Texture
Images texturized
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Road to Kanab
Farewell to Maob, farewell to Eric. He knew every inch of this place like the back of his hand. Everybody goes in his direction. New friends, few words.
Our destination for the day is Page, we finally reach Kanab. Short branch out to the Valley of the Gods. It’s a lovely place, a bit of haze, not the best of light.
Valley of the Gods © Julian Köpke Before the border to Arizona the rocks of Monument Valley build up and we let it pass us over a pass road.
Monument Valley pass road © Julian Köpke This region belongs to the Navajo nativ Americans. A tribal park is signposted. A packed car stops beneath us, a young man likely nativ steps out and begs for money in obscure language. His tongue is lame, probably due to the long-term effects of incorporated substances. Sad.
Monument Valley pass road © Julian Köpke -
Getting into Death Valley
We had a whole day available to drive from Mojave to Furnace Creek. The morning began hazily and with scattered dust devils. At the Pinnacles we go a real sandstorm.
The long straight streets with poles often make me dream of an infinite world.
Poles © Julian Köpke A sandstorm lets you stop all thoughts about infinity. Suddenly the safety of the equipment becomes much more important.
Sandstorm near Pinnacles © Julian Köpke This train is on a siding for decades. The diffusion effect of the sandstorm showed the abandonment nicely.
Train on a siding © Julian Köpke 
Sandstorm at pinnacles © Julian Köpke 
Pinnacles © Julian Köpke After check-in in our incredibly expensive, but the only hotel in the area we immediately headed for Zabriskie Point. These structures show no scale at all and allow the imagination to run wild.
Zabriskie Point at sunset © Julian Köpke 
Zabriskies Point at sunset © Julian Köpke Personally I liked most a wild boar at the south end.
Sleeping wild boar at Zabriskie Point © Julian Köpke -
New workflow
The eye is easily deceived. Especially when working at a screen. Early printing, starting with low contrast, simultaneous editing of several images, pausing is part of Charles („Charly“) Cramers recipes. The necessary development times in the analogue laboratory, not least the drying process, always forced the photographer to interrupt. Brain always takes some time to understand.
And he gave strong arguments against the prejudice, analog photography meant no image manipulation. In contrary, every image processing has always been manipulation.
Bridal Veil Creek © Julian Köpke This day ended up with 100 GB of RAW image data. Work for a year to process them. With some winds below Bridal Veil Fall there was a movement of the camera that can be seen.
Bridal Veil Fall © Julian Köpke So often I had good photo opportunities at Valley View. So it was today. A golden light from the setting sun shone for us, lit some bushes and warmed up the rocks.
Light on bushes at Valley View © Julian Köpke The rise of a full moon took place at sunset. Only with a 9 EV HDR the light could be captured. It was a wonderful evening. Only hunger could us make driving back to our lodge.
Full Moon at Valley View in Yosemite Valley © Julian Köpke -
Pile of oranges X-ray photo
This Monday arrived my new oranges from Valencia, Spain. They are sweet, juicy and just delicious. I shared half of the delivery with my employees who had also been waiting for it for a long time. We eat or drink them. Some were x-rayed for artistic reasons.
There is already a routine in doing these X-rays with food. But sometimes an X-ray machine has a life of its own. The first images are taken to check the exposure before we venture into a composition. The aperture of the X-ray tube may become narrower and unwanted images like the following may be produced.
Oranges in a frame X-ray photo © Julian Köpke This image was created by playing with textures and colours:
You can easily imagine a stack of oranges with the fruit lying on top of each other. The perspective of this X-ray image is from above, so that the effect of translucency is created. Because of the triangular arrangement of the oranges, one would think that the apex of the triangle would indicate at the top. In fact, the center of the triangle is at the top.
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Painterly strokes or magnetic fields ?
A short trip for recreation in Bavaria led us to a completely sunny Bad Tölz at the Isar river. That way I also increased my knowledge of local geography. With a long time exposure, taken without a filter, only with a large aperture and low ISO, some assembled pebbles on the ground instead of a tripod, I wanted to capture the wave play of river Isar.
It was only in our hotel on the computer that the resulting structure became more interesting and clear to me. For Christa the image shows picturesque brush strokes of an oil painting. I can think of the surface structure of the sun which is a fiery dance of magnetic field lines and mass distributions of hydrogen.
Painterly strokes of Isar waves. © Julian Köpke In the evening a long sunset glowed for us in Königsdorf. The rotational planes of sun, moon and earth are quite close and in a few days we expect a partial lunar eclipse.
Waxing crescent Moon and Venus at sunset in Königsdorf with view of the Alps © Julian Köpke The light takes 8 minutes from the sun to the earth. Due to atmosphere it remains visible to us longer than the sun itself.
Sunset with view of the Alps © Julian Köpke -
Lampshade of winding glas
We were meeting in a room formerly dedicated to staff members of the bishop, down in the basement of a nice summer residence (Eremitage Waghäusel). We heard an extensive talk about the conditions of sincerity and dishonesty of men, given by a writer and journalist.
When does a human being lie ? Is there a difference between males and females ? How does behavior change with social status ? Monkeys, aware of good food, send their group in the wrong direction to enjoy their observation on their own. What is good, what is bad ?
This nice lampshade attracted me immediately when entering the room. I like the shape. The illusion of a lampshade close to natural structures like bark. Is light true ? What does it tell me ? Our brain tends to ignore the color of light. A cam doesn’t tell the truth, either. I had to think of friends.
Lampshade of windig glass © Julian Köpke
