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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 -
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 -
Heidelberg Castle, flowers and flypaper textures
Heidelberg Castle is a landmark. In winter its red color becomes softer. For one winter Frederick V. became king with his home in this castle. After that, Germany sank into the 30 Years War. The castle had been ruined already by fire a couple of years before.
Winter Castle of the Winter King © Julian Köpke The delicacy and dreaminess of a photo is not always the result of intensive digital processing. The ranuncula of the following image hardly needed editing. You can feel it. With a tripod and a 85mm Lensbaby velvet at f/16 I shot this image with really delicate color.
Ranuncula © Julian Köpke The lavish feast is over. Paradise is no more. The king went into exile. We’re staying.
The roaring party is over © Julian Köpke -
Callas and pink fern leave
For a short time the winter kept us still. Nature offers many motifs, the effect of which depends on the time of the day.
Disturbing scene of ice formations (skull) © Julian Köpke 
Arbre japonais © Julian Köpke Shortly after, the snow has said goodbye to us. Still very, very cold cloudless nights, more and more often glorious sunny days let you catch your breath.
Quarry at Schauenburg ruin Dossenheim © Julian Köpke 
Early spring sun throws light on pampas grass © Julian Köpke Yesterday I came across Calla lilies and rosé-fixed fern at the florists’s. „Expensive“, she told me. But I was already determined wether the many possibilities I had in mind.
Through a chemical process, the fern has received a fixation and new color. That would make it durable for many compositions ….
Pink fern leave © Julian Köpke 
Red callas in a white vase © Julian Köpke The next day, I combined the callas and the fern to a single composition. With a background the image looks soft and dreamy. This texture puts a kind of patina over the image.
Red callas and rosé fixed fern © Julian Köpke 
Red callas and rosé fixed fern II © Julian Köpke -
Alstromeria
With daylight and a lightbox I took the cut off flower of an Alstromeria. With the lens I’m able to approach the bloom on approximately 20 cm. The blossom then fills almost the entire sensory. The ratio of the mapping is thus approximately 1:1.
The quality of the RAW images is convincing in itself. The creation of the finished HDR takes place in a combination of manual and automated steps.
RAW conversion is done using CaptureOne, HDR processing is done manually in Photoshop. Further, I generated two automated HDR developments using HDR Efex Pro 2 and Photomatix Pro 6 and layered them in. Some of the original color is transferred from the daylight image with the lightbox switched off.
Alstromeria (Peruvian lily) © Julian Köpke -
RAW stocks
A small stock of raw footage is always lying on my laptop. My florist had been able to give us a few flowers, some of which were sacrificed after a couple of days on my lightbox. These days in a hospital I benefit while the healing remains to be seen.
Poppy blossom on a lightbox © Julian Köpke Is it possible to retain the idea of a picture for a long time ? What happens to the colors when you no longer have the originals in front of your eyes ? The blossom of the peonies looked like a living eye staring at me, not necessarily a human, maybe an animal.
Yellow peonie © Julian Köpke The tulip offered a wild confusion of petals. Unfortunately, it was monochrome orange.
Orange tulip © Julian Köpke The amaryllis showed an incredibly intense red. I managed to show the intensity best on a black background than on a white one. I use the inversion of the L-channel in Lab color mode.
Red amaryllis on a lightbox with a black background © Julian Köpke 
Red amaryllis on a lightbox © Julian Köpke -
Lockdown flower shots
Our flower shops are sold out or closed. There’s nothing new to buy. Thank God. This allows me to take a closer look a t the seasonal flowers we have at home.
Photographing a white amaryllis against a white background I found particularly attractive in the last few days. Because it also contains many colors that you can bring out.
Concerning color a less courageous image is the left one, only shadows and some etheral green from inside the flower. Using Lab color mode and some ideas of my friend Harold Davis this image can get more pizzazz, as shown on the right hand side.
White amaryllis on lightbox © Julian Köpke 
The colors of a white amaryllis on lightbox © Julian Köpke The plant broke off and had to be placed in a vase, but there it developed surprisingly well and even quite symmetrically, giving me the impression of antennas that listen into space because they look similar tho those with which Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson discovered the cosmic background radiation. A lightbox as background is easy to realize with a LED for the ceiling that you can get in any hardware store.
Floral symmetry with white amaryllis © Julian Köpke The blossoming red amaryllis has two sides, so I had the chance to photograph them both. In my eyes, one side resembled a dinosaur’s head and upper neck as it is about reach for food. Loosely based on an Arabic proverb: „If you see the dinosaur’s tongue, don’t think he’s smiling“.
Budding Amaryllis © Julian Köpke 
Budding Amaryllis © Julian Köpke -
Lockdown flowers
Yesterday was a chance to buy flowers for my lightbox before a new virus induced „lockdown“ takes place. Flowers on a lightbox exhibit an illusion of transparency when photographed either as HighKey image or HDR bracket sequence.
I prefer to process my bracketed photographs manually, because there is no possibility to learn how automated HDR software really works. On top of my layer stack I put one up to three HDR software results to layer them in if appropriate.
Yellow gerbera HDR on an lightbox © Julian Köpke Photographing flowers is a way to cope with the situation being locked in in a house instead of traveling or meeting friends. Our house looks like a flower store, every now and then we find new compositions. At the end, there is a print.
Red chrysanthemum and yellow gerbera © Julian Köpke A composition of flowers often suggests something, not with the eye, but with the inner vision. That’s the fun of it. There are so many compositions yet undone.
Bouquet of yellow gerbera © Julian Köpke My friend Harold is using petals for compositions. I often shy away from cutting off the flowers or tearing out the petals. I was happy to do it today with a fading dark red rose.
Red rose petals © Julian Köpke Christa, my wife, loves tulips. They may resemble a dream on a lightbox, like balloons taking off for flight. To catch the whole composition I’d either had to climb up a ladder with my 120mm macro lens or change the lens to a 80mm focal length (which I did).
Dream of tulips on a lightbox © Julian Köpke -
Dahlia, my love
Dahlia, my love. Flowers that make us forget the burden of a moment. Photographed each of them alone and as a pair. I tested HighKey shots instead of HDR, in the background different white tones.
The result did not leave me alone. Afterwards I wanted to try my hand at photographing a hen’s egg to study shades of different white (basically grey and yellow) tones. Unfortunately this did not happen today due to an emergency examination.
Red Dahlia II (single shot) © Julian Köpke 
Two Dahlias in a white vase © Julian Köpke More flowers to be seen in my Flickr-Album Flowers.
