later that day. Not the best weather, but i felt like just shooting some frames.
A strange lot of all kind of poles.
And some random geometry. Good night!
04/2014: Clouds under a bridge
Some new and not so new stories because i just started developing C-41 again. Lots of uni stuff, exhibs, festivals, excursions and of course photo class stuff going on. Some personal frames in between too. Im shooting a lot lately and i wouldnt wanna miss it. Not as much street as i would like to though, but that’ll change soon.
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Heres what happens if youre shooting with several cameras: Your chronological order will be pretty much fucked up. We ordered some film and paper for the photoclass and also two Tetenal C-41 Kits. So i started developing color negative film again in the lab at uni. Here are some older frames from around the start of 2nd semester.
So it turned out that nobody had done some manual small tank development in the lab for years. Usually, large tanks are used wich are permanently installed and connected to fresh water. Very comfortable but not very much fun if you ask me. Plus they only hold bw chemicals. Time to do some C-41! So when we turned on the water we got several liters of yellowish-dirty water. After the water turned clear or what we thought looked clear again, we started filling some tanks to pre-heat the chemicals and the small tank. However a water temp of about 40°C was wayyy to optimistic since the water had been running for about 10mins already and the boiler tank was pretty empty. So we decided to dev at 30°C. After the final rinse the film looked pretty bad, probably because of dirty water, non-working fixer because of low temp or whatever. After throwing it in the fixer again for about 5 minutes and washing again we put the roll in the dryer for another 10mins and everything was fine. The first frames have a weird blueish (so orange-brown on the neg) teint along the top side (see above) but overall, the film looks pretty good. However, i do not recommend to improvise with the use of your chemicals the way we did, except you really need to. Things can get really inconsistent and i guess we were just lucky this time.
Evening sun.
Nice colors at my way to work. Ektar with mad saturation of course (In the Hexar AF).
View out of our kitchen window at night.
Some color frames from the open day / portfolio presentation day. We used all the tables of this class room for the exhibition.
Left: My work, right: Stephan mounting his work.
Very nicely captured is what i thought before i realized that the snack box person on the right walking into the frame is me, so it must have been Stephan who took that shot.
Hexar in my hands again. Notice the kick-ass drying marks from the dirty lab water. Im pretty confident though that the more often we use it from now on, the better the water will become, once all that old lime and rust and shit is washed out.
Looking exited.
Ektar kicking that spring time right in your face. This blossom actually lasts only for a couple of days so when i passed by the scene on my bike i thought why not stop and take a boring picture?
Sandra with pink hair.
Some barbecue color frames.
Back to Tri-X. Scenes like these make me smile.
Nice BW Fuhrpark BMW.
Kids checking out a mag.
Simon and his shirt #3.
Olga waving me over. We visited a lecture about Foodsharing with Raphael Fellmer at the Bildungszentrum.
Nice backyard.
Saturday photo class. Elmas waiting while we tried several light settings.
Once the Sinar was set up properly, we metered the scene.
Stephan metering.
We shot some Polaroids and several sheets of FP4. Loading those backs was damn tricky since nobody except Stephan had done it before (including me, what a shame).
The next day, Andi & Irina and little Mike came for a visit.
One for Stephan.
Btw i shot those with the Jupiter-12. Decent image quality for a 50€ lens huh?
For a walk around the block. Since Andi and Irina will have _a lot_ of beautiful digital shots of Mike, i think it would be nice for them to have some classic b/w frames too, right?
In the studio. Mik did a shooting and i assisted and took some snaps on the side.
Connected the Hexar to the big light screens here. Works perfectly, in case youre planning to do a shooting with lights and flashes and stuff with your Hexar AF 🙂
Time for some portraits.
Bernd in early friday morning class.
By the time im writing these captions Nuremberg already has been relegated down to second league. Lol
I wonder what being a father is like.
Visiting Basti and Beppo. What a classy bathroom!
Still working on our first “yearbook” from first semester. We’ll probably print about 25 books.
Benno talking about a photograph he took for photoclass.
Elmas with glasses.
Visiting an exhibition with design history class. How many pairs can you spot?
Mik taking some miniature frames with his miniature cam. Its not a real camera actually but it makes shutter noises and flashes a little light.
We checked out a store that sells some old cameras. Poor collection, but thats Nürnberg. The small Minox 35 was kinda overpriced.
Since i had a flat tire, Mik and i walked through the city to the nearest bike shop and to his place to fix my bike.
Mik’s sweet Nikon with a broken shutter :/
Fixing my tire.
At the Ohmrolle Spring Collection 2014, an annual film festival where design students show their work to the public, semester 1 (30 sec commercial that we did) to 7 (huge impressive graduation works). The night was hosted by the Cinecitta movie theater which provided its 3 largest halls for the event. Jonas getting ready with a beer.
This was about 30mins before the beginning. Speeches and so were all held in hall #1 with livestreams to #2 and #3 reaching a total of about 1000+ people in the audience.
Basti and Sandra.
Elmas and me.
Tension rising right before the start.
People convinced me to take that shot. This is while our small group did a little thank speech after our movie was shown. I was pretty insecure whether to take a shot right in the face of a thousand people but im glad i did, though its not a masterpiece. It is more about the spirit and the will to document an unique moment. So in moments like these, you just ask yourself, are you or are you not a photographer? And then you just do it.
Exhib
“Puzzling images”
Hanging out at Julians place on a friday night. Anselm mixing white russian.
Roommate of Julian who got pretty wasted after a while.
Julian
Cheers!
Finishing the roll whith some attic stills. Damn good afternoon light. Should be perfect for some portraits like Marc does them.
Switching to kentmere 100 + rodinal in the M6. Sometimes the line between documenting and exposing starts fading, so it is the intention that becomes more important i think.
Hanging out after class.
Synchronized cig-lighting.
Curious ducks.
Cordula
They came so close we almost could pet them.
What on the menue?
Kitchen dev station.
Olga looking beautiful.
Faculty trip to some exhibitons in Baden-Baden. Started giving the k100 about 1 stop more light here, it seems to appreciate it.
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Prof. Schaden in front of the Kunsthalle, talking about the exhibition.
Benno taking frames while smoking a cig like a pro 🙂
Inside the foyer.
The exhibition Room Service is about art/artists in hotels and hotels per se as pieces of art.
So the exhib was inside the actual floorways and rooms of several hotels which was an interesting concept. Even more interesing though was the fact that while we had a look at the images and installations, the hotel staff kept cleaning rooms and attending their everyday business so at some point exhibition and reality started mixing.
Oh yeah and i also took a self in the bathroom.
After the exhibition, exploring the city.
Weve never been to Baden-Baden before. Turns out the city and its people are incredibly wealthy and the cityscape really consists of only parks, gardens, museums and luxurient mansions with a touch of France or Italy or whatever.
We ran into David who in the meantime checked out some stores to buy some post cards. Also, i ran out of film but found a DM drug store and bought a roll of new APX 100 (3,45€, so pretty cheap).
According to Lenny, Mik and Simona, this could become a new series. For a stranger, this looks pretty dumb since i meter on my hand with the M6 most of the time, so why not take advantage of it?
Making it a day.
I have to say, the APX looks pretty good here.
Inside the museum for the JR exhib. People waiting in line to get their portait taken and printed on a huge poster (see below). Little girl watching whats going on.
Taking home the portrait.
So we had a beer on a bench across the street and just enjoyed the weather and i took some quick pictures.
A 100% crop. Funny that even the baby noticed us. She smiled and waved right after the shot, the day was just too nice to not be in a good mood.
Taxi, Baden-Baden style.
On the bus, going back home. Some people couldn’t decide where to sit so our driver got pissed and started grumping. I guess its not his fault, he also has to stick to time schedules and orders.
A proper reaction.
The last sunrays.
Back home, at Steffis new place.
New York, London, Nürnberg, Hongkong. Seems legit.
Some…thing.
Some more Ektar. Hexar because its pretty decent for a bike ride.
Early morning, Neli in front of the lab.
So on day the mailman brought me the big package we ordered for photoclass, so this is nothing but a proof.
Films, sleeves, some C-41 chems and some multigrade paper. Yep, thats about 800€. Doesnt look that much actually.
What a morning!
Weekend in Neustadt with Olgas parents. Time for some fuji acros. Olga taking a family portrait. Focusing with a rangefinder is not that easy when you first try it. Hair on neg for sharpness scale.
The kind of portrait i prefer.
Ok lets make some Pelmeni! First, make some dough with flour, water, salt and stuff.
Let it rest, then knead and stretch it. Cut out some little circles with a mug or so.
Fill with meat (or vegetables or whatever you like) and close the edges.
Thats how it should look like before cooking. Boil for several minutes in broth. Youre done.
Enjoy!
On the streets again.
At a big anti-war demonstration.
A man taking some notes and sketches of the scene.
Its pretty simple actually.
Mother and son.
Mother and daughter.
Sleepy kid with family vs. sleeping homeless men. Makes me think. The topic for this semesters photo class is “human rights” btw. Thats all for now.
03/2014: Among friends
Things are on a constant move. The second semester of design studies has started and it is damn fun. We’re permanently learning a lot of stuff. Not in a here-go-read-that-800-pages-book-about-mechanical-engineering kind of way i got used to in the past but in a learning-by-doing kind of way which is very very cool. Plus i’m getting to know more and more people better, not only from my class but from all the design classes. They’re nothing but great. Besides that, Olga and i are more than happy in our new home and im still working on instead of in the darkroom. So here are some new pictures and stories.
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These are some random shots from the Konica Hexar AF and a roll of Porst 400 color negative film. Yes, color. But since i ran out of C-41 chemicals and i didnt want to spend money on getting a single roll of cheap film developed, i browsed the internets for alternative dev methods. Turns out that you actually can develop C-41 film in BW Chemicals (i did not know that). So long story short, i developed the film in Rodinal 1+100 for a good 60 minutes @ 20°C. Seems like this combo will develope just EVERY negative film more or less correctly.
This film is already several months old, so i pretty much forgot about everything i captured with it. Some frames would have looked very nice in color i guess. Generally, when shooting color, i tend to focus on different things like an elegant combination of , yes, colors and a moody composition. With b&w, its more about light and shadows and geometric structures. So these are the frames that i think work good as monochromes too.
You may notice the subtle accentuated grain.
Im also still having trouble with bromide drag (the lighter areas on the bottom of some frames) which is caused by too little agitation of the developer (stand development). But besides this and the massive grain explosion, the tonal range is rediculously good imo. This is Olgas former school building.
And this is a photowalk with Chris.
Dust in the attic.
Another walk.
Across to my everyday bike route to uni. End of grain.
Welcome smoothness. M6 + trix + xtol, classic combo.
My uncles garage.
McD stop.
Semester break and my day off from work. So this morning, Olga had to scrap the car windows.
First photowalk with Stephan.
Awesome weather.
I like that.
Something going on.
Stephans Olympus OM-2n with a 50mm rokkor. Besides Nikon F series one of the most elegant slr cameras imo.
Great light on the top floor of a car park near Opera house.
My sister came for a visit, classy as always.
Neighborhood.
Back home.
Working on the soon-to-be darkroom. Before cleaning everything, connecting water supplies and making all windows and doors light-proof, we had to get rid of some old metal shelves and wooden tables.
Ready to head to the recycling depot.
Another election campaign.
Good memories.
“Closing hour for Fürth only – Nürnberg likes to party.” Wtf.
The other day, Andreas and Irina finally became parents, so we came for a visit. This is Mike with his aunt Olga.
Foggy work day.
Like fish in a can.
Beautiful house wall somewhere in Nürnberg.
Blgllblglgbll
Kunsthalle
Picked up Michi for a photo session.
Before shooting, we had some coffee and tea in Michis and Jankas beauftyfully secluded backyard. Switchig to the Leica M2 with C-Biogon and Kentmere 100 here.
Michi shoots a sweet Nikon FM with some older 35mm AF nikon lens.
After riding around and taking some snapshots we decided to enjoy the late afternoon sun a bit more.
BEFORE: Zeiss C-Biogon 35mm f/2.8
AFTER: Jupiter-12 35mm f/2.8. I got a new lens to use on the M2 since i do not want to switch the Zeiss from one M to the other all the time. But since im studying again im kind of on a budget and so i kept looking for a cheap alternative to 35mm cv/zeiss/leica lenses. In the end i bought a J-12 for 60€ and a ltm->m adapter for about 20€. See the difference in quality compared to the Zeiss shot? Yeah, me neither. The frames tend to get soft towards the corners and its pretty prone to flare. In the center area, its tack sharp. And hey, this is a 35mm M-mount lens for about 80€!
First real life test.
Nurses and caregivers demonstrating against the very poor conditions in health care.
The next weekend, we visited Andi and Irina and their newborn.
The happy parents + Mike in chillout mode.
Being curious.
For another walk. Eugen looking enthusiastic.
Smooth light.
Going home. About 1/4s through the car window.
So this is the J-12, a pretty solid bakelite lens. What looks kind of dull here is actually the front lens coating which is either yellow, blue, purple or whatever, depending on the manufacturer that produced the lens (several russian factories used to produce jupiter lenses back then). Focusing is easy, although i think im going to make a little focusing knob with a simple zip tie. (UPDATE: Done, works like a charm!) Changing the aperture (which is NON-click!) is somewhat fiddly as the inner ring has to be turned and it only protrudes slightly from the focusing barrel. I love it.
Sunshine means Acros! My very first roll this year. Shot with M2 and the Jupiter.
Structures.
Getting ready for the summer season.
Manual focus ftw.
Visited my mother. They turned the studio into a small workplace to teach art classes.
Just like the light here.
The other day, we exhibited our portfolios at uni. A lot of curious young students and parents came to get a little insight on the faculties work and how the application process for design studies is organized. Stephan mounting some of his photographs.
Dominik and Kerim, two of our great illustrators, were occupied by young wannabe-artists the whole time.
Simon and his shirt #1.
Minimal stuff.
I finally managed to install the kitchen clock since olga bothered my for weeks. I think it looks nice up there.
Günter and i layed new floor tiles in my grandmothers apartment. Great view from up there.
This is a more original version with frame borders and the toning from colour scanning. I decided to file out the frame of my SA-21 negative carrier. Worked perfectly. I usually crop the frames for this blog anyway, but its nice to have and looks great on (digital) prints. As for scanning bw negs as colour, im not sure yet if theres any real improvement on quality, so ill keep experimenting.
Next day, after work cig. M6, trix, xtol btw.
Some construction stuff at one of my favorite restaurants. They installed some huge light tubes that create a very ambient scene.
Didn’t know that.
First day of the second semester! Michi and Max in the center.
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Prof. Vetter welcoming the students.
After the official part, the redesigned community room was opened to the students, which means beer and nice talks.
Basically this.
Simon and his shirt #2.
Printing some portfolio stuff for photography class.
Typo class.
Our sparce “dining room”. Temporarily.
Verdi strike in Nürnberg.
Switching to Delta 100.
Later, the people walked through the city with banners and posters.
Escorted by the police.
I documented some suff along the way.
Some people watched the spectacle with interest
While others just didnt even take a note.
Crossing a big steet. Awesome Delta tones here.
Studio Eins again. Our class organized a get together+party+exhibition. So everybody had to bring some pieces of recent work to frame and mount. I documented with M2+J12+Trix@1600.
Stephan, Simona and Katy blackening some old frames with markers.
Then we went shopping. Stephan got some cord and small clothespins to arrange our prints on the wall.
The face of pure happiness!
Hanging out.
Emma giving her best.
After we turned the lights off and switched to fiesta mode, this was like my only light source to take some pictures.
Which did not work very well. In scenes like these i really miss the extra stops of a summilux or nokton.
We also painted some mannequin parts. Basti took a snap with his phone, so i could take a decent frame of busty Christian right when his flash popped.
Stephan also designed two skateboard decks with black & white paint and matching markers. I like how the different layers actually separate from each other for they were hardly visible in that little light.
Fog machine kicking in.
Basti, Stephans roommate. Damn it was dark. Katy and Malena took some digitals with ISO 6400 lol.
Some of our artworks.
Later, Stephan and Anselm started tagging the door. I had to leave soon after because i picked up Olga at trainstation. She was in Berlin for a week with art history class.
In the studio. Klaus showing us how to use the generators for the flashes.
And also the huge dev machine for PE-prints in the darkroom.
Friday night, photography practice class. 1/8s here.
What you dont see every day at the super market. Decent tones for a 1600 trix.
Next vernissage at K4 Künstlerhaus. Faculties photography class graduation works.
Great pictures and also impressive companion volumes and photo books.
Franzi, ready to go home for the weekend. The trainstation is right across the street.
Free movie posters? Cool, better take all of them!
Artsy talk ?
Jonas
Friday morning class. Ida will probably kill me for this 🙂
Mr. fro got himself a new bike.
Last known picture of my old couch. Lasted for about 8 years.
Hurried people.
For a walk around Dutzendteich.
I like this one, although the composition is somewhat poor.
So the other day, we had a barbecue at the faculty, so we went to buy some beer and other stuff.
Guy behind us talking ridiculously loud on his phone.
Lenny and Michi setting up the grills
More people joining. Max giving his best.
The veggie grill, pimped hot stone version.
Christian. As the sun set i switched to the Hexar and Tri-X.
Girls talk.
Wtf
Lecker Schweinenackensteak.
Schweinenackensteak self.
Kudos to whoever took this pik, turned out quite nice.
Sonja, head of Fachschaft.
Eating a Schweinenackensteak.
Lenny telling stories.
Something happened to the Hexar here, probably switched to M-mode by accident.
Katha looking enthusiastic. Hexar still at f/2.
Manual mode again, 1/8th i think. Going home. Good night.
01/2014: Between the years
This is the rest of 2013 and what happened in november and december. All 35mm, all b&w film. Have fun!
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One bad thing about winter, it gets dark at about 4pm.
Neustadt > Nuremberg. Konica Hexar AF, Trix @ 1600 in HC-110.
I did some experimenting that resulted in a pretty long dev time. So, harsh contrasts = bad tonal range = dense negs = massive grain.
Reading.
Two shots from a roll of regular Tri-X- Ida in class.
Erlangen night.
Having coffee at our grandmas place.
Just as one would imagine it.
Mother and daughter.
Coffee break?
Stephan is mostly shooting new APX 400 these days that he was gifted, so i got curious and shot a roll too. Prof. Schopper during film class, discussing our commercial projects.
X. So, APX in the Hexar, Rodinal 1+25.
More illustration stuff.
Wednesday nights graphic design class.
The next day, we decided so shoot some quick footage stuff for our commercial to replace our animatic. Way faster and way more flexible.
Fresh paint WALLS!
Now thats a real camera.
End of a romance?
I like how his jacket matches the needles and the trash can matches the booths. Just geeky stuff…
Funny scene.
He passed by running and i noticed his broken briefcase in the blink of an eye. Quite a close call, but that kind of is what all this is about.
Another Tri-X @ 1600, still a tiny bit too warm, but were getting there…
Actually, i like the Christkindlesmarkt, tough it gets very very crowded as soon as it gets dark. But its a great spot for getting to know and taking photos of interesting people.
Lost pug.
K4 darkroom, where ill probably hang out more often soon.
Waiting
Moving
And more waiting again
Santa and his puppy? need a cig break too.
Next round.
This was supposed to be about the font.
Regular Tri-X
Getting some supplies.
Back at uni. Michi, who is a professional sports photographer, was quite surprised by how quick and silent the Hexar is. Guess he’ll have to get one since he’s looking for a everyday camera and its just a badass camera.
Discussing some ideas for our podcast.
Michis D700 with some older 35 nikon lens.
Tanja, always being curious.
I dont even know who took this one.
Ludwig drawing.
Max working on his “Typemonster”, which is like a character built only with letters and numbers, and then animated and then composed.
Stephan and i decided to scan some of his rolls from last summer instead.
Emma
Nico impressing the girls and Jonas recording the card-flipping with some 1000fps App.
Sebastian
Finishing
Guess what. Got me an M6 again. Tadaaa. Chrome one with MP lever. Ran out of film and bought some cheapo HP5+ at the store (=7.95€ lol) for the night. @1600 in HC-110. I waited for Stephan to pick me up for a vernissage.
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Several pieces from current and graduating students were merged to this big exhibition.
This left wall shoes selected pieces of analog photography and experiments with film from the 2nd semester. It was interesting too see what we will be doing in spring. One year from now, this could be our exhib.
Besides framed work, there was a load of great photo books to read.
Dinner with Olgas family.
1
2
3
We played some poker later.
Neustadt christmas market.
Some Delta 400.
Christmas shopping.
Fellows of the elderly.
Shooting day! Our commercial takes place in a big clothing store. Arriving on location at 8am.
Fabian, one of our two great actors, trying on some clothes and shoes for the shoot that the store lend us for that day.
Simon and Nico checking the scene and camera position.
Checking the animatic again.
Sibylle doing some make-up.
Bernd taking care of props.
I somehow managed to get all 8 of us in 1 photo.
They are coming!
We were shooting some footage outdoors, i had to park my car in a parking space while nico was filming from the other side of the street. I tried to capture the team from inside the car but somehow the hexars af didnt let me…
Astrid, our beautiful actress, discussing final instructions for the last scene. In the scene, Astrid is shouting and screaming at me parking the car like an idiot. This was right in the inner city district, so there were quite a few people thinking this was an actual fight and i was actually that stupid. Awesome moment!
Hanging out at uni. M6 with a tri-x @ 1600.
Julian leading another course choosing meeting. 50 students in total + 3 courses for each student + a max of about 15 students per course = fights and tears. We’ll hug it out of course!
I got sick.
At Christkindlesmarkt with Tanja, Lenny and Michi. Punsch for me since a was still sick.
The Feuerzangenbowle is located right at the riverside and attracts lots of seagulls so we thought it would be dead cool to get one of them to pick up some of Tanjas sandwich right from her hand.
So we waited…
…and waited…but nothing happened. Damn seagulls!
A glass
Some other day between the years. Fixing my grandmas bed.
After that, we visited my sister and her boyfriend in Erlangen. (regular tx again)
Spying kitty.
Börge assembling the new bed frame.
Andrea making delicious tea.
classic
Fighting with flares.
Thats it, have a blessed year 2014!
06/2013: in transition
Things keep changing continuously. Uni started a week ago and i feel that for my head its not a common thing to switch from a serious and conventional full-time job “back” to a very impulsive and unbound way of living. This is kind of a complex and ongoing process that is not just limited on my work life and 8-to-5 schedule but rather has a distinct influence on my way of dealing with unfamiliar situations, my social behaviour and my self-perception in general. This is going to be a completely new chapter, its stories i will begin to share in the next post. Right now, we’ll be sucking in new impressions until our noses bleed.
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Here are some of the last pictures from before this period, August and September. All 35mm b/w film from the M2/C-Biogon combo. Oh and also this is the last batch of pics scanned with the Canoscan 9000f flatbed. More on that in the next entry too. This guide/method/tricks thing for the Canoscan + Silverfast workflow is still going to happen of course. To the pics:
This post starts in summer and ends in autumn. Summer = acros time.
Olga wanted some digital frames. I prefer the classic film results.
Why push when you can use 100 iso? We went to meet Christina and Fabian at some barbecue. Fabian is one of my former study collegues (like Chris). They are currently working on their master thesis while i dropped out after our first degree last year.
Family time = quality time. Steffi with a new hairstyle (like every 2 weeks or so).
And a smashed phone (like every 4 weeks or so).
Laughing about some silly stories.
So. The subtenant that rented my uncles garage basement for several years left and theres lots of room space available. Like A LOT. So i came up with the idea of building up a complete darkroom. The basement is still pretty dusty and dirty but ill fix that. Running water + electricity + tables + shelves check!
Daniel, who came from Stuttgart for my beloved M6 and the CV Nokton. Very nice dude. Since im currently shooting with M2 and Hexar, the black M6 had to go. Im quite happy that it is now in the hands of a user as enthusiastic about film as i am.
Nuremberg love. Btw Kentmere 100 here.
Goodbye party für Max, who is currently spending a semster in Washington. More great people.
The guys.
Back at the station. People were surprised by sudden heavy rainfall.
Pretty girl + Olga blocking the frame while making faces.
If only people would be able to bond this easily…
Sweet nex with toy puppy. Delta 100 from here.
Lined up Playmobil figures.
Some stuff going on outside the office.
One of our decent office rooms in Erlangen. Shut down by the end of the year. Kinda sad.
Oh well, election year! From left to right: shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. Now go make your cross!
Hide and seek.
Generations. Going through some old negs i come to remember that i have been liking Deltas tones ever since, it was just my developing technique that was not exactly a perfect match for the film. Now that i soup it with HC-110 it looks like its unleashing its full power.
Baked with love.
My sister not being enthusiastic about getting photographed. What a shame, she looks so pretty!
Olga checking out the REALLY important stuff.
More barbecue. It does not always have to be that big bloody piece of meat.
Uli in the garden. It is the most beautiful, secluded spot of nature i know. And its where the darkroom will be set up, yay. Back to Kentmere 100 + Rodinal 50 btw.
At the Erlangen town hall square. Acting chancellor Angela Merkel and bavarian prime minister Horst Seehofer held a speech in front of the people, due to the current election campaign. Since i dont care about their populist hypocrisies i was more interested in the people watching the show.
Better view from up there.
What a cute little buddy.
My thoughts while listening to the speakers blah blah.
Critical area ahead.
A random roll of HP5+ with random stuff i came across lately. HC-110.
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Structures
Some flea market. Mostly trash. Some interesting people though.
This guy seemed like he made a good deal on, well, on lots of stuff.
Photographing the photographer 1
Photographing the photographer 2
My sister was moving in together with her boyfriend. We packed some stuff for the new apartment.
This is a rather uncommon combination of Ilford XP2 in Rodinal. Worked out nice somehow.
The happy couple.
Lunch with my father. The last days of a nice (but obviously too short) warm summer season.
At the Germanic National Museum.
Smooth evening light.
Another festival already?
I was not less surprised.
Wedding shoot with audience.
Chris came over for a snack. Thats his happy face.
A couple of talks and phone calls later (thanks to Oliver) i met with Stefan, who went fully digital a while ago and thus was selling all his darkroom stuff. Very cool guy, we had a nice little talk about his exhibs and gear. So in the end i got all this darkroom equip here. A nice solid LPL enlarger with a color head and some boxes full of misc stuff.
A very random frame. This is a roll of Fuji Neopan 400. I didnt like the roll devd with Rodinal in the last blog post very much. This one i did with HC-110 and it turned out nicely imo.
One day, we went to Frankfurt because Olga wanted to check out the primark store and had been bugging me with this for weeks. Dunno, its a girl thing i suppose, kinda like UK’s H&M or something. So while Olga and Tanja were out of control on their shopping spree, i decided to have some coffee and shoot some pictures. Some election campaign stuff here.
Shitty weather, rain and wind. Looks good on b/w film though.
Look how happy they are now!
Lost dude.
Looks like a great way to explore the city and to kiss the asphalt.
Back home.
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Fall
This frame i accidentally overexposed a few stops, or, as the pros say, i shot it at EI 200 for a better tonal range.
We visited Hamburg for a weekend. Our Hotel was right in the St. Pauli district. Pros: Super cool people and surroundings to shoot, very very clean and modern hotel rooms (didnt expect that did you) and a very central location. Cons: Almost impossible to find a parking lot.
I was very fascinated by the place (my first time in Hamburg) so i started shooting right away before we even had checked in.
These Hamburg frames are pretty much a very loose mix of street, still and plain documentation images, so dont mind.
The next morning at the train station. Time for trix power.
Visiting the Kunsthalle. Free admittance for Olga since shes an art history student. No love for engineers or wannabe designers. Magical light in the museum foyer.
Strange dude getting some bird love.
Jungfernstieg
Random stuff.
St. Pauli Landungsbrücken
Speicherstadt
And thats that.
05/2013: “I think you should keep doing that as a hobby.”

Oh boy its another template again! I cant help it. To be honest im not even sorry. I just love to play with css. Whatever. This post will be rather personal than other ones, for reasons. Lots of pictures about family stuff of course. But also some stories about my work life or profession or whatever you may call it. You know that feeling when you go to work everyday and it feels ok? Not great, just ok. You do it because you can, because you get paid for it, because its comfortable. You just function and do stuff and you tell yourself “well it may not be what i dreamt of but a time will come. Be realistic. Whats to grumble about? Just be patient and wait” You know that feeling? Well i do. And there came a point where i asked myself “Wait? wait for what?” And for some reason i could not answer that question. That was back when i made the decision to apply to college again. People i told about this noticed “oh nice, so youre going to get your engineering masters degree?” and i answered “well, not exactly.”
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More on that in the post itself. This one contains much text, dont freak out. You can of course skip my confession writing ego trip stuff and just look at the pictures.
Starting with some casual Südstadt frames. This is the Hexar, loaded with Ilford Delta 400. Mid-speed films shot in bright sunlight tend to give hard contrasts anyway, so i decided to push it a little more and souped the roll in Rodinal 1+25.
As expected, contrast is dominating. However the tones are really nice in most frames.
This was in mid-June. People demonstrating for Taksim. If youre not that familiar with the topic you might wanna check out this documentary from Simon Becker, who was right there in Istanbul and captured some intensive moments when things started to escalate.
I know its boring but i just like these kinds of structures and patterns, plus the grain is really nice. Only two years to get a clean, even negative.
So after weeks of rain and depressive dark days the weather got better again. Finally.
Some factory building outside Neustadt.
Since it was midseason, we decided to pick some strawberries. “Some” somehow became 3 kilograms.
So each of us got a bucket with about 1,5kg of strawberries. That was literally all i ate the entire weekend.
Some pickers in the background.
This is Fuji Neopan 400 in Rodinal 1+50.
So we had some fun time shopping. Except that i didnt.
As soon as it started to rain, people start running for cover, which i always find kind of amusing. This guy didnt seem to care about this wuzz at all.
Another sunday morning flea market with cute puppies!
Later that weekend, lunch at my uncles place. Checking out the pictures of our boat trip some weeks ago.
Coburg. Next roll. Kentmere 400 in Xtol.
Sign on the left says “Frankonia! Apprentice stabs cousin to death at party!” So thats whats going down here. Were pretty mad people. Well, not really.
My mother in the studio. Thinking of stuff.
Gerhard was busy with some car repair stuff.
Guys taking some snaps of two parked Audi R8.
Brake fluid, pants and shirts, thrown away like regular waste. People suck sometimes.
Yeah, you guessed right. Acros 100, Xtol, Hexar AF.
Wondering what they are looking at…
Skater guy with sweet skater scars.
A poster for the annual academy of fine arts students exhibition. This was actually just a reminder because i was way to lazy to use my phone.
This roll of film has seen the inside of a camera before.
Challenge accepted!
Stopped by at fotomax for some camera strap, all they got are these sun-sniper kind of things. Pretty usable for your big DSLR, but damn ugly. This guy is testing some equipment right outside the store.
Südstadt, my favorite greengrocer.
I wonder what i looks like from inside.
So the other day i felt like shooting some street with the Rolleiflex. Since i recently bought some rolls of Efke 25 i loaded the little gem and went for a walk. Sry about the border across the frame in the top area, that is from an obviously misaligned glass i put on top of the negatives. Helps a lot with flatness though.
25ASA shoots surprisingly well hand-held.
Ok, not so street-ish, but wow at those tones the efke produces!
Back to 35mm. Back to Leica. Except that it is not the M6. Actually it was a rather impulsive decision, but the other day i spotted a really good deal for a recently CLA’d M2 with a superb black Zeiss C-Biogon. I immediately thought to myself “this is the real thing!” and just went for it. Since i got the Hexar i dont use the M6 as frequently as i used to, so i thought, why not give it a try. (Plus the deal was really really good. The body is a real user but with fresh service, the lens is new)
Oh yeah and another thing: Since i ran out of Xtol i was in the mood of playing around with something new, so i bought a bottle of Kodak HC-110 which here in Europe comes as very highly concentrated syrup in a 1l bottle. It is recommended to make a 1+3 stock solution for better handling. That means, it is way easier to measure and pour correctly from A to B. Plus your bottles and scales will be easier to clean because the stock does not stick to it like the syrup does (it really does, feels like maple syrup or honey so make sure to clean all your stuff really good to get rid of possible residues from the developer.)
So these are some frames from the M2 with C-Biogon, Fuji Acros in HC-110. People dancing for some reason.
Made me think of this. Nice tattoos though!
So we had some lunch when these guys passed by.
HC-100: great tones. C-Biogon: great rendering and smoooooth bokeh.
Well heres another story: as mentioned above, i applied at Nuremberg University. Not for Engineering but for Design (with photography being a major subject ofc). I have had this crazy idea in my mind about becoming a designer/photographer/writer/whatever creative stuff since a long time, but somewhere along the way it got lost. Until now. So as i said, at some point, i told myself “just go and try it, you have nothing to lose. They could turn you down, thats all. PS: Youre a pussy if you dont do it!” It was back in march when i took this decision and so i had some time to select some pieces, write some documentation stuff and design my portfolio (which i never did before). I handed in the folder in may.
Since im not necessarily an award-winning drawer, i put together a collection of small series of both analog and digital pictures i took in the last years. This here is a cycle of 4 abstract water stills i took about a year ago.
More abstract stuff from another series.
All the analog stuff i handed in is featured in previous blog posts: some street shots from Nuremberg train station and from Paris as well as some stills from Prien am Chiemsee and from a walk in the woods. So im not gonna show that again.
About a month later i recieved a letter from the college saying that my portfolio was approved and that i was invited to the qualifying examinations in july. That was when i slowly started getting nervous. So july came and i took the tests, here is some of the stuff we had to do. Day 1: written exam, designing a bookcover and drawing a storyboard.
Day 2: Photography (actually we had to choose between drawing, photography and filming. Not so hard choice for me). Prof Jostmeier gave us a quick early morning briefing on the topic and the time schedule in the photo studio. I was torn between throwing up from anxiety and the urge to document this. We were all just nervous as hell but somehow i still wanted to capture this moment, knowing that it would be very intense and unique. Well, for me at least. Its always personal after all.
So after several hours of shooting we returned to the college and had some time for selecting, post production and for writing a down some lines about our approach on the topic.
The topic for photographers was “Zeitspiegel//Spiegelzeit” which means something like “time//reflection”. These are three of the images i submitted.
Girls viewing their portfolios. i5000 btw. Way to go. After we had finished the drawing/picture taking/filming part, we got back our folders and waited for an individual talk with one of the professors. In the end, those two days went pretty good and its again time to wait for a response. If you have questions about the whole process of application or about specific tasks, feel free to drop me a note.
Ok, back to normal life. Later that day, i had a look at the annual student exhib i mentioned before. As always, very interesting stuff and great people.
Guy taking pictures of some of the installations.
Time to lay back and just relax. Finally!
Last roll with the M6. Ektar, labdev. Its like in the wild nature.
Some stuff going on at Nuremberg castle.
Some regular bw again. M2, Kentmere 100 in Rodinal.
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These papers looked kind of scientific, weird deja-vu.
We decided to have a small barbecue. Dont mind the very blown-out highlights here, still fighting with crappy Silverfast SE.
I live on the 2nd floor, so i just dropped a cable out of the living room window to power my macbook (old Simpsons episodes!) Well, its just a very dull backyard…
I remember that on this day, it was incredibly hot outside, like 35°C. I walked around for half an hour in the sun and was completely exhausted. She probably felt the same.
This was about those 2 guys inside the store checking out some instruments. Worked out great. Yeah.
Probably the best thing to do on this day.
So the summer came and it came like a punch in the face! We decided to spend that sunday at the lake.
Still funny that some people didnt seem to care about the outside temps at all.
At the annual Classical Open Air, which takes place in the nice spacious Luitpoldhain park here in Nuremberg. Sun was already gone and there i stood with my 100 ISO film.
That was around 8pm, most people had occupied the place hours ago. Acros rules here.
I remember when i was at the Open Air some years ago with my girflfriend at the time, it was not that crowded and we could easily find a comfy place for our blanket an hour before the start. Here, everything you see from the foreground to the trees in the very background is actually people listening to the concert. Ridiculously overrun. The week after i read in the paper that there were some 75k people in the audience that night.
There was a glitch in the matrix.
Some weird stuff again at the train station.
This one is about nothing specific i think.
The next weekend, Chris joined our little hangout behind the building. This is the smoothest roll of Delta 100 i shot since ever. M2/Zeiss again.
Spent the day at the outdoor bath. I really love Delta in HC-100 at the moment, it just gives some exceptional tones imo.
Later that day, i went to this years showman/singer/songwriter festival, called “Bardentreffen”. That means hundreds of musicians and artists, music, shows and food all over the place.
So after one more day at the pool, i went to the festival again to take some more snapshots. when i later looked at the negatives i noticed that the lens (actually the filter in front of it, came with the M2), had gotten very smudgy from sun lotion or something, which added a nice summilux-like glowing look to about 12 frames of that roll.
Kid playing the violin + glowing highlights from the dirty lens.
Some musicians passed by. I wonder what they needed that for. Probably to party hard.
The only acceptable Mini. End of glowing frames here.
Some small pieces of art my mother sold recently.
Police freshmen getting in touch with the people.
I did some adjustments on my hybrid workflow as well, meaning that i changed my scanning method and got rid of those toyish plastic canon film strip holders. I cut some cardboard masks to be able to place the strips correctly and directly on the ground glass. Then i put a plate of glass on top which i got from some picture framing. The results are decent and also slightly sharper then with the film holder. Plus i can do this: digital contact prints of the entire roll (PS stitched of course). This is pretty neat to learn something about your metering and your general style of shooting. So here is the contact sheet of aboves Delta frames. You can clearly see that frames 14, 28 and 33 are underexposed, 1 and 29 are overexposed. Frames like 4, 11, 13, 15 already show a great tonal range (this is a completely untouched scan). Dirty lens from frames 16 to 27. Since i also did a little more experimenting with the process in Silverfast and the post production in LR and PS, i will probably set up a separate post on this topic the discuss all this stuff in detail. Let me know if youre interested. So whats important here: contact sheets -> great tool to review your work.
Ill make a cut here and push the next 5 rolls to the next post since this one is getting longer and longer.
To conclude this post, a quick still of the new old workhorse.
Oh yeah, the college story. So after another month i finally recieved a letter from the university in august. It said that i made it through the qualification tests and that i have been approved. Some day later i went to the college office and handed in my matriculation files. About a week ago (mid august) i got the universities final confirmation. Wow. This autumn, im going back to college. Not for what is reasonable and appropriate, but for what i love to do.
04/2013: on the streets and on the water

Ongoing changes. I somehow felt like switching to something brighter for the blog during the summer, hope you like it. If not, let me know. Quick and dirty, here are some facts about this entry. Gear: Sold the Lux, bought a CV Nokton. Bought a Fuji 6×9. Found out WP changes this into a pretty nice ASCII ×. Film&Dev: I ran out of Xtol some weeks ago, which is why i decided to experiment a little more like i did some time ago. The classic Trix/Acris/Xtol combo works very very well for me and i think i made my way through it and created a workflow that fits my needs quite perfectly. However i wanted some new experiences with films and developers, also with scanning technique and post. As a result, this entry is packed with mixed bw and color film, coming from different developers and cameras. Some digitals also made it in here somehow. Topics: Mostly random Nuremberg street frames, some family stuff and this years boat trip! Enjoy.
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03/2013: mixed stuff, lots of equip and finally some sun!

April showers bring May flowers! Well, kind of. Indeed, a couple of things are changing currently. New perspectives, totally different job prospects and ideas are popping up in my mind and getting more and more serious. In fact the period from having this crazy yet inciting idea to an actual solid plan was about 2 months. And yep, that’s all i can tell you by now. Things have to be decided and stuff has to be done before i can tell you the whole story behind this.
However, the one thing that is definitely not changing is me taking pictures. Heres a new collection, enjoy!