Oktober 2008

What a busy month. Busy regarding my job ( with lots of travelling ), our house and sport. It´s I wonder I have found the time to take over 1.000 images as well. A lot of autumn images ( landscapes, leaves and golden light ), lots of house and garden images ( to document the progress ), images of my business trips and most of all a lot of portraits of family and friends. It seems my that the Canon 5D and more so my midlife crises have turned me into a portrait photographer. I started with landscape and travel photography, moved to nature phorography ( mainly birds and close ups ) and now come to portrait photography.

For landscape shots you need light ( a nice landscape also helps of course but what you need is good light ). For nature shots you need some creatures. If you are lucky and live somewhere inbetween Banff and Jasper in British Columbia creatures means bear ( both grizzly and black bear ), moose, elk, wolfe, lynx, cougar, eagle, big horn sheep, mountain goats or at least ground squirrels and chipmunks. If you live in Austria it is either a tame red squirrel in the park or birds at the Neusiedlersee NP ( but only from late March to early May ). If you shoot close ups in nature you need good light and absolutely no wind.

But this is nothing compared to portrait photography! For portrait photography you need a person who is willing to play your model. But I have aready lamented enough about this problem. Anyway my skills are improving, my portfolio gets better and my friends become more cooperative. Technically I try to keep it very simple. I use only two lenses: the 35L and the 135L and no flash, other artifical lights or reflectors. The good thing is: By keeping things simple I don´t have to think about the equipment but can concentrate on my subject.

The other side is: Without flash I need good light and a window for the catch lights. Without a backdrop I also have to keep an eye on the background to avoid distractions. If I use these lenses near wide open at f2.0 ( 35L ) or f2.8 ( 135L ) I have to take care about the depth of field to avoid unsharp eyes and also have to keep an eye on the shutter speed to avoid camera shake or unsharpness because of subject movement.

Considering all that it doesn´t look like a very simple methode at all but I prefer these natural light portraits over the f11 - large softbox - reflector - backdrop style.

This image was taken with the 35L. I really love this lens like I love the 135L. But while I shoot a kind of close up portrait with the 135L very the face really fills the screen in lanscape format ( I cut of a part of the forehead and hairs to achieve this ) the 35L allows to include the enviroment. The nice Bokeh helps to create very fine effects. The picture above was taken in a coffeehouse in Vienna. A place where you really don´t want to use large flashlight at all. It shows my best friend trying to look serious. Well he is not totally relaxed and I was a little too close too causing the nose to get bigger as it is but I still like the shot. I like the expression, the light and the background but I will try to take a better one next time.

For me this is the main driving element in photography - learn from your mistakes to become better next time. It´s a kind of school for life. With these wise words I have only one thing to add: I know you are laughing now my friend E.W.

setting main shot: A-Mode, 1/100@f2.5, 200ASA, cropped

autumn ride shot: Panasonic FX100

on the road shot 1: Fuji Finepix F31FD

on the road shot 2: Nikon D300