Kzenon Überforward

When shooting standard situation you typically do standard things. More craft than art. Skills and equipment are there so you simply use them in the fashion you are comfortable with and you know that works. Therefore, to not get too boring, it is a splendid idea to do not so standard things in photography from time to time.

Two days ago I had the opportunity to shoot in a disco club with ten models, two make-up-artists, my full set of equipment, some time, and no force that kept me from experimenting. Now, if you ever worked in disco club with a party going on you know that due to the people moving, the light show, the dry ice fog etc. there is nothing you really can prepare for or count on. You more or less have to let go and simply try your best in every situation. Which simply means: having fun.

This is how I found out for example, that you can actually picture laser beams flashing through a group of people dancing. Never thought this could be done yet it can. I’ll have more of that later I think.

Last October the kuhl crowd and I packed our stuff and drove (me) or flew (them) to Portugal’s amazing Algarve Coast to do a lot of stock photo shootings. I absolutely liked the mix of work and play (all work and no play makes Kzenon a dull boy): a nice old fashioned shoot on the beach in the morning, relaxation on the pool in noon, some sport and a bit party in the sunset for the camera in the afternoon and evening. I could have gone on forever but, of course, lasted only a week. I do not know if you ever had that thing of losing your spatial and temporal awareness completely because you are so absorbed by the things you do. This was what happened with all of us. I hope to be able to do something on this magnitude again this year of 2011.

It’s summer here. Finally. Kind of. That has, of course, a lot of disadvantages such as unbearable heat (we had close to 16 degrees today), sunburn (shone nearly one hour today) and general dryness (only 45 hours of rain in the last three days – the plants are suffering!). Then, on the other hand, there are the Dults and Waldfeste (traditional festivals) and there will be, finally, the Oktoberfest as the ending point of this season. After – and in case of the Oktoberfest which happens mostly end of September: before – a long and hard winter those festivals are a celebration of life, love, and beer.

People will wear colorful Tracht, the boys Lederhosen and the girls Dirndls which can be had in all colors and stylewise from straight laced to frivolous and where I personally and as a photographer prefer the latter option. Glorious times. And the best thing: they reappear each year.

You may have noticed by the stacks of chocolate in the supermarket shelves: Easter is approaching rapidly.

Last year (actually a week after Easter – which is why I can show it only now) I prepared some pretty nice shots for the topic. In them the “Easter world” actually looks a bit more green than it will this year, at least in this latitude, since Easter will be so early this year. Ah, and by the way: this stock photographer survived the cutie-attack by three little girls in pink and white dresses and a flurry bunny. But barely so.

Anyway, if you have any need to shop for this or other Easter shots from this stock picture series you might want to check out my portfolio – which includes these pix of course .

The good thing about being a photographer is that you can do so many things – but you never have to be “great” in them, just “good enough” to be able to capture what’s going on.

In a wise move of strategic thinking I already shot the ski-pix for next (2010/2011) season in the Zillertal Alps with the kuhl bunch including a freestyle champion and Skihaserl. They did marvelous things like jumping in the air with their skies, doing loops and corkscrews while having a casual chat with their mother on the cell phone, then having two or three flips and landing the thing properly again in the snow. Amazing.

It is a pitty the weather was not very good and we had bad light (and thus pretty slushy pix) most of the day. Well, you can ski till Easter and there will be sufficient opportunity to do more of this I guess.

To come back to the “good enough” thing: I found out, that with skiing again, though I am a pretty looser in absolute terms, I am good enough to capture what’s going on. Same goes with swimming, diving, mountain climbing and parachuting. So wait for more kuhl sports to come…

PS: See more previews (that’s all it is!) of this series on my Facebook page. It’s new and still a bit experimental but will grow. Or so.

There may be several different kinds of sin. One – and I am surely liable of that one – may be trying to create visualizations for a nonexistent fucked up plastic world. Another one is giving up too early.

The day that started with a whitish-grey and overcast sky. When it started to rain cats and dogs we went on shooting cheeseburgers instead of pictures. But then late in the afternoon the sun started to shine again albeit hesitantly. We sent the models already home – except for the boy kuhl cats. But funny thing: at the lake we were shooting at there was a rock festival with three stages, beer and lots of fine looking young ladies willing to become models. The girl cats here not professionals but simply law abiding citizens being present accidentally but with the strong determination to squeeze as much fun as possible out of that day.

If you want to know how it feels shooting stock among hundreds of rock fans celebrating at the beach: funny.