Ken Knoll Photography

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.

Some shots I took while relaxing on a tree at the lake. Those cool guys were totally up for a spontaneous band shoot. Ah, I wish we had more summer moments like these.

Every once in a while, my colleagues from the company that I currently work for ask me to bring my camera to take some snaps of some event that takes place at our site, mostly speeches, presentations, get-togethers, you get the idea. Even though I am not a big fan of documentary style pictures, I jump on the occasion whenever I can. The downside is, and I guess I am hurting nobody’s feelings here, that these pictures are not really the kind of pictures that I normally like to take. The not-as-beautiful office location is dimly lit, the use of flash mostly not welcome due to the distraction, sometimes even the shutter sound of my 5D is already perceived as a major annoyance. It’s not that everybody’s waiting for the photog to show up and let him do his thing, it’s more like I sneak in, squeeze a few frames until I get annoyed glances and sneak back out five seconds later. And most pictures reflect that. But they document the event for other colleagues. So, whatever, I’m making somebody happy.

However, after the last event I felt like making myself happy as well. So I came back to my desk with just my camera and two bare speedlights and I felt like composing some pictures just for myself and the fun of it. Since my co-workers weren’t gonna move away from their computers I had all the freedom I needed to prop whatever piece of equipment around them. Since I didnt have stands or light modifiers I looked around for alternatives. What’s a good softbox for the key light? Bingo, bounce some light against the flip chart. Hair light? Put the other bare speedlight on the book shelf. Flare? Admittedly, I got lucky here. The sun was setting right at this time and cast a wonderful color into the office room. Popped two, three test frames to balance against the sunlight and, to quote David Hobby again, Robert was my father’s brother. Lucky for me, my co-workers were playing along nicely (even though it must have felt weird to have that flip chart stand 1ft away from their nose….). Oh, how I love this kind of distraction.

I said that before – it’s just great to have great friends. ‘Cause those great friends are cool with coming with you and have a great time doing some sunset backlit shots somewhere in the fields around Darmstadt. I’ve had this kind of look going through my head all day and it felt great to turn it into a reality (that kind of reality that ends with .CR2, that is). I wish I could do this kind of thing way more often. Trying different lighting situations, angles, techniques… this is, to my mind, what you need to do to become a good photographer.

These pictures were all natural light, I just brought my little gold reflector with me to bounce some of the sunlight back into the face.

I’m not big at planning photos, I normally shoot as I go. This one’s an exception from that rule. I saw that field the day before around sunset time and I was amazed by the grains’ beards which seemed to glow as the sunlight backlit them. That instantly made me think of the scene in the great movie “Gladiator”, when the hero Maximus arrives at his home in Spain and touches the grain, “Elysium” playing in the background… I later found out that “Elysium” refers to the place where heroes go, which makes a lot of sense when you think of “Freude sch?ner G?tterfunke, Tochter aus Elysium….”

So the very next day (Harvesting had already begun, it was late July) I had Ira pose for me in that field. And just as the sun hit the trees, I got the right composition. One of my all-time-favorites, because it just fills my heart with warmth when I think back of that day. If it’s one of the best shots I have ever made? I couldn’t say, because there is always room for improvement. But sometimes, atmosphere just overpowers technical flaws like that lense flare. When I ever get back to that field, I’ll make a nude version of that shot, I promise!