Hey everyone, after two months, here is a little update.
School: Semester 4 is over by now, projects are graded and books printed. For the upcoming semester i am looking for an internship or assistance for 6+ months. I already got in touch with some great photographers, we’ll see where i will end up spending the winter season.
(mehr …)
Schlagwort: HC-110
Rekorde der Planeten
02/2015: Red chairs
I haven’t had much time for the blog lately, so this post was queuing for quite a while now, several months actually. In case you notice something weird in some frames, thats actual snow, which dates the image back to last winter. I’m currently right in the middles of semester 4 of Design study and as always working on several projects at the same time. Quick overview: New CI for “Türkisch-Deutsches Filmfestival Nürnberg” in typo class, a book about fonts in graphic class and several small photo projects to topics such as “home” and “rituals” for photo class.
Some of the photo projects will soon be on the website which im currently updating with new images. Also im working on several portfolios for application stuff. This post also contains some of these soon to be published works, as well as some commission stuff and of course lots of private stuff and uni stuff. Since there are some hundreds of pics waiting for the next post, its about time this on gets released, so have fun scrolling through some pics.
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Good morning.
sad days.
At the museum.
Im not a friend of exploiting the homeless or poor but i like to analyse public life in its entirety. Notice all those people rushing to work or doing shopping or getting home to their loved ones while this homeless man is sleeping on the ground. This is a very common scene in every big city i guess, still sad.
Taking a break.
01/2015: Bye bye Chiquita!
Hi folks. I have been pretty busy with the semester projects (see type magazine layouts and Frisches Design documentation) and with exhibitions, portfolio updating, relauching the website and arranging some nice series (check out here), doing some research about other photography and fine art schools and also some agencies and photographers that may be in for an internship. I also had some commissions and some personal stuff to deal with. So here’s a belated 2015 warm-up featuring some pictures and stories from last fall until now.
Starting off, some impressions from the “Frisches Design 2014” exhibition/conference. This was some night before the start when we set up the big plastic donuts
Mario, head of team Plastic Fantastique that created the inflatable plastic spaces, was rather busy watching the Champions League match of FC Bayern.
Poster of a Gerhard Richter exhibition.
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.
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!
02/2014: On the move on the spot
Here are some new frames. Still almost all 35mm. Since i’ve been busy with uni stuff, work and also moving to a new place, i did not feel much like taking well-composed mf shots, but rather like documenting all kinds of things quick and dirty with the rangefinder family.
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Christmas 2013
A bird house for my mothers garden.
Christmas weather.
New years.
I shot some C-41 again with the Hexar. This is from a roll of Porst Color X 200 which is actually re-labeled Fuji 200 or something.
Since i still had some C-41 chemicals left, i developed some rolls in the kitchen. The Tetenal Kit was first opened in July 2012 which means it is about 18 months! old (not stored cold also). Strong orange mask on the negatives but pretty decent results over all.
Film tools & techniques class.
I accidentally realeased the shutter here while i went for a walk.
New Leica M6. Already sold the Rolleiflex.
My old kitchen before moving.
Some ducks crossing at my way to uni. Fuji Pro400h in the great great Olympus XA.
Max and Stephan.
X marks the spot.
Currently my preferred way of transportation.
Aboves schools “parking lots”.
A project we had to do during the semester, “typography and space”. I documented my work mainly with the 5D but also took some frames with the Hexar.
Somewhere in Fürth. 4 shots from the Fuji GSW690III. Again the ancient Tetenal Kit which i developed a bunch of films with before i finally disposed it.
Railroad scrap.
Archways of the Dokumentationszentrum.
The weather pretty much sucked for a couple of weeks and since we did not go skiing or hiking or something this season, there was not much to do these days. Most uni projects came to and end and so i just kept shooting random stuff. M6, trix @ 1600, HC-110 B.
Sorting some books.
Man sleeping in a photo booth.
For a walk in Neustadt.
Beautyful heavy clouds over the plains outside the city. Didnt expect this one to look so nice in 1600 ISO.
We passed some small nearby town. Town of cats apparently, theres another one right in the back, hardly visible. Quite tricky to frame this one since every time i took a few steps back the cat would start running at me for more cuddles.
In the subway.
In case you need some new tumblrs to follow.
My new sketchbook. Thanks to whoever made this, i love it.
or is it?
A random romatic scene.
Simona, a fellow student, had an exhibition at Studio eins. Some of us met to check out her great illustrations and to hang out.
Smooth beats, too.
Simona and Stephan.
Back in the underground.
I stopped on my way to class for taking this frame. It was a very foggy morning.
In the facultys little cinema room.
We recorded some footage for our podcast. Max wrote down his text he had to recite with a bavarian accent.
Snack time.
The guys from advanced semesters space & event design class were redesigning our common room and some of us new students joined the party to help grinding chairs, painting walls and arranging euro-pallets.
Mc-D stop.
Course selection D-Day.
David in front of one of our exhibition rooms.
Two music nerds.
For graphic design class, our task for the semester was to design a fictional or real corporate identity including a letterhead, an envelope and a business card. Here we exhibited and discussed our work.
Simona and Tanja.
Time flies, the first semester was nearly over and the next design applicants came to complete their qualifying exams. Most of us were also there for doing catering and supporting the new soon-to-be students and for getting to know some new faces.
Michi examining Julians camera. I excited to see some shots!
It was a great, relaxed day. Well, at least for us 🙂
Cofee break.
Tanjas motto.
Another exhibition. Illustration class “Klasse Fleck” of the academy of fine arts.
Stunning work.
Helena and Sebastian.
Sorry about this, shitty GEMA won’t let me get this via youtube.
Olga and i decided to move in together. So after looking for places for several weeks we found a very nice apartment near my old place. Moving day, we had lots of helping hands like Stephan and Anselm. Shot a roll of trix with the M6 because, you know…
Olgas dad and cousin installed the kitchen.
The guest room.
In my old apartment, disposing some stuff and used chemicals.
Thats 5 years of smoking.
I’ve been using HC-110 as my main developer for about a year now. I cant help it but to be honest i do not like it that much. Especially for pushing. It gives me very contrasty negatives with very little shadow or highlight detail. That might be due to its relatively upswept curve or due to my developing and scanning habits or probably both.I tried different temps and different steps in scanning and post but i was not really satisfied. I began thinking, maybe it is just a hardware/software thing that came with my switch from the Canoscan + Silverfast to the Coolscan + Vuescan. I happened to get a very cheap pack of Xtol and developed this first roll of Kodak Tri-x pushed to 1600. The negatives came out exactly how i remembered and loved them last year. So for now, Xtol is on the table again! I will try HC-110 with slower speed films such as Kentmere 100 and Fuji Acros. I guess it’s all a matter of taste, but for me, nothing beats Tri-X with Xtol. Oh yeah, this is at the facultys annual exhibition of the graduates work. Leica M2 with the C-Biogon, trix +2 in good ol Xtol.
Cool arrangement and some great photographs.
More great photographs.
The other day, Michi came over to check out our new place and of course to develop some film!
Olga looking proud.
Dad and i visited my aunt near Cologne.
This is where we stayed for the night, a very nice little classy hotel.
We drove back the next day. Lena, a friend of Olga, came for a visit.
So we visited the Germanic National Museum.
He seemed pretty excited about his visit.
A dunkin donuts store opened in Nuremberg.
A gift from my father. m6 tx xtol
Regular Tri-X again. Shots from single rolls and cams are a little mixed in posts like this one. I shoot the M6, M2 and also the Hexar regularly and for some stories here i prefer to sort most images in chronological order. But hey, i rediscovered the naming system i used some years ago and combined it with my current numbering system. So you just have to hover over a frame for the cam+film+dev combo.
Construction site at my work.
Michis roll of film drying in the bathroom.
All white. I like that.
Lunch.
I like the ordinary things.
Scratched frame #31.
:/ See you next time!
07/2013: Old friends new friends
Still sort of in between things. Uni started about a month ago now. We have to take all ten major courses (photography, film/animation, graphic design, typography, cast [like in podcast], space design, interaction, cgi, illustration and verbal communication) this semester and were doing more and more real projects which is very cool. Kind of the complete opposite to engineering classes at tech uni a couple of years ago. We are only about 50 people that are curiously getting to know each other. Very cool people i have to say. And since the only condition for the qualifying test was to be creative in any way (photo/film/animation/illustration/whatever), it is quite a challenge to figure out what anybodies talents are. However, theres also a lot going on besides uni, so heres another mix of everything.
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There was this weekend back in summer when we installed a small irrigation plant in Olgas family garden. I caught some moments on film on the side. Here, the whole team is getting some instructions. I shot a roll of trix with the Leica M2. Just so you know.
We spent almost half of the day digging those ditches through the garden, then laying all the small pipelines and connecting spray heads and valves.
After we had finally filled up again all ditches and ran some performance checks, we enjoyed the rest of the day and had some great barbecue. Eugen recovering from all the work and all the food here.
I ran into Waldi while going for another walk in the Südstadt district the other day. These are some frames from a roll of Kentmere 400 in HC-110, which i really start to appreciate. It has a kind of trix-ish tonality but lacks some of its tones imo. But for the price (3€ vs. 4,40€ trix) its a very serious option for me. Well see how it pushes in the coming winter months.
Another random people-shopping-frame.
This is a little craft shop of the Handwerkerhof that sells all kinds of leather goods. I had a little talk with this lady, discussing pros and cons of several materials that i could use as a strap for my M2. However, some days later i found some old leather band in my random-old-camera-accessoire-drawer (where you keep all the case and filter and cap and battery stuff) and had her rivet the ends with some small metal rings. The M2 is now equipped with a perfect matching (= fucked up 🙂 ) leather strap that only did cost me 5€! So if youre around and you need some leather goods such as straps, keyholders, wallets, messenger bags or whatever or some custom made leather stuff you make sure to check out this nice little shop!
Guy reading a newspaper. So heres another thing: I’ve been fighting for several years with the Canoscan 9000f + the Silverfast SE that came with it to get some acceptable scans out of my negatives. I should note that “acceptable” in this context just means “to my own taste”. Im not into that zonal system stuff and i dont like my negs to be flat and “classic” looking. I dont have an what you would call recognizable style yet, i just keep experimenting with different dev+post procedures to create a variety of different looks in contrast and tonality. However, me fiddeling around with dev temps and stuff is just one thing. The main point here is the scanner itself: I am just not satisfied with the scans the Canoscan produces. Well, 35mm at least, mf works great imo.
So i spent some time to compensate the scans lack of crispyness in post, and i mean i really did dig into things. I developed several workflows for lightroom+photoshop to get as much as possible out of my scans. But somehow, this final little bit of image quality i was unable to reproduce. So once more, i kept looking on ebay until i once again made a pretty good deal on a Nikon Coolscan IV. Yep, no V. I also switched from Silverfast to Vuescan. Silverfast might be pretty ok to work with, but the SE version that came with the Canoscan is just a joke as it only gives you 8bit bw images. I know, thats a lot of geeky technical stuff, but i think it might be useful to some at this point.
So i ran some quick test scans with the Coolscan and did a 1on1 comparison. The results were even more devastating than i thought. And still, this is just a IV version. Drop me a note if youre interested in a full size comparison. So, end of the story is that with the Coolscan (+Vuescan is pretty awesome also) im finally getting this sharpness and detail i want.
I know i know, its always (or say 99%) the subject or story or moment or feeling + a good composition that make the picture, not the technical stuff like a good tonal range, good sharpness or perfect development. But i guess sometimes, knowing your tech stuff well just helps the image. And sometimes it doesn’t. However, your images are always just as good or bad as the weakest part in your system. So if you’re out with your asph. Summicron, scanning the negs with a flatbed might not be what you wanna go for. Also if your just having fun with a small disposable 35mm: no need to set up the Coolscan 9000. Excuse this little technical excursion, back to the actual images.
Cute older couple.
A man reading some postings at the church. I passed him by and took a quick shot because it looked like a nice scene. When i passed this spot again as i walked back to the bus 20 minutes later, he was still standing there, reading those notes.
A roll of trix.
Im planning on doing some more underground and train station shots this winter. I had some of those in my portfolio which was approved at uni back in the summer.
And speaking of uni, there we are. This was the very first introduction course at the auditorium for all design students in october. There was a power outage the whole time so some students lit the scene with their smartphones, hence those shadows. This was 1/4s at 2.8.
The famous Maronimann.
Ah i miss the sun…
Another couple.
Some images are just timeless.
This Cellist (Alban Gerhardt) was playing some classical pieces in the middle of the train station.
People stopped and started listening, this girl took a shot with her rangefinder-covered! iphone.
Alex stopped by and started to sort the change i keep in a big jar. We loved to do this and then run to the bank to get some bills in return when we were kids.
Flea market with a roll of HP5+.
I still needed a bike for uni so i got curious and checked out all bikes that were for sale. Most dealers sold theirs for about 80-150€ and an hour later i was pretty disappointed and about to give up when i spotted a friendly-looking family that was selling all kinds of lovely, used stuff and also this beautiful Peugeot bike. We talked a bit and they told me that they had had it serviced just a couple of days ago. I told them i would need some cheap but good bike for riding to college and back and so they sold it to me for 30€. Yay!
Some people just like to attract attention, while others prefer to stay unobtrusive.
As a walked around i came across this beautiful installation of urban art and took a shot.
I took a step forward to frame the pigeon in flight when suddenly a second one came out of nowhere.
A sandstone wall.
Dumping some stuff at the recycling depot.
Cool hair. And check out that happy dog!
In the first semester, we have to take all the 10 courses that you can major in, just to get an impression of what each course is about and to get to know the wide range of “design”. Well, guess im not gonna be an illustrator.
Didn’t know we have that here now.
By the time im writing this post, summers all gone and all that it left is a layer of depressing grey shit.
Check out my beautiful bathroom tiles! This is a roll of kodak ektar shot with the Konica Hexar.
Nothing special about this frame, im just really really happy that im starting to get a grip on scanning the shit out of color negative film, now that im using the coolscan+vuescan combo. Finally, the colors seem to match each other and the images just start to look “right”, with no weird color shifts or so.
Another shooting with Olga.
Evening sun.
Stopped by at the former office. Chris joined and checked out the Zeiss.
This is the garage above the soon-to-come darkroom at my uncles place. Were going to turn this place into a complete workshop. First things first, making sure that people feel comfortable.
Just some nice colors.
Even salad looks great in warm sunlight.
Neustadt Bleichweiher.
On my way home from uni.
Wednesdays illustration course. We do all kinds of drawing exercises and projects and hang them on the wall to discuss afterwards.
Starting to note typography in public.
Free beer: tomorrow.
Circles and rectangles and lines.
Lunch with the family. Olga and my sisters wearing all the same sneakers by chance.
Andrea
At the lab.
For a walk with the beast, the Fuji GSW and a roll of Fuji pro 160NS (an older roll from summer).
Back in Nuremberg at the Steintribüne, part of the former nazi party rally grounds. People enjoying the weather and the space. Hexar + Ilford Delta 400.
Sunday lunch.
Sunday walk.
No comment needed here.
Since it was a few days before Halloween, we decided to carve some pumpkins in the garden. Step 1: drawing.
Step 2: carving.
Step 3: making it durable.
Father and son.
Thy did some shooting stuff, probably for a website.
Well-arranged posters, german style.
Shot some Tmax 400 for a change, negatives turned out quite underdeveloped (Tmax negs tend to be slightly thinner than trix which is normal, but mine were really too weak this time).
For a walk somewhere.
Julian and Sandra cutting some advert stuff last minute we had design for typography course. Turns out those cutting machines are horrible!
Tanja looking fascinated while Nico is doing some card tricks
Hes a professional magician actually, how cool is that! We were all watching him doing several tricks in the afternoon break. Thats our professor for illustration in the back.
Dinner with Chris and Stephan, who just came back from Bangkok.
People kept asking why i always carry a camera with me. This is on my way home from uni in the evening. She was taking photos of the birds.
Friday morning, introduction course at the sound studio.
Whats left from my office.
Günter proudly demonstrating his new apple slicer.
Winter is here.
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.