Lifesigns

I know, I know. I haven't posted here for a what-I-consider very long time since I left Germany. For those of you who follow my activities on Buzz, or in my Picasa Webalbum, no lifesign is really necessary I think, but just in case someone out there is really just reading this blog, here it is. :) And it took me a while to be inspired to write again. I mean... I could've easily started a hefty rant about pointless "project 365" or "photo diary" things. Which would have pissed some people off, I think. But hey, I'm German. I've learned that I'm way too direct for the English speaking world, anyway. I might as well keep it that way. :-P And besides that, I still have quite a lot of photos from Germany that want to be sorted, processed, and eventually shown to the public. While I continue making photos here in Southern California. :-)

But I digress. Back to topic.

Back in 2007 when I became more interested in photography and began to approach the process of making photos more consciously, I often thought "man, if I just lived in some place that was more scenic, like, eh, with some ocean." Or something like that. And you know what? Now that I actually live in such a place, I don't know yet how to really approach it, photographically.

OK, I'm not talking about the ocean itself in particular - if life and the weather treat you with a gorgeous sunset like this on a November afternoon, there's probably one or the other shot amongst a set of photos that could be worth showing to the public...


Kelp & Surf (NIKON D700, 1/60s @ ISO 2000; f/8, 35 mm (in 35mm)

No, what I mean is... in Germany, I was familiar with my surroundings and I knew which photographic opportunities they offered. I could visit the Huckinger See a hundred times, and I still would not become bored with it. It would always reveal something different, something new, or something familiar that could be approach photographically in a refined or new way. While I do think that I have developed a little bit of a photographic eye (at least I hope so!) in what's almost 4 years of "conscious photography" now, it's still new and unfamiliar terrain for me here in Southern California.

It will take time to regain the confidence that I had in Germany (and photography is just a small part of the whole thing as you may guess.) But it's also an opportunity. Eventually, I will learn how to adapt to my new surroundings (again: at least I hope so!). I began working on it already! :-D

PS: I changed the layout of the blog a little bit. I removed the sidebar entirely and set the width to 1000px so that a photo with 912px width would fit there nicely. No more Lightbox and stuff for a larger version of the photo. Small screens of smartphones and such aside, I think it's pretty safe to assume that most screens out there today have a width of at least 1280px or something.