Piraeus Night Ride - a shooting and editing experience with the Leica Q2 and Nik Color Efex

It took me 8 months to edit the pictures.

In May 2020 I took a night ride through Piraeus, Athen’s harbor city with my Greek friend Alex. On our way back from a trip on the island of Salamina he suggested us to drive through the dark city of Piraeus. He wanted to show me the city and I took out my Leica Q2 camera and started shooting from the passenger seat.

I set the camera to auto ISO, the aperture to f1.7 and the exposure time to 1/50 seconds. And I started shooting into the night lit streets and the traffic that we encountered.

It became a fascinating experience. We were driving through dark suburban streets where we found islands of light that appeared in front of us and disappeared again within one or two seconds. I shot picture after picture, aware that with the relative slow exposure time of 1/50 seconds I would have some blur effect (in order to “freeze” a scene that you shoot from a driving car you need to use at least 1/250 second, better 1/500 or even shorter).

I uploaded the RAW pictures in the following week to my external hard drive, created the usual backup files on a second external hard drive and then I didn’t touch them for a few weeks.

When revisiting the pictures for the first time I found them a little boring and did not know what exactly to do with them. The motion blur was kind of interesting but it did not give the pictures shape and and any fascinating feeling. I processed some of the pictures, posted some on Flickr but neither me nor my followers were particularly interested in the results.

Not bad - but not really interesting either……

Kind of moody - but something is missing…..

And then I forgot about them. I had many other interesting subjects to shoot and I did my editing of these pictures. The Piraeus ones were on the hard drive and I did not touch them.

8 months later I accidentally came across he pictures again. And immediately I knew what to do. I had just worked with the Nik editing apps recently. So I took the RAW pictures, transferred them to Nik Color Efex where I applied some presets that suited the dark, moody atmosphere of the night and the environment.

Thew same picture with a new edit

In a second step I exported the pictures to Photoshop where I used the blur tools to enhance the motion blur effect that the pictures already had.

Color cast and blur effect

And in a last step I added some texture and clarity in lightroom and did some local enhancements of light and colors. The editing of each single picture took me between 15 and 30 minutes. That includes the time I sometimes took between step 2 and 3 in order to re-evaluate my results and to start doing my local adjustments in Lightroom.

And all of a sudden the pictures had a feel that reflected the mysterious atmosphere that we had experienced during the ride through the city of Piraeus.

We often read the recommendation to let the pictures “mature” after the shooting and to let them “rest” for a while. I often don’t follow that recommendation. But in this case leaving the pictures alone and coming back with fresh and unbiased eyes gave me the opportunity to create a completely new and different approach. Revisiting the older ones can make a lot of sense. I love the results……

The Difficult Ones - Street Portraits of "Scary People"

When I shot street portraits during New Year’s Eve in Wellington I had some moments when I encountered people that I would usually regard as “difficult to shoot” because their outer appearance is “scary” and doesn’t invite to asking them if they agree to having their portrait taken.

I am far from being a bold street photographer. I will never become a second Bruce Gilden. Gilden is an example for an “into the face” street photographer who doesn’t have any inhibitions at taking peoples’ pictures. I find it difficult to get into the flow and to convince myself to take the first step of approaching people to take their picture. I actually find it easier to shoot a person with who I have an appointment for a photo shoot because in that case the question “does he/she want it or not” has already been answered. But of course that approach doesn’t have the spontaneity that you find in street portraits.

So what about the “difficult ones”? During the NYE shooting I remember shooting two people that I found difficult to approach. One was the bouncer at a party establishment, the other one was a guy who was sitting on the edge of a flower bed in Wellington’s pedestrian zone. He was heavily tattooed, made a brooding impression and and it felt as if he would not be very approachable. But man, he looked interesting!!

I was lucky because I was in the flow. I had been shooting for half an hour and it had been fun and I had enjoyed this experience a lot. People were friendly, easy to approach, often a little drunk but not completely pissed, so I was in a real nice photographic flow.

So I just went over to him and knelt in from of him, holding my big Nikon D850 DSLR camera and asked him “would it be ok if I took your picture?” He looked at me and answered in a relaxed way “Sure, no problem.” He took his cigarette, had a deep drag and stared broodingly straight ahead. I was more than surprised. I made use of the kneeling pose that I had taken in from of him and shot him right from where I was in front of him. So I had this slightly lower perspective that helped with the expression of the picture.

The experience with this picture showed a very simple photographic rule. “You never know before you ask people”. And that is certainly an encouragement for a slightly more daring approach to taking street portraits.

What helped me very much was “the flow” I was in. I think it might be a good idea of describing this experience and how it evolved on that particular evening a little more in depth. I will do that soon in a separate article.

Happy New Year! - Street Portraits on New Year's Eve in Wellington, New Zealand

I had nothing better to do. On New Year’s Eve I decided that I wanted to visit the city centre of Wellington to catch some street portraits of the party goers in the hours before midnight. So I put my Nikon D850 in my bag, put the Nikkor 85mm f1.8 lens on that I use for portrait shooting and started into the night.

My starting point was not overly good. I was not in the mood for party nor to meet people and to converse. But I did want to shoot. Initially I could not even be bothered to take my camera out of my bag. But then I sat down next to an amazing blues guitar player in the pedestrian zone of Cuba Street. This blues man invited me to shoot him while playing. So I sat down opposite to him and started shooting. And next to me on that bench was sitting a little guy with tattoos all over the face, the smell of cheap wine coming from his mouth. He started talking to me in a mix of English and German language. And he made me aware of the “dangerous two guys over there that are for sure American spies. That broke the ice. :-)

I was sitting there, taking picture of the musician, of people sitting around him on benches. And then I took off, walking back into the party zone at Coutney Place. And all of a sudden I was “in the flow”. I sought eye contact with the people coming towards me, started asking them for their picture. The atmosphere was easy going, people where already a little tipsy and in relaxed and beautiful mood.

It really flowed. I walked down the place on both sides into all directions. And then I met those girls. They had a little too much alcohol, no doubt. And they showed me the Haka. Right into my camera. Full on. I was blown away and exacted two pictures.

Do you know the Haka…?

And it went on and on. Surprising and sometimes a little annoying was that nearly everybody that I shot took on a pose immediately. They are all Instagram trained!! Everybody does it. They put their heads together, hands up, fingers spread and smiiiile. It is as if everybody had the same trainer that told them how to take on the “right pose”. It is incredible.

I stayed in the flow for 2 and a half hours. Until I was really empty. Until I had really all the pictures I wanted. Until I was really happy.

The Sweeties

The Bouncer

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

RICOH GR III - Strong Contrast Black and White Pictures - Wellington at Dusk

Recently I went out late in the afternoon when dusk was starting to fall. I had my little GR III camera with me that I had put on high contrast JPEG shooting mode.

My idea was to shoot some contrasty pictures of the city (it is Wellington, New Zealand that we are speaking about) in the fading light, maybe using some street lights, maybe utilizing the light from the sky.

I hadn’t tried the strong contrast JPEG preset in that way before. I had shot some pictures on a beach and I liked the rendering of the dark tones. It complemented my style quite nicely. So trying this in the urban environment was a nice little challenge.

And I was lucky, I got into the flow.
You know the photographic flow? You immerse yourself into your shooting and all of a sudden nothing exists but pictures, scenes that want to be captured, light, contrast, maybe colors, a flurry of impressions that wait to be photographed.

This kind of flow lasts with me between an hour and two. Towards the end I feel that I am getting tired. It’s hard mental work, it is focusing on the environment and on composition and light all the time. Eventually by the end of a flow I get to the point where I feel that I have “shot myself empty”. The flow abates gradually, the rush ceases, the inclination to find yet another motif stops.

I love those moments of getting into the flow. It’s immensely gratifying and rewarding. And often the pictures that are shot in such a flow are good or even excellent. It’s a special mode and mood.

So, in such a flow I got myself during the JPEG shooting session. I found a narrow alley with wooden fences to both sides and, a street light and the bright sky at the end of this path. I shot this in many iterations. I will later come back to this motif.

At the end of my two hours walk I was indeed empty and my SD cart had filled up to a good degree. And I had the feeling of satisfaction and curiosity about what I might have found. I was keen on sitting down and processing my pictures and getting them ready to be shown on Flickr.

Flickr is a great motivation for me. The fact that I can show what I deem the best pictures in Flickr motivates me to shoot and to try out new ways of photography. Over the past 8 years this fascination and motivation has been continuing. Flickr is a great source of inspiration to me.

When I started editing the pictures on my computer I found out that they don’t have great “latitude”. This means that when playing with exposure, highlights, whites, shadows and blacks in post, the pictures tend to develop unnaturally looking white or grey areas that just don’t look appealing at all. Reason for that is that the pictures were shot in JPEG format which limits the way of editing them considerably. The pictures I took of the before mentioned fenced path suffer from this technical flaw.

The image looks nice. But if you take a closer look you can see that Whites and Greys have in some areas an unnatural look

The easiest way of circumventing this problem was to darken the pictures, to increase whites and to make local adjustments to the areas that should appear bright. In that way it was possible to create some pictures that obtained a graphical character.

The areas where I increased the Whites appeared bright and luminant and created a beautiful contrast with the dark or grey environment. This luminance you can indeed only achieve by editing JPEG pictures. RAW files are too flexible and do not “tip over” into very bright or deep dark tones, This only happens when we use JPEG pictures.

Sometimes it requires a little bit of luck (bad and good one) to achieve a certain look in pictures.

The Leica Q2 - it is that good!

Recently I have been shooting a lot with the Leica Q2. I used it for shooting portraits and very recently also for shooting pictures on a mountain very close to Athen’s city center. Together with my Flickr friend Alex we went on a trip to explore this interesting place (or I should rather say that he took me to a place that he knew well in order to give me the opportunity to experience it and take pictures - thank you very much, Alex! :-) ).

So what happened with regard to this camera? Well, it’s very simple - the photographic results from this little “field trip” are absolutely amazing.

I took pictures of the stunning view over the city of Athens and the Saronic Gulf. Shooting directly into the sunlight yielded amazing results. The camera was able to handle the strong contrasts and I could process the pictures by maintaining the contrast, playing with the colors and without encountering any banding that you would often find in backlit pictures with strong contrast.

View over the Saronic Gulf, Athens, Greece

When I took pictures of an abandoned building, shooting from dark rooms into the light outside I was able to recover the shadows and colors inside without any problems. Colors were beautiful, I could edit them even at relative high ISO of 3200 without creating any smear or ugly high ISO grain. I was amazed about the outcome.

High ISO interior shot of an abandoned building. The blur of the foreground is caused by focussing on the rear area with wide open lens (f/1.7).

When judging an expensive camera it always comes back to the question if this camera “is worth it”. For me I can answer this with a clear “yes”. This is simply the best camera I have ever worked with. It is a handy, small tool that is fun using, that does not get in your way and that yields amazing pictures. It simply is that good.

You find examples for Leica Q2 work in the “latest work” picture gallery https://www.chris-r-photography.net/latest-work and also in the “Inner Core Project” gallery https://www.chris-r-photography.net/inner-core .

Shooting Portraits with the Leica Q2

I bought the Leica Q2 for street photography, for landscape and travel pictures and for my ICM (intentional camera movement) work. I wanted to have a reliable full frame camera with a great lens and good file output, with files that can stand my sometimes very intense processing attempts. And admittedly I also bought the Leica for the fun of shooting with it.

What I certainly had not intended to do was using this camera for portrait photography. Everybody knows that using a 28mm wide angle lens for portraits is an impossible task, doesn’t yield good results, doesn’t make sense. Or does it??

I’ll tell you what happened. In Athens I had the opportunity of meeting Lina. Lina is an actress that I met through a friend. (Meeting friends of friends who know somebody who is somebody’s friend is one of the wonderful social accomplishments in Greece. You are not alone. You have opportunities that they create for you. Thank you so much, Loukia!). Lina agreed to participate in my Inner Core Project. However the moment we started shooting in a park in Athens it turned out that it was not the right time, nor the mood nor the intention to pursue the Inner Core idea. So the shooting turned seamlessly into a “conventional” portrait session.

The portrait shooting experience with the Q2 was the same as it had been in landscape or ICM photography. The camera was very easy to handle, I could shoot with both, viewfinder and LCD screen and it turnend out that the camera was, as should be in the best case, not in my way. Using a light weight camera like this “point and shoot” for portraits was actually a benefit in comparison to a much heavier DSLR.

Lina, Leica Q2 outdoor shot with natural light, no dishes or other equipment used

What about the pictures? That is when the big surprise happened. I was not expecting anything particular good because I knew I had the “wrong lens” in front of my camera. What I found on my computer screen were amazing pictures with a clarity, a rendering and an expression that surpassed by far what I had expected. They always talk about Leica lenses’ “micro contrast”. Here I experienced for the very first time what exactly this means. The pictures “pop” in a way that I have never seen in any other camera/lens combination before. They are just special in a wonderful, very eye pleasing way.

Lina, Leica Q2 outdoor shot, some cropping in post

And the 28mm distortion? Yes, it is there. Particularly if the photographer tries to use the full width of the picture and places his model eccentrically, to the sides of the frame. As this example shows, there can be clear distortion of the anatomy, my model’s nose does not appear straight in this picture. On the other hand, if you are aware of this phenomenon and try to avoid framing the face close to the margins of the picture and if you keep a certain distance and choose cropping in post instead of getting close to your model when taking the shot, then distortion is not a major problem. I even think that the 28mm lens emphasizes certain facial features in a way that makes a portrait more interesting.

So without even planning it I had the experience of shooting portraits with the Leica Q2. And I’ll do it again. This camera is amazing and I love exploring its possibilities further. Portrait photography entered the realm of my use of the Leica Q2.

Think out of the square. Try things out. Take the risk. That’s where creativity in photography (and so many other areas) happens. If you use a tool in an unconventional way the results will clearly surprise you. Here it was an exceptionally positive surprise.

Leica Q2 - a huge disappointment (but then....)

It’s good that I didn’t write my article about the Leica Q2 right after my first experience with it. Content and verdict would have been very different from what I am writing now. And it would not have been very flattering.

I bought a new Leica Q2 three months ago. I had been salivating for this camera for years. First I wanted the original Q, then after the release of the Q2 I desired the camera even more due to all the improvements that had been implemented. The price is steep, and that was the reason why I hesitated for so many years. But eventually I could not resist.

The timing of my purchase was a little unlucky. I bought the camera right before I started my first shootings for the “Inner Core Project”. This project requires me to be extremely swift and flexible with my camera because I leave it completely up to my “models” how they move and what they do during the shooting.

My little Ricoh GR III camera fulfills all requirements for this type of photo shoot. It is light, easy to use, I can handle it with just one hand and the menus and buttons are very intuitive. It’s the perfect camera for that purpose.

I then tried out the Q2 in this shooting environment. It was a disaster. The camera was too heavy (800 g in comparison to 420 g of the GR III), it felt clumsy and I was far too slow because I didn’t know the camera and it’s functions well enough. So I used the GR III as my main camera during the shootings and only used the Q2 for some top up pictures just to try it out.

I was pretty disappointed. I bought my dream camera and I couldn’t handle it. I found that all the raving reviews had hopelessly overrated the camera.

Then I used it for some street shots. Still I wasn’t happy, exactly for the same reasons. Too heavy, too slow, too cumbersome. Yes, nice pictures and versatile files in pp but after all a huge waste of money.

And then I took the Q2 for a whole day outdoors into nature where I used it for long exposure work with intentional camera movement (ICM) to take landscape pictures. I visited the Emsland region in Northern Germany and there particularly some moors. I had a whole day, could do things at a slow pace, could expose pictures to my liking and play with the functions of the camera. And for the first time it felt as if this camera belonged into my hands. I learned how to move it intentionally according to my needs for blur effects. I changed exposure times, used the pop up menus on the screen and found that I could create a well working workflow.

And when I started processing the files some days later it was a revelation. It’s the best ICM pictures I have ever taken. The colors that I found in the RAW files are amazing. I only need to process them slightly in Lightroom and maybe give them some touch ups in Photoshop. I am a black and white photographer and in the past I found colour files difficult to handle. But that’s not the case with these Leica files. They shine and the colors pop in a beautiful way. It’s actually a joy to work with them.

ICM landscape picture shot with Leica Q2

The details in these pictures are absolutely amazing. I can create effects that I was not able to bring about with any other camera. I would call these pictures “dense”. There is so much information in them that they have an amazing expression.

So I was able to create a series that is to my full satisfaction. I love the ICM aspect, I love the colors and I was able to create a consistent series.

ICM landscape picture taken with Leica Q2

After that weekend I have changed my mind. This camera does live up to its expectations. You only need to be able to define the best use for it. And as with all tools you need to be able to handle it. Any camera is only as good as the person that uses it. I will certainly try again to use it for shooting people. Maybe with a little more experience with my new tool the results will be more satisfying.

My first disappointment has disappeared. I am keen on using the Q2 again. Next weekend I will be going to the Teufelsmoor (devil’s moore) and shoot like hell....

Photographer and "Model" Interaction - some insights from the Inner Core Project

Inner Core Project

The “Inner Core Project” is the attempt of showing the deeper inner layer of a person’s personality in photographs. I think this is a very ambitious idea and I am still not really certain if this is possible at all.

During the photoshoots of the past four weeks with five different collaborators I have made some discoveries that I would like to share with you. And maybe some of these discoveries can be transferred to “normal” portrait photography.

Connecting to the “Inner Core”

The starting point of every photo shoot is that I ask my “model”/collaborator how they think they are able to connect the best way to their inner core, to themselves, to the deepest part of their personality. And depending on their character, the professional work that they do and their temperament they have chosen different ways of of approaching their inner core.

I worked with two dancers. Marine wanted to find herself by moving her body in a spontaneous way on the ground and by dancing. Neven chose a natural environment outside where he just rested and let himself fall into the feeling of connecting to nature. Surya, who is a Yoga teacher did not (as expected by me) want to meditate to focus on her inner being but decided to dance wildly and use her body intensely to get the connection to herself. Bettina decided to use a pose where she laid down on the floor in a comfortable position on her side. She rested and tried to feel herself. And Tania just sat down on the ground and tried to look inside without doing anything specific. So everyone had a different way of connecting to their “inner core”, to themselves.

I also asked my collaborators to choose the place where they wanted to have the photo shoot. The assumption is that the more comfortable a person is with her or his environment the easier it is to connect to themselves.

Asking my “models” not to wear cloths during the photo shooting was another aspect of the project. My assumption is that cloths are another outside layer that prevent seeing deeper into a person’s inner core. So I asked if they could not wear any cloths apart from a slip. The purpose of the slip is to avoid any sexualization of the photo shoot or even more importantly not to distract viewers from the statement of the pictures by drawing their glances to the genitalia of my “models”. Three participants could agree to this request, two chose to wear underwear or a T-shirt on the upper body.

Technical Aspects

From a technical perspective I use a small and light camera, mainly my RICOH GR III that I can easily hold in one hand. I also tried using my Leica M Monochrom and a Leica Q2 which is a new camera for me. I will write a separate article about my experience with the Q2 in the near future. The two Leicas are much heavier than the GR III (approx. 800g vs. 260g for the GR III) which clearly limits their usability for this specific purpose.

Choosing long exposure times of approximately 1/6 of a second, sometimes much longer up to 5 or even 10 seconds is another part of the project. With the Leica MM and Q2 I have used 6 stop ND filters to make shooting with long exposure in daylight possible. The GR III can’t attach a ND filter which limits its use in very bright environments. As I have already mentioned in previous articles I am assuming that with longer exposure times it is easier to get a glance into the Inner Core of a person.

I had also decided that I would process the pictures in b&w under the assumption that colour would most likely distract from the purpose of this project.

The idea of the shooting process is that the photographer does nothing but follow his collaborators with his camera. I don’t speak, I am not asking them to pose or to make certain movements. I try to adapt entirely to the wishes and needs of my “models”. Of course this makes taking photos much more difficult from a technical perspective. I cannot influence the angle of light, the way they move, the background that I catch together with the person that I am shooting.

One shooting happened in the evening so that I had to use a handheld LED light. Holding the camera with one hand and taking pictures, holding the light in the other hand and following my “model” and her movements and coordinating all this to get reasonable photos was a very challenging task.

And now I would like to come to the most interesting aspect of this whole project. There are actually two aspects. One is the question if I can really show and document the Inner Core, the inner being of a person in a photograph. And the other aspect is that of the interaction between “model” and photographer.

Showing the “Inner Core”?

Is it possible to show the “inner Core” in a photograph? Photography deals with two-dimensional recordings of shape, light, texture and colour if it is a colour picture. They “see” a person from outside. So a photograph completely depends on what a person shows in their facial expression and body posture. The camera can’t “look inside”. So the question is if my “models” show something outside that could be perceived as the Inner Core.

I can certainly confirm that during these sessions my collaborators were in a state of more or less deep self-immersion which was clearly visible on their faces and also in their postures. Interestingly I found out that later when processing the pictures I could find features in their faces and their postures that I had not seen or discovered during the shooting process. But is that a representation of the “Inner Core”? I really don’t know. I don’t have an answer to the question.

Do we see the Inner Core?

The Interaction

The interaction between photographer and “model” is a crucial aspect in this project and of course in portrait photography in general. An important question is if the presence of the photographer changes the ability of a “model” to connect to herself or himself. My answers are mixed. My feeling during the sessions of my two dancing models was that they were so focussed on their own movements that the presence of the photographer did not faze them. The ones who wehere resting tended more towards getting in contact with me by looking into the camera or even talking to me. If that distracted them is difficult to tell, my feeling was that this was the case.

All five “models” told me that they were able to connect to their deeper inner self and that the presence of a photographer did not really affect this connection very much.

I can clearly say that the nudity of my “models” did not distract me nor did it have an impact on the atmosphere of the shootings.

Another aspect of interaction is my way of shooting my participants. Depending on how much they move I need to follow my “models” with my camera and try to improvise with every picture I take. That leads to a lot of intuitive shooting where I don’t have the time or opportunity to plan or compose a picture purposefully. But even though this aspect is limited I do have an influence on how the pictures eventually look by choosing the frame and roughly composing the picture which leads to the question if my personal approach has an influence on how the Inner Core becomes visible or not. So the outcome does not only depend on what the participant is able or willing to reveal but also on how the photographer chooses to shoot the frame.

Particularly this aspect of “model” and photographer behaviour and interaction has a big impact on the outcome not only in my little project but also on outcomes of portrait photography in general. I believe that both “behaviours” decide as to how the eventual outcome of a picture is like. I have to admit that I loathe pictures where it is obvious that the photographer has urged his model into a pose without realising the comfort zone nor the personality of his model. My project goes into the other extreme by trying to minimise the influence of the photographer on the outcome and to let the person shine from inside. But I would assume that working with what a model brings to the shooting is always an essential part the looks and the success of portrait photographs. (Maybe one day I should write an article about the difference of portrait pictures with and without “posing”).

No posing….

Post-Processing

As we all know a picture is not done by the end of the photo shoot. Post-processing is an essential part of the process of picture creation. And of cause this is the case in my little project.

I have discovered that every photoshoot requires a different workflow because of the different set-ups and characters of the person I shoot. I convert the pictures to black and white, change the lighting, add grain and if necessary crop the pictures. Every picture goes through a workflow in Lightroom, Photoshop and Nik Silver Efex.

Of cause my perception of the picture, my memories of the shooting and my decision as to how to develop the picture has an impact on the final outcome of the picture. Considering the goal of wanting to show the Inner Core of a person you may ask how much this developing process alters or even “falsifies” the picture. At least does my perception of the picture, does my aesthetical decision making have an influence on the final outcome. I take the liberty to enhance the picture according to what I think is visible and needs to be emphasised.

Post-processing as the final step of a photographic workflow has been discussed a million times. And the question if we have “the right” to alter a picture once it has been taken has still not been answered. And I don’t want to go into the depth of this discussion. But what I want to say is that I am aware that my decision making during the development of the pictures on the computer has an impact on how the project is shaped. It is my subjective perception and my awareness that decide how a picture shows the Inner Core of a person in my photographs.

The Journey

I find the it fascinating to deal with something so intimate as the inner being of a person and that I get permission to try to reveal it in photographs. I find it fascinating that the interaction of photographer and “model” influence the process. And I am aware of the limitations of my own judgement with regard to my decision making during the development process of these pictures.

Not only do I get the opportunity of working with human beings so closely, its also gives me the opportunity of thinking about the creation process of photographs and the interaction between the photographer and his models. All this is much more than I had ever expected before I started the first photo shoot. It is a fascinating journey into the discovery of human beings, their behaviour and myself as a photographer.

Will I ever find an answer? Is it possible to show the “Inner Core” in a photograph? Maybe this is completely unimportant. Maybe it is the journey that counts, the journey and the human interaction.

Thank you very much Herr Schlattner (or - the planning of a photo shoot)

When you want to do a photo shoot with a person, a “model” as we say and as I really don’t like saying, things are slightly different from going out on the street or into nature. As you have a certain goal you also need to plan the shooting. And that means you need to find a “model”, the right time and of course a suitable place.

I don’t own or rent a studio. (It would be completely useless in my case as I am traveling from Greece to New Zealand to Australia and back. Where would I have my studio then?) So I need to find a place where I can shoot. It turned out that I was very lucky in Osnabrück. Marine, my first “model” knew the owner of a Yoga place in town who was willing to let us shoot at his premises.

But I wanted a second session at a different place. And on my mind I had an industrial place, possible abandoned and in it’s original state. Such a place is really hard to find, particularly if you don’t know the city, it’s environment and the options it gives you.

So I started driving around and I came to an old harbour area where they had started refurbishing storage buildings and halls. Regrettably none of those buildings was in the original state anymore and the ones that I found were already refurbished and turned into relatively small office spaces which where not suitable for a photo shoot.

But then I discovered a large storage hall where the refurbishment works were just on their way. With a little bit of chuzpe I drove into the building site and right in front of me a grey haired chap was walking on the street blocking me from continuing. He actually looked like the foreman of this building site.

So I started talking to him asking him if he knew if the place could be used for a photo shoot. And immediately he said that yes, this would be possible and I could take a look at the hall and decide if it was suitable for my purposes. He came across as a very assertive and cooperative foreman indeed.

We walked around on the site where builders were working and creating a lot of dust. The hall was gorgeous. Approximately 60 meters long, 30 meters wide and at least 10 meters high with large windows all around the top of the walls. A huge photo studio!

Our “Photo Studio”

I said “yes!”, that place I would love to use. And he told me that I could use it over the weekend when works were interrupted, he just needed to know when exactly because he would need to open the building site for us. He gave me his cell phone number and told me his name. “Schlattner” he grumbled with a typical Austrian accent.

So I contacted Marine, my dancer and we arranged for our shooting for the following Saturday. And Herr Schlattner told me that he would be in his office on the building site the whole day anyway. “Hm”, I was thinking by myself, “a foreman who works at his office the whole weekend?”

So I googled him as soon as I returned back home. And of course I discovered that my assertive foreman was the owner of the building company that was doing the work at that storage hall. And for whatever reason he had a heart for the arts and for a poor photographer. I was really incredibly lucky.

Herr Schlattner, you were very generous and I thank you very much for the wonderful opportunity that you gave us for our photo shoot!

The Inner Core Project

What if we tried to show the inner core of a person in a photograph? That was the question I was wondering about some time ago. You can read my first thoughts about this here in the article “Destiny (is a very big word)”. http://www.chris-r-photography.net/2019/11/29/s0tfzb1zssh7b7coavrfxtgdrmvv46

The starting point of my considerations was the assumption that we all have a deeper inner core of our person, of our personality. On top of that we develop over the years layers of behaviour that are determined by education, interaction with people, experience, traumata, neuroses and other influences. Our every day behaviour is a mixture of these layers interacting with the core personality deep within.

From there I was wondering if it might be possible to show the “inner core” of a person in a photograph. During my photographic development over the past few years I used long exposure photography, motion blur, intentional camera movements a lot. When watching these blurred pictures I noticed that it felt as if I could see deeper into a person’s characteristics in pictures that I had taken with this long exposure technique. The question is of course if a long exposure picture really represents a person’s characteristics on a deeper level or if a blurred picture gives the viewer more space to imagine certain characteristics because imagination can fill the gaps that the picture leaves. This question I have not answered to myself entirely, you might have your own very personal answer to it too.

In order to find out if my hypothesis works, I decided to start a photographic project around the core idea. The plan is, to shoot people with long exposure and ask them to do things where they feel that they are within themselves to the most. I would assume that every person has a different way of “feeling herself/himself”. So I am asking my “models” to do exactly what brings them “to themselves” in the most intense way.

I was lucky to meet Marine in Osnabrück during my current trip to Europe. Marine is a dancer with the Osnabrück Theater Dance Company. She agreed to participate in this project and we met for a shooting. The owner of YogaOmline in Osnabrück was so kind to allow us shooting in his rooms.

I asked Marine, not to “perform” for me but to find a way of getting deep into herself in her own personal way. She used moving her body for this. During the shooting we both remained completely silent. I did not ask her to strike any poses but only followed her movements with my camera.

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Marine, Inner Core Project

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Marine, Inner Core Project

I found this collaboration amazing. I was allowed to look into the personality of my “model” and to take pictures of what was a very intimate personal experience. Marine has allowed me to share the pictures. I am very grateful and thank her very very much.

What is your way of expressing the core of your personality? How can you reach deep within yourself? Is there a way of showing this outside? If any of you is interested in this project and wants to participate I would ask you to get in touch with me. Leave me a message on this website or write me a Flickr mail (https://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisrsouthland). I will continue this project over the coming months. Currently (September 2020) I am still in Osnabrück, Germany.