Author: Tobias M. Schiel

Abstract arts lover, Jazz enthusiast, mystery buff, compulsive reader - and how do I get it all into pictures? Photography has been a good way over the last couple of years.

Old Mill, New Museum

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Küppersmühle, an industrial mill in the port of Duisburg, Germany, has been converted into a museum. It now displays a great collection of modern and contemporary art. But I never really get to enjoy the art in full because the museum now features two beautiful staircases which are themselves works of art – and they are very distracting!

With some of the old silos still standing, you get a strong industrial vibe while the building also frames the art nicely.

But I compulsively return to the stairs…

The architecture just lends itself to this kind of abstract photography I so much like – using built space for compositions within the rectangualr space of the picture. And I think the pictures lend themselves to contributing to Anne’s wonderful lens artists challenge #251: Buildings and Other Structures. Oh, and here’s one other structure, a work of art nicely interacting with the architecture.

Downtown

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The light from the desk lamp through a window of one of the miniature façades I use for my miniature toy photography: Glowing moments like these provide for good pictures but I also take them as proof that even with staged photos, there are moments that are unrepeatable (or very hard to reproduce). This is an enty for the lens-artists’ photo challenge #244 – only one ‘glowing moment’ cause this kind of photography is very slow.

The Long Arm of the Law

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There was Jo’s question about an arrest in the last post, and there was also a prompt to do a noir photo in the toy photographers’ community so I tried my hand at some ‘neo noir’. I wanted to see if noir, which we mostly associate with black-and-white, also works in color. And though this picture was motivated by Jo’s question, I am afraid we’re none the wiser. I chose the mystery.

Area 23

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Finishing The Zone in 2019, did not mean I was done. I still feel drawn to this kind of scene (and scenery). And when I saw Annabelle Amoros’ film Area 51, Nevada, USA in a museum, it clicked. I was intrigued even though the movie has its disconcerting moments. I have been taking its imagery as a departure point for a couple of pictures – mostly working from memory to capture the atmosphere in 1/87 scale.

Clothesline Rope Walk

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A scene we might encounter in real life – or rather, an idealized version of such a scene. Which is why I like toy photography: In reality, I would walk along the alley, see a potential photo, and then find that reality gets in the way of the picture I had in mind. I might get other pictures I like instead. And afterwards, with miniature toy photography, I can also make the picture I imagined.

Since it’s Monday, and this is definitely a walk, I think this might be a nice contribution for Jo‘s Monday Walks.

Five Years, Ten Toy Photos

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Whenever I talk about toy photography, a couple of my own pictures inadvertently come to mind. It’s not that I consciously picked or even made some sort of list to remember them. It rather feels like they never really got out of sight after I made them; they seem to be here to stay. Here are ten of those pictures off the top of my head.

Take the ‘A’ Train, 2022. I feel like I found a nice balance between abstraction and realism here. The harsh lighting – light bouncing off a ‘brick’ wall behind the rail car – emphasizes the graphic quality of this shot, and a composition defined by the symmetry of the windows and the asymmetrical arrangement of the figures inside the car. And the figures, I think, tell their own story.

Prelude to a Kiss, 2022. One thing I like about music, and jazz in particular, is that it brings people together; and one thing I love about this picture is the arrangement of the crowd. When I look at this picture, I seem to hear the soundtrack of dance music, conversational murmur, shuffling feet and clinking glasses. And there’s so much going on in this picture. Did you notice the gaze of the guy to the right?

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