Al Di Meola and Peo Alfonsi in Hamburg

On July 5 this blog hat its fourth birthday (!!!), so I made myself a present — I went to see and photograph Al Di Meola and Peo Alfonsi at their concert in Die Fabrik in Hamburg. Actually I had a deal with Al’s Tour Manager to photograph the two exceptional musicians exclusively before the concert, but Al only got to Die Fabrik about 10 minutes before the start of the concert, so sadly, there was no time for that. Naturally I was quite unhappy, but at least I had plenty of good photo opportunities during the concert.

photogether — Turning Professional

My last posting lies almost three months back, but if you think that I haven’t been doing anything photographic lately, you couldn’t be any further from the truth…

In fact a very good friend of mine and I have finally taken the plunge and founded a photography-related company! Yes, all of our ideas about what we could do and want to do have finally come to fruition! We’ve named the company photogether, as in “photo” and “together,” and we are going to be offering a large palette of photographic services.

Klaus and his Three Younger Brothers

No auto-focus, no TTL flash and no matrix metering — all you need is a tripod, three manual flashes, a courageous mountain-biker and some patience.  Or quadruplets…

Related posts: 1, 2, 3.

Yellow like the Sun

I was driving home tonight, absent-mindedly listening to the radio when I saw this yellow building lit up by incredible sunset light.  So I had to stop by the side of the road and make a few images.

Flying with Hot Air

While in Trier I had another very interesting experience: three hot-air balloons were to take off in the late afternoon as part of an air-show in nearby Utscheid.  Hot-air balloons have fascinated me for a while now, so I didn’t have to think twice about whether to go or not.  As we got there the weather was beautiful and there were lots of flying activities, but the wind got stronger and stronger, so the balloons weren’t able to start.  But they did something at least as spectacular — a night-glow!

It was a great performance, but it wasn’t easy to shoot it.  The balloons were very bright and the surrounding area very dark (1/6″ at f/2.8 at ISO 1600), so I had to find a moment when both burners were just beginning to glow.  At full brightness it was either the balloons or the foreground, but not both.

“Color Photography” Workshop with Harald Mante

The “Color Photography” course with Harald Mante was a lot of fun. The group consisted of 13 participants with very different photographic backgrounds and artistic aspirations, and the equipment ranged from a film camera (Harald) to a compact camera to a professional dSLR. The length of photographic experience spanned from a couple of months up to twenty years.

Straight Stripes, Wavy Stripes

I’ll write a longer post about the two-week photo course with Harald Mante soon, but for now let me just show you these two photo series.  The first one shows details from a cheerfully painted industrial building somewhere in Trier, the second one the reflections of the building in the nearby cars.

As luck would have it, the cars were black and reflected the stripes very well, but they were also quite dusty, which caused me hours of fun with the spot removal brush in ACR.

Photographing with Harald Mante

In an hour I’m leaving for a two-week trip to Trier where I’ll be taking a photographic course with Harald Mante.  The topic is “Color Photography” and I’m really quite excited.  I’ve never taken a course that concentrates on creativity and vision, so I don’t know what to expect, but my expectations are high!

Harald Mante (photo by Eva Witter)

New Portfolio: Hamburg Harley Days 2010

Chrome, black, chrome, orange, some more chrome, lots of black, then chrome again… Motorcycles in all directions, immaculately clean, neatly parked, for as long as the eye can see. Lots of people dressed in black leather and wearing dark sunglasses, men with long hair, women in tight corsets. The aura of the American wild west hangs in the air somewhat, but “be cool” is the definitely the motto of the day.

The polished chrome and the colorful reflections fascinated me most, I guess…

Photographing at 3 G

OK, so the the 3 G only lasted about 15 seconds and I admit I wasn’t thinking of photographing at that moment.  In fact I was concentrating on holding my head up and wasn’t thinking of anything…  And boy, my idea of gliding as a relaxed and low-adrenalin sport evaporated quickly through that small fresh-air-window.