To be honest I’m always a little bit nervous when doing wedding pictures. The couple relies on you. And you (actually me) are standing there with a lens as big as the frozen grin in your face, knowing that you have to be somehow creative without any influence on weather. Well alright the location was perfect. The couple decided to have their photos taken in the Eremitage in Bayreuth, which is a large area with old fashioned buildings and gardens. The weather was very cloudy and thundery, but stable.

For the first picture I positioned the couple right in the light, which fell through an open spot in the allée. Rolf, my right hand, reflected the light with a Lastolite Trigrip from left. This gave enough natural light and contrast in front of the long green allée.

The next spot was the so called sun temple. Both desperately wanted a picture in front of the building. My first attempt was to take these pictures with a wide lens. It was almost raining and the result looked like crappy pictures from a disposable camera. So I tempted the couple away from the building and attached my 80-200 f2.8. And here we go.

Sometimes people reproach me for using photoshop (PS) without knowing if I even do so. The fact is, for all these pictures I have not touched PS. But it’s true I’ll never be able to use the raw pictures my camera gives me. Sorry cam but you are dumb. My camera has no human eye and I’m not speaking about retouching, hell no! It will always have problems with levels and sometimes with white balance. I think adjusting pictures is not a sakrilege. It is sometimes just a necessity.

The grass was wet but I simply like the depth of the picture and the faces in the picture.

Actually sometimes you have to be lucky. Who were these people and where were they coming from? Don’t ask, just shoot! I only used some fill light light from my flash, mounted on the camera.

For the last two spots a reflector made no sense as there was nothing to reflect any more. The sun was gone and a few rain drops fell. So hiding under the big trees and at the sun temple was a good option. The sun temple with its white pillars wouldn’t necessarily give enough contrast to the bridal dress, but due to the different color tones it worked out perfect. Rolf softened the light with a white “softener” (or whatever this is called).

Thank you, Rolf!

A nearby park which I cross when jogging has some nice spots, so we decided to shoot in a small clearing where sunlight could easily fall through the trees and provide light and shadow. As often plans do not necessarily work out well. The morning of the wedding I found myself sticking to my tablet to observe satellite pictures in order to estimate when rain would stop.  Needless to say that weddings have a tight schedule and so we had to start at 10 anyway. But thank God at least rain stopped shortly after their arrival at the park only leaving heavy clouds that would hide the sun for the next hour, destroying my plans on light and shadow.

I decided to switch on my spare sun and clamped a flashlight with 1/2 orange gel into the trees in order to add some spice to the photos; a friend held a reflector to mirror the artificial sun. I think for most of the pictures this setup worked out well.

I wish you all the best M&R.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Warnemünde Lighthouse

I cannot remember I have ever been to the Baltic Sea and so it was at least for me, whose Germany is mountainous Bavaria, a beautiful surprise. I went to two of Germany’s islands Usedom and Rügen with a friend and on the way back home we stopped at Stralsund and Warnemünde.

Usedom Coast

Sunrise at the Selling pier

Sunrise on Rügen

Old oxygen plant in Peenemünde

Photoshooting at the coast

Hongkong restaurant

Hongkong - Kowloon

The more we enjoyed the relatively fresh air and the rain on the crowded and busy streets. Hongkong reminded me of India (many indian people/tailors) and England (cars are driving on the left side). Streets are narrow, shops are side by side and jewelers at every corner selling jade jewelry. At the first night we “enjoyed” the huge laser show at the harbor. Laser beams are projected into the night sky accompanied with music – to be honest we saw this show twice and we didn’t like it that much, although it’s a kind of unique.

Symphony of Lights

Best thing to do in Hongkong is definitely to climb up Victoria Peak which is on Hongkonog Island. It is also possible to be driven up in a cable car but I will not miss to find the way up on my own. Humidity is breathtaking but I could enjoy the longest path of escalators in the world and get the feeling of being in a jungle. At the top it’s much cooler and windier and we spend our time with walking the Victoria garden trail and eating at Bubba Gump’s until I could take the picture of Hongkong skyline.

Hongkong Skyline

Victoria Harbour

There are many things to do in and around Hongkong, like visiting the Chi Lin Nunnery with its beautiful garden, seeing the biggest sitting buddha Tian Tan on the top of a mountain on Lantau, relaxing at Kowloon Park, walking through bird and flower market or just go shopping for cheap electronics.

Tian Tan Buddha

Chi Lin Nunnery

Kowloon Park

Hongkong seems to be different to Shanghai and Beijing, regarding food, people and mentality. It is more western like although it makes the impression to be indian and british…like a big chinatown in a british colony in India. Briefly speaking I liked it most in Hongkong.

At the fish market

My private symphony of lights

Shanghai Skyline

When leaving the subway at Yuyuan Garden my first impression was that the city was louder and the climate already warmer. At the exit of the subway something odd happened, we were already “expected” by a mid-aged couple that I would, in retrospect, rate as informers of the communist party. Or why should exactly we, struggeling with backpacks and suitcases, take a picture of them, speak about our travel adventures, letting us explain the way to our hotel? Considering that everyone applying for a visa must send detailled copies of the travel itinerary, hotel reservations and flights it only makes sense that someone proofs the truth. I mean they were nice people and the first ones who spoke perfect English, so nothing to worry about…although a bad first impression of the city.

Early Morning at The Bund

Some of the must sees in Shanghai are The Bund, a long promenade at the river with a beautiful view of the skyline, Yuyuan Garden, an oasis in the middle of the turbulent old town, the view from the World Financial Center or (cheaper) from the 88 floor of the Jin Mao Tower. The bar/restaurant at the top of the Jin Mao Tower does have reasonable prices, a nice atmosphere and a spectacular view – there is no need to go see the skywalk at the World Financial Center. From floor 56 I was not only fascinated by the 32 story high atrium but also by the band which plays modern songs with chinese instruments (e.g. er-hu); they play every night, starting at 7 p.m. After I found out that the hotel sells a CD from “On 56″, I went back and bought it. Actually I liked the unplugged version at the hotel better, where they didn’t use percussion. But it’s still a nice compilation of melodic songs.

Shanghai and Beijing can sometimes be shocking when it comes to people begging for money. Some of them were crippled, making there way through the subway at rush-hour, sometimes walking, sometimes sitting on a skateboard. Some of them were walking through the narrow food concourse in Shanghai – one guy was pushing a kind of hospital-bed through the narrow streets, begging for money for an older man, who seemed to sleep on the mattress. For well situated Europeans like us a scene like this hits you with a brick.

Chinese Man

Old and Modern

The food concourse that I mentioned above is close to the southern end of the The Bund. It is packed with people and gas cookers, with raw meat, tofu things and fish-like meals. We decided to have noodles and rice and a soup, which looked like dishwater. But no things to worry as soon as I learned that the dish was not really washed, but only thrown into a bowl with water where it was waiting for the next customer, it was no longer the soup I was afraid of. After many meals with gristles and bones I was pretty happy with rice and vegetables, although the table we were sitting at was covered with bones…from other people. However I’m still sure that we could have eaten anything as it is always fresh made and tested by a many people.

Food concourse Shanghai

I noticed for the second time that my Fuji X100 shows some odd behavior. It would over- and underexpose pictures when shooting one and the same scene (e.g. Shanghai skyline) with exactly the same settings for aperture and shutter (manual mode). Something like that must never ever happen! Now that I googled the problem I found out that I’m not the only one, the “codename” is sticky-aperture blades and I will have to send the camera in for repair.

The Bund

Chinese Girls

Handcraft in the street

World Financial Center Shanghai

Bar Rouge at The Bund

Stairway to Heaven - Great Wall

Jiankou section - Great Wall

The camping site was closto one of the watchtowers of the Great Wall where we set up our tents, made a warming fire and ate a chinese meal which was, due to its self-heating mechanism, designed for soldiers or for people like us. It was delicious and had (surprisingly) no bones, gristles or skin. Sadly the sky was cloudy and it became very cold so that we decided to go to bed early.
After a night of freezing and only dozing I somehow managed to get up at 5.45 and grab my backpack in order to look for a good spot for catching the sunrise, of which I was not sure it will ever come.
I came to a watchtower where the second floor had been destroyed and so I climbed up and waited for the sun. And luckily the sun was looking through the clouds from time to time tinting the Great Wall with a pale warm light. I decided to use a graduated Singh-Ray filter to handle the different brightness of the sky and the mountains and additionally I took different exposures of the same frame that I later combined in order to improve the dynamic range. This is the very first image I ever took with the intention making an HDR. To be honest the combination was not really needed but it slighly improved the darker parts of the picture. I guess the effect would have been more intense if I had not been using a graduated filter.

Jiankou - Great Wall

Actually to be honest it was quite an expensive trip but it was worth it. I am pretty sure it makes a difference if you just see a perfectly rebuilt stone wall which could stand anywhere or if you touch and feel the stones people layed almost 2000 years ago. And we really felt it as Jiankou is a beautiful, though very steep, part of the Great Wall with a picturesque scenery. If one sees the dimension of the wall from this point one can hardly imagine that the whole length is over 8.000 km! Remarkable!