Motifs

Let's begin with weather. Any weather is perfect for good pictures, some images here were taken under rain. Fog like this is alway good to create good images.

For me there's some lack of colors, but the picture pretty well has the mood from that moment.

With the right perspective any object may give a worthy motive, like this ordinary fence in the winter.

Sometimes you just need luck to have the right combination of location, light, motive and your camera by hand. It's not difficult to guess, that the photographer was quite wet too afterwards.

Yes, it's raining again. But exactly this mood emphasizes the athlete's strains during the Ironman in Frankfurt 2006

In this case mother nature impose some comic on that poor stone-head

This is another example where a somewhat large focal length was used to properly arrange the motive in front of the background.

This is just a little statue. The primarily monochrome figurine separates well from the colorful background.

It's somewhat impossible to miss the lady in her red dress (Legoland Germany).

This one represents a negative example of how to not make photographs... Didn't you notice the bright, distracting spot in the background?

A completely different tone in the blurred backround separates the lamp quite well. Catched at Castle Hohlenfels, more pictures from there.

This is an ordinary chimney, right?

And another back light image spotting directly into the sun (did you notice the reflex in the water?). The cutter itself is only illuminated from ambient light.
You'll probably never get such an image from auto-exposure. In this case reducing contrast in the camera or shooting RAW may help to get best results later.

With the proper light (the gathering storm) even a simple neon sign may be an interesting motive. Yes, it is again already raining here.

This image is mainly composed of primary colors.
Taken here: Eisenbahnmuseum Kranichstein. If you're interested, you will find some more pictures here.

Even in a muddy illumination the colorful masts of the trawlers are eyecatchers.

Safety first: Only shoot brewing thunderstorms from a good shelter, anything else is extremely dangerous! To finally catch a flash of lightning you need a lengthy exposure time, much luck, and probably a plenty of exposures though.

These extreme colors were achieved using the ContrastMaster plugin.

To capture this one, I looked through the viewfinder about an hour, until the quickly changing clouds release exactly this detail. Not more not less.

This one was taken past midnight with the moon as the only source of light.

The red moon at March, 4, 2007, a few minutes before the total lunar eclipse. This shot was taken using a 750mm (eff. 1125mm) reflector telescope with focalprojection (only two mirrors between the sensor and the moon).

Taken from this odd viewpoint, even domestic people have to look twice, to recognize this radio tower in Frankfurt.

To capture motion in a still image is sometimes a little tricky. In this case a steady hand and a longer exposure were enough. Well, using a speedlight would be the wrong tool here.

I'm not completely convinced, that James Bond ever drives this car. Taken at the Car Cemetery Guerbetal (Switzerland) in summer 2009 before clearance. More images.

During the past 50 years nature definely triumph over technic. Taken at the Car Cemetery Guerbetal (Switzerland) in summer 2009 before clearance. More images.

Standing inbetween these treasures of past days made me somewhat melancholic. Taken at the Car Cemetery Guerbetal (Switzerland) in summer 2009 before clearance. More images.

Don't ask me how that one was placed there. Taken at the Car Cemetery Guerbetal (Switzerland) in summer 2009 before clearance. More images.

I've included this one just to demonstrate, that you don't need a professional studio to create similar images. Using normal light bulbs and a manual whitebalance was the only trick in this case.

Yes, this is an ordinary matchstick and yes, this is fullframe. If you possess some old, manual wide-angle lenses, think about getting a retro-adapter to gain this magnification. But beware, a focal depth of less than one mm completely stepped down will test your patience.