Category: Art

How to Make a Faceless Self Portrait (With Dog)

Tobias M. Schiel6 Comments

These miniature scenes do not happen out of the blue. I am an amateur photographer. I love wearing that type of cap. People have to wait for my while I take a photo. And yes, I have photographed shop windows before.

Scanning my photos for proof, I found some pictures that fit the bill. Looking back even made me realize I hid my face in my real-life self portraits as well.

I think when we photograph we always do it with thousands of pictures in our heads, even if we do not have them all before our inner eye in the moment we release the shutter.

Left: “A Picture With Me in It” (2012), right: “Junk” (2009)

Akademierundgang 2024 (2)

Tobias M. SchielLeave a comment

Akademierundgang stands for open house at Düsseldorf’s art academy. This year, the Rundgang (circuit) featured the graduates’ final projects. It was interesting at least, and very enjoyable at best. And while I don’t usually see the point of sharing photographs of art works, some objects cerntainly invited play. In this case, the high rise buildings appealed to the toy photographer. I also liked the idea that they could be boxed and stored away. The stairs in one of the other ateliers were as inviting, I hope the pictures allow a glance at the conditions under which art is produced.

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Kunstpunkte 2023

Tobias M. Schiel5 Comments

Kunstpunkte (literally “art spots”) stands for two weekends when more than 100 artists in Düsseldorf invite the public to visit their ateliers. These visits always fascinate me; they are a chance to get very close to art and artists, experiencing the places where the works are acutally made. This is similar to visiting the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (academy of fine arts) which I will cover in a separate post.

You may notice that I barely photograph the art itself, feeling much of it has already been reproduced (the last picture in this post shows part of an art work however). As for the artists themselves, I value their privacy, plus I am not really a portrait photographer. So here are some impressions from four different spots all of which you might not get to see outside of the Kunstpunkte.

Note: The next Kunstpunkte will take place next weekend and the weekend after.

Shorelines

Tobias M. Schiel11 Comments

Cap de Carteret

Le Havre

Les Falaises des Vaches Noires

Pointe de Barfleur – Phare de Gatteville

From the Cotentin peninsula to Le Havre, the Normandy coast has so many faces. And the light changes constantly. Here are a few pictures for the lens-artists challenge 314: shorelines.

Posted in Art

Réserve

Tobias M. Schiel13 Comments

LAPC #265: Black and White or Monochrome | Black and white is a preferred choice when I photograph miniature toys. It seems to add another layer of abstraction to pictures which already show abstract depictions of reality – these toys and models have to be abstract due to their size (and my building skills). I feel that the additional layer of abstraction sort of distracts from the fact that we are dealing with tiny plastic toys, but I still cannot grasp why I would think so.

As for the procedure, I firmly believe that shooting color and only creating a black and white picture in editing is not the best way to go at it. A black and white picture is not simply a ‘normal’ picture minus the color. I feel that we pay more attention to light, develop a keener eye for slight nuances as well as stark contrasts in brightness when we are not distracted by colors, and can’t rely on contrasting colors. But maybe that’s just me.

Framing

Tobias M. Schiel9 Comments

Framing Your Photos is a wonderful challenge because there are two types of framimg I enjoy a lot. In my more or less abstract real life pictures, I love framing the void, or the spaces ‘in between’. For me that’s a way of exploring space and composition and the reality that provides the material for my pictures. I see these aspects in the pictures above.

Continue reading “Framing” →