Hynek on Photography

Recently I stumbled over a wonderful six hour long documentation by the BBC, generously shared via YouTube with the rest of the world. I'll quote from their own description:

In the course of our 170 year relationship, photography has delighted us, served us, moved us, outraged us and occasionally disappointed us. But mainly, it has intrigued us by showing the secret strangeness that lies beneath the world of appearances. And that is photography's true genius.

Follow the story of photography in this six-part series 'The Genius of Photography'. See some of the most famous photographs ever taken and find out more about what made them so very special.

Watch the  first part of the first episode here:

If you're hooked, have a look at all the rest at the official playlist.

I was always attracted by street photography in general and street portraits in particular. But I never had enough willpower to actually go out there and ask people whether I may to take a picture of them.

Thanks to Don Giannatti's Project 52, that finally changed:

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For the first time I made it: I kicked the noon sun (11:30) in the nuts and lighted my subject with my flashes.

Ok, I needed three flashes (SB-24, SB-600 & YN-460-II) at full power, held together by a tri-flash holder inside of a collapsed reflective umbrella ("poor man's soft box") being so near to the subjects, it was barely out of the frame.

But hell yeah, I conquered the sun. :)

I had the honor to shoot the mayor candidate of the pirate party for
Potsdam. Pretty cool to see my photo all over the city!

Yes, that's a brick wall. They insisted. Zack please forgive me.

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After I read about Zack's Call to Action, I knew I wanted to try it too. The idea is simple enough: go to a place with people who probably won't have the possibility to hire a photographer and make nice portraits of them--for free. They are happy about the care, distraction and results and I'm getting the practise I still need badly.

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...is going to be my last day of my project 365. While it was fun and meaningful in the beginning, I'm started to become annoyed by it. I hope photography is a fundamental enough part of my life to ditch this stupid routine and do it for fun and profit only. 

That also mean less rubbish snapshots in my photostream. :) Anybody starting out with a camera considering doing a p365: Do it! It will help you a lot to develop an eye for motives. I wouldn't take the pictures I'm taking today, if I hadn't started.

My next big adventure awaits me this weekend when I'll be shooting elder people at a retirement castle. Wish me luck. :)

Today it arrived: My roll of white seamless paper and the respective holder! I just got clamps, white tile boards und some tape from the hardware store (it was a pain in the butt btw, to carry the huge tiles 2,4km and they weren't really cheap either :-/) and we were ready to go!

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Why photograph war? Is it possible to put an end to a form of human behaviour—which has existed throughout history—by means of photography?

The proportions of that notions seem ridicilously out of balance. Yet that very idea has motivated me.

For me, the strength of photography lies in its ability to invoke a sense of humanity. If war is an attempt to negate humanity, then photography can be perceived as the opposite of war and if it is used well it can be a powerful ingredient in the antidote to war.

~ James Nachtwey

If you want to see how insignificant your problems in your under-equipped studio are and realize how vain your motives seem considering the big picture, watch this movie.

There’s also a no less great TED talk by him.

Currently, I'm trying to practice as much strobing as possible. The strobist bootcamp is a good place to start I guess, I can't even say how much I owe to David Hobby and his blog. Together with Zack's crazyness, I hope to end up somewhere cool. :)