tobias m. schiel
“Stai per cominciare a leggere il nuovo romanzo Se una notte d’inverno un viaggiatore di Italo Calvino. Rilassati. Raccogliti. Allontana da te ogni altro pensiero. Lascia che il mondo che ti circonda sfumi nell’indistinto.” Italo Calvino
(You are about to read the new novel If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino. Relax. Collect yourself. Let go of any other thought. Allow the world that surrounds you to dissolve into indistinctness.)
This week, the Lens-Artists Challenge certainly called for a re-post of one of my favorite photos: A competitive game and a companionable occasion.
Dancing never feels like workout. However, at the end of a session, you might have practiced coordination, balance, musicality – and even find yourself out of breath. Plus, you’ll have flexed your social muscle.
A good start to a good swim. Of these three pictures, this is the only one that’s new – one I always meant to make but did not get around to till today. So, thanks for the challenge!
Another entry for the lens-artists challenge: Of the many composition factors in photography, this challenge focuses on shape, form, texture, and light – and I think those are exactly the means I used in this photo.
I was making these pictures for this year’s Bingo Challenge over at the Toy Photographers blog – the cue is ‘secret’ – when the Lens Artist’s ‘sound’ challenge popped up. Having posted so many sound-related pictures last year, I thought I’d go with the whispered words, the hushed voices a secret requires.
The first picture shows the original idea, the second resulted from trying the same in a more noir style.
This picture was in equal parts inspired by the Blues Brothers’ apartment just opposite the El tracks and by the buildings I see commuting to work. Since the train runs through the picture diagonally (to evoke a dynamic feeling) I hope this might qualify as an entry for the Lens Artists’ Challenge.
If you like black and white photography, check out this blog.
Toy photography and flights of fancy: it almost seems like a defining combination. Wouldn‘t it be nice to just have a huge wall with a couple of tiny windows and a backlit „Tickets“ sign? Then I could show a long line of people waiting to get one. And can I translate the jazz music played at a concert into a picture?
Flights of fancy indeed, and when I build these 1/87 scale dioramas or set up scenes, it often seems like they will remain just that. Other times, things turn out quite well (if not always the way I would have expected). These two pictures are from my jazz series. The titles are Broadway Blues and Jumpin’ at the Woodside, after the respective songs composed by Ornette Coleman and Count Basie.
“Minton’s was just a place for cats to jam. People didn’t pay too much attention to what was going on, I mean the people there that weren’t musicians. So when you went in, you’d see cats half-stewed who weren’t paying much mind to what was happening on stage. But the musicians were.” Carmen McRae
A contribution for Cee’s Black & White Challenge – this would be my pick this week.
“Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn.” Charlie Parker
The Alster Fleet in Hamburg – these boats are waiting to take tourists around on the river Alster, as I was surprised to find out when we visited a couple of years ago. Because I remember that when I was a boy, we used to hop on these boats to get from A to B, with this very fleet servicing the waterways like any other public transportation. For us kids, it was great fun to take the boat when we went visiting relatives.
However, since this week’s Lens Artists’ Challenge specifically asked for Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, here’s a picture with autos…
The picture above, named after a song by Vernon Duke, is part of my Jazz series. I asked myself if the situation was too surreal, but then I saw the Lens Artists’ challenge, which is Surrealism. And I decided this amount of surrealism was all right. After all, the fun of working with toys is that you can push everything towards Surrealism as much as you like.
Continue reading “April in Paris”
empire of lights 