IMG_2551 - Old Villa Switzerland C
The cozy and comfortable salon-lounge of an old Swiss villa on a sunny spring day. The natural light brought the different colours of the wood furniture to life...
Read more
The cozy and comfortable salon-lounge of an old Swiss villa on a sunny spring day. The natural light brought the different colours of the wood furniture to life, the whole room radiating a real "zen" feeling.
Read less
Read less
Apr, 2015Views
129
Likes
Awards
Staff Winter Selection 2015
Outstanding Creativity
Absolute Masterpiece
Superb Composition
Top Ranks
Top 30 rankTop 30 rank week 2Top 30 rank week 1Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
Behind The Lens
Location
I happened to spend the day in an old and beautiful Swiss villa. The villa overlooks Lake Zurich, allowing you to see the city of Zurich on one end of the panorama and the Swiss alps on the other end. An impressive mansion at an impressive location which is nothing but inspiring. The picture shows one of the rooms which is called "the club". It serves as a retreat for guests of the villa and sometimes as a meeting room for informal discussions. The room radiates an aura of silence and seclusion, grandeur and status, romance and poetry. And it is at very same time full of colour and light.Time
It was a busy day and I was not at that location to take pictures. It was around 11 am when I shot this particular picture. I had taken one picture approximately two hours earlier from about the same angle but wasn't really happy with it. At 11 am, the sun was shining through the windows, bringing all the wonderful wood colours to live. I just had to take a picture.Lighting
No flash was used and all lighting is based on the natural light shining through the windows of the lounge room. This allowed for very subtle nuances of colour to display on the wooden furniture and the walls. The sunlight reflecting on the polished wooden floor ads additional variations of brightness and thus creates even more variants of colours.Equipment
The picture was taken with an iPhone 5s, no tripod, no flash.Inspiration
Every time I walked past this room I was drawn into it. The room feels so warm and natural that you'd love to pull out your favorite book and spend the rest of the day reading in this room. I didn't like the first picuture that I had taken of the room earlier that day and I simply had to go back and try again. In general I am inspired by light and its effect on different colours and surfaces.Editing
Using Apple Aperture, I cropped the picture to a square shape because that reflected the geometry and structure of the picture much better. In addition to that, I slightly adjusted the contrast and definition settings but didn't change the saturation.In my camera bag
I like taking pictures with my iPhone 5s out of two reasons: 1) I always have it with me and I wouldn't want to miss the perfect moment for a picture just because I didn't bring my camera. 2) Too many photographers rely on equipment that would have been more than ultra-professional 20 years ago, before photoshop-ing their pictures to death. The correction and colour enhancement options turn literally every picture in a pro-looking shot. But, we forget too look and observe. I don't just want deep blue skies, I want shades and nuances of blues, greys, whites, pinks and greens. By limiting myself to a smartphone camera without any special equipment and filters and only marginal post-processing, I force myself to look at the details, observe the moment and be ready when the light changes and turns a scenery into something magical. Apart from the smartphone, I occasionally use my Nikon FM with standard Nikkor lenses for landscape photography. The manual settings and the usage of photographic film force me to take my time for every single picture. And you simply can't beat the sound of the shutter release and the feeling under your index finger when you take a picture.Feedback
Don't rely too much on your equipment. Look and observe. Challenge what you see and notice the fine details. Sometimes, the beauty is in the moment, sometimes in the subtle shades of a colour. Keep in mind that many great photographs were taken with what you would call more than outdated equipment today. Train yourself to pay attantion to angle, perspective and geometry. Have the final picture in your mind when taking that shot. Don't rely on post-proessing software to save what you missed in that moment.
