If you stick to the division into thirds, golden ratio and a correct exposure, you will get a decent photo but not a WOW picture. But the ingredients for a WOW are well known. Light, focal length, perspective and image composition with a clear statement that triggers emotions in the viewer. The WOW picture is ready. The photo below shows a backlight situation with little edge light on the rope and an enhancement by discreet dodging and post exposure (Dodge and Burn) in the area of the footbridge. This technique brings more 3D into a two-dimensional image. The minimalism in the image composition. Although the bird is not even one percent of the image, it is clearly recognizable as the main subject. The negative spaces in the image that do not contain structural information (black and white areas) reinforce the silhouette of the bird.
Even in color photography, I hardly have a photo without curiosity gaps, which are small black areas that are closed and show no structure. They are supposed to trigger the thought in the viewer – „What will be there?“ E.g. a forest with which one sees perhaps still 2 meters in the depth structure and behind it is only black space.
Why is now this bird silhouette no WOW picture (For me just not)? The photo is handicraft cleanly made, it is considered the light and a minimalism. There are Curiosity Gap’s enough spaces for interpretation. So everything is good. No for me not, it triggers in me no emotion. Conclusion: The photo can still be made so cleanly, if it triggers no emotion ensteht no WOW effect.
So enjoy browsing my website, you will surely find one or the other WOW photo.So when is a photo a WOW picture? – It is when you show it to someone you don’t know and their reaction is WOW. For you, it’s a WOW picture when you still like looking at it after 3 years. It’s simple, isn’t it 🙂

Infrared film was an important stylistic device in B&W photography. All of today’s digital sensors have infrared blocking filters built in. With some camera manufacturers, you can also have this blocking filter removed. But this costs quite a bit of money and the camera sensor is also only suitable for infrared photography.
This effect can be easily achieved with image processing programs. With the picture composition and motive selection one should pay attention to the fact that many chlorophyll-containing plants, tree trunks or e.g. tiled roofs in the color red or deep blue sky is present. In the infrared range, yellow/green turns to white and red to black. The contrast-luminance sliders in the SW conversion and in the HSL range can be set to produce an image that looks as if the image was shot with an infrared film or sensor.

This will certainly not be a trend, but Leica recently released another monochrome digital camera, the Leica Q2 monochrome with 40 MP for a mere 5,500 Euros. In analog times, it was hardly possible to bring such a strong contrast range to black and white photography as is possible with today’s digital cameras and lenses. The images were softer and didn’t have as many shades of gray, due to the analog film stock.
The softness is also beautiful and certainly has a lot of charm. However, I am fascinated by today’s technology and the possibilities it offers in black and white photography. Through focus stacking and high contrast RAW development, a sharpness can be brought into the micro contrasts of the images, creating a very clean look. I am aware that the human eye and brain looks for the softness in B&W images. I try not to imitate an old look in my B&W photography, but to develop a crisp one and rediscover it for myself. Well, everyone will not like it. So what? I like it 😉 A big exception are head portraits in black and white, I shoot them mainly analog. I’m either moving in the direction of shooting portraits analog only or shooting one set digital and one analog. Time will tell.

35 years ago, as a reportage photographer, my Nikon FG-20 was stolen at an event. Now I could acquire the same make with the 50mm 1.8 pancake, note, in new condition for little money. The FG-20 is the smallest and lightest analog SLR Nikon had ever built. It was produced for two years from 1984 – 1986.
As is so often the case, there are wars of faith in photography. The analog photographers looking for the finest grain. The digital photographers who interpret brightness noise as fine grain. And I belong to the faction that if I’m going to shoot analog, I want to see grain, otherwise I might as well use my digital camera. The Ilford Delta 400 has a very flat fine grain. Combined with a yellow filter, I get an ounce more contrast, as this film tends to be lower contrast. Not to be compared with an HP5+ or T-max 400. Now it’s a matter of waiting for the film to come back from the specialist lab. And there it is 🙂 Nice contrast with fine soft grain

There are photographers who show in their published works how portraits nowadays can be made highly brilliant, modulating and contrasty with modern lights and lenses and enough light setting knowledge. From the 2D medium, a 3D-like impression is created that makes the model literally jump out of the photo. When you see such a well done picture, you think „WOW“, great job.
Some time ago I had the opportunity to see a whole portfolio of such work at a photographer. But I also noticed that I got bored after the 20th model, although the works were brilliant, but did not pay further attention to the thought.
Recently at another colleague I saw the complete opposite. Very subtle light settings much flatter and analog photographed. Typically analog soft, almost a little out of focus. And when I was browsing through this portfolio I remembered the colleague from before, only with the difference that I did not get bored with the less brilliant almost a little out of focus images.
Then I looked through my entire digital black and white portfolio. Sure great pictures but always with the analog B/W images I stuck longer. And then the portrait of Gottfried came about. Not brilliant and shiny with a lot of pomp, almost a little out of focus but with a lot of power.
I’m going to change my way in B&W portrait photography and go back to analog, though shooting digital portraits along for the customers, the customer should then decide for himself. For my freelance work it’s completely different, I want to go back to analog. Economically speaking, this is almost not feasible, because the pure material costs for an analog image are about one euro and 100 photos thus cost 100 euros. and if only every 3rd image from a film what will increase the material costs steeply. So economically seen an expensive fun and almost not presentable.
If there would not be this eye / brain soothing look of an analog B/W portrait against. Surely you could bend a digital photo in that direction as well. A little Gaussian blur here and there, a little digital grain there, a few analog image errors added and good it is and the look is finished. Clearly, it’s far too complex, time-consuming, and therefore far too expensive due to the processing time. I’d rather go straight back to analog.