Sunday Italian Wine Photography Mini Project

May 3, 2020

What do you do when you get your online wine order delivered just 2 hours after placing the order…. on a Sunday?! Thanks to the great people at Vine.lu , who are ensuring their Luxembourgish customers are constantly failing their AA’s goals, I had enough time before the 5pm to take some shots of these wonderful Italian wines.

My first ‘victim’ was the Italian Roero DOCG 2015. I was looking for a simple setup with one light-source. I placed the softbox on the left-hand side and a white-board on the right. If you’re interested in buying it (I haven’t opened it yet so I can’t give you my review), have a look at Vine.lu ’s website here.

My wife suggested the styling for the second shot - simple yet elegant and very spring-like! I think it goes very well, color-wise, with the pink wrap around the bottle’s neck and the ring. According to Vine.lu, this Etna Rosato D.O.P. Dedicato 2018 is produced based on the ancient methods and it’s unfiltered. You can check it out on this website here.

Vegan Chocolate Hazelnut Muffins - food photography

May 2, 2020

A rainy day is not only good to bake muffins but it’s also an opportunity to take food photography. As we are double locked in (because it rains outside and because of COVID-19), my wife decided to try a new recipe of vegan chocolate hazelnut muffins. I took this opportunity to take a picture of them.

Of course I had my trusted assistant with me (see above) who was supervising all the work.

I think I know where the Man in the High Castle lives.

Dippach Hike - The Man in the High Castle

January 28, 2018

After being sick for a week and sitting at home, we headed out for the first hike in 2018. This is also going to be the first blog post in 2018 and I truly hope that 2018 will be much more fruitful for my blog than the year before. In fact, I already have a project in mind, one that will combine photography, traveling and my new passion: motorcycles.

I found a nice hiking trail about 10k from home in Dippach, Luxembourg and after calculating and planning the hike (with the gaiagps.com app), I concluded that 9k for a hike just after being sick for the whole week was enough (we usually hike longer distances). The weather, for the beginning of January and winter in Luxembourg, was particularly ok-ish - gloomy, a bit wet and with fog (obviously without snow).

The trail took us through muddy areas and our shoes finally looked 'experienced'. We passed by a bio-farm, a designer's house (which seemed heavily guarded, with thick outside walls and camera monitoring system (suspicious, isn't it?).

Last but not least, we came across a very interesting structure. Relatively big, neither a house nor a governmental building. It was shaped in the letter C, with two big and tall doors on both sides. The structure, obviously created by a man, had no windows and no visible purpose. My thought was immediate: it's where the Man in the High Castle lives, it actually was his 'castle'.

Beer Product Photography for Luxembourgish Craft Beer Importer

November 11, 2017

Craft beer, or microbrewery, is becoming more and more popular in every part of the world. I was introduced to the craft beer community back in the US a couple of years ago. Now, I’ve been discovering this world in Luxembourg, where I met local brewers at the Kirchbéier Craft Beer Festival. I met there Joao, the owner of J MCraftBeerTrade. JMCraftBeerTrade imports Portuguese microbreweries’ beer to Portugal. After talking with Joao for few minutes, we came up with a small photo collaboration project. I wanted to take pictures of two beers for the photo assignment.

The first one was the Cerveja Maldita’s Robust Porter. I was intrigued by its dark and mysterious label and the silver highlights that give the label its sophistication. I wanted to reflect it in the pictures.

The second microbrewery was Cerveja Oitava Colina. They place very artistic graphics on the labels, representing unique personalities, that seem to be reflected in the type of beer they represent.

Spring comes to Luxembourg

April 1, 2017

It's been way to long since I had time to take pictures for fun and for myself and it's been way to long since the last blog post. If you read my blog, you know I love sunrises . The spring has come to Luxembourg and I managed to get up early and go to a small field of daffodils in my neighborhood.

Konrad's Photo Impressions of Luxembourg Vol.1

December 11, 2016

After a long time of silence on my blog, I thought it was time to publish an update, even a short one. As you might already know, I’ve relocated back to Europe in June 2016. However, in order to keep things interested, I didn’t go back to Belgium. Instead, I moved to Luxembourg - a small (998 square mile) country, between Belgium and Germany with not one, not two, but three official languages. It sounds like an intriguing place, doesn’t it?

Since the move, I’ve been busy with so many things, including my work recently, that I really haven’t had time to work on any personal photography projects. However, I’ve been discovering the natural wonders of this small-in-size but big-in-varieties and taking a few pictures here and there. I thought to share a few photos with you, hopefully to make some of you interested in visiting Luxembourg at some point.

Photographing Wine Bottle With Only One Light Source

February 7, 2016

I think that any bottle (glass) product photograph is both quite challenging and also very rewarding. The main challenge comes from being able to constrain the reflections, make them soft and elegant and and to use them to your profit in order to create an interesting image. This type of product photography can get complicated pretty fast, especially when you’re dealing with many weird reflections and light sources. Therefore, sometimes the simplest solutions are the best. I have recently photographed a Rusack Wine Bottle and I started off with my typical setup and two light sources. My vision of the final image was a clean, classic and elegant image of the bottle but I also wanted to make it challenging for myself. The challenge? To have the already black bottle on black background.

I eliminated one of the lights after several trials and errors (mostly errors of trying to use the lights on both sides of the bottle). I placed the remaining speedlight behind the bottle and put a white plexiglass between the light source and the bottle. Next, I placed two black foam core boards on each side of the bottle in order to have black background. I left a very tiny space (not visible in the final picture) just behind the bottle for the light to go through. Last but not least, I used two white foam boards on each side of the bottle in order (see pic below) to get nice highlights on both sides. Once I photographed the bottle, it was time for the wine glass. I simply placed the glass in the background, a bit to the right from where the bottle was standing and I repositioned the white foam boards to have the highlights uniform on both sides of the glass. I ended up having two images which I brought to Photoshop for editing.

Greeting Cards Photography for Willow Berry Studio

January 10, 2016

I found in my mailbox a very interesting photography project proposal a couple of months ago. Angela, the owner of Willow Berry Studio (http://willowberrystudio.com/), contacted me asking if I wouldn’t be interested in providing her studio with a few styled images of their new line of greeting cards. I was genuinely interested in producing the images for Angela for several reasons: I had never shot greeting cards before and I’m always happy to shoot something new; Willow Berry Studio already had a pretty good idea what they needed and it’s always very helpful when a client has specific requirements; and Angela is a designer and a creative person and I love working with other creatives! We exchanged a few emails, had a couple phone conversations and a meeting to discuss the details. Since Angela had a pretty good idea on what she wanted to have, I did my best to keep her posted on the progress and ask for her opinion and image approvals throughout the project. Here are some of the images I produced for Willow Berry Studio.

Willow Berry Studio is a vintage remix textile and surface pattern design company based in Tennessee, USA. You can find more info here: http://willowberrystudio.com/

Creating day at night with baking/parchment paper

December 20, 2015

There is very little daytime in winter, which often creates a challenge for using natural sunlight for product photography . I’ve recently had a client for whom I had to create an image as if it was shot during the day with a window in the background - the challenge: shoot it after sunset.

I knew right away that I needed to place a speed light outside the window. Windows are great for getting soft light but in this case it wouldn’t be enough. I have a large piece of white fabric which I often place between the lights and the subject but I wanted to try something new this time - baking paper. I heard a few times before from fellow photographers about this 'hi-tech technology’ (can you sense my sarcasm 😃 ) and I thought it was a perfect opportunity for me to try it myself.

The process was quite simple: I taped the baking paper (I guess it’s also called parchment paper) to the window and I placed the speedlight in the softbox outside. I was worried at first that the light would be not only too directional but also too harsh but it actually turned out pretty well I think.

Natchez Trace Bridge at night (nightscape)

Turning a business trip into a small photo adventure

November 15, 2015

I had to drive to Nashville the other day for a business meeting. Unfortunately, I don’t travel much these days, especially to central and western parts of Tennessee so I wanted to take this opporunity to do some photography. I remembered that the Natchez Trace Bridge is close to Nashville. I googled for images of the bridge to get a sense of how it looks like, what’s around it and what opportunities it gives for photography. Next step was to research using google maps and street view. I knew I would arrive to the bridge after sunset so I wanted to take a nightscape / astrophotography photograph. At the end, I narrowed it down to 2 options: shoot the bridge from the road that runsunderneath it or take pictures from the bridge.

After I arrived, it turned out that the road that is under the bridge is much busier than I thought it would be so I immediately headed to the bridge. I rather quickly found a good spot, I put on a high visibility reflective jacket on (for safety), grabbed a flashlight from the car and started shooting long exposures. I also met a fellow photographer, Scott Dubose of Photographers Artistry. Scott does astrophotography (something I have very little knowledge about) and we talked for about 30 minutes or even more.

In a nutshell, it was an extremely good day because I ended up with a picture I like and I made a new friend!