From Russia with Love: Urban Landscapes

Last weekend I was performing with bass player Kurt Holzkämper in St. Petersburg. It was a blast being on stage with our tap&bass show again. And St. Petersburg is truly a beautiful city.
Here are a few pics I shot in-between performing and teaching a workshop.
The photos were shot with an Fuji xpro 1 and an iphone 5s.

Enjoy....

Urban Landscapes: Paris

Last week I was in Paris for the "Paris Tap Reunion". It was a wonderful gig and a great workshop.
Next stop: St. Petersburg with Kurt Holzkämper and our "Tap&Bass" Reunion.

Landscape

Urban Landscapes #5

On the streets...Seattle #1

Here are a few street photographs from the last few days. I just love to roam the city with my camera trying to capture a certain feel and atmosphere of the neighborhoods, the people and the environment.
Enjoy... Thomas

Urban Landscapes: Seattle #4

Urban Landscapes: Seattle #3

A beautiful day on Alki beach...

Urban Landscapes: Seattle #2

I have been in Seattle now for two weeks and have done quite a bit street photography. The city is very photogenic and the light here is just beautiful.
All pictures were done with the Fuji X-Pro 1 and the X100.

More to come....

More thoughts on the Fuji X-Pro 1: Roadtrip to the Herräng Dance Camp, Sweden

Last week my girlfriend and I  took a road trip to the Herräng Dance Camp, Sweden where I am teaching the tap dance classes this year. For the trip I brought the Fuji X100 and my new X-Pro 1 along with the 35mm f1,4 and the 18mm f2,0.
Here are a few pictures taken while being on the road. I must say I really like the 18mm f2,0 as well. I have always liked the field of view from a 28mm lens. The autofocus seems a bit faster than on the longer lenses which does not surprise me. But like I said before I think the speed of the autofocus is not a big concern for me and once you understand how it works, you get very accurate results.
I also played around with the jpeg settings a bit and so far NEG Std is probably my favorite. The colors are subtle and skin tones very good. I also really like how the camera handles highlights. The dynamic range is fantastic. Being a wedding photographer this is very important to me because it can sometimes be tough to not wash out the highlights on a wedding dress.
So far I don't miss RAW support for Aperture which I use for editing my photos. And even if they come out with it I will probably stick with the jpegs. They are still robust enough to post edit them a bit. Auto white balance is working great and I almost never have to adjust it manually. I can't say that for the Nikon D3 or D700. On those cams it is almost a must to shoot raw to get most out of them.
Right now I can only think of two features I miss on the X-Pro 1:
The first one is weather sealing. I wish the body and lenses would be a bit better protected. On my last wedding gig it started to rain heavily right before we entered the church and I had to switch to the D3. I use my cameras under a lot of different weather conditions and rather not worry too much about my equipment getting ruined by rain etc.
Secondly I really wish for a second SD Card slot. I am always very paranoid about losing pictures due to a faulty card. It has never happened to me before but I would still prefer a backup solution while documenting important shoots like weddings. This is not a deal breaker for me and i will use the camera on professional gigs but the possibility of loosing data because of a damaged card is always in the back of my mind.
So here are a few pictures from the trip….. More to come soon, Thomas

UPDATE! I just published a new blog post regarding shooting a wedding with the Fuji X100 and X-Pro 1

Street photography, Lyon France

This shots are from a visit in Lyon last year. I was teaching a tap dance workshop and at night roamed the streets for some photos. I like those because they are very graphical and abstract. I used a Ricoh GRD 3.

spring #3

hamburg on a sunny day

hamburg is a wonderful city. especially on a sunny day. i guess the hamburg port is one of my favorite places in the city.
both photos were taken with the amazing fuji x100.

solitude

elevator

spring #2

nola 11/12

earlier this year i spent an awesome 4 weeks in new orleans visiting friends. i had a fantastic time in this great city. naturally with all its jazz new orleans speaks to my soul. here are some of my favorite pictures during that time.....

most of the pictures were done with the ricoh grd3 or the gxr and the 50mm lens.