Blog category: Color
Happy new year
I wish all the visitors of the blog a healthy and happy 2020!
More decent colors vs Black & White [Updated July 3rd 2019]
In the original post I showed the portrait in color. There was some feedback that in Black&White the background probably is less distracting. Bellow both versions… I agree with the people that commented, this one works better in Black & White.
Decent colors
When it comes to photography I’m a “Black and White man” but, sometimes I decide to leave out the B&W conversion step. The main rule for me in color is to have decent and only a few colors.
Inspiring person
Normally I make my portraits when I’m travelling. It somehow takes me some time to disconnect from the daily life and really see the interesting people.
This is Mr. Bomanza, I met him in the French village where I live, he was around often had long hair and was elegantly dressed. He just inspired me, so I asked him if I could make some portrait, he agreed and some days later I gave him some prints. His answer was to invite him home for a drink. He told that before he became retired he used to work in restaurants in Basel (Switzerland) and he has family in Bordeaux.
Since then I, when I saw him we always said hello. At some point he disappeared, I never met him again and I missed him. Probably he moved to his family in Bordeaux at least that is what I would like to believe.
Capturing the paparazzi feeling
While visiting Ethiopia some fellow travelers joined me on a walk in the streets of Harar. Soon they found out that for me photography is serious and not just in for tourist snapshots. They asked about the camera I am using and what type of photo’s I produce. They looked how I make photo’s and became inspired. Soon they started to take also photos with their cameras and smartphones. When I saw something and made a photo they took same spot and tried to imitate my actions.
Making portraits became impossible for me, I asked for a photo and then they also took the same photo. I started to feel like in the zoo or being a guide that says “take a photo here, it is an amazing spot”. So I had to give up on portraits for that afternoon. I thought the only thing left was Street Photography.
When I waited for the right moment at a promising spot, the travelers where doing the same. With their behavior they more or less forced me to leave and continue to look for another subject.
In Street Photography I not very often make photos from people walking in front of me, it is just not interesting enough. This woman and the color combination was unique but the travelers still where with me. With some frustration I pressed the button.
The resulting photo visualizes the paparazzi feeling that accompanied me that afternoon. Maybe it was not the most productive afternoon but considering the constraints I made an interesting photo that captures that special feeling.
I know, there are organized photo-walks. I’m not sure if I am going to feel well during such an event but maybe someday I’l give it a try and challenge myself to come home with something unique.
How about you? Do you have any experience with photo-walks?
Identity crisis…
Up to now I worked in black and white, in my work there always are people. Last weeks I have been posting more abstract work. I am not sure if this is what I really like, as of today it fascinates me a lot to show the exceptional in simple things easily overseen.
On the G.A.S. side I am back now on the Canon Track, just picked up a 5Ds R… not for work like this but for modelling work which, is another experimental track I have taken recently…
Let me know, should I continue with this or stick with the style I had last years?
A sad Airbnb
Last Saturday I arrived in a new Airbnb apartment in Switzerland, I had to move. Outside it was raining and I felt somehow sad and depressed. Things here are not very fancy, it is just ugly. At some point I started to see a strange kind of beauty around me. This beauty made me to pick-up my camera that was resting for weeks in the bag. What you see here is what I saw, not my typical style but for me it is an interesting series.
Meanwhile I start to appreciate the apartment, I made my self to feel at home and the sun just came out.
The power of the square format
In portraits it all is about the person and expression shown. Some portraits clearly benefit from the square format, they get more powerful.
By choosing the square format the features of the face get more attention and the character of the person becomes more relevant. This portrait has been made in a house entrance, the background almost is pure black and helps to put even more focus on the man shown.
More portraits can be found in the portraits section of the galleries section on this website.
Solitude
Color: I start to like it!
In another post I explained why I started publishing color photos. Today I took one from the Ethiopia trip and let the colors play. The colors in the original RAW file where too poppy for my taste, I carefully reduced them and this is what could make out of it.
For my taste this is the kind of color I am looking for in my photos. One of the visitors of this blog (Stefan) took his time to look closer to the photo and gave some valuable feedback.
The image slider on the right shows the original and new version (slider left). In the new photo the background has been blurred and color is a bit more desaturated.
I invite everybody to make critical comments to my posts, a bit more than beautiful, wonderful is highly appreciated!
Try manual mode
Recently I saw a very inspiring YouTube video explaining about manual mode in photography. It is a bit long but, for me it was a source of inspiration and a way to take back control over the light and shadows in my work.
The video let me think about things a bit deeper. I tried it and it worked very well I think. Here is the first result that shows manual mode also works for images in color.
Just give it a try, it is worth it…
Update: there is an additional post on the subject.Â
Why color?
Till recently, I showed my work only as black and white. While processing the images sometimes I start to think about color. For me this was a difficult decision, it took me months to take the step to color. Finally I published two photos in Color on my old Photo-Vinc website.
On this website I now will bring more color. I am trying to find my style, not too much colors, decent slightly de-saturated.
Bellow some samples:
More colorful work in the portraits section here on this website.
