Made this yesterday. Basically crossing some borders I usually stay within when working on pictures. Felt like a little rebellion against my usual stuff. Felt very good. I might create more of those.
The Night of the Arrival
I got to this beautiful little surfer town here in New Zealand today. First thing I did was walking into a store, opening a book about the town and seeing a picture of this building. Wow, this is a residential home.
Next thing, I ran into a girl I met on a camping ground two weeks ago. She knew about the building and showed me where it is. I photographed it with about 40 pictures to trace the movement of the stars. Each picture is a 30 second exposure.
Then sitting at the computer I thought I would turn it into something like a vintage Sci-Fi image. Goes right to the 'experiments' section.
Oh, if you ever come here: the town is called Raglan, and from all I have seen of the North Island of New Zealand, this is by far the nicest little town. Will stick around for another day and a full moon night.
Tracing Stars
These are the movements of the stars within one hour seen from the Mauna Kea volcano on the island of Hawaii. I used to think it's super difficult to take such pictures. A couple of weeks ago in California I ran into a photographer who took pictures like these. He explained it to me in two sentences. In fact, there is absolutely nothing to it. You point at the sky and take either one super long exposure (if your camera can do that), or take a bunch of shorter ones and blend them together in photoshop. That's all. Of course it helps to have a great night sky.In this picture here one could get the illusion of seeing whole circles, but that's not the case. For that I would have to wait till earth rotated 360 degrees. And as we all know, that would take 24 hours. So since I only captured one hour, we only see 15 degrees, is that right? So far with my astro knowledge.
The zig-zagging lights on the mountain are the light traces of cars going to the summit of the mountain where the Mauna Kea Observatories are located. I went up there before taking this picture. Man..that was an experience. The lack of oxygen made me feel super dizzy. It's located 14,000 feet above sea level.
An Encounter
Walking the streets of Berlin I came across this interestingly dressed fellow.
"Hey, I like your outfit," I said."Thank you sir, I just arrived here. I find yours interesting, too.""Would you mind me taking your photograph?""No, not at all, please take one," the man said in a strange accent.So I took a picture and out of my enthusiasm I had this idea of how to return the favor."If you like I can send you a print of your photo."The man smirked. Seeing him smirking like that I came to the conclusion that he wouldn't believe me."I'm serious," I said. "You give me your address and I'll send you a print."The man looked at me smirking even more: "It's not that I don't believe you. In fact I know you will."Then he reached in his pocket and pulled out something. He showed it to me. It was a photograph. It was the exact same photograph of him standing there. It was the one I just took. It was a hundred years old.
Manarola
If you want to experience what it's like to be compulsive, I suggest you make a trip to Cinque Terre, Italy. Bring a camera, but tell yourself not to take any pictures. Then see what happens.
Because this place is so pretty, I was about to post my most un-processed picture ever. My problem with this is that it would be one of a million out there. There are tons and tons of them. They are all super nice, but they are also all the same. So I said 'fluck it' and turned it into a painting. I know know, but I think in some special cases you are allowed to do something like that.
Greetings from the Shore
A little attempt to create something with a vintage postcard look. At this point I'm still undecided if I succeeded or failed. However, I think it still looks somewhat interesting.The photo is from the New Jersey Shore in 2009. This was right before a very heavy thunderstorm. I imagine the people left the beach in panic and simply forgot their umbrella. Besides the fact that the water is warmer in Jersey than in California, a reason to like the East Coast better are those sudden heavy storms and rains. The weather can be quite exciting there.