tschnitzlein's blog

Yes I know - it has been almost a year ago that I promised to compile my thoughts on street photography. The more I thought about it, the more ideas came to my mind. But as it often happens to me, putting my plans into practice isn't as easy as I thought.

The project, however is still on my to do list, and it is finally becoming a reality. I am not planning to talk about technique - rather about inner processes on the road to finding an image.

Street or people photography, as I am experiencing it, is a very intense process of human interaction. It not only involves understanding social conventions, but it is also a journey of intense self-exploration. This is because after all, all our observations happen through the confinement of our own minds. So, we are what we see.

Stay tuned - in the coming weeks, I will put up a series of blog posts in loose sequence, and I am curious of what you will think about it.

Ever since I moved my gallery activity from F**ckr to Ipernity, I missed seeing the great art from a number of people that didn't make the move.

Among them is a man who lives in New York that consistently and repeatedly produces images that leave me speechless because they are ultimately eloquent staatements about our present times: Maciej aka Noqontrol - www.flickr.com/photos/noqontrol

He's a brilliant photographer and a Photoshop wizard second to none – and IMHO he is one of the most impressive concept artists that I have ever seen on the web. Go to see his images right now - he only maintains a small set of images on Flickr, and he often changes the pictures he exhibits. I promise you won't be disappointed.

Maybe one of you who reads this is one of his contacts, and could invite him to move over here – I’m sure having his work over here would be an enormous asset for Ipernity.

Take a look for yourself, and tell me what you think – can you invite him?

Maybe receiving a lot of mail from over here might convince him to make the move...

Last weekend, I became the target of photography haters. But before you dismiss my claim, consider my story, because I have not made myself guilty of insulting anyone:

I was in a crowded square in downtown Munich, Germany (on the "Münchener Freiheit"), watching old men playing a game of chess using huge wooden chess men - a very concentrated, peaceful scene. I shot a number of portraits of an old man in his seventies with a highly interesting face and then walked away. It was warm, the light was perfect and everybody was relaxed and calm.

Several minutes later, I suddenly found myself surrounded by four or five men and women in their late twenties or early thirties. Obviously Germans, so this was not a religion-based problem. At first, the scene looked somewhat like a harmless prank because they all were using water guns to make me wet from all sides, including my sensitive photography gear.

But then, they pulled in on me and started insulting me because I had been taking photographs. Mind you, the people who harassed me were completely unknown to me, and I couldn't even find them in the background of any of the pictures I shot. It seems they were not afraid of having been photographed because none of them asked to see my pictures and have theirs deleted in case they would have been on one of them - a fairly normal occurrence these days in Germany which I would have reacted to by deleting pictures as requested without further discussion.

Instead, they came closer and closer, and the scene became increasingly menacing. What would you do if you would see a situation developing in which you're going to be attacked by a group of young, apparently strong and healthy people, whereas you aren't a very sportsy type and you are in your late fifties? Anyway, the scene became very loud, with three or four of them yelling at me, and myself thinking about what to do next in order to not get beaten up on the spot (Quite remarkable - we were on a square with about two hundred witnesses who sat at the tables of a nearby street cafe. They all watched, but nobody interfered).

I had to do something. Immediately. And I did: Instead of staying on the defensive, I brusquely started an attack on one of the men surrounding me, threatening to hit him with my camera (I had a very solid 80-200 f 2.8 lens attached). I was lucky. I scared the entire gang away without hurting anyone.

I was glad the situation was resolved in a good way, but I'm left with an uneasy feeling, not understanding the reason of the attack. And this was not the only attack i had experienced. Two years ago, I had also been in a crowded place in Munich, trying to test my then brand-new (and huge, highly conspicuous) wideangle zoom lens. I got harrassed by someone immediately after having taken my camera out of my bag, before I had even started taking any pictures at all.

It seems the general 9/11 hysteria with imposed, ridiculous rules on photography is gradually seeping into the subconscious of all those nutheads in our cities....

Have you experienced similar things? What do you feel about this? How would you react, or how did you react when something similar would/has happen(ed) to you?

Ever since I moved my gallery activity from F**ckr to Ipernity, I missed seeing the great art from a number of people that didn't make the move.

Among them is a man who lives in Barcelona that consistently and repeatedly produces images that leave me speechless: Alex aka !Esco & Güilmon! - www.flickr.com/photos/escori

He's a brilliant street photographer and a Photoshop wizard second to none (look at some of his older work) – and IMHO he is one of the most impressive artists that I have ever seen on the web.

Unfortunately, his site doesn't allow copying any links so you'll have to go there and take a look for yourself. I promise you won't be disappointed.

I am not one of his F**ckr contacts (he for sure is one of mine), and so I don’t think I can motivate him to come over to Ipernity. Maybe one of you who reads this is one of his contacts, and could invite him to move over here – I’m sure having his work over here would be an enormous asset for Ipernity.

Take a look for yourself, and tell me what you think – can you invite him?

Maybe receiving a lot of mail from over here might convince him to make the move...

It has been a long time since I last published new images. And the longer I wait before I set out to do my next image manipulation, the more I feel ill-inspired and incapable.

Over the recent weeks, I have been very busy working on a couple of new projects, only to find that when my clients had paid and I in turn have settled my tax advance payments to the IRS, I find myself in the same situation as before my project - all that hard-earned money has dissolved for the benefit of our "beloved" and over-administrated state.

That's depressing and makes me mad. And it stifles all the creativity that I used to have. I feel it's kind of difficult to get back into the flow of creating new image ideas, shooting raw material for new manips, and feeling fulfilled for having created something new, when all I experience is having to work without reward.

Help! This looks like a hen-and-egg problem: I would like to experience energy obtained by having created somthing new, yet I feel incapable of creating because I feel depressed and devoid of energy...

Chances are that when making pictures, you'll have stumbled over flashes of semi-conscient snippets of perception: fleeting daydreams, premonitions of wishes, or visions of paranoia. You're looking at innate processes of perception. Show me your discoveries...

True colour rendering in pictures with multiple, dissimilar light sources. Yes, it can be done. Here's how.

Coming from Flickr - are you disoriented at Ipernity? Can't find any help yet? Let's compile it here!

Our identity on the web is our network of contacts. Let's regain control over our identities by creating an identity management software that runs locally on our computers.  I need your ideas and input!

I cannot ignore the fact that many of my contacts have moved to Ipernity from the service that got taken over by Y!****. Personally, I'm not sure yet whether I'll need an new home for my images.

The fact that the service here is also owned by a company whose goal is to make money gives me a bad feeling in my stomach after the experience at Fl***r. We, the artists deliver the content, and others treat us as their property? Wait a minute, my identity and my contacts are mine, and I don't want to lose it every time a hoster decides to cash in to his success.

There must be another way. Tell me what you think about that.