mittageisen (metal postcards)

The title of the post says it all; 

Although I did not plan it this way, all of these were taken today around noon, so the Siouxsie wordplay works like a charm. 

I really love working with detail. Although these could be done again in a more controlled way, I choose (for now) to leave them as they are. If I redo them, the results will be different; I've learned that this is what happens even when I take two shots back-to-back, making small changes which require me to take the camera 'out of my eye'. I always shift, readjust the frame, etc, and the first concept, well, mutates, to say the least.

The collective title for all of these is: 

The Reliquary: Judge CS9-A; parts recovered, class.: non-restorable. 

title TK

Revealing;

the liquid nature of glass; that's the success of the first frame here.

I don't think that the other two set out to prove anything, but you might have a different opinion. All tenebrocentric, again, with only one taken at night. So much for stating the obvious.

PPS (pattern/person shooter)

The title;

of the first frame is: 'When suddenly faced with a private piece of cosmos'. Maybe it's a bit too specific; calling it something like 'Intrusion' might work too -- but that's only a might. Which is why I decided to be practically literal here. 

For the record: no cut and paste work with this one. Some trimming from the original, plus some contrast job done, that's it.

The second one is an entirely different story. The title could be: 'Who says ghosts have to wear white?'

Cheers.

a color-field tribute to Hopper's Nighthawks (plus one)

As a postscript to the previous post;

here are two more frames. The first one -- just as the title of the post suggests; I kind of think that it would serve well as a title. It's nice to imagine someone like Rothko painting something like this. I'm actually toying with the idea to do that myself... Maybe one day. Anyway, it serves.

The second one: I really like how all the unparallel lines work here, sort of 'for' and 'against' the eye. 

Enjoy.

abstract expressionism; no brush. period.

To me, 

photography has always been more than a mere exercise in figurativeness. A study of form and object can be fascinating, but there are moments when it doesn't yield proper results -- if the frames below had been taken with proper focus, framing and all that jazz, they would have every chance to fail. As they are, I think they are quite good. (Of course, it's all academic at this point: Would I have taken these if I had been thinking figuratively? Well; remember the Oracle in the Matrix? 'What's really gonna bake your noodle later on is would you still have broken it if I hadn't said anything.' That sums the whole dilemma up quite nicely. So--) --let's face the music. 

 

brick by brick... (by brick, by brick...)

There is something really satisfying about photographing brick walls; the mix of texture and arrangement hardly ever fails to draw my attention. Concrete can also be pleasing, in Ballardian sense especially, but this is a different story, and probably a different page in this blog. Anyway, here it is: a small set of images I collected on a recent outing. 

some heads are gonna roll

It's not

that I set out to capture these souls: they just entered my frame. 

     I don't have an occasion to take these kind of pictures often; more than in humans I tend to be interested in other th--subjects. Then again, such work can be really gratifying, and I am looking forward to working with a 'proper' model. These frames, shot sniper-style, provide a different kind of effect than a normal, willing person would, and the overall mood is somehow pleasantly disturbing.

     In the first one, I'm really fond of the format and colour I got (in -- and as a -- PS). The remaining two were taken in the same place (you might see at least one common element), and the blurred quality strongly contributes to the atmosphere. 

     Being a slave to focus: bad idea.

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... of the beholder

Voila:

you never know when you're going to walk into an SF set. It's all out there, for us escapists; just a matter of attention.

    This is also one of the things I consciously start to appreciate about photography -- the transformative power. Which is so natural that sometimes it can escape notice altogether. The whole business with 'mechanical rendering' of reality might have been some kind of an argument at the beginning of the 20th century, but not now. Not even taking into consideration the holiday snapshots; not really. 
     But, of course, it all lies in the eye of the beholder, not on the screen or printout, so the relevance of the question is again the matter of perspective, not the object itself. Which exists as what we take it to exist as.
     OK, end of babble. Enjoy. And think of Hal.


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tenebrocentrism, ah um

Photography is supposed to be more 'interested' in light: its official definition -- the practice of recording light -- says that in so many words.

     Darkness can be as fascinating, though, also because the eye misleads us into thinking that it's the darkness -- not the light -- being recorded. Ultimately, what matters is the proportions, and that is about the only thing enabling me to think of this here as 'tenebrocentric'. There is little digital manipulation here: the shot was simply underexposed, and that's the result. 

     More on the way.

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eppur si muove (in a way)

Digging (in the dirt),

I came across these two. Both were taken over two years ago, in 2009; both on the same day and location. They tell a different tale each, though. In the second one, I like the way the Order is almost secretly broken in the top-right corner: with frames like these, it might be arguable that you almost get two photos at the same time... Or maybe just one where there is something to discover. That alone makes it -- well, -- moving. 

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frames in blue

     Walking around the city a few weeks ago I caught the first one, below. I like the way that the plains intersect and stay completely separate at the same time.

    

Speaking of frames, here's one, literally.
Working with detail always strikes me as nearly meditative.

 

on being sleepy (part one)

Browsing through my files, I came upon these two frames. 

     Late at night, at the kitchen table, an hour or so before going to sleep, and the yawning has just set in: these are the circumstances in which I sometimes feel like working on something. There is something liberating about knowing that you really have only about an hour tops and then it's bedtime, no matter what. A short time is good to experiment with a single idea. (It also eliminates yawning, at least for a while.)

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pawn to d4

So, this is it: the first image form a library I have managed to build during a couple of years of my interest in photography. 

This one falls more into the category of digital photograph manipulation, which -- so far -- is not something I frequently do, but I am quite happy with the result. So let's open in this way.

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Greetings / Introductions

This is a place I built to not have to keep at least some things I do in a drawer. Eventually such strategy always becomes tiring.

     As I imagine it, the floor here is supposed to be taken -- littered, maybe -- mostly by photographs plus some introductory remarks and/or comments. So far, it sounds like a good plan. 

     Of course, a place like this still feels a lot like a drawer, but there is this potential which the drawers in my desk don't have: At least it lies open (pun intended) and Anyone can see it. So, should you happen to be this Anyone, be my guest. In the Digiworld, all Anyones seem to keep their running shoes on, so even if you stay for just a moment, that counts: no pun this time.