Heipei

I’ve been keeping track of my CCed photos for a while now, updating the list of people that use my flickr-photos on a regular base. Today I did another round, simply by googling “heipei flickr”. Not surprisingly I came up with about 12 new websites and blogs. And I’m happy that people are discovering my more advanced photos as well, instead of using old and embarrassing snaps from my mobile phone.

The shot on the left was done after Katrin asked me for some photos to illustrate a blogpost related to medicine over on her blog. Some other site apparently had the same idea, and now this photo can be found here, here, here and here. This was not only rewarding for me but also interesting since I discovered (from this and other shots) that websites not only seem to search flickr but rather other related articles on related websites and simply use the same photos. When the photo is used in the right context and the website itself looks professional, one might even forget the small “CC by heipei” link at the bottom and the fact that I’m an amateur spending little time or effort (much less creativity ;) on these shots. This can only lead to the conclusion that photography is as least as much simple engineering as creativity, or that I have some hidden sense for compositing an image resulting from years of experimentation, browsing flickr and doing CG where you spend a lot of time making your rendered images look like photographs.

In general I’m still happy with my EF-S 18-200mm 3.5-5.6 and my EF 50mm 1.4, and the decision to buy a Speedlite was absolutely right (in fact, reviewing old shots, I’ve been kicking myself about not having bought one earlier). Apart from some crazy experiments and time-consuming handicrafted tools, my usual approach is to use the flash pointed toward the ceiling, increase it 1/3 to 1 with TTL and just fire away. If possible, a natural balance with available light will make laymen forget a flash was even used. You can go fully manual or simply use the ‘P’-mode with an appropriate aperture. A nice result can be seen on the right, though Katrin is slightly underexposed in this one. What I did was take the photo indoors (where you have your trusty white ceiling) in front of an open window at dusk. The backlight was provided by the setting sun, which adds a lot the shot and usually is done with a dedicated flash. I will be trying more of these in the future.

A little photostream-recap below, so no one can complain that I’m not blogging for the average reader anymore. Enjoy!