Category: Photography | Page 2 | Chris Marquardt's Soapbox

Nov272017 by Chris MarquardtNo Comments

🇬🇧 The Future of Photography – The Revolution is NOW

Ideas take time to take shape. This one began dawning on me a couple of years ago when a friend of mine showed me a picture out of a good digital camera that was all bent out of shape. When I looked at it on my computer, it wasn't bent at all. That was the moment I began to realize that camera manufacturers more or less secretly had begun to routinely modify pictures in camera, way beyond than what "traditional" JPG processing would do. We are in the middle of a revolution in photography. Computational photography is hidden in plain sight. Your DSLR does it, your mirrorless camera does it and – to a much larger degree – your smartphone camera does it. Let me make a bold prediction. About a year ago, I bought two pro-level DSLRs. I'm sure I won't ditch those anytime soon, the last one...

Aug302017 by Chris MarquardtNo Comments

🇬🇧 What they don’t get…

Photography

There it is again. I've seen this article in about a million versions and it's always about the same thing: why shoot film when you can emulate its look with digital means. *sigh* What these kind of articles completely disregard is that there are so many other reasons to shoot film than just the look. Working with film is one of the best things you can do to become a better digital photographer. The process teaches you how to expose (ever shot with a hand-held light meter and had to decide what to use as a reference?), how to pour a bit more effort into every single shot (each click will cost you). It will help you slow down (tried 4x5" large format yet?) and it will make you appreciate the wonders of infrared light and shadow detail without having to sacrifice any highlights. Fi...

Jul252017 by Chris MarquardtNo Comments

🇬🇧 The DSLR Shutter and the 100 Year Old Lens

Photography, Tech

Last year when Monika bought an old old lens, I started a project to attach it to a large format camera. Problem was, the lens didn't have a shutter. After some discussion on the Happy Shooting Slack, Jochen Möller (of flying 4x5" fame) came up with a solution: the shutter from an old DSLR. Of course it features an Arduino and I'll have to do a bit more work to integrate it with the camera and be able to change shutter speeds. Here's the first test: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVtWJA7o_sM

Jun182017 by Chris MarquardtNo Comments

Bumper Car Choreography: A New Way of Light Painting

Photography

What happens if someone hands you and 27 photographers the keys to an entire bumper car ride? Well, ... this: https://youtu.be/RGZdy7JZisA Guess I'm now an officially certified bumper car choreographer. Haven't had this much fun in a long time. Ten out of ten, would ride again. We did this as part of our Vienna photo workshop. [Grand Autodrom, Prater, Vienna]

May72017 by Chris MarquardtNo Comments

To become good, you’ll have to create a lot of garbage first…

Personal, Photography

... subtitle: quantity equals quality. Yep, I know, sounds wrong. But the way to becoming good at something is to produce lots of crap first. I look back at my photography 20 years ago and it was worse than my photography 10 years ago, which in turn was worse than my current photography, which I'm confident is worse than my photography in 10 years from now. It has to do with some of the ideas from Art & Fear (awesome book, definitely recommended). I find the "50 pounds of clay" idea from that book especially compelling in that context. In short: a teacher splits the kids in a pottery class into two groups, the first ones get rated on the quality of their work. The second group gets rated on quantity and nothing but quantity. Turns out, the second group consistently ends up als...

Apr162017 by Chris MarquardtNo Comments

Things photographers do on a Sunday afternoon

Personal, Photography

It started with Monika and myself standing outside in the garden the other day, looking at how several plants of lemon balm were taking over the herb section. So I decided to brew up an infusion. Lemon balm, mint, glass jar, boiling water. Let seep for an hour: super yummy. I noticed how awesome the leaves looked when swirling around in the glass jar, so I decided to film that. And then I decided to film myself while filming it. Here's the result: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TEVyL26E0M

Feb252017 by Chris MarquardtNo Comments

🇬🇧 Siberia ahoi

Photography, Travel

I took this shot of ice bubbles on Lake Baikal in Siberia last year when we did a photo tour there with a group of great people. Tomorrow I will take off for yet another photo tour to Siberia and during my preparations that feeling of standing on top of the lake for the first time came back to me. Lake Baikal is the oldest, clearest, deepest and biggest body of liquid fresh water in the world. In fact it holds 20% of the world's liquid fresh water. TWENTY. EFFIN'. PERCENT. It's 395 miles long, 49 miles wide and at its deepest point it is 5,387 feet deep. That is over one mile of water. And I've been told that it's so clear, that in summer, if you drop a coin from a boat, you can watch it sink for a whole minute. That's insane. Insane and very exciting when walking on top of it...

Jul132016 by Chris MarquardtNo Comments

🇩🇪 Kurzentschlossen? 2 neue Plätze für "Die Macht der Bilder"

Photography, Travel

Im August wird Psychologe Alexander Waschkau gemeinsam mit mir hier in der Viewfinder-Villa mit einer kleinen Gruppe Besucher und Besucherinnen ergründen, was es mit Bildern auf sich hat. Wie und warum sie funktionieren und wie wir unsere visuelle Sprache verbessern können, damit unsere Geschichte bzw. unsere Nachricht beim Empfänger besser ankommt. Dazu beleuchten wir das Thema Fotografie sowohl aus Perspektive der Bildgestaltung als auch mit der Brille der Wahrnehmungspsychologie. Ein spannendes Wochenende ist garantiert! Ort: Viewfinder-Villa Hannover Datum: 6.-7. August Gastgeber: Alexander Waschkau und Chris Marquardt » Anmeldung hier

Feb142016 by Chris MarquardtNo Comments

Pre-order now: The Film Photography Handbook

Photography

Für die englische Übersetzung von Absolut Analog ist ab jetzt die Vorbestellung eröffnet! » auf Amazon.de You can now pre-order the English translation of our film photography book! » on Amazon.com

Jan32016 by Chris MarquardtNo Comments

So schöne Stimmen

Photography

Wir haben ein Buch zu einer unserer großen Leidenschaften geschrieben und auf das Ergebnis sind wir sehr stolz. Besonders schön ist es, wenn andere sich auch daran erfreuen und es dann sogar noch kundtun. Hier z.B. auf Twitter.