Waiting for spring…
Though my calendar point to April it is still winter here in Cologne, Germany. Spring is nowhere to be seen. The landscapes still have that barren “winter” look. Nothing that seems to live or to bloom. Muted colors everywhere. It is even still snowing from time to time, though the snow melts during the day…
Winter has come a long way this year and currently the weather forecasts have no clue when it will end.
As boring as this situation might sound one can still take pictures, not only street (those are always possible) but also nature. The look of nature is certainly more harsh and cool. I long for spring… a few more degrees and the vivid colors of spring.
So, this is what the current “spring” here looks like:
All images in this blog post are taken with the Fujifilm X100. Except the last alley shot and the picture of the swan wich were shot with my Olympus OM-D with the 45mm lens.
Shooting my first wedding
A few weeks back I was asked to be the main photographer at a friends wedding. I knew it would not be an easy task as I have never done anything like this before.
Inés and Thomas – bride and groom – are close friends of mine and they know my street photography and some pictures I took privately. They trusted me with this task.
For me – this being my first shooting at such an event – I soon realized I had to be everywhere to get as much shots as posible of everyone there. In addition it was the first time for me that I had to use my external flash I just got at the end of the year and that I had barely even used before.
1/640 – ƒ/1.8 – ISO 200 – 75 mm
1/80 – ƒ/2.5 – ISO 3200 – 45 mm
1/100 – ƒ/2.5 – ISO 800 – 45 mm
1/60 – ƒ/6.3 – ISO 800 – 45 mm
1/100 – ƒ/2.8 – ISO 1250 – 45 mm
1/60 – ƒ/3.5 – ISO 3200 – 45 mm
1/400 – ƒ/3.2 – ISO 200 – 45 mm
The equipment I used for this wedding was:
- My trusty old Olympus E-PL1 camera
- Olympus OM-D EM-5 camera
- Panasonic 20mm 1.7 pancake lens
- Olympus 45mm 1.8 lens
- Olympus 75mm 1.8 lens
- Olympus Flash FL-36
All the post-processing was done with Aperture and I learned a whole lot about post-processing doing this. The weather conditions on that day were not as perfect as one could wish. It was still winter here in Germany and the light especially in the afternoon was already kind of gloomy which pushed the ISO values up. I wanted the images to look as good as possible despite the low light conditions. That’s why I spend a lot of time processing those images not only once but many times until they looked right to me.
1/125 – ƒ/1.8 – ISO 200 – 45 mm
1/100 – ƒ/2.2 – ISO 2500 – 45 mm
1/100 – ƒ/2.2 – ISO 2000 – 45 mm
1/100 – ƒ/2 – ISO 640 – 45 mm
1/100 – ƒ/2.5 – ISO 200 – 45 mm
1/125 – ƒ/2.5 – ISO 200 – 45 mm
1/100 – ƒ/4 – ISO 800 – 45 mm
1/200 – ƒ/1.8 – ISO 200 – 45 mm
1/100 – ƒ/2.2 – ISO 250 – 45 mm
1/160 – ƒ/2.2 – ISO 200 – 45 mm
1/125 – ƒ/2.2 – ISO 200 – 45 mm
1/100 – ƒ/4 – ISO 640 – 45 mm
1/125 – ƒ/2 – ISO 200 – 45 mm
1/40 – ƒ/2.5 – ISO 200 – 75 mm
1/200 – ƒ/3.2 – ISO 800 – 75 mm
1/160 – ƒ/1.8 – ISO 320 – 75 mm
1/160 – ƒ/1.8 – ISO 400 – 75 mm
1/80 – ƒ/1.8 – ISO 1600 – 45 mm
1/100 – ƒ/1.8 – ISO 3200 – 45 mm
1/100 – ƒ/1.8 – ISO 800 – 45 mm
1/60 – ƒ/4 – ISO 3200 – 45 mm
In the end it was a good training for me. I could use my experience I got shooting on the street for the candid portraits during the reception, though I was not used to shoot posed portraits. I came home with 2k shots on three SD cards. I processed about 500 shots for the bride and groom and they were happy with the results, which is the most important part!
To Inés and Thomas, thanks so much for having me as your official photographer 
. Your faith and trust in me meant a lot to me.