Xin Nian Hao - 新年好 - Happy New Year

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 10:01:02 +0800

T he year of the dragon has been welcomed with celebrations over the last days, still continuing.
I have spent the first days of the new year with my wife in her home town, having used the little time left for myself, shooting some photographs.

I wish everybody a Happy New Year of the dragon - may your wishes come true! Xin Nian Hao!

Peugeot not to race the 2012 Le Mans 24h

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 13:58:18 +0800

W hen I heard the news today, I was shocked, to be honest. I, as many sports car racing fans, have been looking forward to the battle, unfolding between Audi, Peugeot and the finally returning Toyota works team at the Circuit de la Sarthe.

For the good times sake, a photograph from the 2011 edition of the Le Mans 24h, shot with Leica M9 and 135 APO-Telyt followed by last years winning car, Audi’s R18 TDI No. 02:

rainy days - Leica M8.2 + 21 f2.8 Avenon Millennium

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 22:35:42 +0800

T he weather plays strange in Shanghai since quite some time. Light is not very inspiring. The climate is wet and cold - time for sitting down and catching up on processing and printing, one could guess … not so! Get out and search for subjects, not seen or photographed before through your camera! Play with lenses, you do not usually use! Use one of your favorite cameras again!

rent a bike in shanghai - Leica M9 + Noctilux f1

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 13:10:25 +0800

G etting around in Shanghai is one of the nicest aspects in the city despite the regular traffic jams and long times, one can spend on the road. Shanghai offers many options in transportation, one, that has had a major impact and is used a lot are the rent a bike stations, getting more and more spread around the city.
You simply use a prepaid card, swipe it over a panel, unlocking a bike to ride. Bring the bike back to any station and swipe your card, to finish your ride - easy.
The classic way though is, as ever, sharing one ride with others, as bringing their kids to school.

some color with Konica Hexanon Dual 21-35 f3.4-4

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 11:54:26 +0800

C olor is not, what I do mostly these days, but from time to time a few shots slip through ;-)

speed now ! OWC SSD hard drive in old Macs

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 00:37:08 +0800

I am late to the show, I know - there are plenty of posts like this all over the web already, posts of users of older computers, having given their old machine a new lease of live and a little sparkle, while being surprised by the newly found performance.
Well, for me, it has been quite similar. My main machine is an early 2008 Macbook Pro, which serves me on a daily basis both as my working computer managing a production company and as my machine for digitally processing and archiving photographs.

This computer has therefore been in a regular struggle for speed and hard drive capacity. Today has been the day, I probably gave the old Mac a final upgrade, having installed a 240GB enterprise class SSD drive from OWC as main drive and upgraded the aging Hitachi 500 GB secondary drive to a 1TB Samsung drive for archiving.

It has been written before, but here goes … WOW ! After having cloned my old drives to the new drives and booted the machine with it’s new SSD drive, it booted in something, that felt like 40sec to a completely usable desktop (before, this has been at least double the time).

Applications start instantaneously without waiting time, dreaded beach balls or dragging other applications down - it just goes!

The most impressive change though has been with the total conversion of my three mainly used apps into pure powerhouses:

Mail.app - I am dragging a well sorted, full mail archive on this machine with mails accessible as far as 5 years back. Understandably, Mail’s startup time has been … sluggish, to say the least, with conventional hard drives - now, it just starts - no waiting, no sluggish behavior, it just plain works!

Excel for Mac - I use Microsoft’s Excel for Mac as the sole, last MS application after completely changing to Mac some years ago. Excel is still the way to go for it’s powerful features and speed in working with extensive spreadsheets, where Apple’s Numbers.app just can’t keep up (I like the design and fluid workflow in Numbers a lot better, but Numbers lacks the power features, that allow for quick organized work with large spreadsheets with extensive filtering options and full optimization for shortcuts and keyboard use.
With conventional hard drives, large sheets open s l o w and operate like molasses, when performing calculation extensive tasks like copy, pasting and linking large portiont of the sheet or just saving a large sheet!
With the OWC SSD - it’s like controlling Excel with your mind - impressive!

Adobe Lightroom - my main imaging software for archiving, key wording and processing all of my photographs, needs large hdd capacities for the image files and processing power for rendering ahead and live during developing. The more full a conventional drive gets, the more Lightroom will test your patience.
Unbelievable, that with the OWC SSD drive, Lightroom starts instantaneously with it’s main catalogue of 1.5GB and lets me browse my recently developed folders without any visible delay, whereas before, I would have seen the beach ball a few times too much a day.
Most impressive task, to do after installing your own SSD drive for Lightroom use is, to start Lightroom (instantaneous, remember ?), plug in a media card with big raw files, hit ⌘+Shift+I for importing the image files, have them copied to your hard drive during import, while applying a base development profile and start the import.
You will notice, that everything runs much quicker, than you were used too, but wait, now comes the crazy part: now select the newly created folders WHILE Lightroom is still copying the files to your hard drive and you can immediately start to keyword, select, discard, rate through your shots, wasting NO TIME on waiting for your computer, to finish with one task first - you can just work!

Now I am not a photographer, working in the field, having to push out fresh shots in a deadline, as long the news are fresh, but I can imagine, that having a top of the line SSD as the main drive in a photojournalists main working machine is a given minimum these days - if you don’t, demand one on the spot! You won’t believe the benefit in immediate time saving and a new fluid workflow until you have witnessed it with your own eyes!

My recommendation - get the largest, fastest OWC SSD, you can afford today! Don’t compare conventional hard drive speeds and performance, deciding on one or another, just go for a SSD as your main drive - it’s worth your time. You won’t believe, how in the past, you have spent too much time, waiting on your computer instead of getting work done!

christmas man

Sat, 7 Jan 2012 23:30:45 +0800

L ast week, I bumped into an unusual character - despite Christmas being over and the first really cold days with most people not even giving a slight glance, when approaching them, christmas man here was cheerful and asked me, to take a picture of him.

He really stood out in the grey crowd with his most kind eyes.

I didn’t pose him or told him, to do funny stuff, he was just this way - hope, to meet him again some day, when carrying the prints …

the Hasselblad experiment - part 3 - the first roll

Thu, 5 Jan 2012 15:09:35 +0800

T his will be the last experiment post, sharing the entire first roll …

the Hasselblad experiment - part 2

Wed, 4 Jan 2012 15:13:19 +0800

S ome time ago, I posted about doing a small experiment, trying to find out, if adding a Hasselblad 6x6 film system to my standard shooting kit would be a good addition, to experiment with.
Things turned out, I found a nice starter set with a body, 6x6 film back and 80mm f2.8 Planar lens and started, to carry this camera with me on the street, shooting candids.

At first, adding a rather different, heavier and bulkier camera system to the Leica M cameras, I am using, feels awkward and finding the right purpose for this camera, to fit smoothly, takes time.

Surprisingly, basic operation is a quick learning process, despite the different concept with waist level finder, ground glass focussing with mirrored image and switched hands operation. Once these first obstacles are left behind, one can concentrate on learning about the look of the negatives, focus accuracy, details in the negatives, unknown of with 35mm film and the different approach towards your subjects, framing with this finder.

The biggest change for me, when working with total strangers on the street, has been, that there is no direct eye contact anymore between your subject and yourself, when actually taking the shot!

With a Leica, you constantly keep eye contact, being able, to interchange emotions, body language, maybe even thoughts, which you are completely disconnected from with the Hasselblad.

I have yet to find out, how to best use this in a helpful matter for the actual portraits, but I found the reactions on the more classic looking, bigger camera quite interesting. People do indeed react differently to the Hasselblad, than to a much smaller, less dominant Leica - maybe with a touch of curiosity.

It is indeed absolutely important, to work on strangers in a much more upfront, open and direct way, as you are not supposed, to get as candid, moments with the Hasselblad, as when being invisible with the Leica!
So far, I do not see this as an disadvantage, but more as a difference in concept, planning, to have the Hasselblad as a specific portrait camera at my side, while still using mainly one M body with 35mm and another with either a 21mm, a Noctilux f1 or a short tele, depending on the occasion.

I will upload a small gallery soon with the very first roll from the Hasselblad, so check back soon ;-)

portrait - girl with black glasses

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 17:04:23 +0800

A nother candid portrait from the streets of Shanghai - when I met this young woman, I was completely taken by her natural smile, commented on her smile (felt a bit cheesy, to do so, to be honest) and asked her about taking her photograph.

Well, she liked the idea and I was surprised, to see the same beautiful smile taken on the film, she had, when I met her.

portrait - boy with straw hat

Wed, 28 Dec 2011 16:45:04 +0800

W hen I started with photography, I had this conception, all I needed, was a SLR with powerful zoom lens and my main interest would be motor sports, while I didn’t think the slightest, that I might develop any interest in shooting people.

Well, my preferred tools changed a lot over the years, and to my amusement, looking back, the nature of my photographs and my strongest interests, now being people in everyday situations, changed as well. This boy, I met in Shanghai is no exception - he has been with his parents, when I asked, if I could take a portrait of him:

leaving Paris

Sun, 25 Dec 2011 11:40:46 +0800

L eaving Paris via Charles de Gaulles Airport always has a strange feeling to it. I am usually tired from the long week, shooting Le Mans with a happy smile carved into my face from the greatest of all events over the year, filled my bags with exposed film and full SD cards.

The only last sour moment, leaving Paris is the usual zombies at the security check, refusing proper handling of film …

Here is one of last summers moments from the airport:

going back to Le Mans

Sun, 25 Dec 2011 00:13:09 +0800

W hile working on my film archive, I came over an almost forgotten roll of Tri-X - a roll of film, I shot during the 2011 edition of the 24h of Le Mans. I never printed the shots of this roll so far, but will do, once I have the film prepared. You have no idea, how much I miss Le Mans, looking forward to the 2012 race!

Here is a few impressions of the night:

girl on the bus

Sat, 24 Dec 2011 23:16:44 +0800

A t night it seems, time runs differently and people seem to wander. This is, what makes shooting the nights so fascinating to me. Where might this girl just be? On the bus she might travel, but were is she in reality?

sleepy time

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 15:13:49 +0800

A lthough, if it should be a few days calm here on the blog, I am not sleeping … promise.
I am streamlining my film workflow at the moment - from shooting, developing, scanning (yes, I do a hybrid workflow with exclusively digital printing), post-processing to print/ web publish.

That the fun doesn’t come too short, I am getting used to having a Hasselblad 6x6 as a new companion around with me, when shooting the nights. So you see … not all sleepy around here.

Today’s photograph is shot with my usual standard film - TriX 400, rated @ ISO3200, developed in D-76 1:1.
The often regarded as “almost inaudibly silent” cloth shutter of the Leica MP was too loud for this gentleman though - he woke up from the shutter sound @ 1/125 and chased me around the block thereafter…

Xin Nian Hao - 新 年 好 - Happy New Year