Anne's Weblog

Last week my sister, her friend and I took pictures of each other for a creative present for some of our friends. I personally think the pictures are very pretty, all of them. I am alone with my opinion, though. But to give you an impression, here is the one that I chose for the present of myself.

It was a little bit complicated to get to the workshop in Essen on Saturday. I waited for the train at 10.15 am and when the doors opened lots of policemen were inside the train. Obviously the wagons were full of soccer fans, who were drunk and loud and awful. They were right on their way to a soccer match. At the next station were fans of the opponents, who were greeted with a lot of 4-letter-words. It was pure chaos. All of that caused the train to arrive much later than expected, so I needed to take a taxi to the location. But there is a big construction side next to it which means, the taxi couldn’t stop, which led to the driver driving in circles around it to find a place to stop, which led – of course – to a higher price. Well, that’s life.

Right in time I was there. The location is an amazing combination of a restaurant with an art scene. Artists can use the rooms for free and have the chance to present their craft to a big audience that’s coming for lunch, for meeting or just for a cup of coffee. You pay 5,50€ entrance fee which contains a flatrate for non-alcoholic drinks, including cappuccino, latte macchiatto and any other speciality you could possibly ask for. They have amazing food, lots of veggie options. Like tarte with plums and goat cheese. Pure bliss!

But on to the workshop. The teacher was a funny guy, who talked a LOT! He spoke about one theme, jumped to the next, went back and forth. It was hilarious! In this chaos of information there was so much useful stuff, incredible. I think I learned a lot, or let’s say, I’ll learn a lot when I start digesting all of the information he gave us. It was just so much that I couldn’t put it all in my brain that day.

We started with history of portraitures and he gave examples of known photographers in the past. He started at the first photo that was made on asphalt and ended with living legends like Irving Penn. Then we went to the studio which was in the basement. At first we started photographing each other to learn nailing the exposure in a studio situation. His idea was to build a studio on a low budget. He tried to give us ideas how to create a great environment and great light with cheap equipment. Instead of using the biggest flash systems, he bought spotlights/floodlights that construction workers use. Together with some white fabric (with security gap to the hot lamp) you can create a very big softbox which puts some flattering light on your models face.

He had a lot of ideas for different backgrounds, different ways to put your light etc. It was pretty interesting to see how one can create really cool portraitures with simple equipment. He said, that with 150€ you can build a pretty well going studio when you are just a little talented in building things. But you don’t need to be a real expert, Tim Taylor is good enough

Then came Julia. She is such a beautiful and interesting person. She looks quite normal, apart from her red hair, but when she is in front of a camera she’s working her magic and she’s absoultely stunning. She really can rock it! It was so cool to have someone in front of your camera who’s able to help you creating the photo. Some of the attendees didn’t like this part, because of the model. They wanted to learn how to take good portraitures of real people and not of a model.

For me it was an amazing day! I like photographing my friends and family (if they let me, I mean), but it was incredible to work with Julia. I always enjoy photographing interesting people and she was! And the advantage is that you can use these pics to build your portfolio. Especially in the beginning it is nice to have some rocking pictures. Later on you should be able to replace them with new amazing photography, but especially in the beginning I find it very helpful.

Ok, I had an amazing day and I can recommend the workshop highly. Check it out here.

And here some pics of fantastic Julia. Enjoy!

I had a hard time convincing friends to do a photo shoot with me. It wasn’t that they said “no” but they weren’t very enthusiastic. Two weeks ago I met my best friend for dinner and I mentioned it to her and she said: We do it! So today we went shooting in Bochum. My friend and her girlfriend. We went to an amazing place. An old industrial area with gorgeous locations in a rustic way. We had a lot of fun.

But I have to say that it was hard work! It’s not as easy to get good photos as it seems to be when you see the perfect pictures of pros. All starts are tough and if it’s not, it’s not worth it, right? But one or two good pictures are between all of those with strange faces or overexposed…

Far from our shooting we had a good time. First we went to an imbiss restaurant and had some fries to wait until the rain was over. Then we went to this place and shoot for two hours. Later we did a kind of city tour and we’ve seen a rainbow! It was a great end for that rainy day. Thanks a lot for your help!