Ken Knoll Photography

Here’s another – you might not be surprised – low gear shoot I had, this time with wonderful Lari. The more I dive into this low-tech style, the more I realize how much you can do with the simplest things you can find in your own apartment. Climbing out the window (hello, neighbors, it’s just your crazy-friendly photo guy from next door), armed with a spritzer makes for a quite decent setup, don’t you think? Going outside is yet another option – but beware of red noses these days!

I’m not a big fan of fall. I prefer summer over any other season any day of the week. But while it’s there, I thought, why not make the most of it, photographically speaking? The rich colors, reds and yellows call for being photographed. Plus, as my 100th-Facebook-fan-giveaway, I owed this shoot to Lauri. So here it goes, another low-tech, low-hassle shoot. Enjoy.

I had the privilege to do a shoot with the awesome Kam last weekend. Another low-gear shot, I only occasionally threw in my pop-up reflector. I loved the light on those outdoor shots. Amazing. Too bad we only had a small window to seize it, but there might be a round two some day soon.

I spent a fantastic week in Valencia. I only had my old analog camera with me, this time loaded with some no name color film. One night, around 5:30, the mosquitos wouldn’t let me sleep, so I decided to stroll downtown to the market to take some pictures. I love the transition between night and day, seeing people running errands, preparing for the day, drinking their coffee while stocking produce, meat and fish. It felt almost surreal to walk through the market – like I wasn’t supposed to see this side of the world. It was beautiful feeling the adrenaline of the motive hunt running through my blood, trying to capture the essence of this transition. After a while, mostly the elderly people, started to shop for their groceries, but very soon, the market was buzzing with its daily business. Time for me to get back to my apartment and start the day. Not without taking some pictures of random strangers and meeting with a friendly neighborhood gato, of course.

First off: Steffi and Markus are such a great couple. You just gotta love ‘em. I met them through dear friends and when they asked me to shoot their wedding I was more than up for it – even though I might have been a little nervous about it since it was going to be my first wedding. So I came prepared – second camera, rented lens, and bag full of gear and ideas for the shoot. The wedding took place at a beautiful castle somewhere in the north of Hesse, starting with the civil marriage, followed by the church wedding. After church, we took some time for portraits of the newlyweds and I even stayed for the awesome party as well. Let me tell you, I never took as many pictures on one day before! I used 99% daylight (even though there was no such thing in the ISO3200-f/1.8-1/30s church!) and switched between my old 5D with a 24-70 lens and a 40D with my 85 attached. You can see the whole series here!

Let’s be honest: This summer sucks. It’s nearing its end and I’ve been at the lake only once or twice. So I am really craving for some nice summer mood shots. Sparkling grains set on fire by the sunset, corn fields, luscious greens… so for the past weeks I’ve been looking forward to a summer shoot with Ruta who shares my passion for summer. Alright, weather didn’t look too bad, I get my stuff packed, we head over to the location… and the second we pull in, it starts raining like there’s no tomorrow. Being optimists, we waited in the car for the rain to pass, and it finally did. So we hiked out to the fields just to check out some potential spots rather than with the intention to get a shoot started. Everything still dripping, sky overcast, so I thought, why not take some detail shots? Fellow photographers know that grey sky makes for a pretty even light – and as long as you stay away from showing sky in the frame, you’re golden. Before I knew it, we were in the middle of an awesome shoot – totally different from what I expected, but suprising myself often brings the best results. Didn’t even have the time to play with any equipment, so this was all shot with natural light and my trusty 50mm lens opened wide at around f/2. There will be a part two of this shoot – featuring summer sun. Pinky promise!

Check out Kya’s blog here… she’s a great designer I randomly ran into in my home town. So I met her at her new atelier the other day and I took the liberty to take some portraits.

Hey folks,

I had such a great time shooting with Kevin! He is, hands down, one of the coolest guys I personally know. You know, one of those guys that you immediately feel at ease with. I met him in my gym last year and he became my trainer. Ever since he’s chasing me through the studio, but I just never get to curse him ’cause he’s just too nice a guy! I learned that, among the many other talents he has, he’s also a musician. Of course I had to take some nice pictures of him. Actually, as my facebook friends might have seen, a couple of weeks back I had already helped him out with some shots of his work (see my Commercial gallery – since there’ll be more work following this up this project, I might blog about it soon).

This time, I wanted to do something for my personal portfolio. So I went with something simple and classy. Just one light in most cases so I could focus on the subject and the mood rather than on the complex lighting. I put it to a quite extreme angle so that every slight turn of the head resulted in a different look. Also, I felt that it matched the mood. I played some music and we were having a good time shooting and grooving. What really made the shots for me was the microphone – it’s a Shure 55, a classic model back from the time when Elvis was rockin’. I borrowed it from the super awesome, friendly and competent guys at Musikhaus Crusius in Darmstadt -thanks so much, I really appreciate it!

Sit back and enjoy – do you feel the music?

Uh-oh. Two upcoming shootings next weekend and I still don’t know where I will actually do the shoot. The curse of not having a studio (or living in beautful California). But really, I’m not complaining. I went location scouting this morning and found some beautiful spots. Actually, I was so happy with the spots that I took some spontaneous portraits. Available light only. Haven’t had the camera in “Av” for a while… I actually had to figure out the metering modes… What is the matrix again? I had my beautiful new 85 f/1.8 lens on – love the bokeh. To even enhance the bokeh on the first picture, I stitched several pictures together. I might not have a medium format camera, but I do have autostitch!

Here comes a shooting that I have been excited about for months and months! It feels great to finally be able to share the outcome with you! My facebook friends have already gotten a preview ’cause I couldn’t wait again… Speaking of facebook, a second ago I registered a facebook page that you can “like” if you want. I’ll use it to announce news about my photography – so if you want to stay in touch, this might be for you. The link is at the bottom of this post.

The idea for this shooting was simple: Get a decent hotel room and see what I can get out of it in one night. Since the occasion was there, I was able to take some shots in the morning, too. We had such a great time shooting these pictures and building the set! (And yes, we did put everything back in place). So without further ado, here are the shots I took late at night:

The look I had in mind is quite obviously a hommage to many great photographs from around a certain time. I don’t know if I nailed that style, but to me, for a self made do and make-up, it looked really cool and I am very happy with the way the pictures came out. The second picture is actually only lit by the bathroom mirrors and was more of an accident/making of shot – but since it looked so cool I decided to keep it! Don’t we love happy accidents!

The hotel suite we booked was great – huge windows and an enormous bed that I knew I had to take as a backdrop. The sun was pouring in through the window and filled the room with great light – so I thought, why not have some morning fun and jump around on the bed?

For you techies: For the night shots, I used a beauty dish from up close and filled it in with a reflector (first image) and bounced some light into that same reflector (third image). The first morning shot is backlit by the sun and filled in with a gold reflector.

Here is the facebook page link – I am completely new to using facebook pages, so I’m excited to find out how this will work out. If it does, give me some feedback by liking stuff or shooting a a quick comment – I’d appreciate it!

-Ken