Looking up Exercise #04

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There are many weeds on my exercise walk and normally I don’t pay very much attention to them. That is probably a mistake. One thing about photography is that everyone can photograph the obviously; a creative photographer however will look for the hidden stuff. In the beginning it maybe even look a little bit “stupid” but the interesting image will come out sooner or later.

At the playground – “Looking up” exercise #04

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There are few playgrounds On my daily exercise walk (with a camera of course). I usually overlook them but they are wonderful to photograph and offer great opportunities to study the light. I photographed this image underneath a slide. I had the camera close to the ground and shot straight up. Enjoy and happy photographing!

The straw- Packaging material Exercise #03

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The lid and straw from my soft drink got my attention. I thought I could get a very nice high key image out of it. I separated the lid from the cup and cut the straw underneath the lid. Then I put the lid on my light table to get some good background light. I tried several f stops to get the  right depth of field. Enjoy and have a great week-end

Finding the kid in me part 2 – Packaging material Exercise #03

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After my first round of shots yesterday I decided to do it all over again. This time I changed the light setting from a barn door to a snoot. I kept the light source behind the boxes and used a snoot instead of a barn door. I did not use a gel. The red in background comes from the reflection of on of the boxes.

Enjoy and happy exercising with your camera!

Finding the kid in me – Packaging material Exercise #03

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I decided to take yesterday’s statement about creativity seriously and built a skyline out of packaging blocks. I used a door as a backdrop, nothing fancy in other words. I decided to go for a silhouette and tried different lightning scenarios. At the end I used two strobe lights, one with a barn door and a blue gel and the other with white light. In a way it felt awkward to do things that you have done as a child on the other side it was a lot of fun to do this. I am curious where else this exercise will lead me. Have fun with your creativity!

Packaging material Exercise #03


Creativity means to connect with the kid in you!  Children are incredibly creative. When I was a child (before electronic toys, computers ….) I built all kinds of things out of packaging material. I remember that my parents gave us once big boxes that we used as cars. We cut out windows etc. This week I ask you to collect all kinds of packaging material and create a composition that you photograph.

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I collected candy wrappers that I folded and put into a chocolate box to create some sort of “flower” where the chocolate box is the stem and the wrapping material the flower petals. I admit, it takes a lot of fantasy and goodwill to see the flower but I liked the idea.

Don’t forget to have fun with this exercise!