Author: Friedhelm

I used two strobe lights to create this image. The first strobe light I raises up and pointed to the ceiling to get a white background. Then I put a silver reflector to the ground and pointed the second strobe down to reflect the light from the bottom straight up. The I focused the camera at about 1.5 meters, using f.8 and setting the timer to ten seconds.  Then I mounted the camera on a tripod on top of the silver reflector. Now I took the second camera and pretended to photograph.

Enjoy and be creative with your photography! 

I bought this old  4X5 for a photo class. Learning to photograph with one of these beauty means slowing down and preparing your shot very carefully. Everything is manual and in this image I am opening the lens. Later I bought a connector to my DLSR and I still use this camera for macro photography.

Enjoy and happy photographing!

The camera is your tool to create images. Ansel Adams even wrote a book about the camera. People create and destroy with their hands. During this week I want to create images that reflect on my cameras and  hands. 

This is my first digital camera. I bought this Agfa ePhoto 1280 camera in 1997 for $700. If I was lucky I got 15 images out of a set of four AA batteries and the shutter lag was horrible, but it opened up my mind to digital photography.

In this image the original subject is not visible anymore. The viewer wonders what he he/she sees. Shadows can have the aspect of being mysterious and therefore interesting. In this case the subject is an orange with two leaves still attached to it.

I hope you enjoyed this exercise and come up with your own images. It would be nice if you would shre them with me. my email is frgolz@yahoo.com

This image was shot pretty much at the same spot than yesterday’s image. If you compare the two pictures you can clearly see the difference in the quality of the light. Today’s image has a lot harsher light. The shadows are sharp. This is the light that you don’t want to use when photographing people, especially faces, because the eyes are in deep shadows.  If you on the other side want these shadows this light is ideal.

It is of the utmost importance for every photographer to evaluate the quality of the light. The light will determine what kind of image you will get!

Enjoy and happy photographing!

Despite the fact that I shot this image at around 10:00 AM the form of the leaf cannot be recognized in the shadow. Here the shadow function is an supporting role. It gives the image the feeling of depth in combination with the large negative out of focus space. Consider the image for a moment without the shadow. It would not look good at all. I always look at shadows when I create an image and what kind of role it plays.

Enjoy and happy photographing! 

I used a small doll chair as my subject. In order to get this image I moved the chair closer to the background and I put camera and light source further apart. The light source is on the left and the camera on the right at about a 45 degree angle.

Enjoy and happy experimenting and photographing!

This weeks exercise is about shadows. You can get up early in the morning on a sunny day and find all kinds of shadows outside your home. You can also do this exercise inside your home where you need a little bit of preparation.

To create this image I used a projector as my light source. The background is a simple white sheet. I used a portrait stool on which I put a black card board on which I put the red candle. In order to get the smoke I had to blow the candle a little bit shortly before the exposure.

Enjoy and as always have fun with this exercise!

I love the yellow -green contrast in this image. Without the “green” the image would have been pretty boring. The art of photography is to see and “ordinary” subject like this tulip and create a great image. This is the challenge and this is the reason why I practice over and over again to improve the way I see and photograph. And yes, photography is hard work if you want to go beyond the usual.

Happy photographing!

I photographed this orchid in a studio setting using a white background. I felt that the white background did not work well. the image looked kind of dull. I looked through my files and found these clouds that made a much better background for my subject.

Enjoy and happy photographing!