9. March 2010 by Friedhelm.

I visited many art exhibitions in my life and often I thought: “I could have done that!” The matter of reality, I did not do it. At some point I decided whenever I see something interesting I am going to photograph it right away. My eyes caught our old hair brush. It looked intriguing. I photographed it. That simple!

Enjoy and when you see something, photograph it. Never say to yourself: “I will come back later,” because it will not happen!

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8. January 2010 by Friedhelm.

On our last trip to the coast my daughter collected shells that we took home. I photographed them using my old large format camera connected to my DSLR using a lightbox that David had built for me. In post production I changed the background from white to black. Somehow this image reminds me of a volcano where the hot lava flows down and gets cold in the process.

Enjoy and happy Friday!

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22. December 2009 by Friedhelm.

After the rain fog usually sets in. The high moisture forms wonderful raindrops at plants and spider webs. I discovered this larger raindrop on a rose stem surrounded by many tiny raindrops. I used an old 55mm M42 Chinon lens and extension tubes to get this shot. I had to get close to the drops and I had to be very careful not to touch them and not to create a small air wave which would have destroyed the drops.

Enjoy!

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1. December 2009 by Friedhelm.

It is getting cold in the Central Valley in CA. The trees are shedding their leaves and they are full of frost early in the morning. This is a great opportunity for every photographer to get up early and photograph. Sometimes you have to look a little bit but most of the time you find some interesting subjects relatively fast. The big plus, after you are done you don’t have to drive a couple of hours to get home, you just get inside for a nice hot tea or cup of Java.

Enjoy!

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23. October 2009 by Friedhelm.

When it comes to photography Light is everything! I photographed the pumpkin stem under different light conditions. The first image is photographed under “soft” light, the second under “harsh” light. You can clearly see the difference.

Enjoy and happy photographing!

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22. October 2009 by Friedhelm.

I collected a couple of see shells which I cleaned and carefully arranged on my light-box. I used an additional light source to bring light from the top into the inside of the shell. Camera setting: F22, 1/2sec., ISO 100 tripod mounted.

Enjoy

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14. October 2009 by Friedhelm.

My wife got a nice flower bouquet which I had to borrow to photograph. I put it on my light box and I used three additional white(5600k) lights to illuminate the subject. I moved the lights around until I found an interesting setting that I photographed. Camera setting: f22, 1.3sec, ISO 100 tripod mounted!

Enjoy!

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9. October 2009 by Friedhelm.

Actually these are David’s marvels. He brought them to the Chowchilla Photo-Club last night and allowed me to photograph them on my light-box (that he built!). I used my old 4X5 camera connected to my digital slr. Basically it means that I used the bellows and lens of the 4X5 as a macro system. The bellows extend beautifully to get great close-up shots and the 50 year old lens is not so bad.

Enjoy!

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2. October 2009 by Friedhelm.

One of my photography teacher once said: ” A good photographer can photograph a garbage and create a piece of art.” These words are still a great challenge to me. I love to photograph ordinary objects and show the beauty that is hidden in them. Yesterday I discovered this dry piece of weed.  I picked it up and walked to a tree where I put it at the edge of the shadow of the tree. That created a better background for my composition. I took the shot with the camera basically on the ground. In order to show the structure better I converted the color picture in black ‘n white.

Enjoy!

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28. September 2009 by Friedhelm.

David built me a lighthouse, which is basically a box with 4 lights and a glass plate. You put objects on it and photograph them. In this example I used a simple leaf.

Enjoy!

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