Posts from tschnitzlein

Musings about Street Photography - soon to come

nobody@ipernity.com (tschnitzlein) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 23:39:38 +0000

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Yes I know - it has been almost a year ago that I promised to compile my thoughts on street photography. The more I thought about it, the more ideas came to my mind. But as it often happens to me, putting my plans into practice isn't as easy as I thought.

The project, however is still on my to do list, and it is finally becoming a reality. I am not planning to talk about technique - rather about inner processes on the road to finding an image.

Street or people photography, as I am experiencing it, is a very intense process of human interaction. It not only involves understanding social conventions, but it is also a journey of intense self-exploration. This is because after all, all our observations happen through the confinement of our own minds. So, we are what we see.

Stay tuned - in the coming weeks, I will put up a series of blog posts in loose sequence, and I am curious of what you will think about it.

Do you know the work of Noqontrol? Probably one of the best concept artists on the net! A Must-See!!!

nobody@ipernity.com (tschnitzlein) — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 08:16:30 +0000

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Ever since I moved my gallery activity from F**ckr to Ipernity, I missed seeing the great art from a number of people that didn't make the move.

Among them is a man who lives in New York that consistently and repeatedly produces images that leave me speechless because they are ultimately eloquent staatements about our present times: Maciej aka Noqontrol - www.flickr.com/photos/noqontrol

He's a brilliant photographer and a Photoshop wizard second to none – and IMHO he is one of the most impressive concept artists that I have ever seen on the web. Go to see his images right now - he only maintains a small set of images on Flickr, and he often changes the pictures he exhibits. I promise you won't be disappointed.

Maybe one of you who reads this is one of his contacts, and could invite him to move over here – I’m sure having his work over here would be an enormous asset for Ipernity.

Take a look for yourself, and tell me what you think – can you invite him?

Maybe receiving a lot of mail from over here might convince him to make the move...

A New Age of Iconoclasm?

nobody@ipernity.com (tschnitzlein) — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 20:09:23 +0000

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Last weekend, I became the target of photography haters. But before you dismiss my claim, consider my story, because I have not made myself guilty of insulting anyone:

I was in a crowded square in downtown Munich, Germany (on the "Münchener Freiheit"), watching old men playing a game of chess using huge wooden chess men - a very concentrated, peaceful scene. I shot a number of portraits of an old man in his seventies with a highly interesting face and then walked away. It was warm, the light was perfect and everybody was relaxed and calm.

Several minutes later, I suddenly found myself surrounded by four or five men and women in their late twenties or early thirties. Obviously Germans, so this was not a religion-based problem. At first, the scene looked somewhat like a harmless prank because they all were using water guns to make me wet from all sides, including my sensitive photography gear.

But then, they pulled in on me and started insulting me because I had been taking photographs. Mind you, the people who harassed me were completely unknown to me, and I couldn't even find them in the background of any of the pictures I shot. It seems they were not afraid of having been photographed because none of them asked to see my pictures and have theirs deleted in case they would have been on one of them - a fairly normal occurrence these days in Germany which I would have reacted to by deleting pictures as requested without further discussion.

Instead, they came closer and closer, and the scene became increasingly menacing. What would you do if you would see a situation developing in which you're going to be attacked by a group of young, apparently strong and healthy people, whereas you aren't a very sportsy type and you are in your late fifties? Anyway, the scene became very loud, with three or four of them yelling at me, and myself thinking about what to do next in order to not get beaten up on the spot (Quite remarkable - we were on a square with about two hundred witnesses who sat at the tables of a nearby street cafe. They all watched, but nobody interfered).

I had to do something. Immediately. And I did: Instead of staying on the defensive, I brusquely started an attack on one of the men surrounding me, threatening to hit him with my camera (I had a very solid 80-200 f 2.8 lens attached). I was lucky. I scared the entire gang away without hurting anyone.

I was glad the situation was resolved in a good way, but I'm left with an uneasy feeling, not understanding the reason of the attack. And this was not the only attack i had experienced. Two years ago, I had also been in a crowded place in Munich, trying to test my then brand-new (and huge, highly conspicuous) wideangle zoom lens. I got harrassed by someone immediately after having taken my camera out of my bag, before I had even started taking any pictures at all.

It seems the general 9/11 hysteria with imposed, ridiculous rules on photography is gradually seeping into the subconscious of all those nutheads in our cities....

Have you experienced similar things? What do you feel about this? How would you react, or how did you react when something similar would/has happen(ed) to you?

Do you know the work of !Esco & Güilmon! ? Check him out - you'll love it!

nobody@ipernity.com (tschnitzlein) — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 13:27:20 +0000

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Ever since I moved my gallery activity from F**ckr to Ipernity, I missed seeing the great art from a number of people that didn't make the move.

Among them is a man who lives in Barcelona that consistently and repeatedly produces images that leave me speechless: Alex aka !Esco & Güilmon! - www.flickr.com/photos/escori

He's a brilliant street photographer and a Photoshop wizard second to none (look at some of his older work) – and IMHO he is one of the most impressive artists that I have ever seen on the web.

Unfortunately, his site doesn't allow copying any links so you'll have to go there and take a look for yourself. I promise you won't be disappointed.

I am not one of his F**ckr contacts (he for sure is one of mine), and so I don’t think I can motivate him to come over to Ipernity. Maybe one of you who reads this is one of his contacts, and could invite him to move over here – I’m sure having his work over here would be an enormous asset for Ipernity.

Take a look for yourself, and tell me what you think – can you invite him?

Maybe receiving a lot of mail from over here might convince him to make the move...

Real-Life Blues causes Creativity Obstipation

nobody@ipernity.com (tschnitzlein) — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 13:18:39 +0000

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It has been a long time since I last published new images. And the longer I wait before I set out to do my next image manipulation, the more I feel ill-inspired and incapable.

Over the recent weeks, I have been very busy working on a couple of new projects, only to find that when my clients had paid and I in turn have settled my tax advance payments to the IRS, I find myself in the same situation as before my project - all that hard-earned money has dissolved for the benefit of our "beloved" and over-administrated state.

That's depressing and makes me mad. And it stifles all the creativity that I used to have. I feel it's kind of difficult to get back into the flow of creating new image ideas, shooting raw material for new manips, and feeling fulfilled for having created something new, when all I experience is having to work without reward.

Help! This looks like a hen-and-egg problem: I would like to experience energy obtained by having created somthing new, yet I feel incapable of creating because I feel depressed and devoid of energy...

Exploring the Process of Perception [Pseudo-Group]

nobody@ipernity.com (tschnitzlein) — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 10:26:09 +0000

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For ages, man's mind appeared as an unfathomable mystery. Today's neurophysiological research is beginning to scratch at the surface of what we believe to know about the inner workings of perception. One of the recent findings is that our brains incorporate an enormous network of specialized processing centres for all kinds of sub-tasks of perception - recognition of patterns in various aspects, and the appraisal of attributes about the perceived objects. Taken together, all these brain's findings constitute what we feel is "reality" - a very complex multi-dimensional construct.

One of my interests is to explore the nature of human perception. Do you share that curiousity? Please show me your findings in this blog.

Multiple WB Settings in One Picture

nobody@ipernity.com (tschnitzlein) — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 18:06:49 +0000

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I recently discovered a technique in which digital photography finally surpasses analogue techniques: Have you ever wondered how you can take pictures with multiple, different light sources yet still obtain a reasonably "realistic" over-all white balance setting for the entire picture?

Well, you can't - that is, for analogue photography. I have found a way to do this in digital photography:

Look at this image? Is there anything wrong with it? I don't think there is, and yet this picture definitely looks different than what you would expect to come straight out of your camera.

This picture has two types of light sources: artificial (tungsten) light from the lamps mounted on the walls of the house, and "daylight" coming from the sky about 1/2 hour after sunset.

Now that you know this, does the picture still look normal? I presume it doesn't because all the surfaces facing away from the tungsten light sources ought to have a heavy blue tint. And they don't.

What you see is something we all subconsciously expect when we look at a scene with multiple, dissimilar light sources: Our brain performs an automatic white balance compensation - but unlike our cameras, our brain does this on a local (not a global) basis.

Try this out and shoot some pictures under difficult light conditions during the "blue hour" as RAW image files. But - instead of just developing the image using just one white balance setting, develop two versions - one with a "tungsten" wb, and one with a "daylight" wb. Stack them on top of each other in a layer-capable image editor such as Photoshop and mask out all image areas that have strange-looking colour tints using a layer mask.

You'll be amazed of the natural look you will get. Try it out - and show me your results in this blog!

Orientation in the Ipernity Maze

nobody@ipernity.com (tschnitzlein) — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 09:20:33 +0000

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I experience a fair amount of disorientation when I look foor various functions I came to appreciate at Flickr - and surprise surprise, they're here too. The only problem is to find them.

I intend to collect block diagrams of what function is where at Ipernity, so using Ipernity becomes easier (and maybe we can even point out usability gliches to the Ipernity programmers).

Does anybody already have suitable diagrams? Let's collect them here!

Moveable Feast [Web 2.0 Software Project]

nobody@ipernity.com (tschnitzlein) — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 15:11:17 +0000

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The censorship fiasco at Flickr - my original Web 2.0 home - has left me deeply unsettled. I am in the process of moving over here, but the question still remains what will happen if this service becomes successful enough so that its owners decide to cash in and sell the service to some other Internet moghul (like Flickr did). After all, Ipernity is a business too, and no charitable institution.

One of the fundamental contradictions of Web 2.0 is the fact that users generate the content, but hosters take possession of it because they own the service. And owning the service means they not only benefit from the content we generated, they also own our network of contacts. To put it bluntly, they attempt to own our very identity on the Internet.

I think it is time that we do something to change Web 2.0 from being provider-centric to being user-centric:

How about making our network identity / contacts a 'moveable feast' which we can take along if need be in case someone tries to sell our favourite community (again)?

I envision some kind of freeware software that everybody can install on his/her computer: The software's first function would be to communicate with the image host's database via scripts to download all the user's identity and contact data.

The software would - as a second function - act like a file swapping program (remember the early days of Napster?) and contact all my contacts' / friends' computers that host the same program to check for any mutual contacts / friends, and whether they changed their address or image hoster.

A third function of that software could be to periodically contact all image hosters the user is a member of, and download links to all new images or messages.

The effect of such a software on the nature of Web 2.0 could be substantial: Such a program would break up the limitations imposed by image hosters that 'lock in' their customers, effectively making them prone to their business-related manipulations. Once a large number of users would use such a software, consumers could punish image hosters that treat their customers without respect by just moving elsewhere - WITHOUT LOSING THEIR CONTACTS.

I am in the process of setting up a blog outside of Ipernity for this project. The purpose of that blog will be to provide a framework for structuring the task of generating this software. I will post it here as soon as the blog is up and running - please check back frequently.

Tell me what you think of this idea, and whether you would be able to help making this dream become reality.

Exile or new home?

nobody@ipernity.com (tschnitzlein) — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 12:26:46 +0000

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I cannot ignore the fact that many of my contacts have moved to Ipernity from the service that got taken over by Y!****. Personally, I'm not sure yet whether I'll need an new home for my images.

The fact that the service here is also owned by a company whose goal is to make money gives me a bad feeling in my stomach after the experience at Fl***r. We, the artists deliver the content, and others treat us as their property? Wait a minute, my identity and my contacts are mine, and I don't want to lose it every time a hoster decides to cash in to his success.

There must be another way. Tell me what you think about that.