Some inspiration from Lenbachhaus

Long time no blog! I have shelved my camera for the last 5 years to focus more on establishing the Monachium Belegarth group, first solid one of its kind in Europe. Most of my Sundays went into that, so I couldn't really go out and photograph as much as I wanted. Now Monachium is established and other members are doing most of the day-to-day running, so I will have some more spare tome to myself. This allows me to turn back to one of my other main hobbies, camerawork. 

My in-laws were visiting this week, and today we went to the Lenbachhaus museum. While a lot of their main art, the Blaue Reiter school, is not so much my thing, they happened to have a flock of 19th century artists out on exhibit, and there was some nice stuff. The landscape painters of that time - while obviously romanticizing nature - did some lovely things with composition and light that is very much like what I want to get out of my photography. Here three photos that I particularly enjoyed.

Domenico Quaglio: Die Vautsburg am Mittelrhein
Creditline: Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau München

Domenico Quaglio: Die Vautsburg am Mittelrhein - a moody scene of a castle on the Rhine that I really must go see. It has nice leading lines in the path way, placed off-center, with stormy clouds helping to point out the castle itself, but the entire thing kept in greys and greens that help emphasize the grim look appropriate to a 14th-century castle.

Johan Friedrich Hennings: Studie vom Königssee
Creditline: Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau München

Johan Friedrich Hennings: Studie vom Königssee
Creditline: Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau München
Edited: Darkened to match how I remember seeing it.

Johan Friedrich Hennings: Studie vom Königssee. The digital reproduction doesn't do justice to the original, they brightened it too much. It's very low-key, only the sunlit parts have any real detail to them, so it appears mystical and secret, with the edges of the plants and boat glowing like gold. Lots of negative space suggestion who-knows-what lurking around.

Anton Zwengauer: Herbstmorgen
Creditline: Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau München

Anton Zwengauer: Herbstmorgen. There's a lot of empty space in this, more that half is just shades of a murky blueish-yellow sky, and the landscape below disappears into the morning mist. The ramshackle hut is a mere detail in this view, where the feeling of clammy solitude palpably emanates from the canvas. Simple, quiet, and utterly gorgeous.

Take-aways: Negative space is a big deal. Simple tones avoid confusion and distraction. Low-key can be super effective. Landscape paintings can make for really good inspiration (in fact, I got their book of their landscape paintings for this purpose). And mainly, I need to get out there and find these views.

Thanks to the Lenbachhaus for giving me permission to using the digital versions of the pictures in this post.

Painterly photos

Every now and then, I come across a photo that looks more like a painting than a photo, and they always fascinate me. I want to make photos like this.

I am not sure what makes them so painting-like, but I guess it's a combination of limited palette, deep focus, very well-laid soft light with details in the shadows yet some really dark areas. This example shows off +Hugh Jackman in this way: