The rooftop sides of our house are pure glass with wooden frame structure. I remember, as a kid, when birds would try to fly in not noticing the glass and ending with a loud thump on our balcony. Depending on the speed and the angle they hit the glass front they ended up in a wide range from broken neck and dead to just dazed. My parents had those stickers of large birds of prey silhouettes on every big window and they helped a lot. About 10 years ago they were coming off and I replaced them with Space Invaders …. off course! 😉 A few birds still don’t seem to notice and so we do have impacts from time to time.
The most prominent was a woodpecker who’s brain is luckily made for taking a hard bang. He was just dazed and when he regained his consciousness back poked me right in the hand – completely different type than those pigeons that do it usually. Pigeons tend to give in to their fate and once you got hold of them don’t seem to fight. Guess this one had a hard time recovering, if it did at all. There was the whole head, body wings – you could see every wingtip) on the window. I had a hard time capturing it and only partly succeeded, but will probably try it again.
There has not been much time for nature throughout the last three years. My focus mainly shifted towards the digital retro park project and the goal of creating something great that will last and bring lots of fun to the people. Right now I am into the process of shooting good pictures of some treasures of my hardware collection. The mighty C64 was my first computer and still the one that hits the sweetspot for me. There are tons of not so common computers and consoles in my collection, but this one is the best. This is just to show you what I am up to right now. Like the outcome, though I never liked stuidoshootings, where you try to create the perfect moment, instead of waiting and capturing it. Feels a bit like cheating. 😉
Good old times, do you remember? There was a time, when cameras were analog and there was a time where ESI ruled the planet of C64. Thanks Dan, Ladyhway, Mitch… and all the rest for making my C64 times worthwile. You definatley rocked the scene. I knew what I had to do with this picture, right when I shot it at the Fasanerie in Hanau. RIP Eagle Soft Incorporated.
Oli rang me up the other day and was pretty excited: “Man! I have an idea for a shoot”. A couple of LEDs, a lonly skatepark far off, darkness, my good old SB800 – that I haven’t used for ages – et voilá…. looks easy, doesn’t it?. Actually, this was one of the later shots. Oli had to get used to the dim light and I had to trigger my flash at the right time. Not easy at all and happily no bails at all, and so sometimes the magic happens….
To find deers in the field you have to look very closely. Often they see you faster than you spot them. Again I just passed it, pretending not to notice, droped my bike and sneaked back. Still I couldn’t get closer than about 40m before it jumped away. Practice, Falk! Practice….
“Häschen in der Grube, saß und schlief…” This one wasn’t asleep at all. In fact I had a hard time getting near it. You wonder how close you actually can get if you prentend not go its way and don’t look at it.
A little experiment taking this gull into the dark. The Idea is not from me, though. German PROFIFOTO Mag featured the work of Stefanie Müller (haven’t got the mag and this is quite a usual name in Germany, so no link here, sorry), who took animal portraits out of the context, namely their surrounding and put it into dim light. I was flashed by those images and tried it myself. So here’s my first attempt, using a young hering gull that I shot this summer on Sylt. The image wasn’t that sharp which keeps it from getting that brilliant look I aimed for. I’ll keep trying.
“…Nobody on the road – Nobody on the beach – I feel it in the air – The summers out of reach – Empty lake, Empty streets – The sun goes down alone…” (Don Henley – Boys of Summer). To be honest, I had to take out tons of people… you acutally never be alone on the beach of Wenningstedt/Sylt. Mhhh.. shrinking down panoramashots to fit my blog is not the best idea. I guess this will be the last pano posted here… the effect of the original 11.000px wide image is completely lost.
We drove to vienna, to wittness the wedding of Petra, a friend of Nadine. On a vienyard high above Vienna, the ceremony took place. Weather was – according to other guests – suitable for the couple. Thunderstorm, flashes, wind…. well… Despite a great panorama, where I cought some flahes, I tried to capture the contrast between the thunderstorm and the warm and cosy mood inside, by shooting this warm light against the dark horizon and the wind jogged trees. Between the newly engaged couple is creative as well -> take a look
As I said before: this year we had all the weather spectacle you could imagine. When Alex said that we are not goning sit on the terrace that night, he was wrong. Equiped with an umbrella, two 2gb SD-Cards and the whole Budocan team in my back watching me. We actually stayed outside for about 3 hours in the heavy rain. I took pictures till both of my batteries were dead, leaving me with about 300 pictures. This is one of 5 that caught the act. And murphy was there as well: Whenever I was cleaning the lens, looking for a new angle or fiddling about the cam you can here comments like “Ahhh, that was great.” or “Did you see this”… off course not! Best flashes are not capturable… punktum!
It always takes some time, till I get used to a new surrounding and feel comfotabel and although attending Budosola now for over 4 years I still need some time till I can take a real nap there. Claus and me seemed to have the same problem and when everybody else went to bed we put on our heavy jackets, a palette of beer and talked the night through. I set the cam to bulb and shot a couple of pictures from the star sprankled sky, figuring that bulb only is 30 minutes but mostly the battery ran dry way before the time was over.
Switzerland does not confine firecrackers to New Years Eve. To indulge our play instict meanwhile it has become a tradition, to take a pack off small crackers up to the Judohaus. This year I tried to capture the explosions with my cam and it worked out quite well. This shot is rather a sideline of the actual shots, but when I saw it on my big monitor in all its detail, I was stunned, how handsomel smoke can be.
