Tag: Nature

Wintry Abstractions

Tobias M. Schiel9 Comments

dsc07148-k

dsc07093-k

dsc07105-k

dsc07138-ek

dsc07125-k

Paleica continues her monthly photo challenge series 12 Magische Mottos. This month’s magic word is abstraction. Please check it out – there is some really great photography on display.

I’d had in mind to try my hand at abstract nature photos for a change. Last weekend’s snow invited an attempt to go abstract with ‘out of the camera’ pictures. I did not even do anything about the colours because I was fascinated by the fact that the ‘white’ snow never looked quite the same: That day, the sky shifted rapidly from cloudy to blindingly sunny.

Pattern Recognition

Tobias M. Schiel9 Comments

DSC04929-k

DSC05181-k

DSC04939-k

DSC04997-k

DSC05095-k

Here’s a contribution for Paleica’s Magic Mottos. This month, it is Blüten und Blätter (blossoms and leaves), and I felt like trying to come up with as many interpretations as I could. I began with focusing on nature’s abundance. Then I realized that many of the resulting pictures resembled patterns … or floral decorations that seem to be ubiquitous.

Ein Beitrag für Paleicas Magische Mottos. Dieses Mal waren es Blüten und Blätter, und ich habe versucht, so viele Interpretationen wie möglich zu finden. Es begann mit einem Blick auf Überfluss und Fülle der Natur. Dann fiel mir auf, dass die Bilder an Muster erinnern … an florale Dekorationen, wie man sie überall findet.

DSC05039-k2

DSC04996-k

DSC05060-k

 

DSC05098-k

A Walk in the Forest

Tobias M. Schiel7 Comments

holz-01
holz-02
holz-03holz-05

holz-04While I’d had in mind to post these pictures in my own ‘elements‘ gallery – demonstrating that I am more at home with wood than with glass – I realized that today’s pictures also show what we saw on our walk in the nearby Stadtwald (“city forest”). So I decided to share these in the context of Jo’s Monday Walks. And so everybody can see where we were, I included the bottom picture.

[Although I am not into tech talk, I would have been grateful for this kind of information when I was trying to make up my mind about using Sony’s Alpha 6000 camera with Nikon AIS lenses – so here we go: The first picture was made with aforementioned camera and a Nikkor 85/2 AIS, the rest of them with my favourite lens, the Nikkor 28/2.8 AIS. They seem to quite work well with the camera. Though focusing manually can be a hassle  with the small EVF, it is also fun.]

holz-00

A Walcheren Walk

Tobias M. Schiel4 Comments

jowa01 jowa02 jowa03 jowa04 jowa05 jowa06 jowa07 jowa08 jowa09a jowa10
A Monday walk in early January took us south-east from Zoutelande. We did not quite reach Dishoek though on account of the icy wind. The breakwaters lent themselves to trying some abstract photography though, before we found a bit of shelter in the dunes on our way back (along with some WW II bunkers which were photographed with black and white film and will be part of my “Fragments of a Language of Terror”).

Home Range (I)

Tobias M. Schiel8 Comments

345-31

345-28

345-36

345-33

My favourite walk, and a great place to smooth the creases out of my soul, as a German poet (almost) put it: This is an area where I do not feel there is a thing like poor weather; and so this walk in the fog was extremely nice. As for the route, there is none, especially when I bring my camera. I just roam about which much to everybody’s delight leads to bringing home loads of mud on my shoes… Maybe this ‘method’ has to do with what Robert Adams writes about the relation between photographers and dogs:

“My guess […] is that what sustained the artists’ affection for dogs was above all the animals’ enlivening sense of possibility. Artists live by curiosity and enthusiasm, qualities readily evident as inspiration in dogs. Propose a dog a walk and its response is absolutely yes. As a terrier of ours once exclaimed to Kerstin, in a dream of hers, ‘Let’s, Kerstin!’ Those were the only words that anyone had ever heard a dog speak – a wide-open program of unqualified eagerness, delivered from her characteristic posture of readiness to bolt for the kitchen, town, or filed.” (Robert Adams, Why People Photograph, New York: Aperture, 1994. p. 47)

In the end I should not forget to mention Jo’s Monday Walk, because if you like walking as much as I do, that’s a great place to visit and get inspired and participate.

Minimalist Life Story

Tobias M. Schiel3 Comments

345-23After this year’s summer storms, our forest was no longer the same. But something is always sprouting… My second contribution for this week’s Photo Challenge: “Find an interesting texture, color, or silhouette. Maybe there is a story that you can tell with your minimalist photo. Try an interesting angle with your composition to turn a traditional scene into a minimalist one, by eliminating as much of the extra detail in the background as possible.”