Fotoeins Fotografie

location bifurcation, place & home

Posts tagged ‘Lens Artists Photo Challenge’

22 for 22: Foto(ein)s for 2022

Above/featured: Vienna skyline from Kleinwasserkraftwerk Wehr I in early morning light. Photo, 7 Jun 2022.

For 2022, the act of looking forward and backward is dominated by a 4-week stay in the city of Vienna. In between the collected images is a reclaimed longing for the Austrian capital to which I was first introduced 20 years ago, but for which there was no camera and, sadly, no recorded pixels.

I’ve already described a set of images setting the urban scenes in Vienna from 2022. Below is an additional set of 22 images selected from a period of 35 days; the time interval represents only 10% of the year, but it appears to be a personally important “watershed moment” as well.

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My Vienna: 22 urban frames for 2022

Above/featured: “The first Sunday.” Karlsplatz, 1st district – 15 May 2022.

Earlier in the year, I spent four weeks in Vienna, soaking in late-spring and early-summer weather in Austria’s capital city. I highlighted 3 images and scenes which in addition to time spent left personal impressions. Below, I highlight in a “last chance effort” an additional 22 visual examples of the urbanity in Wien, folding in splashes of colour, lines of focus, and accessibility to good timing.

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4. Bezirk, Wieden, Wien, Vienna, Austria, Österreich, Fuji X70

3 fave images, 30 days in Vienna

Featured: Karlsplatz (4.) – 15 May 2022.

I recently spent 30 days in Vienna, examining her history of art, architecture, music, and science. A nation’s capital city is also worthy of photographic examination, and there are many opportunities throughout the city to absorb Vienna’s unique urban charm and style. I snapped over 10-thousand images which will keep me busy “in the archive” for some time. The following three images stand out, at least for now. Perhaps, I’ll feel differently about them in 3 weeks, 3 months, or 3 years’ time.

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Comet Neowise, C/2020 F3, comet, noctilucent clouds, Solar System, night sky, SFU, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby Mountain, Burnaby, BC, Canada, fotoeins.com

Low light levels, mid-grade attempts

Above/featured: Comet Neowise (C2020/F3), from Burnaby Mountain, BC – 16 Jul 2020 (UTC); more details below.

One of my first lessons in photography was: covet as much natural light as possible. I’m the first to admit I’ll chase that light very hard, especially during winter conditions when days are often grey, dull, and short. Sometimes, sacrifices have to be made to get “that light.”

But diminishing light offers different challenges and opportunities to the variety of ways a person might think about a scene or situation before them. Getting the desired effect might require opening the aperture wide, upping the ISO level, lengthening exposure time, or adding light with an artificial flash. If a person’s journey goes down a “dark” path, what might a combination of internal ability and intuition mixed with external planning and happenstance create?

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BVG, U2, Zoologischer Garten, U-Bahn, Berlin, Germany, Deutschland, fotoeins.com

21 for 21: Foto(ein)s for 2021

Above/featured: U2 train departing Berlin’s Zoologischer Garten station – 28 November 2021.

I look back at an eventful 2021 year with 21 images with personal questions about how impending- and actual-loss affect how life proceeds beyond death, and how feelings of real belonging are different from feelings of a proper home.

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Devonian Harbour Park, Vancouver, BC, Canada, fotoeins.com

Public art in Vancouver

Above/featured: Left: “Search”, by J. Seward Johnson Jr. (1975). Right: “Solo”, by Natalie McHaffie (1986). Devonian Harbour Park, 14 Jul 2021 (X70).

Based on what we see in person and online, the quickest version of street art may be defined by the variety of art appearing on side walls of buildings, big and small. Most will think about paint, graffiti, and murals, all of them in the here and now. But we shouldn’t forget any art that’s out on the streets and publicly accessible.

Below are a handful of examples of public art in the city of Vancouver; the following is a visual expression of my fondness for sculpture whose origins sweep back to the 1st-half of the 20th-century.

  • “A Tale of Two Children” by Ken Lum (2005)
  • “Golden Tree” by Douglas Coupland (2016); “Salish Gifts” by Susan Point (2015)
  • Lions by Charles Marega (1939)
  • “Reconciliation Pole” by 7idansuu / Edenshaw, James Hart (2017)
  • “Salmon” by Susan Point (1995)
  • “Saltwater City”, by Paul Wong (2020)
  • “Welcome Figure”, by Darren Yelton (2006)

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Strathcona, East Vancouver, Vancouver, BC, Canada, fotoeins.com

Ordinary rejects

Above/featured: Night glow on a black tub-chair at a bus stop – 7 Oct 2021.

The intersection between modernity and ordinary is extraordinary in its vast reach, covering all corners of the planet by land, sea, and air. Consider what we have in our homes, and how much or little of it will get recycled. We might pause to consider how a piece of furniture lives or is used by a family; how they must have once been excited to buy chairs, couches, and beds, only to throw them out when they were deemed surplus to requirements, how much is tossed out in a regular or periodic “clean out” and/or in the process of moving out from a residence.

Below are images of abandoned items, whose likely destination is the dump.

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Imperia, Bodensee, Lake Constance, Konstanz, Constance, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, Deutschland, fotoeins.com

Fall colours in 8 German federal states

Above/featured: Misty autumn morning on Lake Constance (Bodensee): Konstanz, BW – 23 Sep 2017.

Sometimes on travel, I’m focused on achieving learning goals that I forget simply to stop and take in the surroundings. It’s a frequent error I’ve made in the past, and I’ll continue making that mistake. Fortunately, there’ve been a number of occasions where I stopped myself in time to soak in the scene and drink in the colours.

During the northern autumns of 2015, 2016, and 2017, I travelled through various parts of the German federal states of Baden-Württemburg (BW), Bavaria (BY), Brandenburg (BB), Hesse (HE), Lower Saxony (NI), Rheinland-Palatinate (RP), Saxony (SN), and Saxony-Anhalt (ST). You might ask about Berlin where I’ve visited countless times and accumulated months in total. I’ve dedicated a separate post to Berlin’s autumn colours with images from 2006 to 2017.

As for the rest, I hope you enjoy the following moments of autumn colour.

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Shantung Street, Portland Street, Mong Kok, Kowloon, Hong Kong, fotoeins.com

Artificial light

Above/featured: Shantung St. at Portland St., in Mong Kok, Kowloon: Hong Kong – 12 Jun 2012 (450D).

Like many, my preference in photography is for as much natural light as possible. However, there are always exceptions, and a big one is the introduction and/or necessity of artificial light within a scene or picture. Over the course of my photographic journey, I’ve come across some wonderful examples of artificial lighting. I hope you enjoy the examples I’ve provided below, including (my love of) neon signage.

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Lions Gate Bridge, Seawall, Stanley Park, First Narrows, Salish Sea, Vancouver, BC, Canada, fotoeins.com

The wide field

Above/featured: Vancouver landmark: two towers of the Lions Gate Bridge – 17 Jan 2014 (6D1).

Some time ago, I wrote about my photographic journey which has included a point-and-shoot camera, an introductory crop-frame camera, a consumer-model full-frame camera, and a compact mirrorless camera.

The way people see the world is best encapsulated at focal lengths typically around 35mm. Portraits of people start at about 50mm, and go as “long” or “tight” at 80mm. With larger zoom glass and longer focal lengths, “action at a distance” becomes accessible; examples include “close-up” views or moments at sports events or bird-watching from afar to avoid spooking the birds. At focal lengths below 35mm, the accessible field of view becomes much larger; for example, one of the “widest” fields can be found with a super-wide piece of glass at around 16mm.

I’ve made photographs across a wide variety of focal lengths: from wide (16mm) to long (480mm). I once imagined I would spend most of my time photographing “long”, at focal lengths beyond 100mm. I soon learned I prefer photographing (well-)below 50mm, with the lion’s share of my images in the “wide field” at focal lengths in the range 24 to 28mm.

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