Photography and Stories by Crazy Ivory

Bye Bye

2011-06-22T14:14:00.001+02:00

This blog is finished at this point.
But I dont stop blogging.
See my new website here!

YAY!

Featured on Sharemag.net

2011-03-19T16:10:00.001+01:00

I have been featured on Sharemag.net:

Thanks to José for the chance to showcase my art.

Featured on Abduzeedo.com

2010-12-27T12:28:00.002+01:00

Hey guys,

I havent been posting during the last months, I just totally forgot about it.

But now I have been featured on Abduzeedo.com

I am really proud and thankful to have my artworks featured there, they are featuring awesome artists and to stand in a line with them is flattering me.
Thanks to Paulo Gabriel for publishing me. Peace.

1st May 2010 in Berlin

2010-05-02T20:45:00.000+02:00

Documentation of my 1st May 2010 in Berlin.
To comment on those shots or look at them a bit larger please click here!

turkish marketeer in Kreuzberg little girl at MyFest in Kreuzberg

man between cordons of police at schönhauser allee /// van with soundsystem on it at schönhauser allee

traces of riots next to schönhauser allee cordons of police at schönhauser allee

policeman filming demonstrators /// people watching demonstrations from a rooftop at schönhauser allee

person watching policemen at schönhauser allee /// demonstrations and cordons of police at schönhauser allee

person in tiger costume /// traces of demonstration at
at schönhauser allee schönhauser allee

jesus with anti-nazi balloon// left wing activists using a fire drencher policemen in Kreuzberg
next to schönhauser allee // on a rooftop in Kreuzberg

hit person in Kreuzberg woman watching burning barricade at Reichenberger Straße/Ohlauer Straße

photographers shooting the burning barricade policemen after extinguishing the burning barricade
at Reichenberger Straße/Ohlauer Straße at Reichenberger Straße/Ohlauer Straße

policemen after extinguishing the burning barricade
at Reichenberger Straße/Ohlauer Straße

BEFORE/AFTER "Lifelines"

2010-04-09T19:43:00.001+02:00

This is the BEFORE/AFTER of my shot "lifelines".

In my opinion this is an wonderful example for how incredibly useful RAW format is. Its impressive what kind of colors appear if you tweak the white balance just a bit. Especially in this case it wouldnt have been possible to work with that image in such a creative way if I wouldnt have had this in RAW.

A BIG CHANGE:From the 400D to the 40D

2010-02-25T17:57:00.001+01:00

Hmh, where to start?
The followers of my stream already know that I have a new Cam now. I bought a wonderful Canon EOS 40D three weeks ago. In this post I will tell you about my personal opinion and experience after using it heavily for two weeks ann shooting about 2500 images with it.

I thought about buying a new DSLR for some time now but I always wanted to buy it not before my 400D breaks down. I am still very happy with the 400D but since I am planning a big trip to Chile in July I had the plan to buy a second body so that I can definitely shoot during the whole trip. I am really afraid of a camera breakdown during the trip because this would mean that I couldnt shoot from that point on by any chance.
Thats why I started looking around for a second body that I could take with me.

After reading MANY reports and forums on the internet I became sure and surer that the 40D would be my choice.
To me it seemed like all the new Canons are compared to the 40D especially in terms of autofocus. This somehow convinced me. The other differences to my 400D such as liveview, 6.5fps instead of 3.5, ISO 3200 and the metal body also convinced me to take this one.

When I compared the prices on the internet I was quite surprised how expensive this body is. I planned to spend 700€, not instantly but rather in April or May. Nevertheless I started searching ebay and other sites and as soon as a couple of days later I had found MY camera. It was offered as "practically new" and that it had only been used one time for a couple of shots.
It even has warranty until January of 2011!!
So I bid the minimum bet of 599€ and began to wait until the end. Nothing happened and it was mine.
Pretty easy isnt it?
That way I got a 800€ camera for only 600.

So what is my experience now?

When I first got it in my hands I felt at home.
Everything is bigger and feels more qualitative. Its also a bit heavier.
The whole way the buttons are placed is different and it makes you going loco....the first two hours. Then its just great. The hardest part was it to get used to the display on the upper side.
The 400D shows ALL settings on the LCD Display so this still feels completely "unnormal" to me.
I even thought the battery was empty after putting it in for the first time because the LCD display didnt show anything. I recharged the battery and THEN I realized how this baby works.

Now I want to tell you about the image quality. Since its a 10MP camera just like my old one(400D) I wouldnt have expected such a big change. The biggest differences are the good high ISO results (at least up to ISO 1000) and a perfectly working focus. Most images dont look really sharp on the LCD until you zoom in. I only use the middle focussing point and it really is spot on. Even in real low light situations its on spot most of the times. This was one really negative point with the 400D which is not at all good in these low light things. For me it is a bit like when I got my first DSLR and had to play with it 24/7. I used my 400D with my 18-55mm most of the times since I wanted to be spontaneous. Now I store it in my bag with the 50mm in 99% of the cases because I just love to play with it in low light situations. Of course the more expensive Canons are much better in that but in this class its one of the best IMO.

To sum up: Its a really good, high quality camera with many advantages to the 400D and its worth to change since its better in almost all points.

The only exception from that is the ON-OFF Button which is shit. How should I use this fucking small switch for example when I am wearing gloves. Its impossible. And I also think that it is likely to break when used too often. This is why I decided to not switch the cam off when its not in use but leave it in standby. This way its always ready!

Battery Grip:

I bought a Phottix Battery Grip shortly after buying the cam. I did it because this camera is too big to shoot portrait format comforably without one. I wouldnt have thought that these 65€ would be such a good investment. This battery grip really makes the camera even more handy and grippy, And I can now shoot portrait without having to straighten every image in postpro. Its just possible to shoot symmetrically now. And thats wonderful. So get yourself one and try it out. You will love it. I swear!

criticism:

What I loved most about my 400D was its reliability. I knew that I could trust the battery indicator and that it was possible to shoot up to 500 frames with one charged battery. The 40D is not as reliable as this. Its battery shows the almost empty sign already after 100 frames or so and from this point on it will blink for another 300 or 400 frames. You never know when its going to die. Thats pretty fucked I think.

So this is what I think about my camera. I will update this post if I have new information or experiences.

Keep on Clickin'

Before/After "four stylish baldheads by H&M"

2010-01-29T15:22:00.001+01:00

Before/After for my most recent shot.
I tried to create a studio like atmosphere by brightening the whole image and stamping away everything that distracts the view.
The whole postpro took me about 45 minutes.

Before/After "watching the ants and feeling alone"

2009-12-24T13:54:00.001+01:00

This is the Before/After of my most recent shot "watching the ants and feeling alone".

To achieve this night effect I started processing with rendering a HDR from 3 single exposures that I took using exposure bracketing function of my Canon EOS 400D.
After finishing this I applied some curves and color filters to get this purple sky and city toning.
Then I thought about adding a human element by adding me sitting on the platform in the bottom right corner of the shot. I then decided to not add a person but a heart to show that you are not alone even if you are standing there in solitude.

I wish you some nice and hopefully relaxing days!!

KEEP CLICKIN'!!!.

My first Interview

2009-11-02T21:28:00.001+01:00

Interview

I have recently been interviewed by happyphoton.de. I was very surprised when they asked me to anwer their questions because I thought that my style is not at all one that would qualify me for being interviewed. I always had the feeling that the only artists that get the chance to say what they think are the ones that are very good in a specific style of photography for example BW, Portrait or Photoshop or something like that.
I was more than happy when I got the mail because earlier this week I got the getty sales statement that I already blogged about.

All the german readers of this blog can read the interview here.

Since most of the readers here are non-germans (at least I believe so) I will translate it for you now:

INTERVIEW

What are you doing jobwise (if photography is not your profession)?

I am at the age of 20 and I just started an apprenticeship in an marketing agency in September. Before that I served my civilian service where many of my images came into being (too much free time and too many ideas).

What role does photography play in your life?

Since I started shooting photography has become more than a hobby for me. It is my balance in the freetime. Those shooting moments are the ones that let me relax most. And I ALWAYS take my camera with me because what I hate most are situations and moments that I cannot capture. I happened to me several times that I left my camera at home. I regretted it most of the times.
Besides that the contact with other photographers is a very educational and interesting thing which lets me see photography as a medium for meeting people.
I have met several photographers which I got to know via flickr and I still am in good contact with many of them. There are also friendships that emerged from that.
Among those meetings there have been many international experiences with people from other countries such as Switzerland, chile and the USA.

How did you start photographing?

When I started with photography it was more like a means to an end than an appeal or something like that.
I have always been interested in getting along with digital image processing and someday I started getting into that and teaching myself everything I needed to know with the help of online tutorials, books etc.
I had no person to ask.
When I became better at processing it wasn't sufficient to process images from the web anymore because I couldn't say that those were "my artworks".
So I took the 5MP compact cam from my parents and started shooting flowers in the backyard and processing them. The results fascinated me.

What equipment are you using?

From that time on I got out again and again, played around and only two months later I had decided to buy me a DSLR. I had the money for doing this and so I bought my Canon EOS 400D + 18-55mm + Canon 50mm f/1.8 + Tamron 70-300mm. I am still using this combo.
When I decided which lenses to buy I didn't pay attention to tests. I only decided according to price and focal lengths. I found it senseless to buy lenses for more than 150 euro since I was a beginner. This attitude did not change since that day. I am more than happy with my selection.

What is the most difficult thing when you are shooting?

Focussing in the darkness and shooting portraits of people. But I am working on both.

What inspires you?

I am getting my inspiration from everything. I view many images on the internet, I am very attentive when going through the streets or I just play around with all day stuff on rainy days. And in many cases I just start shooting and the ideas emerge while doing so. I just point the camera towards everything I find interesting and almost every time there is something good resulting from that. Old things are very inspirational too

Have you got a favourite place?

There are many. I have a special affection for old buildings which are spread over berlin in uncountable numbers. I love it to imagine the stories, looking through old papers and just absorbing the atmosphere of those places. The biggest difficulty is it to capture this atmosphere because images only appeal to the eyes. The special things on location are the different smells, the spiderwebs, the darkness and somehow the illegality and the danger that is present everywhere since there are holes in the ground, fragile walls, brads etc. Ccapturing all this in an image is a big challenge and it always makes me happy when it works out.

A film that has changed your worldview?

I would name those two:

1. The Counterfeiters
2. From Lions and Lambs

What tips can you give to beginners?

Try around and just do it! Dont let yourself be restricted by the expectations of others.
Have fun! This is the most important part and one can recognize that when viewing the results.
Aside from that its very important to know your equipment. This does not mean reading the manual but that in some situations its just irreplaceable to know where the important buttons are situated. As often as I had to change lenses or settings while standing in pitch-black rooms I now feel that I really KNOW my camera.
Besides that this preserves you from missing moments because you dont know how to adjust the exposure time.

Getty Images: My first sales

2009-10-25T19:54:00.001+01:00

As I already wrote on Flickr I have had my first sales on Getty. I have started there about 5 month ago so it really took a while until I sell my first stuff. In fact I dont like to speak about numbers(you may understand) but I can tell you some other details about this sales.

In fact I had three sales:

This one has been selled one time. Pretty reasonable I think because its very stock-like and a very good shot of mine.

The other two customers bought this:

This was a big surprise for me because in fact this was not more than a snapshot and I was very unsure about publishing that one. At the end I decided to do it since I had never seen such a door before and found it a catchy image at least. It didnt receive too much feedback and I would have never thought that this might earn money one day.

One the right hand side of this page you find a link that leads to my getty page. At first it was hard to understand that it hasnt been the artistic shots that have been selled but this one that is really one of the worst (or least artistic) in my stream.

Nevertheless I am glad that I decided to upload this one.

My aim for the two years of the getty contract is to earn as much as I have spent on my equipment. Those first sales made this goal become a bit more realistic. Its all depending on the next month so I will keep you up-to-date whenever something is happening.

Before/After "bygone days and what has changed"

2009-10-15T21:00:00.001+02:00

This is the Before/After of my most recent shot "bygone days and what has changed". I am loving RAW format in moments like these!

Prints

2009-10-11T21:55:00.000+02:00

Panorama

As I told you on Flickr recently I ordered prints. They just arrived and I am more than satisfied with the result. I ordered some standard size prints and a huge 150 cm x 25 cm one.

The quality is amazing and its just as I wanted it to be. I have been disappointed by prints from different online services many times but in this case there is no criticism from my side.

When I decided to order such a panorama I had the problem of finding a printing service that offers prints in this size and this aspect ratio (1:6!). Finally I only found one that offered what I was looking for.

www.europoster24.de is only shipping inside germany so I guess most of the readers of this blog cannot use it. If you know some international printers that ship to other countries please leave a link in the comments. Thank you very much.

Moo

I also ordered Moo cards. Even though many of you will know Moo already I give a little introduction to all the others. Moo.com is an international printer that is offering a mass of photo products. Their speciality are business cards with a really good price/benefit ratio and awesome printing and paper quality. They are printing in London and Rhode Island and are shipping the whole wide world.

Not long ago they celebrated their 3rd birthday and gave out 10,000 free business card packs to flickr users. I used this offer and ordered such a 50 pack. I also ordered the free 10 pack that they offer everyone who registers an free account there.

This is a little selection of my ones. Even though I am only an amateur photographer I like that I now have something professional to give out with my flickr page on the backside.

I can only recommend to try it. Order the free 10 pack and see what I mean.

CF Card Problems

2009-07-22T21:52:00.000+02:00

This post is a summary of the things that happened to me during the last weeks regarding CF Cards.

Part 1: Image Errors

As I wrote on Flickr before I had massive problems with my CF card. I only have got one and this one didnt let me down since I own my camera(more than a year now). During the last weeks more and more images that I transfered to my pc were broken. That means that they look like this when I open them in Camera Raw:

I thought about what could have caused this problem, read through the internet and arrived at the conclusion that this erros have to be a CF Card problem.

The biggest problem was that I couldnt see if an image is broken or not when I viewed them on camera because all images seemed to be ok when I viewed them there. How is that possible? Every RAW file has a little jpeg in it which is used as a thumbnail so that the camera doesnt have to load the big RAW files all the time. Those jpegs were ok but the real RAW file was broken so all I had were these little jpegs. Not acceptable for me.

These problems occured shortly before I went on holidays so I borrowed two CF cards from a friend of mine and used them in these holidays. Today I came back and transfered all the shots from camera to pc. I was surprised and confused when I realized that not only the RAW files from my CF card, but even from both borrowed CF cards had broken RAWs. This was not explainable with a broken CF card so I had to think about this again.

I instantly realized the reason for that. I had read something on the internet that explained all that. Not my CF Card but my internal CF card readers is broken. I tried to transfer the images using an external USB Card reader and it worked. No broken Raw files anymore. Pretty crazy.

So if you are finding damaged Raw files among your shots dont worry. Just try another CF card reader and it might help. In my case it did.

Please scroll down for the update!

Part 2: CF Card scamming on Amazon

When I realized those damaged RAW files I instantly thought that my CF card would be broken. I would have pretty explainable because I am using this CF card for a whole year now and it has saved about 35,000 shots. I bought it on ebay for 13€ so this performance would have been ok and a senile CF card would have been explicable since it wasnt a San Disk.

So I decided to order a new one. No problem these days. I knew what I wanted and so I visited Amazon.de and searched for my Card: Extrememory 4GB premium.

What I found was this: Click. The offer is a pretty good one and the price was the same that I paid on ebay one year ago so I bought it.

When it arrived I instantly wondered. The product description said that it would be delivered in an original packing. My first CF card was shrink-wrapped and so I expected this one to be packaged the same way. But it wasnt. All I got was a little mail with the CF card in a CF Card box. No shrink-wrapping or original packaging.

The second thing that made me wonder was the fact that this CF card looked different than my other one. Look at this:

Since its the same company I wouldnt know how this difference in printing could be explainable. Even the holes where the pins are implemented looked different. I thought that this might be a cheap copy but decided to try it first. So I took it with me on holiday and used it for about 200 shots. At first it worked really well but then I turned my camera off and switched it on again and viewed my shots. Instead of the 200 images I shot the display showed me 132. I turned it off and on again and it showed 128. From this moment on I changed the CF card because I thought I might restore the lost images with a data rescuing software and it would be good not to overwrite the data.

Now that I am at home I tried to restore the images but all I was able to restore were about 30 TIF images. Not as good as a RAW but better than no images.

When I transfered the shots to my pc I realized that the reading speed of the Amazon card is only about 3-4 MB/s while my ebay card goes up to 9MB/s. This is an other evidence that this might be a copy.

Even if I ordered this card via Amazon it wasnt Amazon that sold this but a little company that sells stuff via Amazon.

I will try to get in contact with the company that sold this and will send it back. I will keep you up-to-date. I think I will also inform Amazon.

I hope this helps you and protects you from making the same mistakes. Please contact me if you have made the same experiences. I would be really interested to read about that!

Please see Update 2 below for an important update.

Update 1 :

The problems occured again and I started to search for the reason again. It seemed to not be the CF Card reader because the problems even occured when I copied images from a USB stick to hard disc. I called a pc service agent and he told me that it could be a damaged RAM Memory. I exchanged my 4GB RAM for the 1 GB that were originally delivered with my pc and the problems didnt occure again.

Then I ran memtest which is a little, free program that tests the RAM. It is really helpful because it shows you whether the RAM are working good or if they are producing writing errors. Perfectly working RAM should deliver a test results without any errors. After one hour of testing my RAM delivered 8 writing errors. These errors can show up pretty versatile while working on the pc. In my case the errors occured when I copied RAW images and so some image copies were broken after copying because such a RAM error occured while copying this file. I now complained my RAM and got new ones and they work perfectly. No errors or broken images since exchanging them.

edited 27-07-2009 - 01:49

Update 2 :

I asked Extrememory to check the warranty number of the CF Card that deleted my images and they told me that it is valid. So it seems that it was not a faked CF Card but one with a production defect. I will send it back now to receive my money back.

edited 27-07-2009 - 16:39

Before/After "coldness"

2009-07-06T14:12:00.000+02:00

This is the Before/After of my most recent shot "coldness"

For information about the making please scroll down.

I did this shot using a little flashlight without much power and my shower. I put the flashlight behind me pointing towards the ceiling and set the camera to ISO 400, f/8 and an exposure time of 6s. I used the selftimer to get into the shower and positioning myself.

In postprocessing I corrected the color temperature, overlayed the original image with a bright BW version and blended both. After that I simply brightened the whole image using curves and cropping the left- and right hand border away. Thats it!

My Images on Getty Images. Part 2

2009-06-27T12:09:00.001+02:00

As I told you before some images of mine are on Getty for sale and I had the chance to nominate five more to appear on Getty. Yesterday I got the answer and they told me that they want 4 of the 5 images that I suggested. Pretty good percentage in my opinion. I was really surprised when I got their mail because they do not only want 4 of the 5 I suggested but even 4 other images that they found on my stream theirselves.

The images they also wanted are these ones:

I pretty much understand this selection, lets say I understand 3 of them but the last one is really not reasonable for me. Maybe this is hard for me to understand because Getty inconclusively looks for artistic images only but for simple images that show something special too. I shot this from a fitting room and it was pretty much a snapshot. At this day I have been really unsure about the question if I should upload it. Now I am really happy that I did.

If you want to have an overview about my shots on Getty you can get it here. But those news are not everything that is going on with Getty at the moment. The other thing is a second "Its your turn" action that gives me the chance to nominate 10 more images of myself for being added to the Getty collection. I was really happy when I heard that because Getty is the only way for me to earn some money with my photography and I am really interested in increasing my selling chances. So at the moment I am looking through my stream and making mind notes which images I could suggest. That is why I have created the "Getty" set on Flickr.

If you like to help me you can do this with simply nominating 10 images from that set. I would be happy if you would do that.

So lets see what comes out. My first overview of sales will be available at 20th of July and until that day I have no idea if there has been any sales made yet.

Image Special UrbEx

2009-06-19T13:54:00.000+02:00

Here are some results from saturdays trip. I really liked them but didnt feel they would be good enough to appear in my public flickr stream.

If you want to have a closer or look or you want to comment on them just click.

Before/After "the store"

2009-06-10T08:04:00.001+02:00

Here is the Before/After of my most recent shot "the store".

For information about the postpro please scroll down.

I really liked the raw shot but it definitely needed a touch up. So I copyied the image layer, converted it to BW and recolored it using the blending mode "color" and a low opacity. As you can see I used the original colors for that to achieve the same feeling that the original has. I almost only used the red, blue and the color of the wall. I didnt work with different tones.

At the end I changed the opacity of the BW layer to something around80% to get some of the original colors back to the image and added a little texture from sxc.hu to get those darkened edges. Thats it!

This technique of recoloring was new to me and I used it the first time. I am really convinced of it already because this way you can get much more contrast in your image without loosing the colors.

Does somebody of you work with this technique? What could I improve? Have you got other postpro techniques that are worth the try? Tell me in the comments or via Flickr please

Thanks in advance and to all followers!!

Before/After of "good old times"

2009-06-05T13:32:00.000+02:00

This is the Before/After of my image "good old times".

I am really proud of the outcome because the change that happened to this image while postprocessing is pretty drastic. The scenery was really dark and so I had to do a long exposure to just see something at all. Even though the image was dark I found it lovely and I had to produce something nice out of it.

So I brightened it, added a nice, warm brown toning to it and strengthened the contrast. After that I stamped the black writing on the right box away. Thats it.

My "It's your turn" picks for Getty Images

2009-06-02T12:48:00.001+02:00

As I have written several times before I have contributed images of mine to Getty Images. From today on they are on sale and available here.

As some of you may know Getty Images gives its Contributors the chance to suggest five more images of them to Getty to be added to their stock. They set no other limits than that only persons who already contributed are allowed to suggest images and that it can be no more than five.

I have a had a hard time deciding. I even asked the flickr community to help me with that issue. At the end I had to decide on my own. The problem for me was that I havent got any idea what kind of photography is good stock photography that means what is selling good. So I worked through my stream, making notes of the ones which could be good, striked off and worked through my stream again. I like so many of my own photographs but I knew that the ones that I like may not be the ones that sell best.

At the end I made my decision by especially looking for unique images that are one of a kind. I think these are the ones that dont have to fight the competition and are outstanding this way. I hope that I am right.

Here they are:

No Entry?!

Blood

Take the pill, live happily ever after

Down the wishing well

Enter the sky

That I suggested them does not mean that they will really go on sale. Getty will have a look at them and will decide if they qualify for their stock and if the quality is good enough for the high Getty standard.

Let's see what comes out.

Before/After "Nobody saw him again"

2009-06-01T12:51:00.001+02:00

This is the Before/After of my last shot "Nobody saw him again"

I drove through the night, searching for motives and found this phone box that offered thousands of possibilities. I tried different things, this was the very best.

The postpro was a pretty easy one because I knew what I wanted to achieve. The hardest part was the cropping issue. This image seemed to be impossible to crop without cutting important or nice parts. I even asked d5e for help with that but at the end decided to use a square crop to support the square forms of the ceiling. I think it works.

Another nice one from that night is this one

It is almost SOOC. I only enhanced the saturation a little little bit but the rest is original. Just click on the image to comment if you want to.

Thanks for the visit.

Keep on followin'

Before/After "the last night"

2009-05-20T10:59:00.001+02:00

This is the Before/After of my most recent shot "the last night". As I already wrote in the image description, I rendered the HDR out of the three images you see under this text.

After that I enhanced the contrast with the help of an adjustment layer curves. I darkened the blue a bit, filled the silhouette with black and cropped the bottom and top edge to give this a wider feeling.

Thats it. If you have further questions regarding the postprocessing or other things please dont wait to contact me due flickr mail. I am always happy to help you if I can.

Thanks for your visit!

Behind the Scenes of "wooooooohoooooo"

2009-05-19T12:47:00.000+02:00

These are some Outtakes of the shoot for my most recent shot "wooooooohoooooo"

It was big fun shooting this and I think I will play around more with this "freezed moments" in the future!

Getty and Me

2009-04-29T22:07:00.000+02:00

As many good photographers and bloggers before I now enqueue to the line of the persons that blogs about this Getty and Flickr thing. The reason for that is that I got such an invitation recently and at the moment I have no idea what to do.

A short information for all who dont know what I am talking about:

Some month ago our good old friend flickr signed up a deal with the world's "biggest supplier of pictures and video to media and advertising companies" Getty Images to combine their businesses. In reality this means that Getty searches through the big flickr universe and invites images of which they think that they are suitable for selling to their stock. The terms for that are reason for many controversial arguments these days. A photographer that wants his work to appear in the Getty stock has to give all selling rights to Getty what means that he is not more allowed to sell his work on his own for the time of the contract (2 years). If a photographer agrees he gets 20-30% of every image that is sold without having any costs. Many professionals bring forward the argument that they get at least 40% if they give their images to other stocks. I am not really into all these professional photography selling things but what I think is that for all the persons that do photography only as a hobby this is good way to get a bit of extra money out of their stuff.

So, why am I unsure about adding my images? The reason for that is the tax issue. Of course you have to pay taxes on your earnings but it is not as easy as it sounds at least not here in germany. Due to the fact that I have not really worked yet( my apprenticeship will start in september) I have no clue about taxes and this stuff. I dont want to get into problems because of these few euro but on the other hand I dont want reject it because it is a easy way to earn some cash without doing anything for it. What I found out yet is that I would have to register a trade only for this Getty thing and then doing my tax declaration and all the other things that are connected with that. Sounds like a bunch of stress doesnt it? The problem is that I dont know who can really give me tips about my special case. I think I will recherche a bit more and then publish my decision here.

I would like to know whether you received such an invitation too and if so how did you decide? And why? Have you had problems with taxes? How much did earn? If you have any tips or your personal story with Getty please contact me I am thankful for every information about this thing.

Thanks in advance!

Ivory

1 Year on Flickr

2009-04-22T00:25:00.000+02:00

Yesterday(pretty late) I recognized that today is the first anniversary for me on flickr. For all who wonder, I dont count that year from the first image I published at all but from the first image that I took with focus on the photo. The images before were only means to an end to practice photoshop. So for better understanding it is more my first anniversary with photographing than with flickr.

The first real artistic image that I published was this:

That day I had school vacations and nothing to do. I grabbed the snapshot cam of my parents and walked around the garden to look for motives. This was the best shot of this day and I have to say: "I think I couldnt have done this photo better". It is one of the rare images in my stream that I still like even if I have seen it about a thousand times already. I really love it.

About two month later I bought my Canon EOS 400D. This image was one of the biggest reasons for that buy.

Now, one year later I have published an amount of 208 images. I have uploaded 25804 images to flickr in total(private ones). More than 106000 people have clicked on my stream already.

The most clicked image of mine is this one with 19004 clicks:

My most favourited image with 958 faves is this one:

I would have liked to name one all time favourite of mine but I cant. There are just too many images of mine that I really like. There are also so many images from other artists that I could tell you but unfortunately I dont know how to post images from other artists here. I give you a list of 3 of my all time favourite images on flickr. These are images that I keep coming back to from time to time and which always fascinate me again.

1. "Crimson Death" by Lara Jade

This is just too good. When I saw it the first time I couldnt take my eyes of it. The red is perfect, the hair is perfect and the whole composition, perspective and everything is perfect. Just wonderful!

2. "Italy vs. Spain" by °freak°

Another really perfect image. I still dont know how he did it that it so amazingly sharp though it is photographed in the darkness. I think this mystery makes it somehow special for me.

3. "Who's next???" by Eldad Hagar

At first I thought this is a complete photoshop merge. But after I asked Eldad he told me that this is SOOC. I couldnt believe it. The fact that he does everything for saving the lifes of different animals makes it even more powerful for me.

I think this is enough for the anniversary. Back to the important things. Images. I hope can go on for a long time with shooting and of course flickring and I hope you all will be on my side. Because I dont know whether I would still do all this if nobody but me would be interested in it.

So thanks for everything and I hope I can fulfill expectations you have.

Greetings from Germany to the whole wide world. Over and out.

Through Binoculars

2009-04-19T15:15:00.001+02:00

To underline my most recent image "Through Binoculars" I wanted to tell you something about the way this image has been achieved and a bit about this technique in general.

To begin with I will tell you what I used.

I used my Canon EOS 400D in connection with the 18-55mm Kit Lens and binoculars of a brand I dont know. All I know about them is that they are about 200 EUR. You will need some pretty good binoculars to work with, I tried it with small and cheap ones but it didnt work at all. It is important that the peephole is big enough because if its not you will have a black circle frame which limits the sight.

I started with simply connecting my camera to the binoculars by pressing them together and trying to focus automatically.

This did not work at all, the camera had big problems with finding a focus so I changed to manual focussing and tried to get a good result by holding the binoculars in the left hand, my camera in the right, pressing both together and trying to focus the binoculars AND the camera. I failed miserably!

It is impossible to do all this together when you hold all this stuff in your hands. I placed the construction on an appropriate surface and had the opportunity to focus the both separate systems.

There was only one unpleasant thing in all this. Due to the fact that I had to place all this on a plane surface to be able to have any positive influence on the results it wasnt possible to change the shooting angle. That means that the camera stood on a handrail that was parallel to the ground and there was nothing I could do against that.

As you can imagine this is a very limitation in a creative process.

the interesting parts of this technique:

There are many points that I really liked about the resulting images. I will try to name and explain them and to show you images that visualize that.

sharpness

To achieve a real sharp image it needs a bunch of practicing time and patience to learn it. But why must it be a sharp image all the time? Most of my own results were not sharp at all but that made them not worse in any kind of way. Many of them looked very abstract, you could only guess what they show and the way that the blurred lights look like is just awesome(see the "unsharp" image for better understanding). All in all the sharpness is probably the most challenging part of this technique but also the most interesting. It is just funny to try around with different focus settings and to see how the bokeh parts look like.

distort

The distortion of the images is quite interesting and pretty different to the ones of other techniques IMO. It mostly concentrates on the background while the foreground is not so clearly distorted. You can increase or reduce the effect by changing the distance of the camera and the binoculars. The distortion effect looks a bit like motion blur in some kind of way. I think the best is if you form your own opinion with the help of the image further up.

colors

Colors are defined very desaturated. I worked with the 18-55mm which is probably the worst lens of canon but even this one produces more colorful images when used normally. The effect that is produced has a nostalgic and old feeling to it but all who dont like that can compensate this with color correction in post processing.

vignette

A big point because it is really hard to produce results that dont show any sign of vignetting. The best way is to learn to work with them. As you can see further up the strengths of vignettes vary obviously clear and give a totally different effect to the particular images. As you can imagine the vignette effect is enhanced when the camera-binoculars distance is magnified. If you put the lens as close as possible and in the center of the peephole this vignette is only a shadow that is not clearly visible. I really liked the different ways these vignettes appeared because you had various opportunities what to do with them. As you can see in the second picture you can let it look like you would look through something or not.

Summary

A very interesting and different technique that is worth to be tried.

With this technique you can achieve very interesting and unique effects. You can change these effects by yourself with changing things like the distance of binoculars and lens, changing the focus of either the camera or the bicoculars, changing the focal distance or to put the camera in a little sharp angle to the binocular to get a distorted image. All this is possible and of course you can also work with motion blur, long exposures and all the other beautiful things that photography offers.

Try it!

P.S: I would really appreciate to see your results when you try it. Please contact me either through flickr or through a comment on my blog.

Before/After "where does it lead us?"

2009-04-05T04:07:00.004+02:00

After the first look, I put it into the "nothing special" pigeon-hole.
When I looked through my archives today I developed it and loved it from the same moment on.
I started the postpro with correcting the WB which was set to a very warm color as you can see in the Before image. After that I proceeded with adding some colored layers, played around with the blending modes, added a little vignette and enhanced the single part colors to get all of them really clear and shiny. I had to spin it a bit because the horizon was not completely horizontal due to the darkness I shot this in.

The whole postpro took no more than 15min until I was completely happy with it.
I really love this style and I now recognized that shooting at night is the best way to achieve it. I made the same experience when I postprocessed this:

What I especially like about it is the big purple amount of it which I really adore.

The Almost 200 That Almost Made It (to my stream)

2009-03-31T06:45:00.003+02:00

Here you an Overview over all the images that I published within my festivities regarding my 200st pulic image on my stream.

If you like to look at them in large please click

-----------------------------------> HERE <-----------------------------------

I hope you liked what I see. I would really appreciate a feedback either as a comment here or as a comment on my flickr stream.

Thanks to all the faithful followers of my blog.

Ivory

Before/After "the station"

2009-03-24T22:10:00.002+01:00

Here is the little Before and After of my most recent shot "the station"

Thanks for waiting so long for this post. I have been too lazy to blog something.

greetings from the Ivory!

I know...

2009-03-05T22:10:00.002+01:00

I know there are millions of those on flickr.
I know that it is not the incarnation of creativity.
But I will post these shots though! =)

Click to comment

Click to comment

Click to comment

Click to comment

Click to comment

If you like them feel free to comment.

greetings to all followers!!

Before/After "tempest of inspiration"

2009-02-25T22:13:00.001+01:00

Before/After of my most recent image tempest of inspiration

Behind the scenes "welcome to the playground"

2009-02-23T22:24:00.000+01:00

Here is a little view behind the scenes for all who were wondering how I did my most recent shot "welcome to the playground".

the setup:

I used a remote control, which can be seen next to the mini tripod and a disco light with 6 different colors. I set it to the highest speed so that all colors can be seen in the finished image.
I took about 150 images of this scene until I found one that I liked.
This is PSOOC because I only cropped it a bit to lead the focus to the cap in a better way.

Here is another shot I did in this series but I prefered the canon one at the end so I will only publish this one here:

Click to comment

This way I also want to thank all the studious flickrites who are supporting me with their faves, comments, mails and their critique.
I really appreciate your feedback!

Ivory

Blog Header

2009-02-20T06:32:00.002+01:00

As you have already seen when you read this, I have created an image Header for my Blog. It was kind of a one-minute work only to reaplace this disgusting white letters.
Now I am pretty unsure about it.

What do you think? Is it good this way?
What could I do to improve it?
Is the image a good one for it?
Which would you might suggest?

Many many questions but I would love to read your opinion!!
I had the feeling that most of the people here dont like the commenting function so of course you can also write me on flickr.
Main thing is that you answer at all please! =)

Thanks in advance to all of you!

Ivorytown

Inspire and getting inspired

2009-02-18T06:39:00.006+01:00

The best moments that I had since I am taking photographs were the few in which I realized that my artwork brings inspiration to other people.
My own inspiration comes mostly from my allday life and from the great artists which are on flickr, but that my artwork could inspire somebody is a really great feeeling.

Two days ago apeashmore commented one of my images and she said that she will paint an image after it.
This comment made my day. I couldnt wait to see it.
Now she finished it and this image is really awesome so I will feature it here.

This is the original image from my stream:

apeashmores painting:

Thanks again to you and you dont have to be nervous. It is amazing!
Thanks for creating it AND informing me.

Before/After "Like a fairytale"

2009-02-16T23:49:00.002+01:00

Here is a Before/After of my new shot "Like a fairytale"
I hope you like the outcome as much as me because it costed me lots of work to create it. I hope you all enjoy the beautiful winter!!

Greetings to all followers of this blog!!

Before/After "black night"

2009-02-11T22:35:00.003+01:00

Just a quick and dirty Before/After for my most recent shot "black night".
I hope you like what you see.

What I did:

I added a "curve" layer to shift the colors, desaturated the whole image and especially the car and added some B/W layers with different masks, blending modes and opacities. Thats it.

Thanks for all readers of this blog!

Ivory

Berlin at Night

2009-02-04T13:10:00.006+01:00

Here are some images from my Berlin Night Shooting which were not good enough for being published on the public part of my flickr stream.
You can comment on them nevertheless by clicking on the specific commenting link.
I would like to read your opinion.
Maybe you can convince me of publishing one of them.

Click to comment

Click to comment

Click to comment

Click to comment

Before/After "frozen lake" and "waiting for the light of day"

2009-01-29T08:29:00.003+01:00

Due to the fact that it has been a long time since my last Before/After I decided to publish to at the same time to show you the most interesting ones of the last time in one post.

Frozen Lake

The first one is "frozen lake". It received the biggest feedback in the shortest time ever.
There were more than 100 faves at the first day and more than 500 views.
Some people also asked me for a before/after and this is why I post this one though I know that there decayed some time between posting the image and this post. I think there will be some visitors in the future who are happy to see what I did it from.

In my opinion the magic of this image lies in the misty trees in the background.
They give a depth to this image which wouldnt be there without them.
They were also the hardest part in postprocessing. It is not a big deal to convert an image into B/W but it is hard to get every single part of an image perfectly exposed and postprocessed. I used many different curves and masks to get every part right. At the end I was very happy with the result.

Waiting for the light of day

This is one other, very time-consuming postprocessing artwork.
I took this yesterday on my way back home. It was freezing cold so I tried to shoot as short as possible. This is why I only had about 15 shots from which I had to decide which one I want to use.
During the retouching I tried out many different tones, styles and colors but wasnt really convinced by one of them. After a hour I got this green style which I liked most. But the image wasnt really as good as I wanted it to be. What I did was adding a texture which brought the effect I hoped.
I think I will add these textures to the list of things that I try out when working on an image and maybe there will be some more texture works in my stream soon.

BTW: Does anyone of you have got experience with sites just like Imagekind? I would like to use something like that in the future but I am not sure which one is the best. please give me your personal experiences and opinions either as a comment here or a mail on flickr! Thanks in advance

The HDR mastering tutorial

2009-01-23T08:38:00.041+01:00

I am absolutely proud to present you this tutorial.
The following content has not been done by me but by my good friend d5e whom I came to know due flickr. We did many Urbex trips together in berlin and we help each other a lot with giving tips i.e. in photography or photoshop.
He has got a wide knowledge of the techniqual part of photography from the shooting itself to the postprocessing and there were many situations in in the past where he helped me with things I never heard before. This is why I give him the opportunity to write tutorials from time to time here on my blog. If I would to such a thing myself I fear it wouldnt be as helpful as his ones.

BTW: d5e's tutorials will always be signed with an overview of what is about to follow such as the following. This is how you can recognize them.
I hope you like it.

The video

If you want to take a look at the process of creating this HDR just click on the play-button.
We recommend to view it in large to see whats going on.

If your browser does not support embedded flash video try to click here:Watch HDR-Tutorial

Final Version on flickr

About this tutorial

A lot of people mess around with HDR. And a lot more people think of extremely super contrast tone mapping artwork when thinking of HDR. In this tutorial I want to show you, that HDR photography is nothing special and easily to handle if you pay attention to the original photo and do not loose yourself or your photography in tone mapping extremism. Tone mapping is just a tool and as all tools it should be handled carefully. Its all about enhancing the quality of a photography, not destroying its sense.

Footnote

You need flash to play this video. Your browser has to support also iframes and javascript.

Take a look at the mastered version on flickr

This is a guest tutorial made by d5e. Visit my flickr stream.

Fisheye = Problems

2009-01-18T14:55:00.004+01:00

Hey Guys,

I did not post for a week and just thought that the time is up for a new post.
As you can see from the title of this one I have got problems and need your help!

What is worrying me is my most recent purchase: a 0.45x Fisheye Conversion Lens that I bought on ebay.

I will explain this system for everybody who has never heard of this.
It is not a real lens that you can put on your camera body but an additional lens that you can screw on your existing lens to achieve a change in the focal distance.
In my story this should reduce my focal distance by the factor of 0.45 to reach a fisheye effect. I put it on my 18-55mm Canon lens and was disappointed from almost the first second on. The AF did not work at all and the manual one always showed a blurred image. I worked that out with the help of a friend of mine who told me that this lens doesnt only reduce the focal distance by the factor of 0.45 but the aperture too. So I manually set the aperture to f/22 and what I got were some sharper images. Despite that I am not happy with the results at all.

I uploaded the results on Flickr.

Click Here

I would really appreciate every opinion of you out there. Please watch the slide show of this set and then tell me what you think. Should I keep it? Or send it back?
It wasnt too expensive but I am really unsure whether I can live with these results.
The alternative would be a real Fisheye lens but these ones are definitely too expensive for me!

What should I do? Please help me!

BTW: I am looking for a 50mm f/1,4 or f/1.8 Lens that fits to my Canon EOS 400D at the moment so if you want to sell one please contact me. I am glad for every offer!

Thanks in advance for you help I am helpless without you!

greetings Ivo

Before/After "long walk home"

2009-01-11T19:31:00.008+01:00

On the top of this post you can see the Before/After of my most recent shot "long walk home".
This is one of my favorites out of the snow shots I posted during the last week.
I like this especially because of the feelings of wideness and freedom, loneliness and coldness this radiates to me.

The day I shot this was the best one since the snow arrived.
It was cold, you were able to see your breath but it was one of the best shooting days ever. The sun was low so the shadows were endless. I really wanted to use this in one of my images. Actually I did it as you can see from the image on the top.
I needed about 5 tries to get the image I wanted (to be honest I hoped that one of these will be good because the sun was too bright to see just anything on the camera display).

The problem I had to solve was that I wanted to have an absolutely virgin snow surface so this scenery gets a wild and undetected look.
After the first try I realized that my own traces destroyed this because the second shot would show these foot steps and it wouldnt look like I would have walked in there for the first time (I hope this has been understandable).
I solved this by shifting the camera 2m to the left so that these old foot steps cannot be seen on the image.
For better understanding I show you how this looked like:

it worked out wonderfully and I had the shots I wanted.

Now about the postprocessing:

What can be seen easily is that I strongly strengthened the contrast of the whole image to underline the hard shadows and the contrast between the figure and the background.
I also overlayed an adjustment layer "solid color" filled with green-yellow and used the blending mode"luminosity".
I liked the result but now I had to think about the crop.
This image absolutely needed to lose space on the upper and bottom edge but I disliked the result when cropping it that way.
I tried these 16:9 blocks and loved the feeling of wideness it added to this image.

I hope you also like this piece of mine.

thanks again for all the views and comments here on my blog and on my flickr stream!

keep on clickin'!

Thanks

2009-01-06T22:23:00.004+01:00

I am absolutely overwhelmed!
Today I reached the 1000 Viewers mark here on my Blog and this is the result of the first(!) month.
For me this is a very clear sign to go on and let you take a look behind the scenes further on.
My first post has been published on 3rd of December and I want to thank you all now, nearly a month after the first post, for your following and your helpful comments and mails on flickr.
I hope you are interested in more of my Before/Afters and the Stories behind the images
and you will also give me your feedback in the future.

Keep on clickin'!!

Ivory

Before/After winter tree

2009-01-05T02:27:00.004+01:00

At first: Happy New Year to all of you!
I have been on the road the last days so I had no chance to post anything but I hope it will be more regularly from now on!
What you see on the top of this is post is the Before/After of my most recent artwork "winter tree".
I really like this one because of this dark feeling it has to me.
As you can see from the big difference of the Before and After images, this needed some postprocessing to look like it does now, but it has not been as much as you would probably think.

What I mainly did was enhancing the contrast of the whole image, adding grain, built a curve which shifted the single colors and finally created a layer "solid color" with an green-yellow tone which I overlayed using "color" and a low densitiy of 10%.

Thats it!
I finally cropped it a little and was fully convinced of the result.
What do you think?

I would really appreciate to read your opinion!

Due to the fact that it snowed here in berlin today I look forward to go shooting tomorrow for some snow pics.
You will see whether there came something good out of that if you follow my blog and flickr stream.

Keep on clickin'

Ivory

Before/After "The Path"

2008-12-28T01:58:00.005+01:00

This one is my most recent and one of my favourite shots at present.
I aimed a dreamy style which ought to create a fable-like feeling in the viewer.
Another point I wanted to put in was the walking alone concept.
I like it to make the viewers think about their lifes and I believe this kind of images achieve exactly this effect.

To create this dark effect I used HDR Imaging as in the majority of cases.
After this I had to blur the sky because there were dirty dots visible which resulted from the high aperture of f/29.
In this setting every little dust particle on the sensor shows up on the finished image.

After blurring the sky I increased the contrast, strengthened the green color of the grit and darkened the whole image with the help of an adjustment layer "curves".

The whole postprocessing lasted more than a hour and at the end of this I cropped and framed the image to enhance the effect.
It worked out in my opinion.

I think thats it for the moment.
Thanks to you all for the feedback!

The Beginnings

2008-12-23T10:28:00.006+01:00

There are always situations in which I look at images from others on flickr and I think: "I will never reach that level".
Mostly this is based on the photoshop part of the specific image.
I think some of you may have just started working with photoshop and are impressed of all the possibilities. Or they are overchallenged with all the little buttons.
What I can tell you from my personal experience is that it is not impossible to learn it but that you will need much time for reaching a level on which you know the basics so that you can work targeted to get a specific effect.

Why do I tell all this?
I looked through my computer these days and found some images which show my development in the last year. I started working with photoshop about 1 1/2 years ago and I will show you the first images I made in that time.
You will probably laugh but I was as proud as one can be when I finished them.

So here is the absolutely first one:

As you can see I tried to parody the iPod advertisings.
This lasted hours after hours but I did not use a tutorial but did it completely on my own.

Another one from that time is this one:

This was the first one with a real statement but the main reason was practicing.
All these were very funny to make because I never had to use photoshop but I just wanted to do those cool things that those people on the internet can.

This one was uninspired. I tried to do a photo mashup.

The last one of this series.
The thought behind this was to create a logo for me but I wasn really convinced of this final result. I found it too unprofessional to use it.
Unfortunately I havent found one yet.

Ok thats it. I hope it was an interesting look in the past for you and that you will see my artwork a little bit different now.

Always remember:

Dont be intimidated by the ultra-professional images of some artists.
They also started with little things and enhanced from that point.

And a good tip I can give you:

If you want to see where and artist has begun, look at the first page of his flickr stream. Most of the times this is very helpful to see that absolutely everybody has started with the little things.

greetings and I wish you all a MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Before/After "Going Underground"

2008-12-18T23:34:00.005+01:00

Took this on my way to work.
I was already impressed when I saw it on the display of the cam, when I looked at it in large I was much more impressed.
What I did to this was strengthen the contrast, changing the colors and as a last resort I added an adjustment layer "solid color", filled it with ruby and blended it with the image.
This is how I reached this uniquely effect.

Thanks for all the feedback.

The Story behind..."a typical office day"

2008-12-17T06:47:00.005+01:00

This may not be one of the techniqually most challenging or most effective images but the way this came into being was a very funny one.
At the moment I do a civilian service here in berlin what means that I have got a boring job, no fun but mich time for doing nonsense.

At this day I sat in my office, playing around with my camera and just shooting around with my cam. Do you know that when you want to shoot unconditionally but you havent got any inspiration? Thats what describes this situation best.

After two hours of shooting around it occured that I got the task to dispose the cardboard which was already stacked up 2 meters or something like that.

That was when I had an idea.
I creeped in one of the cardboard boxes and shot this.

I wasnt really convinced of that so I kept on shooting until I got the idea for this "roboter".
I designed a story for a tryptych in my head and converted it into an image.
It lasted about one hour to finish that and then I started shoooting this series.

But there were some special problems that occured during the shoot.
I could not see anything through this helmet so I had to feel out the camera for triggering the selftimer.
It was also hard to use the body language to convey the meaning of the images because you never know before what the head- and hand-position will "tell" the viewer.
This is why I had to interpretate how the images effected me and customized the story to fit that.

During the shoot another funny situation happened.
I was in the whole costume even more I tied round some strap around my knees to have a nice detail on the image when it knocked on the door and a client of my company wanted to talk about something.
It was a tough situation because the act of pulling down the whole stuff and trying to hide it produced some terrible noises in this little office.
Don't worry nobody recognized something and I did not get any problems.
Afterwards I have to say that it was a really funny shoot and that I got some very cheery reactions of some friends of mine.
Maybe you try this some day. Just freak out and dont forget to shoot it.

Thanks to every follower of this.
Ivo

Before/After "The Viewers"

2008-12-11T22:42:00.005+01:00

This is another one of my Top 3 of my own works.
I took this on a visit of an old, abandondoned building here in berlin.
Me and my photo mate stood on a canopy and enjoyed the awesome view over berlin when a couple, which grilled there, stood up and walked over to the edge of this canopy to view the smokestacks. I had no option but shooting this scene because it already looked like a poster motive when I stood up there and watched this scene.
I also thought about the postprocessing I could do to this one as early as I stood up there.

When I was back home I was a little disappointed because this image wasnt as effective as I had imagined.
But after I cropped it, it seemed like a totally different image.
The balance was perfect and my I became absorbed by thoughts about what these people could think about.
The main thing I did to this was converting it into an old, monochrome, industrial style by using adjustment layers.
As you can see from my other posts, I mostly use adjustment layers because it is non-destructive and a way to change every effect I added at every time of postprocessing.

My Intention with this was it to create a timeless motive.
I hope I reached that.

Thanks for every reader of this blog.

The Story behind..."Trip"

2008-12-08T09:20:00.004+01:00

Almost 1000 Views.
180 people call this a favourite.
Not bad.
I think this is enough as a reason to write something about it, especially because it is one of my personal Top 3 of my works.

At this day, it was in June or July, I absolutely wanted to do some shooting.
I hadnt got any real idea but I had to do just anything!
It looked like it were going to rain but this did not suffice to stay at home.
So I packed my sombrero and did go to a field next to my home by bike.

I set up my tripod and did some test shots to find the perfect camera setting.
This was very hard for me, especially because of the fact that I was a beginner and my camera was almost virgin.
The biggest problem was it to find the focus because I did this shooting alone by using the selftimer, what led me to stand behind the camera when it focussed.
I bootstrapped by setting a high aperture, so it wasnt necessary to set the focus perfectly.

Then the time had come to start shooting.
I prepared my outfit at the time when I found a little yellow balloon between some bush.
I imagined how this would look like on my image and I absolutely loved the thought.
Then the shooting began.
The rain forced me to stop many times and I had to protect my camera against it.
In the little breaks of the rain I ran onto the field to shoot.
In this rush I forgot to cast off my bag which can be seen on the image.
When I saw the result later I liked the bag on it because it gives a feeling as if this would be a long journey.
Because of the breaks and the repeating "starting seltimer, running onto the field, shooting, viewing" process, this shooting lasted almost 2 hours but for me the result justifies this effort.

After I was back home I did a HDR Imaging to this image but it did not convince me at all. So I saved a JPG of this on my desktop and did not pay any attention to it for month.
About a month ago I accidentially found this, remembered the shooting and absolutely adored it.
It needed some more postprocessing(I had to work on the JPG because I hadnt got the RAW Files anymore) but after this I was absolutely delighted.
The strong contrast of the sky and the field, the high contrast of the clouds and the way this balloons contrasts the golden field got me completely.

Most of he reactions I got were very positive and I am proud that so many people like what I do.
Thanks for all this interest in my Artwork AND my Blog.
Keep on clickin!

Before/After Slaughterhouse Backyard

2008-12-06T03:13:00.011+01:00

Oh yes, another post-apocalyptic themed shot.
I looked through my stream to find shots about which I am thinking that they are qualitative and impressive and in which I used much photoshop to create them.
This one is definitely one which fills this requirements.
I used AEB(Automatical Exposure Bracketing) when I shot this.
This is a camera setting which makes the camera shoot not one but three shots in a row. The first shot is at the right exposure. The second one is under-exposed and the third one is overexposed.
If you blend them with a program i.e. photomatix you can get great results which have got an unnormal but terrific lighting and which have got a special charm.
This technique is called HDR imaging and is an often-used style in photography and expecially in the digital post-processing of it.

After I created this HDR out of these shots I had to do much other processing in photoshop. Same as always: all kinds of adjustment layers, layer styles and masks.
The special thing in this one was the smoke stack.
It looked like it would be curved to the left hand side.
I had to straighten this using the transform tool.
You see the big difference if you look at both images.

A little tip:

If you want to increase the contrast of an image you can try this.
Create a new adjustment layer "curves" and choose cross-processing from the dropdown menu on the top. Click OK.
Blend this adjustment layer with Luminosity.
This will increase the contrast in a way which is pretty effective and easy.
If the increasement is not enough you can duplicate the adjustment layer with CTRL+J
as often as you need.
This technique is easier to use than creating a curve on your own and you dont need any special knowledge.
You can also try the other menu items from this dropdown menu.

I hope this helps you with your work.
Thanks to everyone who reads this Blog.

The Plan

2008-12-05T12:49:00.009+01:00

Wow I am really amazed.
I wouldnt have thought that I would get so much feedback in such a short time.
Many people wrote me to help me with blogging, giving tips or just saying that it is a great idea.
I learned that I should be short, I should post regularly and that it just should be interesting.
I hope that I can translate this into my work and I also hope that the feedback holds on and that you can help me with all the mistakes I will probably make.
My plan is to publish at least 2 posts every week but there is no limit for more.

The next posts will be Before/Afters of some images that are already in my stream.
I started this Blog because I was inspired by the Blog of Aaron Nace and his girlfriend Rosie which are great artists.
They also started a Blog about their work and I was always a happy follower of it.
I liked the way they did their artwork but never knew how they did it or how the Raw Image looked like.
In their Blog they do not tell how they do their images but they show Before/Afters of them and tell a little about it.
This is what I want to do.
I know that my artwork is not on the same level as the one of Aaron and Rosie but I believe that people who just started out with photography and/or photoshop are interested in a look behind the scenes.

If you would like to see a Before/After of an image of mine you can contact me on Flickr and I will try to do it when I have time.
I also look forward for chats with you guys.

Ivo

Before/After of "Happy End?" and my Intention

2008-12-04T19:30:00.004+01:00

This is for all who are interested in a Before-After of my most recent Image "Happy End?".
The Left Image is mine the right one has been shot by Thomas Hawk.
I had to make a lot of changes to both images to get the effect I wanted.
My aim was to create a end-of-the-world feeling which makes the viewer think about it.
I hope i reached this aim.
I won't publish what I did in detail but I used many adjustment layers i.e. curves, channel mixer and B/W and blended this with different layer styles.
The hardest job was it to match the tones of the mushroom cloud with the ones of my main image. I feared that it would look stupid and like a bad try but after half an hour which I spent only with this mushroom cloud it had the tones I wanted and it looked like it does now.
I hope this inpspires you to try a bit more in the future.

My Intention with this shot was not the one it is now from the beginning on.
When I took this shot I just wanted to achieve a calm, warm image.
The result was pretty ok but I wasnt convinced of it in total.
So it sleeped on my desktop almost for a month until I looked at it another time.
This time I knew what I wanted to do with it from the beginning on.
I searched flickr for a matching image of a mushroom cloud and this is what came out.

I would appreciate feedback for my first tries in writing a blog.
It is the first time in my life that I do something like that so I like to receive constructive criticism.
Thanks in advance.

Happy End? or Beginning?

2008-12-03T15:32:00.000+01:00

This Image is called "Happy End?".
This may not be the best Name to start a Blog but who say that it is forbidden?
So I will do it though.
I started this Blog to publish my personal favourite Images of mine and to have the possibility to write about it.
Until today I only posted my images on Flickr but for me this is not enough because I dont want to show all my images on here but just the ones which are very important to myself.
I also wanted to show the stories behind these images and everything about it i.e. Before-Afters or such things.
English is not my mothertongue so I hope you will tolerate grammar or spelling mistakes and just see what is meant with it.

Thats it for the first time.
I will leave you alone with "Happy End?".
What are your feelings about that image?
I would really like to read that.

2008-12-3 Ivo