The gypsy way- Personal project and 1st exhibition

Nikon AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 ED

10/07/2009 05:38:02 PM · #1

Hey folks!

So here's some of the photos from my latest travels through Serbia and Romania I did in the beginning of Septembre.
I dedicated the trip to one of my favorite "ethnic groups"- gypsies (or rather Roma)!

Special thanks to the fellow DPC'ers Milo� (

Zigomar), Coli (

Secolibar) and George (

Giorgio)! Without their hospitality and help this project would not have come out the way it did! I had a great time, guys!

Also I was offered to do an exhibition in one of the main university buildings here in Leipzig in November with a small selection of these photos, so that's pretty exciting for me!

Any feedback on the photos would be greatly appreciated!

The gypsy way

FWIW, 90% of the photos were taken on medium format film (Portra 160NC, 400NC/VC, 800; Agfa APX 100 for B&W)

Zigomar

Fujifilm X100T

Lensbaby 2.0

10/07/2009 07:26:55 PM · #2

Awesome collection, I'm glad that I took part in making of it! It's gonna be a very intersting exhibition.

Apple iPhone 5

10/07/2009 09:57:35 PM · #3

There are loads of great photos in that collection. I love it! This one is fantastic:

By the way, why did you decide on film, and how did you find working with it compared to digital?

There's something about the quality of these shots that I really like, I'm not sure am I imagining it, or is it because it's film...

Giorgio

Canon EOS-70D

Sigma 105mm f/2.8 Macro EX DG OS for Canon EF

10/09/2009 03:45:58 PM · #4

Bump!

Jaded_Housewife

Canon EOS-5D

Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM

10/09/2009 07:43:33 PM · #5

Wonderful shots! and Congrats on the exhibition, very cool!

Germaine

Canon EOS-7D Mark II

Canon EF 24-70mm f / 4L IS USM Lens

10/09/2009 08:27:21 PM · #6

Really nice work, Christoph, and congratulations on the exhibit. The shots are all well done and very informative. Thanks for sharing.

This is nit picking, but I wish you could put the pictures up somewhere where we could watch them as a slide show -- it's kind of cumbersome to click on each one separately. But worth the effort... 8)

LevT

Olympus OM-1

Olympus 12-100mm f/4.0 M.Zuiko ED IS PRO

10/09/2009 08:31:04 PM · #7

Nice work, Christoph! Congrats on the exhibit!

Message edited by author 2009-10-10 03:38:35.

LVicari

Canon EOS-50D

Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0L IS

10/09/2009 11:56:26 PM · #8

Great collection! You definitely have captured their spirit in these photos. Congrats! on the exhibit. I am sure there will be many more in your future.

salmiakki

Sony Alpha a7R III

Sony Sonnar T* 35mm F2.8 ZA

10/10/2009 12:29:38 AM · #9

Christophe, that is a wonderful collection. Very well done and thanks for sharing. Good luck with the exhibition.

Melethia

Canon EOS-80D

Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0L IS

10/10/2009 03:11:42 AM · #10

Woot! And I can say I knew him when.... Wanna use this as your biography picture at the exhibit?

And do you know the dates of the exhibit yet? I need to start planning my next couple of trips!

10/10/2009 07:05:19 AM · #11

Originally posted by JH:

Well, the decision to take a step "backwards" and start shooting film was a progress that grew on me over the last year. I got kind of tired of shooting digital and always LOVED the quality of film images so I was looking for a camera that was small and light enough to serve as a main camera on travels and at the same time offered a format that provides me with detailed enlargements and scans.
So the Mamiya 645 with the exchangable backs looked perfect and I have to say, I hardly pick up my digital SLR anymore...
Working with film in environments that change fast (like a wedding or, in this case, a photo(journalistic) documentary) sure do needs some training as you don't have AF or exposure metering, you only got 15 frames per film (I have two film backs so that makes 30 frames) and the fps rate is something like 1 frame per 2 seconds. So you really learn to focus on getting the shot you want in just one single frame. You would think that it causes you to miss a lot of good shots, but that's probably not true. I took an overall of 16 films of the gypsies which is something like 240 photos (in 2 weeks) and 46 of them turned out, from my point of view, good enough to be uploaded to my portfolio (not that I'm too picky about the selection of my portfolio images here on DPC, but just saying...;-D ), so that's almost a 1:5 ratio! Back in my digital days (how does that sound like?! lol) it was more like a 1:20 ratio.
Of course the whole workflow is slower (change films, meter the light manually, check settings, focus manually...) but it's also much more convinient and focused imo.
And as you see, the Bokeh, tonal range, dynamic range and colors came out amazing even from the scans, and I hardly did ANY processing on these after the scan. Mostly just a slight bump on the blacks via selective color adjustment.

Deb, thanks for the laugh, I'll consider it...;-)
The exhibit will be mid to end of November, so anyone wants to stop by is really welcome, you can even crash on my couch (if you don't mind sleeping in a trailer).

Thanks for the comments and feedback anyone!

11/10/2009 07:08:36 PM · #12

Time for an update.
It's less than a week and I still have plenty of preperations to take care of.
If anybody had taught me in advance what a big pile of work it takes to set up an exhibit i would have thought twice...;-/
At least the photos are at the lab right now, which is 200km away in my hometown, so I'll need to pick them up on Friday (Oh the excitement!!!). I'll have 6 photos enlarged to 45x60cm, 3 photos on 30x40 and another 6 photos on 20x30.

I'll need to write the subtitles for the photos in german and in english and a "thanks to" list also featuring some fellow DPC'ers.

What I don't really know how to do is to write some kind of a copyright note?
Do you put a copyright note under every print or mention it just once somewhere in the "fine print"? How should I phrase it?

11/14/2009 08:08:00 PM · #13

Crap, I can't find an appropriate copyright disclaimer for the exposition?!
Can ayone help me out on this, please?

pineapple

Canon EOS-5D

Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM

11/14/2009 08:28:50 PM · #14