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Gothic Festival 2016

This is the second time that I happen to be in Leipzig during the Gothic Festival, always a feast for the eyes. Kudos to all participants for their tremendous efforts, as the costumes are really stunning. Many people were taking photos like mad, some times flocking in front of couples or groups as if it was a photo call. I decided to do it in a slightly different way, so I entered a McPaper and bought a set of cards. Besides asking for permission to take a photo, I asked if they would like to have a copy. A few took me on my offer and wrote their e-mails on a card for me to send a link with the photos, which I have already done. I hope they like them. They put a lot of effort on their appearance, so it felt appropriate to give something back in return.

The weather could have been definitely better, with scattered rain throughout the weekend and some impressive fast moving clouds. But of course, this is a gothic festical, you don´t get to choose the weather, just your clothing...

Völkerschlachtdenkmal - Leipzig

Building in Käthe-Kollwitz-Straße

I took a photo of a building in the Käthe-Kollwitz_Straße in Leipzig two years ago. Recently I spent a couple of days in Leipzig and saw the building is in much better shape, so I took another photo. For some strange reason, the alignment between the two photos was way beyond my expectations, so I did a transition video with the before and after (mental note to self, take a third photo some time in the future).

Street photography: asking can take you a long way...

I saw this as I was going for a walk with my family. I told my wife I needed a minute to ask for permission and maybe take a photo. The guy was really friendly and relaxed about it so I took the photo and offered to send him a copy by email, which I did a few days later upon my return to Berlin.

Otro patio

Hauptfeuerwache

Speck´s Hof

Seems like it does not matter how often I go to Leippzig, I keep finding fascinating places.

View from the Opera

The University building (the one looking like a church to the right) is almost finished. I wonder what it will look like inside and if it will be open to the public in the future.

Puente

This is a good example of how new tools can give you additional possibilities. Some time ago I would not have taken this photo, since the contrast was too high for the range of my camera and I did not know how to deal with this within the simple tools I use (basically the Canon raw converter that came with the camera).


But now I am getting a feeling for which photos will be usable after running them through the demo version of Photomatix. I just need to tune my eye a bit more. And a higher usable ISO would definitely also help a lot.

Nikolaikirche Leipzig

Ayuntamiento de Leipzig

Engrossed in drawing

I spotted this lady sitting barefoot on a bench and tried to take a photo from far away with the tripod, while pretending to take a photo of the mdr building (in the background, not to be seen in this shot). But then I thought it would be more polite to ask for permission (and actually much easier to frame her properly) and came with the camera to ask. I told her about the blog and the Serenity series, and she agreed, so I went back and took this shot while she was drawing some sort of angel. I know this because I wrote the address of this blog on her drawing pad. Hope she likes the photo.

Do you mind if I take a photo of you?

I spent recently a long weekend in Leipzig, where the annual Wave Gotik Treffen meeting took place. The city was literally flooded with people worth looking at. And most were more than willing to pose for anybody with a camera. But I guess that was not quite what I was looking for. However, some recent reading about street photography pointing out that asking goes a long way, took me to a first (for me), asking a complete stranger if I could take a photo of her while she was reading. And the answer was yes!


But the initial photo I took was not particularly good. As David duChemin mentions in one of his books, you need a great foreground and a great background, and the latter was not really what I wanted for this series (a group of fairly loud punks which eventually started a fight, hardly what you would have as a connecting thought for serenity). So after reviewing the photos I hanged around a bit longer until I came up with the shot above. For the sake of completeness, the initial shot is shown below. The good news, I actually got another one for this series later on from somebody else.

Looking for the photo

Some people have the amazing skill to take good photos wherever they go (gear plays no role here, photos are made by photographers, not by the cameras). And it is not extraordinary and elaborate settings, the trick is doing this with simple things. I need to work on that skill, looking at ordinary things and extracting the composition that tells a story.


This is the drying room of a building in Leipzig. I had seen it a few years ago and always thought it could be a good place for a photo, but I did not know how to take the photo. I  don´t know how to take the photo yet but at least the higher dynamic range allows me to play with the light and the shadows...

Bundesverwaltungsgericht - Leipzig

Absorta en la lectura

Hoy es el día del libro y aunque parezca raro decirlo, los libros son para leerlos, y no sólo para comprarlos y/o regalarlos.

Neues Rathaus - Leipzig

In case someone is wondering. the HDR images are done with the test version on Photomatix. It is actually better to have cloudy days, as they result in much more dramatic shots as a sunny day would be. 

Bundesverwaltungsgericht (i)

Dull grey cloudy days make for great reasonable HDR shots.

Glühwein

Tomada en el Mercadillo de época de Leipzig.