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Calendar 2025
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Chocolate
4 bars of chocolate were meant as a reward for a calendar of the year 2023. To eat, of course. However, it is a special pleasure to subject them to an X-ray examination with the mammography before opening them. After three attempts, I placed them on top of each other, which is why their penetration with radiation required 20% more energy so that the image was not underexposed.
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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 -
Mürren II
With the first cable car to the Schilthorn I started at 7:40 am in Mürren. Unfortunately, as a tourist I couldn’t go up earlier. On the terrace of the mountain station there were two cardboard figures with shooting irons in hand, which appeared to me on the pictures of the webcam as strangely motionless guests. The temperature at 0 degrees Celsius was not friendly for the hands, so I was mostly alone on the platform.
How do you photograph mountains ? At distant mountains the colour disappears into a dull blue, which is why I prefer black and white in these cases. Then a gripping dynamic may develop that draws you into the image.
Snow field at Eiger (Alps of Bern) © Julian Köpke The technical side of a cable car has always fascinated me. A cable car is a workplace for drivers, technicians, engineers and many others. The first ride in the morning is a cheerful encounter of these people, who have known each other for along time and take turns doing some work on the machines. That’s why we were allowed to listen to music for the morning gymnastics during the drive uphill.
In fact, the construction of a mountain station on the Schilthorn before it became the location for the 4th James Bond movie starring George Lazenby was certainly controversial and economically questionable. After the movie, everything was clear. Today you can admire many scenes and their making of on a separate floor, as well as 10 minutes of impressive films about the local landscape and the film.
Piz Gloria (Schilthorn) with 007 Café. Some scenes of the 4th 007 movie were shot there. It's been the headquarter of Blofield. © Julian Köpke It was only while processing the images that I noticed the many airplane tracks in the sky that had not been there for so long.
The mountain range of Eiger (left), Mönch and Jungfrau also looks better in black-and-white technique. The imminent change of the weather is already clearly visible on the image.
Mountain chain Eiger Mönch Jungfrau. There will be a weather change. © Julian Köpke -
Lake Lucerne
The cross-country trip to Lucerne with a 20-year-old navigation system took me along many country roads, which used to be the only connection to this city. It’s hard to imagine how the traffic might have moved then. That’s why the system guided me down from the motorway through beautiful Swiss landscapes.
Mowed meadow near Affoltern A little tired I arrived in Lucerne and went to sleep. Just in time for sunset I made a tour through the old town to Lake Lucerne, on which wonderful sailboats were on the way.
Lake Lucerne and Alps. Snow covered Tödi. © Julian Köpke -
Oh, island in the sun …
Ansel Adams was a pianist. There’s even an edition of recordings of him from the 30s. For a long time he struggled whether he should become a pianist or a photographer.
Reading his book “The Negative” not only gives me insight into the technical processes that the “analogue” photographers had to struggle with. His often short sentences or comments on the image evaluation are an inspiring source, which always evoke in me the image of a qualified musician from Ansel Adams. He didn’t loose the spirit of music when photographing or processing.
His comments on infrared photography inspired me to rework a color image of the northern part of the island of Sylt and to study the effect of different color filters on contrasts and tonality.
I am feeling rewarded that this picture was chosen for the group in explore by Flickr this morning.
Land's end near List, Sylt © Julian Köpke The contrasts in the color image are weaker, the color also distracts a little from the mood of an impending thunderstorm. A bit of luminosity or radiance comes out better in the clouds in the black and white image.
Land's End near List (Ellbogen) © Julian Köpke My others in explore pictures are here.
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Departure from realism II
The basic question of the creative photographer is, wether the representation of a photograph is literal or a departure from reality as projected in his „mind’s eye“. An expressive image is photographer’s goal. When the interaction of the different factors of exposure, aperture and camera characteristics is well understood, creative freedom knows no limits. Positively speaking: the sky is the limit.
The scenario of an almost threatening thunderstorm cloud, which, however, is still in a protective distance, is sometimes surprising on the beach. The tetrapods on my image will protect the island from flooding, but not us from rain.
A colored picture blurs this impression completely. Black and white rendering clearly shows the energy inherent in a thundercloud. We came across this cloud at Hörnum and it accompanied us all along the beach.
Thunderclouds near Hörnum © Julian Köpke Just a short time before, I managed to capture the impression of a constantly beautiful weather with a cool wind and gentle waves. A strong sun pushes away all dark thoughts. On the horizon, the clouds are raining a bit.
Tetrapods at Hörnum © Julian Köpke Many times we are waiting. We like to draw strength from contemplation. Time is passing by imperceptibly, almost a little too fast.
Clouds near List © Julian Köpke With color photos expressive images can also be created. The true brightness values of a color image like to deceive our eyes. Quantitative estimation with the help of Lab color display is a great help in the accurate determination of brightness values. To make an image look like I had it in my „mind’s eye“.
Thunderclouds above pastureland at Ellbogen, Sylt © Julian Köpke -
Departure from realism
An idea of Ansel Adams regarding the reality of a photo keeps me captive. His best photos, as he writes in hisbook “The Negative”, are often described by viewers as truly realistic. But they’re not. On the contrary. These would often have been the most intensively worked on by him.
He repeatedly insists in this book that the best images would have been those in which he left reality in the processing to show what he wanted to show or felt.
I am often impressed by the clouds passing by or the play of clouds in the sky. In a colored picture, I don’t quite succeed in directing the weight of the picture to the clouds in the sky. Despite the use of filters with and without gradients, the color image is beautifully colored and bright, but the desired focus is lost. With black and white pictures, it seems to be easier.
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Learning curve
Ansel Adams suggested in his book „The Negative“ a plan for practice in awareness and visualization to improve skills in black and white photography (Chapter 1, p. 3). „Take nothing for granted“: Black isn’t pitch black, but consists of many dark gray values, white isn’t pure white, but consists of many light gray tones.
One of his further suggestions to improve learning visualization of a subject could be the use of Polaroid Land black-and-white films. He made this suggestion 1981, long before LCD monitor and live view. With these tools our learning curve on each subject and imaging situation is steep.
Using Slow Shutter app I’m able to compose an image in live view mode and integrate a period of time to a single image. The app tends to capture the bright whites first, and doesn’t change them very much while integrating the whole image e.g. for 8 seconds. Therefore, I start my exposure at a moment, where the bright values come close to my visualization of the composition – and then I enjoy the completion. I believe, this feeling is close to the moment, when a print came out in the darkroom.
Time fusion groins at Westerland © Julian Köpke 
Time fusion waves © Julian Köpke 
Time fusion beach Westerland © Julian Köpke Ansel Adams didn’t have an electronic optical system. His recommendations were aimed at having a trained eye and with a few measuring points an idea of what the distribution of gray values would be in reality, in the negative and in the print (the positive).
This distribution is nowadays given by our cameras as a histogram. Each pixel of a capture is included. Thus, the distribution of gray values is not estimated by some 3 to 10 measurement points. With each pixel of a photo included and millions of them in a single capture we get a quasi-continuous function from the lowest to the highest brightness values: a histogram.
Let’s look at the following photograph of a chessboard from a common game collection and its histogram. (The chessboard was already old and slightly bent.) The chessboard consists of mainly two gray levels: the black and the white chess fields. Each individual chess field consists of slightly differing gray levels. The two peaks in the histogram represent this inhomogeneity of the photographed „black“ and „white“ chess fields.
BW photo of a chessboard © Julian Köpke 
Histogram of a BW photo of a chessboard (Photoshop) © Julian Köpke Departure from realism is a significant contribution to creative imagery if you know to influence your result.
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Darkroom studio
The darkroom was the centre of analogue photography. In a darkroom were created the copies of a picture on photo paper, which had been planned when shooting with camera and film.
The “digital darkroom” is in a way the continuation of the darkroom from analogue times. Nowadays, the role of the film is taken over by the RAW image. The development of the film was linked to chemistry, intentional light and shadow effects and fine feeling. Each print was unique.
The “digital development” or postprocessing is non-destructive, repeatable and delivers a result, which at least theoretically can be printed as often as desired. In the digital workflow no print is unique anymore.With a dark background and systematic shading of daylight, my photo studio became a darkroom where I could photograph flowers. Exposure times became longer, almost like a long-term exposure at night outside. The saturation of the colors came out surprisingly strong.
Anthuria on black © Julian Köpke 
Red gerbera and fern © Julian Köpke The creation of a floating cloud with the help of white tulle did not require shading to achieve the effect of a darkroom. As my friend Lorenz mentioned, looking closer you can see nice interference patterns (Newtonian rings). I’m happy with this image idea: the image got two days later a Flickr in explore.
White cloudy glow of a piece of fabric © Julian Köpke The soft variations of light and shadow fit well to a soft vetch.
Vetch on white fabric © Julian Köpke 
Vetch and white fabric © Julian Köpke
