Matterhorn - Winter landscape photography

Matterhorn (4478 m.a.s.l): here some documentary photos from my recent photography trip (see post from Saturday January 17th) to Gornergrat Kulm in Zermatt.

I took not only my DSLR equipment with me but also my 1976 Hasselblad 500 c/m with different film. The film is still waiting to be developed.





It was a day with beautiful weather, bright sunlight, blue sky, but still some clouds to make the sky more interesting.

Temperature was -17 °C and the wind made it feel even colder. These conditions made manipulating the cameras and taking pictures not easier.

Technically cameras all worked very well under these conditions. For the analog work I had a bit of problems with my vintage Yashica exposure meter where the exposure needle reacted a bit sluggish and I was not very sure about correct readings.

The bright light reflected from the snow, or direct sunlight made exposure metering very difficult. But I hope to have picked the right settings for good results. Once the films are developed we will know more.

For digital especially changing lenses was difficult. There were always little snow crystals in the air which would absorb on the mirror and lenses and on the inside of the camera body. In consequence some of my digital images got quite a bit of dust - or snow - spots which needed to be retouched.
I experienced similar issues when travelling in very dry areas with dust. However, it was easier to handle these.

I wonder how this can be overcome?

For a collection of images visit the image gallery at andreasrmueller.com.

Matterhorn - Zermatt - Images by Andreas Mueller

Shooting into the sun

As it is sunny weather today I thought some web resource on how to shoot great pictures directly into the sun could be valuable.

Usually we are told at photography school to always make sure the sun is in our back while shooting. Reason for that is mainly the automatic exposure metering which gets confused if exposed to such high contrast sceneries with direct sunlight and harsh shadows.

However, knowing how to play with exposure  and fill lights shooting directly into the sun can lead to very creative special effects, creative image composition, and images rich in contrast and color dynamics.

Here a how-to at digital-photography-school:
http://digital-photography-school.com/how-to-shoot-in-direct-sunlight/

What makes a photographer when everyone is taking pictures

With an increasing amount of photographs being taken and shared over electronic media every day the professional profile of a photographer changes.
Smartphone cameras have become decently good to take high quality pictures under good light conditions. Everybody is carrying such a camera around. - "The best camera is the one that is with you." - And everybody can take a good shot at the right moment.

So what makes the difference. - The difference is in image composition, light control, and repeatability.

#airportcarpet

The fascinating world of airportcarpets!

For a selection of the world's airport carpets follow this Facebook link: https://m.facebook.com/hashtag/airportcarpet

Courage to handling complexity

FUJIFILM Corporation announces price increase of photographic films.

FUJIFILM Corporation announces price increase of photographic films.: FUJIFILM Corporation has announced that it will implement a worldwide price increase for its photographic films. The price increases are substantial and it would be an increase of at least double digit, but will vary depending on products, markets and regions.

Black and White Tokyo Photography

Alone - Arts Chien (flickr)

Tokyo subway scene - Piero Damiani (flickr)

Alley - Satoshi Inagaki (500px)

Yakitori - Marco Patella (500px)

Black Tea - Olivier Cruciata (500px)

Film is a disease

Follow the following link to play this wonderful Video on the addiction towards film photography: https://vimeo.com/nunomarques/filmisadisease

Camera shopping in Tokyo pt. 1 - Shinjuku - Japan Camera Hunter

With Japan being home to a significant number of the most prominent camera manufacturers Tokyo seems to be a paradise for camera shopping.

Japanese camera makers (link).

Here some shopping advice:
Camera shopping in Tokyo pt. 1 - Shinjuku - Japan Camera Hunter

Inspirational Photography Video

Watch this inspirational video by Nikon Ambassador Corey Rich featuring a number of professional photographers specialised in different fields.

A lot of inspiration what to do with cameras. How to capture special pictures.

The video features the newly released Nikon D5 camera. However, the messages of featured photographers apply to photography in general!

Kodak's CEO Uses 35mm Film as His Business Card

Kodak's CEO Uses 35mm Film as His Business Card: Kodak CEO Jeff Clarke is on a mission to bring film back, and his business card reflects that: it's literally a strip of 35mm film that has his information

SUPER 8 - Contemporary 8 mm film movie makers

Have a look at this short documentary on todays SUPER 8 film movie makers.

Also here people are following a hybrid process. The movie is shot on film, film gets developed and finally scanned image by image and edited in a computer.

As this seems to become more and more a common workflow Kodak already offers the most of the process as a service. And many people love it.



"The 8mm Revolution" - SUPER 8 Movie Featurette from Cinelicious on Vimeo.

KODAK SUPER 8 :: THE DIGITAL ANALOG HYBRID CAMERA

Kodak is Bringing Back the Super 8 as a Film Camera with Digital Features: While other photo brands are busy announcing their latest and greatest digital cameras, Kodak has a rather unusual unveiling: it's bringing back the legend

A very interesting an not anticipated move. Will this camera business model be successful?

Ted Forbes on this surprising announcement of Kodak:


The new stuff explained by Kodak CEO Jeff Clarke:

Black and White Matterhorn Photography

Matterhorn in dark - Christiaan Mout (500px)

Matterhorn - Roberto Barter (500px)

The Old Man and the Mountain - Fabio Rezzola (500px)

The Matterhorn - Armaan Ali (500px)

Matterhorn - Toblerone Mountain

The Matterhorn, 4'478 m 

(45°58′35″N 7°39′30″E)

Pictures shot from Gornergrat Kulm using iPhone 6s and Camera+ app. Anticipating weather using MeteoSwiss app. Knowing the light situation using The Photographer's Ephemeris app. Learning the mountain geography using Peakfinder app.

Matterhorn: Portrait photography

The Matterhorn (4478 m) is one of the world's most iconic mountains. It is part of a scenic mountain landscape in Switzerland.

There are several photographers who have portrayed this exceptional mountain peak.

Nenad Saljic - Matterhorn: Portrait of a Mountain

A portfolio of pictures in black and white. The Matterhorn is shown under different weather conditions which make the images especially artistic choosing the monochromatic technique. The shown portfolio exhibits long time exposures at night as well as shots under bright sun light. The impressive cloud formations add an intense dynamic component to these still images.

Thomas Heitmar - Matterhorn Collection

A collection showing the Matterhorn and it's reflection on the surface of the various mountain lakes in the area. The portfolio exhibits photographs under different light conditions. It is impressive how different one and the same image composition can be depending on season, time, light condition, weather, and probably exposure settings.

Per Kasch - Matterhorn

Some pictures taken from still typical but unusual angles.

Urs Zihlmann - Zermatt

Postcard images from this beautiful landscape taken during different season around the year.

Matterhorn - Landscape Photography

The Matterhorn is one of the most iconic mountain peaks of the Swiss Alps. It is probably also the mountain in the Swiss Alps where you could find most photographs taken of.

Next weekend I am going to visit Zermatt and the Gornergrat. I hope to get some decent shots of the Matterhorn and its surroundings. - Hopefully the weather is in favour.

My usual search for "Matterhorn" on 500px.com yields a huge number of very impressive images.

The Analog/Digital Hybrid Workflow

Recently I decided to further integrate my analog/digital hybrid photography workflow.

Shooting film is a complete different experience than shooting digital. It takes lot more time, awareness, and slowing down the entire creative process.

After having shot the images on film, I am still getting them developed by a commercial laboratory. - However, I am already in the planning process of setting up and learning my own film development chemistry process.

The developed film - negatives or positive slides - is then digitised on a scanner.

I recently invested into an Epson perfection V800 Photo scanner which allows me to scan my own photographs at resolutions as high as 9600 dpi.

It is indeed a very time consuming process. But, it is also a good feeling to have more control over my entire development workflow.

While using the scanner for my recent Hasselblad 500 c/m medium format photography work, I also started to scan old self-developed 35 mm negatives from my early days of photography back in 1993.

The results are pretty amazing.
...I will soon be sharing some results here...

Shark Dancer - "The Shark Whisperer"

People of West-Papua - People Photography

From my scuba diving trips to West-Papua in Indonesia I have a collection of portrait images of local people. - Visit my gallery at link.
These images have been shot when visiting villages along the West-Papua coast line on a boat trip to the very remote Triton Bay in 2009.

Unfortunately we never visited the mountain regions of the West-Papua main land.




Most of these people did not see any tourists for several years and hence were very curious to know how this works with all the cameras we were carrying along.

A special experience was the curiosity especially of the kids when starting to communicate.
Immediately we were invited to meet the chief of the village, to visit the local school - which apparently was missing a teacher at the time, or the medical center - which was missing a doctor.



Interesting was also to see the mixture of people living in these remote villages.
Some of them were clearly of Papuan origin while others seemed to be immigrants from either the Maluku Islands, Java, or Sulawesi.

Along the coast the immigration and influence from eastern Indonesia is clearly visible while original Papuas preserving their tribal traditions live more in the mountain regions.

Searching for "West-Papua" in the "people" category of 500px.com yields some very impressive portraits.

The Dani by Evi Arbay (500px)

Dani warrior by Mikael Thorvaldsson (500px.com)

Papua Kids #2 by Massimo Rembrante (500px.com)

Black and White Film Photography

...night city... by Igor Philipenko (500px)

old by Long Pham (500px)

.\ by Vincenzo Vitale (500px)

Passengers waiting for the train at platform by Conan Kay (500px)

Taxi Driver by Rican Kumas (500px)