The Photokina, one of the biggest trade shows for photography, will take place in Cologne from September 21 to 26. As Cologne is only half an hour away, I will probably go there, even though I am not too technology-oriented. Two years ago I was at the Visual Gallery, which was impressive. As the admission to the exhibitions is free, I will go there. But I am not yet sure I I also go to the trade fair. It probably depends: If i win a free ticket, I’ll go. The good thing is that there are plenty of opportunities to win free tickets, which I want to share with you. The dates in brackets give the respective deadlines.
Photoappar.at: Ralf-Jürgen Stilz hast 5 one-day tickets, you only have to ask him a question about lomography in the comments (in German, probably). (August 11 2010)
BlogTimes.info: Ronny has 10 tickets, but to have tha chance to get one you need to edit a photo he offers for download in DNG format. (August 31 2010)
The same holds true for the five day passes of Martin from visuelleGedanken. (15. August)
Answer the question “What do you look forward to most at this photokina” at fotoTopic and maybe you win one of ten tickets. (August 20)
If you send them 7 reasons why you use DiaShow 7, you might get one of the 150 day tickets from the Das AquaSoft Blog. (August 31)
EIZO gives away one two-ticket-set per week. (September 19)
The tanala Foto GmbH does the same among all it’s Facebook fans.
Florian Freistetter von Astrodicticum Simplex hat mich gefragt, ob ich nicht einmal das Blog-Teleskop verranstalten möchte. Na klar, die Ehre nehme ich gerne an, trotz unerträglicher Hitze, die bei manch einem Blog schon zum Hitzefrei geführt hat . Somit folgt jetzt eine subjektive und unvollständige Zusammenfassung interessanter Beiträge aus den letzten beiden Wochen der deutschen Astronomie-Blogwelt.
“Meine kleine Astrowelt” hat ein Video entdeckt, dass den Einstieg in die Himmelsbeobachtung erleuchtern sollte.
Daniel Fischer gibt einen ziemlich umfassenden Überblick über die Auswirkungen ein halbes Jahr nach Ende des Internationalen Jahres der Astronomie 2009. Respekt, das muss viel Arbeit gewesen sein …
Leonard Burtscher von “Promotion mit Interferenzen” fragt: Warum Berufsastronom? und gibt drei gute Antworten.
Auf “Lichtecho” findet sich ein äußerst lesenswerter Text von Stefan Taube zum Thema Wasser auf der Venus. Warum auch immer nur vom Mars sprechen?
Ludmilla von “Hinterm Mond gleich links” schreibt über den Anfang des Universums. Nein, nicht den Urknall, sondern darüber, dass auch wir hier auf der Erde ein Teil des Universums sind. Ein Update des Milchstrassenbildes gab es dann auch noch. Ist schon spannend, wie sich die Struktur unserer Galaxie durch neue Erkenntnisse “verändert”.
Und zum Schluss wird noch ein Stern ausgeknipst, drüben bei “Himmelslichter”: In der Nacht vom 8. zum 9. Juli wird ein Asteroid eine kurze … nenne wir es Sternfinsternis verursachen.
Da ich mich im Blog auch immmer gerne mit der Fotogrfie beschäftige gibt es zum Abschluss noch Hinweise auf eine Reihe spannender Bilder: Auf “Asterythms” spielten Geduld und die richtige Position zusammen, das Ergebnis ist ein Foto vom untergehenden Mond mit einem Windrad davor. Windparks scheinen übrigens einen guten Vordergrund abzugeben, so auch für das Bild Leuchtender Nachtwolken auf “Astrofan80’s Blog”. Beeindruckende Astrofotografien von Nebeln kann hingegen Jörg vom “Heuchelheimer Himmelsfähnchen” präsentieren. Eine Vielzahl von Aufnahmen mit Astronomiebezug präsentiert Daniel Fischer stets auf seinem Blog “Skyweek Zwei Punkt Null“, da will ich gar keinen speziellen Beitrag heraus greifen.
Das war es von meiner Seite. Wer mag kann gerne noch weitere interessante Beiträge in den Kommentaren ergänzen.
Two weeks ago my professor and me were interviewed by the Deutschlandfunk, which is a big German Radio Station. The topic, of course, was the new study concerning Dark Matter. The (German) broadcast can be found online as a Podcast and in text. This week we got another Interview request, now from NDR Info. As my professor and the other Co-Author from Bonn are at a conference in the US right now, I was the only one to be interview. You can imagine this made me a bit nervous, but it turned out to be fine.
The broadcast (again in German, sorry), will be aired today between 9 and 10 pm in the NDR Info show “Logo”. It will also be available as a podcast (starting at 39:30 into the file). I am curious what it will be like.
For Monday evening I was asked to talk about the Modified Newtonian Dynamics at our institute’s Astro Club. That’s a regular (voluntary) meeting for the younger physics students*, organized by several very committed tutors. They give easy to understand (and usually German) talks and, if the weather is fine, also observe with the institute’s telescope.
After that I hope to find more time for my work again. And for some posts on black and white infrared photography (film, of course), as I have already shown you two of my infrared photos in the post about faked UFO photos. As an introduction, here is another one. It shows the Sydney Harbor Bridge.
As a transition stage back to some photography blogging, I’d like to point you at a documentary: “The Eye 3D“. It was produced last year, as part of the International Year of Astronomy, and shows the “life and work at cerro paranal” in the Chilenian Acatama desert, where the Very Large Telescope is located.
On their website, you can find some 3D still pictures which you can enjoy if you have one of these red/blue glasses. The trailer below is in 2D, but I think it already gives an impression.
A wonderful slating review of the new German esoteric-magazine “Happinez” by Jenni Zylka on Spiegel Online. Beautyfully written, but unfortunately in German.
After the two recent posts on my current photo series ‘Quadrants’, today I’d like to show you a single picture again. It is related to the series, though, as is was shot in the German city of Frankfurt and shows the city’s skyscrapers, too. In the following, I will discuss its composition. It is always interesting to see which details I find in my own photos that I did not realize when I pressed the trigger.
I very much like the composition of this shot. Lots of diagonal lines, triangles and plain areas. The center of the picture is defined by the head of a street lantern, attracting the eye. The dark lantern’s post divides the picture with a diagonal line in a harmonic ratio. The lantern is surrounded, or better: framed, by the two tall buildings. The perspective and distortion of the architecture gives you a feeling of their height. In addition to the buildings, the lantern head is framed to the bottom by a short airplane trail. That condensation trail spreads between the left building and the lantern post, touching neither of them. Actually, no element of the photo is in front of another one, giving it a lighter feel, I think.
The geometry of the picture is beautifully emphasized by the black and white. The graduation is mild but there is enough contrast in every part of the photo. The sky is not over-exposed but shows a slight gradient, becoming lighter to the right. I just realized that the airplane is heading for that lighter part. Guess that helps creating the mood of the picture.
This post is my reaction to a call for all German Photography-Blogs. lts not very interesting, so I do not translate it. Instead, I will post another in a few moments.
Auf BlogTimes gibt es einen Aufruf von Ronny an alle deutschsprachigen Fotografieblogs, sich doch bitte zu melden. Dabei wird eine offenbar stattliche Liste von Blogs zum Thema Fotografie zusammen kommen. Ich melde mich mit diesem Beitrag ebenfalls gerne. Dazu muss ich aber erstmal einige Fragen beantworten. Wer das Blog regelmaessig liesst kennt meine Antworten sicherlich schon, daher gibt es gleich im Anschluss noch einen weiteren Beitrag.
Seit wann besteht Dein Fotografieblog?
Da muss ich kurz nachschauen … oh, seit dem 2. Juni 2008. Ich habe also in kürze zweijährigen Geburtstag … vielleicht sollte ich mir bis dahin noch etwas feierliches ausdenken.
Welche Schwerpunktthemen behandelt Dein Blog? ( z.B Allgemein, Tipps und Tricks, Technik, Fotowettbewerbe, Eigene Inhalte*** über die Fotografie, usw….)
Vor allem analoge schwarzweiss-Fotografie, darunter viele eigene Inhalte, die ich vorstelle, bespreche und erläutere. Ich tue das in der Hoffnung, dass andere und auch ich selbst etwas dadurch lernen. Zugegeben, manchmal endet das auch eher in philosophischen Betrachtungen. Ausserdem schreibe ich Ausstellungsbesprechungen und gebe hin und wieder allgemeinere Tipps und Hinweise oder beschreibe wie manche Bilder entstehen (zum Beispiel die UFO-Fälschungen). Neben der Fotografie kommen manchmal auch andere Themen zur Sprache.
Wieviel Beiträge veröffentlichst Du durchschnittlich pro Woche?
Das schwankt üblicherweise zwischen einem und drei pro Woche, momentan bin ich arbeitsbedingt in einem längeren Beitragstief, aus dem ich langsam wieder herauskriechen will. Insgesamt zählt fuer mich aber die Qualität und Länge eines Beitrags, nicht die bloße Veröffentlichungs-Frequenz.
Welche fotografischen Bereiche interessieren Dich in der Fotografie?
Nun, vom technischen her die analoge schwarzweiss-Fotografie, das merkt man beim Betrachten der Seite sehr schnell. Bevorzugte Genres und Motive sind hierbei Landschaften und Städte. Ausserdem einige konzeptionelle Serien, die eher dokumentarisch sind. Ein Bereich, der mich besonders interessiert, auch wenn ich selbst nicht sehr aktiv darin bin, ist die Reportagefotografie.
It is relaxing to look at a lot of classical photography. In the web, it is always about the most-recent camera models, the most trendy style and the most impressive photoshopping techniques. This noise suddenly vanishes when one enters the photo exhibition “Licht Gestalten”. The show in the Rheinisches Landes Museum in Bonn shows photography by Konrad Rufus Müller, from the years 1960 to 2010. They all are black and white, analogue and Müller himself printed them in his Darkroom. Even today he still works with his 1975 analogue medium format camera. And only with available light. Still he is successful and his photos are published in many important magazines.
Konrad Rufus Müller shoots portraits. Mostly German politicians. There is a reason why he often is called “the chancellor-photographer”. Since the first one, Konrad Adenauer, he has took the portraits of every single chancellor in Germany. And those of other politicians and well-known persons. Short texts in the exhibition tell the stories behind some of the photos. From those one can learn that contacts and recommendations are essential in this field. Furthermore, Müller meets his subjects at eye-level. He is neither stunned by their power, nor does he try to expose them in a bad way. He does not call himself a journalist, but a Artist (he studies painting), a chronicler maybe. The exhibition thus not only shows his portraits, but also still lifes and landscapes.
The presentation of the photos is structured alphabetical, according to the subjects’ names , not chronological. With Konrad Rufus Müller’s photography this works very well. Like the technology he uses, his stile has remained similar over the years, it seems. The exhibition is very enjoyable and interesting. It shows, that it is not of importance to follow every trend. The true photo artist better finds his or her own way, sticking to it.
Here comes the second part of my Quadrants photo series is from Sydney, Australia. For a description of the project, please have a look at the last post. Basically, I take black and white photos of skyscrapers from a special, vertical perspective to point out the order in urban planning from a human point of view. Up to now I have done this architecture photography in two big cities, Frankfurt in Germany and Sydney in Australia.
Compared to the pictures taken in Frankfurt, one problem becomes obvious: the Frankfurt photos have been produced on a day with completely blue sky. While the weather in Australia used to be fine, too, the sky does show some clouds. I used a dark red filter to darken the blue sky, giving me a contrast between the sun-lit facades of the buildings and the space in between. Unfortunately, this also increases the contrast between the clouds and the sky. That way in many pictures the sky is not as empty as in the Frankfurt shots, which makes the black and white photographs a bit more visually disturbed. A professional Artist might have wanted to wait for better conditions. But as that was not possible for me, I have to take what I got. And I am happy with several of them.
For now, these two cities are the only ones where I worked on this series. I would very much like to continue it in Paris, the La Defence area should be perfect for this concept.
Now the leading German online-newspaper, Spiegel Online, shows the results, too. Including my photo! While they mention my Name as the creator of the picture, they did not bother to ask me weather I would allow them to use it on their site. That’s very bad behavior, I think. I am used that teenagers violate my copyright and post my photos in guestbooks of social communities like Facebook or MySpace. But a serious news website should know it better, especially since Florian send them the email addresses of all winning participants so that they could have asked.
Sure, I am happy to see my picture on their site, but at least a link to my blog would have made sense. They, after all, profit from my work by entertaining their readers.
. Somit folgt jetzt eine subjektive und unvollständige Zusammenfassung interessanter Beiträge aus den letzten beiden Wochen der deutschen Astronomie-Blogwelt.
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