Photokina Spotlight Tours

Oh, oh, some read­ers got the im­pres­sion that when it comes to pho­tok­i­na I would blog about free­bies on­ly. Nope. Here’s some­thing that comes with a pric­e­tag: EUR 5,-. And it’s worth ev­ery pen­ny be­cause it’s very in­ter­est­ing and it fu­els your cre­a­tiv­i­ty. Cre­a­tiv­i­ty, I be­lieve, in some re­spect is sim­i­lar to driv­ing a car. You have to fu­el up ev­ery now and then. If the tank of your car is emp­ty then it goes nowhere but down­hill un­til you fu­el it up again. So how to get a new tank full of in­spi­ra­tions for cre­a­tiv­i­ty? Pho­tok­i­na hosts quite a num­ber of in­spir­ing pho­to­graph­ic ex­hi­bi­tions. The vi­su­al gallery is huge and in ad­di­tion to that ev­ery hall and ev­ery pas­sage hosts mul­ti­ple ex­hi­bi­tions. Cre­a­tive pho­tos print­ed and ex­hibit­ed in cre­a­tive ways. An awe­some source for fu­el­ing up. When I’m vis­it­ing gal­leries and ex­hi­bi­tions, I am al­ways cu­ri­ous ›

Free beer for the flashmob at photokina

You’ve been run­n­ing around at pho­tok­i­na all day long, bought a new speed­light and now you would like to en­joy a beer or two and start play­ing with your new gad­get? Then Ko­dak’s flash­mob to­mor­row (Fri­day) even­ing at 20:00 is the par­ty for you. The word “Flash­mob” is So­cial­me­dia Web 3.0 speak for some­thing, that will be solid re­al world fun: A cr ›

Shoot the hottest camera test chart at photokina

Here’s some main­te­nance work that you will want to do for your beloved dig­i­tal DSLR - pos­si­b­ly for en­tire­ly the wrong rea­sons. I mean pho­to­graph­ing a huge test chart is one thing, but if a part of the test chart is a liv­ing, to­p­less mod­el with a col­or cal­i­brat­ed body­paint­ing on her ch­est, then the main­te­nance work gets a whole dif­fer­ent spin. &nbs ›

Get the goose bumps: instant photography meets darkroom magic, DIY at photokina

When was the last time that you rushed in­to the dark­room in or­der to quick­ly de­vel­op your pho­to on a bary­tha sil­ver halide pa­per? OOu­ups - was that the wrong ques­tion? No problem. Just take the chance and do it at pho­tok­i­na so that you don’t have to blush any­more some­one asks you. I promise it’s a ›
On Location Photography

The coolest photo of yourself - go into the matrix - for free on photokina

Want to have some fun at pho­tok­i­na? Need some­thing su­per­cool for your­self and prob­a­b­ly for your part­n­er who joined you even though she/he is not sooooo pho­tog­ra­phy crazy like you are? Then I got some­thing for you. To­day all ex­hibi­tors of pho­tok­i­na were fin­ish­ing their booths and sett­ing up ev­ery­thing for the gra ›

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Touch base with David Mecey at photokina - free lingerie workshop

If there is one pho­to­g­ra­pher that I would ask about por­traits, light­ing and mod­els then it would be David Me­cey. There are not very many pho­to­g­ra­phers who can look back on de­cades of find­ing and shoot­ing play­mates, cov­ers, cen­ter­folds, but al­so celebri­ties, ca­t­a­logues and ad­ver­tise­ments. So what­ev­er I would ev­er want to know, he has been there done tha ›

Your artwork on the finest canvas - for free at photokina (and how you seal your work with a hologram)

If I in­vest a whole lot of time in­to shoot­ing and re­touch­ing a pho­to, then I be­lieve it de­serves a re­al­ly good pre­sen­ta­tion af­ter­wards. I mean, it’s cool that I can share it in amaz­ing qual­i­ty as a JPG on­line, but that’s noth­ing com­pared to the sexy­ness of a re­al­ly good print. Here’s where the ›

Vincent Versace, Jens Petersen, walk a mile in their moccasins at photokina

There pho­towalks and then there are x-rite pho­towalks. The main dif­fer­ence lies in who you are walk­ing with. If you like to take a lit­tle tour with such mas­ter­ful pho­to­g­ra­phers as Vin­cent Ver­sace or Jens Petersen, then clear­ly the XritePho­towalk is the right choice for you. Like so many of the out­door work­sho ›

Learn from - and discuss with Photoshop genius Robin Preston

Some pho­tos are so in­cred­i­b­ly good that you just don’t ev­er want to touch them with Adobe Light­room, Pho­to­shop, Nick Soft­ware plu­gins and sim­i­lar. I wish I could say that about my pho­tos, but... ehhm... let’s see it pos­i­tive­ly: Pho­to­shop and Co. are great fun to work with if you just know how to work with them in a goal ori­ent­ed, ef­fi­cient way. ›

Interactive workshops with top photographers - for free at photokina

One of the things that brought me much fur­ther in my pho­tog­ra­phy was, that I watched pro­fes­sio­n­al pho­to­g­ra­phers live in ac­tion. I got a feel for how they re­al­ly go about a par­tic­u­lar pho­to which in turn gave me the con­fi­dence to shape how I would go about it. How­ev­er, in most cas­es those top pro­fes­sio­n­al pho­to­gr ›

Calibrate your camera lens combination for free at photokina

Are you one of those pho­to­g­ra­phers who want their fo­cus right on the spot? Mean­ing, when you shoot a por­trait you re­al­ly care that the fo­cus is on the eye­ball of the front eye of your sub­ject? And if the fo­cus is on the lash­es in­stead of the eye­ball then you con­sid­er this one a miss? Then chances are that you have to cal­i­brate your cam­era lens com­bi­nati ›
Photography Success

Photokina 2010 Rumors, Facts and My Insider Tips

If you are plan­n­ing on vis­it­ing the pho­tok­i­na 2010 fair in Cologne then read this post first, please. Just tell me that you are go­ing there and I will share my in­sid­er tips with you. As soon as I hear about the tru­ly in­ter­est­ing things that are go­ing to hap­pen there, I will send you a mes­sage. And once I find out which com­pa­nies are of­fer­ing the best givea ›
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