Kzenon Überforward

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.