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Quiet time in Black Forest
What happens to green leaves when I turn them into black and white? Again and again I photographed ferns. During a hike in the Black Forest I photographed groups of different leaves with different shades of green and brightness.
The result was clear to me beforehand. I had found such an idea in the images of Ansel Adams.
Forest floor © Julian Köpke Less subtle is the following motif with a wooden bench for tired hikers. In this image the fern, the bench and the stone marker are the brightest objects.
Bench and fern at forest path Obertal © Julian Köpke Different hues of green lead to different levels of brightness in the black and white cosmos. Our destination for the day was Lake Buhlbach, which unfortunately could no longer be circumnavigated on foot in the newly opened national park.
Reflections in a pond (Buhlbachsee) © Julian Köpke -
Oslo
Our journey to the Land of the Midnight Sun starts in Oslo. The hotel is just a stone’s throw from the harbour. A lot of rain and constantly changing light from more or less dense clouds greet us. Because we don’t want to miss anything, we start our first tour right after arrival, despite a certain tiredness.
The first building that caught our eyes is the opera. Built with Carrara marble is white.
Operaen Oslo (Opera house) © Julian Köpke 
Operaen Oslo (Opera house) © Julian Köpke A sculpture in the middle of the harbor attracted me. It took me some moments to see the resemblance to a painting of Caspar David Friedrich („Eismeer“).
Failed Hope (Sculpture inspired by "Eismeer" by C.D. Friedrich). A flexible mounted sculpture in the harbour of Oslo. Light is different every moment: it will be never the same. © Julian Köpke -
White and purple orchid
My LED ceiling light, which I use as a light box for flower photography, can be dimmed and the color temperature is adjustable. The cold and extremely bright light can be tamed and turned into faint, warm light. Together with my tent of linen, I manage to control the light.
With LiveView, the composition is created and the focus is worked out. The camera is controlled by cable connection via laptop (tethered shooting) and the recordings are made with mirror triggering. The colors become better and the impression of the picture more natural and vivid.
White and purple orchid © Julian Köpke -
Fragile in Amsterdam
A lot of things are falling apart these days. We feel how fragile we are. How do you show fragility in a picture ?
Entering the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, a new, modern entrance area has been created. Light and shadow in rapid succession through concrete door arches.
Entrance Rijksmuseum Amsterdam © Julian Köpke The arches are unadorned, yet the eye clings to them. Despite – or due to ? – the simple concept, every perspective offers a new impression.
Entrance Rijksmuseum Amsterdam © Julian Köpke A still life painting (not „life style“) may be irritating by its compositional elements, like objects at the edge of a table top. Just these elements evokes a feeling of fragility. The next image is a photograph I made in the museum without tripod as indicated. The painting by Willem Claeszoon Heda was about 1635. It is a Vanitas theme, 13 years before the end of a 80 years long war in Netherlands, the end coinciding with the 30 years long war in Germany 1648.
Nature morte Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Netherlands By Willem Claeszoon Heda 1635. Photograph. © Julian Köpke -
Sunny day with spring character
A sunny day in winter without training or weekend obligations: we can let ourselves drift a little. The Hermannshof in Weinheim with its botanical garden attracts many visitors, especially those with cameras. Many kneel or lie down on the floor to gain a beautiful perspective. You don’t notice dirty trousers. Rather, trousers like that ennobles the wearer.
First light welcomes a crocus when the sun shines abundantly and the joy of photographing is written on the face of all visitors.
First light for a crocus © Julian Köpke Winter residual flowers in the first spring light: Helleborus
Helleborus © Julian Köpke At the end of our sunny stroll we sat down in front of a café for a tea. We met this Siberian Husky in front of our café. It took me a while to recognize three legs and a shaved fur on her right hip. Due to a chondrosarcoma her owner had decided to have an operation on the dog. She did quite well, as far as a human may understand.
Siberian Husky © Julian Köpke 
Siberian Husky © Julian Köpke -
Floral experiments
Changing colors in flowers are attractive, especially if you approach them closely. A group of 3 flowers looks like a communicative group. With targeted overexposure and instant images on the laptop, the compositional decision is easier and the colors become more picturesque, without too much processing with the computer.
Yellow and red gerbera © Julian Köpke A curtain over the illuminated background behind the focal plane creates an effect reminiscent of nebulae in the night sky.
Red and yellow gerbera © Julian Köpke Photography of flowers in a vase in an exposure series (HDR) is complicated by their light sensitivity, which causes a change of position in short time scales. Plants constantly rearrange their leaves and blossoms. This results in blurring, which can be compensated for e. g. by repeating the shot series, shorter exposure time series or tools for aligning the images. Or you can do your image without HDR, because the dynamic range of the camera data is sufficient.
Bouquet of red and yellow gerberas © Julian Köpke The center of a Gerbera blossom is richly structured. Due to the high resolution of the camera back (150 MP), it is possible to crop out the center still in good resolution.
Inner circle of a red and yellow gerbera © Julian Köpke The transparent representation of the petals is achieved by using a light box. The light should be relatively bright, but does not have to be fully homogeneous. The heat of the light does not matter, it is adjusted using RAW format in post-processing. More informations about this method see web-pages of Harold Davis, who invented this method.
Yellow gerbera © Julian Köpke 
Yellow gerbera on a lightbox © Julian Köpke -
Turn of the year
The most surprising thing this year was the selection of many of my pictures in the Flickr Explore stream. My best picture in 2021 is again a black and white, this time of the Bernese Alps with a view of the mountain chain Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau. The picture was taken on the Schilthorn when I fled the permanent James Bond exhibition.
Mountain chain Eiger Mönch Jungfrau. There will be a weather change. © Julian Köpke The end of the year had some surprises in store for both of us. We drove to the Black Forest and hoped for snow to cool off. The snow did not come immediately and a red dawn on January 2nd seemed dangerous and not calming.
Celestial fire: impression of a wildfire at sunrise in Alpersbach © Julian Köpke With plenty of snow, alternating sunshine and snow drift, there were beautiful moments in the countryside in Breitnau near Hinterzarten.
Walk along the winter forest © Julian Köpke 
Snowfall at abandoned mill © Julian Köpke With the help of some tips from a photographer friend I was in school with a long time ago, I tried to improve my photographic technique and post-processing. This includes the trick of placing a piece of newspaper in the sharpness plane of the lens in order to speed up the focus. Very effective.
Orchid on black © Julian Köpke 
Mysterious Amaryllis © Julian Köpke -
Amaryllis
I’ve been experimenting with macro shots or portraits that have a black background. For this I reduce the roomlight with the help of the electric shutters, the exposure time and the ISO value are increased. To improve the quality of the shots, I also used the method of frame averaging to get the RAW image with a single shot and sufficient quality.
Yesterday I was able to admire my friend Harold in a tutorial how he created LowKey HDR macro photographs using an exposure series from -4 EV to 0 EV. I tried all paths today with my Amaryllis, which I had bought 2 days ago.
Salmon pink Amaryllis. Two exposure series at two different aperture values. © Julian Köpke The exposure series can be performed for LowKey pictures and HighKey pictures. Through the systematic under-exposure one can create a beautiful black background. The use of a surface spotlight creates transparencies with HighKey effect.
Amaryllis. 25s, Automated Frame Average, longtime exposure © Julian Köpke 
Salmon pink Amaryllis on a lightbox © Julian Köpke The LED lightbox can be placed vertically on the wall. With two clamps you attach the black velvet as a background and loosen the clamp gently to create the HighKey image after switching on the lightbox.
Black velvet in front of the lightbox © Julian Köpke 
Black velvet dropped behind the bouquet © Julian Köpke A series of exposures with 5 shots between -4 EV and 0 EV is sufficient to capture the set in high quality.
Bouquet with Amaryllis © Julian Köpke -
Meeting friends
After 2 years of FaceTime and telephone conversations we see each other again, friends from Lucerne and us. Meeting point halfway between our two residences, near Hinterzarten near the Feldberg and Titisee. After more than 30 years of friendship, the time of hard separation due to borders and infection management had also been painful now and then.
With photography, we have approached in a new way, each with its own approach. With Monald the wildlife and landscape photography, with me the stars, the landscape, the portrait or macro photography. This weekend we used the few hours in the morning and evening for the countryside around the Feldberg, never letting ourselves be stopped by rain or marshland.
The picture at the beaver dam got an explore on Flickr.
Autumn rain and fog at Titisee © Julian Köpke 
Reflections at beaver reservoir Reimartihof © Julian Köpke At sunrise we placed ourselves with a view of the Titisee just below the Feldberg. Sunrise and fog alternated in rapid succession. Only for breakfast at 9 o’clock we were back in time at the hotel.
View on Titisee at Feldberg with clouds © Julian Köpke 
Morning fog near Feldberg © Julian Köpke The trip to Todtnauer Hütte was longer than expected. Unfortunately, we did not find the hoped-for fog in the valley. There were plenty of autumn trees for this, the sun early behind the clouds.
Autumn at Todtnauer Hütte © Julian Köpke The Hexenlochmühle had been located by a lake in my memory. Totally wrong. Two large mill wheels are driven by water and the water of the mill stream flows into the Wutach.
Dark side of Hexenlochmühle © Julian Köpke My friend’s strong wish was an evening image of the Rhine valley at sunset. Above St. Mägen near Turner we found a parking lot and some meadows with a splendid view down.
Valley view at St. Märgen (Rhine) © Julian Köpke The sunset plunged our spot into a red light that became more and more intense. The sun was slightly dazzled and diffused by clouds. Many people came to our parking lot, which is obviously well known to the locals.
Tree St. Märgen at sunset © Julian Köpke 
Sunset near St. Märgen © Julian Köpke -
Starry nights
The nights in Ticino and now in Mürren were starry. The winter constellation of Orion is near sunrise in the south, which allows a “late” rising. This morning I was able to capture Orion with the red color of its nebula in the center of the dagger. So dark was it on the local helicopter landing site of Mürren. Somewhat to the left of the top of the Jungfrau one could see a faint zodiacal light.
Starry night at Mürren (Sirius and Orion) © Julian Köpke 
Weak zodiac light over Jungfrau © Julian Köpke
