Communication

Greetings and welcome to Hohenfels Volks, THE place for our place! Here’s hoping the weather this weekend will allow for some great shots. Autumn colors are creeping out everywhere you look; it must be time to get some photos!

I'm sorry for the absence. Things have been extremely busy for a while, and are likely to stay that way for the near future! Our contest was a wash, only 1 entry was received. Perhaps our next contest will fare better! On to today's post.

Today I was out shooting with my 4x5 LF camera, when a Polizei stopped by to ask me what I was doing. I know I look strange under the cover and with a 40-year-old camera, so it was no surprise. After telling him I was making a photo, and explaining that it was a tree I was photographing, I let him look at the glass focusing screen. He looked and mentioned that it was nice. I gave him my jacket to cover the screen so he could get a better look. He seemed impressed at the scene of the tree in the village and told me the photo would be beautiful. We spoke for a few minutes and he left. It was a pleasant encounter during a wonderful afternoon shooting.

This led me to thinking about how our photography brings so many diverse peoples and interests together. It even brings our hobbies together. For instance, someone into nature can photograph the beauty of our natural world and relive the splendor repeatedly. Photography is timeless and cultureless when we practice it right. When we put time into our work and know how to deliver our intent, the magic of communication can be brought with it. Keep your vision alive and get out shooting!

Remember, your photos are your words. Make something that speaks for you!

Here’s hoping you enjoy the rest of your week and capture the shots you’ve been wanting. Get out and make it happen, then show us, share what you felt through your images on our Hohenfels Volks Faceboook page.

Is there anything you’d like to see here? Do you have a question? Share your thoughts here or at the Hohenfels Volks Facebook page. Of course, commenting on both Facebook and here is always appreciated, too! Don't forget, we're on Google+, too!

The Importance of Being Creative

Greetings and welcome to Hohenfels Volks, THE place for our place! Lovely weather and photographic opportunities abound here in our place.

Today we’re going to put aside our cameras and calculators, and talk about creativity. We’re also going to take a few days break from our cameras while we look for creative ways to work our magic.

I have a slew of quotes on photography and creativity, but I'm only going to use a couple here to emphasize the need for creativity.

“A Ming vase can be well-designed and well-made and is beautiful for that reason alone. I don't think this can be true for photography. Unless there is something a little incomplete and a little strange, it will simply look like a copy of something pretty. We won't take an interest in it.” From the book "Pictures Under Discussion" by John Loengard, one of Life Magazine's most famous photographers.

This quote brings home how essential creativity is in our photography. Ayn Rand viewed photography as a vocation, or craft, because of the lack of a creative process. Many people do not take the time to be creative when making photos. We often find the image we want and make the photo, without putting more than the rudimentary thought into the process.


 ISO 160, f/8, 1/20
Gloria Lux, the Glory of Light. A creative expression of the majesty of this common and beautiful Orchid. The exposure placement and element positioning work with the light and lack of color to create an image that's more than "a copy of something pretty."

Ansel Adams referred to photography as “more than a medium for factual communication of ideas. It is a creative art.” If you view any of his photos, you will notice beyond their magnificent scenes, that great effort went into making them. His books on photography begin with chapters on visualization. Before you can visualize your photo, you need to have an idea of what you’re photographing. Begin visualizing all the ways it can be photographed long before you arrive. By the time you get there, you’ll be ready to survey and really visualize the image you desire to make.

I speak of visualization here quite a bit. I’ve discovered that slowing down, seeing the scene, and visualizing the shot, make for a more expressive image. Our photographs are our expressions. They express our thoughts, feelings, and most of all, our vision.

Creativity, and the art of creating, can be inspirations for you in and of themselves. You needn’t have a camera to be creative in your photography. In the words of Minor White, another great photographer, “Often while traveling with a camera we arrive just as the sun slips over the horizon of a moment, too late to expose film, only time enough to expose our hearts.”

Take a couple days without your camera. Go out and drink in the glory around you, expose your heart, and feel the scene surround you. You will come out with a better appreciation of the world around us, of our Hohenfels area, and your own magnificent creativity. The feelings will stay with you and inspire more creativity and expressive images. Reward yourself today with inspiration and creativity by feeling the scenes and sights around you. Enjoy the world and life, and share the results with us on our Faceboook page.

Is there anything you’d like to see here? Do you have a question? Share your thoughts here or at the Hohenfels Volks Facebook page. Of course, commenting on both Facebook and here is always appreciated, too! Don't forget, we're on Google+, too!

Projecting Your Vision

Greetings, volks. Welcome to Hohenfels Volks, THE place for our place! Lovely weather, beautiful skies, and an abundance of time give rise for photo opportunities and exercises here.

We’re blessed in the Hohenfels area with such a variety of things to cater to all our interests, at least photographically. Many volks find the castles and historic locations to be the ticket for them, others love the country scenes, and still other volks love seeing the cities. We’re located where you can find something to interest you and fuel your creative fire.

Today we’re going to try to throw some fuel on your fire by revisiting the subject of projects. As we discussed in a previous post, projects can get you thinking and lead to some creative ideas and photos. We’re going to do a short post about getting a project going as an exercise this week.

The first step to completing your project is getting together some ideas thinking through an outline. It’s important to have a theme, something that will tie each image to the other images, and to the project as a whole. Some ideas for projects in the Hohenfels area are shooting only trees, shooting playgrounds, a series of stream shots, or even the local Rathauses. Once you have a general theme, narrow it down some. For instance, if you choose to shoot trees, limit yourself to small trees or something to narrow your scope to less than just “trees.”

Decide on what tools you want to use. Decide on what items you’ll be using in your photography, and put together a kit to bring along. Make sure you have the right tool for the job! If you decide to shoot bugs for instance, don’t use a 24mm wide-angle lens, unless your theme is little specks of bugs in a big scene. Planning now can save you some missed shots later.

Also, think of some limitations on your tools. Perhaps shooting without a flash or using only a prime lens. By adding some creative limitations, you boost your creativity by working with what you have. A very important limitation is limiting the edits you can perform in software. Limit yourself to adjusting levels, curves, brightness, contrast, and saturation. Include these limitations in your visualization, or you may be disappointed with your results. Most photo contests you’re likely to enter limit editing to those listed above. For the purposes of this article, we’re going to use those limitations to help us get the most of the tools we have.

Once all the above have been decided, it’s time to make of list of places where we can the shots to work our project. Know where you’re going, research the places and lighting. You should visit a couple times at different times of day. Know the lighting and knowing how we make the most of it gives you the ability to make your image inspire others.

With everything in place, it’s time to get out and start shooting. Add some variety within your theme by shooting black and white, shooting some color, and low light shots. Keeping to your theme will bring everything together.

Projects can be created for the weekend, for vacation, or even for special days and times. One of my friends, Jen, recently did a series of lighthouses. Her shots were great, and although they have edits like vignettes applied, show how beautiful the structures, and more importantly the locations, are. These things are a marvel for anyone who’s ever seen one, and Jen crafted some wonderful images that fit that to a t! Check out her blog, Jennifer O on our links page, you’ll definitely enjoy her work!

I’ll leave you with a couple shots from one of my on-going projects, featuring crosses and small chapels in our Hohenfels Area.


EI80, f/8, 1/60 Developed N-20% to control tonal range and contrast.
Crosses and Crenelations. Shot on film, exposed to bring the range near bright white on the walls and crenelations of the wall and developed to bring that back to a tone that holds detail. Even though that area is pushing white, the tonal range and detail are available.


ISO 125, f/8, 1/30
Castle and Cross. By shooting the sky at about m+1/3, then decreasing exposure by about 1/2 stop and applying an inverted s-curve to the image, the clouds, cross, and castle all add an element to the image, and create a decent balance.

I hope this inspires everyone to undertake a project of their own. A project can take on a life of its own, and can add some inspiration to your time behind the camera. It doesn't have to take all your photo time, but you may end up giving it a more than fair amount! Take care and enjoy the rest of the week!

Is there anything you’d like to see here? Do you have a question? Let us know what project you're working on! Share your thoughts here or at the Hohenfels Volks Facebook page. Of course, commenting on both Facebook and here is always appreciated, too! Don't forget, we're on Google+, too!

To Enter...

Greetings, volks. Welcome to Hohenfels Volks, THE place for our place! A great weekend slips into the past for those of here in Hohenfels, and a new week has begun.

This afternoon presented some great opportunities for shooting the stormy nature of the season; with high billowy clouds backlit by a sheet like layer of clouds cover. Dramatic skies are incredible photos, and for those willing to take the time, are quite rewarding.

Today we’re going to provide an intro to photo contests.

By now, most of you are doing good stuff with your cameras and making the photos you want. You’re getting great feedback from those who see your pics, and maybe some pointers, too. You should be feeling pretty good, which shows that you’re moving further than the camera thought you could when you were shooting in automatic modes.

A great way to move that feeling along and get some serious feedback is through photo contests. I’m sure some of you have entered online photo contests, and maybe even some juried contests. There are a couple different types, so we’re going to move along to a basic intro to the types you’re likely to encounter.

The first type is the public vote type. This type used to be held in galleries and libraries and occasionally still is. You submit a photo and the public votes on it according their idea of its merits. An offshoot of this type is the online poll. It’s an online posting of photos entered into the contest. These are voted on by the public at large, and may even be linked to your social media accounts. When linked to your social media, this type is often a popularity contest. AFN Bavaria has a monthly contest on their Facebook page that I have entered several times that serves as an example of this type.

The second type we’re going into today is the juried, or judged, type. You submit a work to the contest, then a judge or panel of photography and or art experts reviews all the works submitted. Voting by a panel or a decision by the judge determines the winner. Many of this type charge an entry fee, which goes to cover prizes and other items, such a book of all the finalists.

The popularity contest, or voting, type can be quite frustrating. It can also be incredibly rewarding. The frustration comes in when you don’t get many votes, and you notice the leaders have 100 of their social media friends voting for them. You’ll find that you get discouraged or put off by this. DON’T!!!! These contests are also a great way to get rewarding feedback. Even if no one comments on your work, by counting the tally of votes, and noting how may of those were from other than your friends, you can see how your photograph truly fared. You’ll soon notice that even though you don’t win, folks are responding to your photos, and isn’t that what it’s all about? If you get 20 votes, and 15 of those are from someone other than your friends, that means your photo made an impact on at least 15 viewers, a positive impact at that. Keep entering and keep trying, you’ll start feeling that the notice your image gets is all the reward you need.

The juried contests often offer large prizes, including whole camera kits, gold medals, and cash. These ones require entry fees and your image may not be accepted. Reputable contests, such as the Trierenberg Circuit, will include a catalog or book of all the finalists. Another feature of the reputable ones is that they do not require forfeiture of your rights. They may, however, require rights to use your work in connection with the contest. Bigger ones often refer those entries that are accepted to one of the photography associations for recognition and listing, as well.

In both cases, themes are often involved. When entering, make sure read all the fine print, but make sure to read the entire description of the themes. Not adhering to the theme can get your entry returned without further consideration for other areas where it might fit. These contests usually have some great works in them; so don’t be disappointed should you not win. The main objective is feedback, exposure, and the thrill of being in something beyond the basics of photography.

This post just touched upon some of the basics, there much more information online that can help you get started in choosing the right contest for you. For this week’s exercise, I hope everyone will enter a contest and be thrilled with the chance to share your work with the world!

Is there anything you’d like to see here? Do you have a question? Share your thoughts here or at the Hohenfels Volks Facebook page. Of course, commenting on both Facebook and here is always appreciated, too! Don't forget, we're on Google+, too!

Photo Projects Make Photo Prospects

Greetings, volks. Welcome to Hohenfels Volks, THE place for our place! Cold and gray Hohenfels, actually a beautiful area for photographers, is getting ready for more chances to make that winner.

Today’s going to be another short post. We’re going to talk about our art, and one of the many ways we can get our artistic juices flowing, photography projects.

Simply put, a photo project is a chance to put together a series of images related to one another by some underlying thread of reason. It might be shapes or colors, or even related to some current event. The basic premise is to unit a series of images, similar or otherwise, with this thread that is the basis for your project.

Here are a couple ideas to check out, trains, country roads, trees, coffee houses, or even a series of shots with only the street they’re taken on being the commonality. They force us to examine and see threads that are often overlooked and allow us to develop our style, technique, and ability to see the world around for the opportunities it presents.


ISO 200, f/5.6, 1/500, 50mm
Springtime in the park. Spring makes an excellent photo project! This was metered for the tree trunk area and shot at M-2, with -1 stop in conversion from RAW. Using a yellow filter brought out the hanging vine-like leaves of the tree.

I’m hoping everyone will undertake their own photo project over the next couple of weeks; I’d love to see how you’re viewing things. Many of us see the same things every day, but we all view them differently, and these little projects will help you show your point of view!

Don’t forget to post any of your images you’d like to see here at the Hohenfels Volks Facebook page. Of course, commenting on both Facebook and here is always appreciated, too! Don't forget, we're on Google+, too!

Monday's Exercise

Greetings, volks. Welcome to Hohenfels Volks, THE place for our place! I hope everyone had a chance to grab a shot you can be proud of this weekend.

As promised, today we’re introducing our first exercise. With this exercise, you can learn a lot about composition, as well as spatial compression, DOF, and lighting.

The exercise is simple, for the next week, you’re to only shoot with 1 prime lens. That means if you choose your 50mm, then you can only shoot your 50mm. Whatever the focal length, stick to only one prime focal length lens. If you don’t have a prime, if you only have your kit or some other zoom lens, then choose only 1 focal length, either racked out full zoom, or minimum zoom. Don’t cheat and use the zoom for any of your work.

This simple exercise will teach you how to be creative in your composition. It means you will need to visualize your shot, see the framing and cropping before shooting. You will almost definitely need to move to get the shot. Either move in, out, or change your angle, and you will have something entirely different. Just using zoom doesn’t give you that.

Zooming your lens will change your perspective and create the framing you’d like. However, it also compresses the perspective, which can make for really good DOF. Zooming with your feet and opening your aperture can give some nice DOF effects, too, and does so without compressing perspective. Zooming can change the impact of your lighting, so can moving.


ISO 400, f/5, 1/100, 44mm, daylight balanced. The shot was metered for the rotunda and exposed for M+1, then edited for M-1, increasing the saturation and improving the tonal range.
This was one of the sunset shots taken in Prague last weekend. It took several attempts to get it right, but just moving around made the scene match what I had envisioned. Give it a try for yourself before you shoot that next pic!

Take a walk around your subject. Approach from different angles and distances. You will start seeing how these little limitations can open up a whole world of possibility. The old masters had to work with 1 focal length or lens for a long time. Lenses were heavy, cumbersome, and often not the way to get the shot. Learning to see in this way is a great tool to open up your creativity and improve your composition.

Rise to the challenge and share your shots. We’d love to see your work and the fruits of your exercise. Enjoy the rest of a wonderful week and make sure you get 1 in the can!

Don’t forget to post any of your images you’d like to see here at the Hohenfels Volks Facebook page. Of course, commenting on both Facebook and here is always appreciated, too! Don't forget, we're on Google+, too!

Motivation

Greetings, volks. Welcome to Hohenfels Volks, THE place for our place!

Today we’re taking a trip into the realm of motivation. This can have a big impact on your images and art. We’ll be short today, and give you some time to get the shot.

We’ve discussed inspiration, which, on the surface, seems to have some connection with motivation. But, motivation involves more than being inspired, it involves your mindset and desire. Many Volks out there often have no motivation to go out and make photos; they’re busy with life, which is understandable.

A great way to get motivated to make photos is to bring your camera everywhere. In my case, I usually have one with me, whether it’s film or digital. Taking your camera everywhere gets you into the habit of looking for that magic light, of looking beyond the surface. It brings a bit of the itchy shutter finger, and the desire to shoot something that inspires us.

Part of getting motivated is to incorporate photography into activities you’re doing or plan to do, anyway. A good example is taking a walk, going out to get fresh air or burn calories. By having your camera, you can kill 2 birds with that desire to get out. Maybe it’s playtime with your child or a day trip with the family. Plan in advance some things you’d like to see, and that you’re likely to want a shot of. Then when you’re out playing, walking, or day tripping, you can get your photos and still accomplish your primary task.

Getting motivated is much easier when you combine the basic functions you’re doing, anyway, with your photography.

Here’s hoping the rest of your week is great, and you’re motivated to make a winning image!

Don’t forget to post any of your images you’d like to see here at the Hohenfels Volks Facebook page. Of course, commenting on both Facebook and here is always appreciated, too! Don't forget, we're on Google+, too!