Black and White Photography at Papiermolen de Schoolmeester

I have visited the Papiermolen (windmill) de Schoolmeester in Westzaan, Holland. Together with other students we got an assignment to make a report on how paper is made in this windmill.

Normally, paper is made from wood. In the old days paper was made from cotton. De Schoolmeester is the oldest (still operating) windmill in the world specialised in making paper from cotton. The facility consists of a windmill and a wooden shed of about 60 meters long.
First the cotton is shred to pieces by hand.

The pieces are put into special containers with water. With wind power the cotton pieces are further broken down into pulp. The pulp is then used to make all sorts of paper. The shed is used to dry the paper.

Taking photos in the windmill proved to be a real challenge. The end result had to be in black and white (I am used to colour photography). During the tour the miller stood most of the time in front of windows, so almost all photos had to be taken in a backlit situation. At first I used Av (Aperture priority) and used exposure compensation to dial in some extra exposure. This soon became too tedious, so I used manual exposure. Exposure was set so you could still see some details in the shadows. The histogram was used to monitor that not too much of the photo was over exposed.

Since this was the first time for me to photograph in black and white I experimented with various geometric shapes.




I especially liked to photograph the dust in the windmill.


The entire reportage can be seen here.

Turning off Google personalization

Google sometimes customizes your search results based on your past search activity on Google. In order to do this Google remembers you previous searches. If you don't like this, follow this guide to turn off personalization:

• If you have a Google Account, remove your web history from the account.
• If you don't have a Google account, a cookie in your browser is used to track your history.
  To disable this, perform these steps:
  
  
  1. In the top right corner of the search results page, click Web History.
  2. On the resulting page, click Disable customizations.(Because this preference is stored in a cookie, it will affect anyone else who uses the same browser and computer as you).
  
  
  

Black and White Tips

I am refreshing my skills on black and white photography by re-reading the following web pages:

• Converting a Digital Color Photo into Back and White
• 5 Black and White Photography Tips
  1. Shoot in RAW
  2. Shoot in colour, and convert later into black and white
  3. Use a low ISO
  4. Shoot especially in low contrast situations
  5. Composition - look for shapes, tones and textures.
  
• B & W Photography tips
• Photoshop in black and white
• Create stunning images in Lightroom
• How to Convert Color Digital Images into Black and White Ones
  

Fifth Evening at the Photography Course - Contrast and Landscape Photography

This evening the following topics were discussed:

• Various photos made by landscape photographers
• Landscape photography assignment
• Results of the evening photography session
• Black and white photography at the Papiermolen
• Black and white conversion in Photoshop

Various photos made by landscape photographers
We looked at and discussed landscape photos made by the following photographers:

• Franco Fontana
  See example 1, example 2, Arps & Co.
  
• Martin Kers
  See example 1.
  
• Shinzo Maeda
  See example 1.
  
• Ernst Haas
  

(note: photos are not directly included into the blog in order to avoid copyright infringements).

Each photographer has an own style. Some make conceptual pictures of the landscape. Others make intriguing series.

Landscape photography assignment
Our teacher gave us the next assignment (results must be available in January):
Maak een serie foto's waarbij je de karakteristieke eigenschappen van het landschap gebruikt als verbindend element (create a photo series and use the characteristics of the landscape as a unifying element).

To make it ourselves not too difficult our teacher gave us the advice to pick a landscape in our neighbourhood. The landscape photographers discussed should give us enough inspiration to make our own series.

Results of the evening photography session
The photos of the students were discussed. The effect of different lighting (tungsten, halogen) and color temperature settings could clearly be seen on the different pictures.
Here you get an idea how the photo discussion looks like:


The photo is actually a first. It is the first photo taken of the group during an evening class!

Black and white photography at the Papiermolen
In a few days we will have a photography afternoon session at the Papiermolen.
We have to be prepared:

• Bring your tripod.
• Dress warm.
• Wear good shoes. The Papiermolen seems to be very windy and of course there is water in the neighbourhood.
• Bring small change to pay the windmill operator.

Our assignments at the Papiermolen are:

• Take photos which look nice in black and white.
• Take photos with high contrast subjects.
• Take photos with different themes: black/white, light/shadows, texture.

Camera settings:

• JPEG shooters should experiment with the various monochrome settings on the camera.
• RAW shooters can "shoot now", and "worry later about black/white conversion when sitting behind Photoshop".
  

More will be told when we are at the location.
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Black and white conversion in Photoshop

Our teacher gave a quick introduction how black and white conversion can be done in Photoshop. There are several ways to do a black and white conversion:

• using the Red, Green or Blue channels.
• using the channel mixer with layers
  

IT Reference Architectures at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol

IT Reference Architectures at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol

View more presentations from Marc Chang Sing Pang.

In 2008 I was one of the speakers at a Butler Masterclass on Enterprise Architecture. Above you can take a look at the brochure and the presentation.

Campaign Against Landmines

Very realistic campaign against landmines. When you use this ketchup packet, you tear off the foot. The ketchup comes out and looks like the blood of the child.