Daily Inspiration #350 by Marko Hehl

Hey Steve,

Thank you for keeping up your outstanding website. I’m not a regular reader but I take a look from time to time 🙂 To my person… I’m working as freelance curator and photographer in Germany (my current exhibition as curator is Judah Passow – Shattered Dreams).
To my gear… I have work with a lot of cameras over the time. The pictures here are taken (or should I say received?) with a Olympus E-P1, a Pentax SMC 50mm f1.2 lens at ISO 3200 and a Olympus Pancake 17mm f2.8 at ISO 400. These are out of the camera shots! No adjusts at all! The only effect at these pictures is the High Contrast B/W Art Filter which comes with the camera. Noise reductions was always turned off.
Now I work with my trusted Leica M4, a Ricoh GXR (with A12 M-mount module) and a Ricoh GR Digital III. My works in general has no specific theme, a thing what I have also learned from japanese photographers. Means simply “things of daily life” as Masao Uchibori said. I run a little blog you found here.
Here my three pictures for the Daily Inspiration. My inspiration for these work was the japanese photographer Masahisa Fukase with his outstanding “Karasu” (or better known as “the Solitude of Ravens) work. From his work I have learned that it is not the right way to count pixels or get a sharp image. The power of a picture is inside of unsharpness, fading and darkness or bleach colors, far away from technical perfectness. The japanese Peoples have a special understanding for this, they called it “Wabi-Sabi”. And of course black and white has an edge of erotic to me!
with warm regards,
Marko

15 Comments

  1. Marko, your work is really outstanding !
    This is the kind of photos I like.
    You’re a photo-reporter. Your framing are perfect, each photo tells a story.
    People changing their gear like they change their socks should pay attention and learn from your work.

  2. Thanks for your comments. Just check Steve’s site today and see these wonderful surprise. Also many thanks to you Steve! 🙂 Ravens are always mystically. At Japan a sign for “showing the way” or “companion for your way to death”. Its a fascinating and timeless theme.

    Again, many thanks @all

  3. Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,
    Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore…

    Either that or Hitchcock ‘The Birds’!

  4. It reminds me of old films. I like that. That first one could be a scene from a dark mystery.

  5. I simply love the symmetry in #2 and find myself constantly coming back to it. B/w and the grain come together with the subject. Marvellous.

    #1 and #3 are less appealing for me. #1 simply because outside my home and within 50 metres there is a similar tree that I use as a subject throughout the year, with leaves and defoliated. So this image doesn’t give me an insight. But come winter, when the leaves have fallen off, I will give it a go at high ISO and grain.

    #3, sorry to say, doesn’t do anything for me.

    Marko, I visited the link you gave for your current exhibition, and what a great series of reportage images. The incongruity of the weapon in a number of images gets one really musing on what is going on in the world. The bride with the fan is a very amusing antidote!

  6. Just stunning.

    Can’t wait to put the grainyfilm filter to use when I get my om-d

  7. Not to knock anyone else who posted on this site (including myself), but these three images for some reason really stood out for me. They are simple, falling out of the norm, and very poetic.

    Excellent work!!!! 😀

    • Yes I was also wondering that?

      Love the 3rd shot, has an Edgar Allan Poe “The Raven” feel about it for me, mean & moody.

    • Hi De Michel,

      it was snowing on that day 🙂 Never seen any dust at sensor during my work with the E-P1.

  8. Beautiful compositions with the Olympus camera in Grainy Film mode. These are some of the few B&W digital pics I have seen recently on the daily inspiration that capture the magic of traditional film. I like these pics because they contain a nice presentation of the important elements of B&W film: The play of light and shadow and texture. The compositions are simple and dreamlike and encourage the viewer to attach his own associations to them. Good job.

  9. I have to say these are very moody pictures. Your blog is full of amazing pics. I am planning to follow it from now on.

    Mo

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