In this series, I explore ways to photograph historic items and places in a way that reflects their age and inspires ideas and stories of their glories past. Today, we are going to explore reflections and (semi-)transparency. They both add a layer to the photograph, an extra step for the viewer to grasp the subject. They make the subject more distant and less immediate. They can obscure it, covering or distorting historical and original and adding new detail like haze or dirt.
With no small degree of happiness and joy, I am announcing Wax, an abstract and experimental series of photographs which explores the astoundingly varied structures, textures, patterns, and shades of one of the most ordinary items imaginable, a candle. In this post, I’d like to tell you a bit about the projects origin and the way the photos were created before I send you over to the Wax gallery.
A collection of 30 black & white photographs from the Zollverein world heritage site in Essen, Germany.
Welcome to the second installment of this blog post. Like in the first post, I will share ten landscape photographs which were taken on the banks of the Rhine in the Ruhr Valley, Germany, with their fascinating mix of nature and industry. Let’s get started right away.
On the eastern edge of the Ruhr Valley, the River Rhine meanders northwards to the North Sea, separating the industrial Ruhr Valley from the rural charm of the Lower Rhine Region. This constitutes a unique and fascinating contrast between peace and rural beauty amid motorway bridges, steel mills, and power stations. In this post, I’d like to share some of the photographs I have taken there.
Photographing exhibits in a museum is boring? Not necessarily. This is the first of a series of blog posts all about photographing historic items, buildings, and places. I will explore and discuss simple techniques which reintroduce the patina of age and history which so often is lost in sterile and well-lit exhibitions.
Today’s short post is about two photographs I took of a metal statue of William Thomas Mulvany which is exhibited in at the Zollern Colliery museum in Dortmund.
Today I’d like to share this new image of Tuan with you, the male orangutan in Hamburg’s zoo, the renowned Tierpark Hagenbeck. I have photographed Tuan several times before. In fact, he „modeled“ in some of my best orangutan portraits to date. A couple of weeks ago, he did it again. Attached with the image you will find at the end of this post, and there is a story I’d like to share with you today.
For about six months I have put my animal portraiture aside and focussed on other things. In this time, I haven’t been at a zoo at all. The animals portraits I might have posted on social media were old photographs from my archives. But things have changed now, last month I purchased an annual ticket for one of the local zoos – and I plan to resume taking black & white portraits with renewed vigor. Here are the first results.
Alsum is the name of a small village on the eastern shores of the Rhine. Today, the area is used by the ThyssenKrupp Schwelgern Steel Mill, one of the largest steel mills in Germany. It is the combination of three elements, the river Rhine, the steel mill, and the Alsum Hill, which make this place a fascinating photo location, the latter providing a nicely elevated viewpoint on the other two.
