Rehearsal for Elijah

On October 6 and 7 the  associated choirs of St. Lantpert in Freising are performing Elijah by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. Some pictures from the latest rehearsal:

The Israelites watch Elijah compete with the priests of Baal

The prophets of Baal call to their god

Singing is fun!

More information about the performance is available here and more pictures are here.

Thoughts on the Craft of being an Artist

Kirk Tuck of wrote two very interesting blog posts. The first is about art and digital photography. One sentence really stuck with me:

I hear a lot of people talk about how much better their work is with digital cameras and workflows but I personally don't see this trend reflected in art.  The images that art culture still talks about are mostly done on film. 

The second post is about the changing/changed paradigm of camera use and the fact that most of us churn through our equipment instead of using it for many years.

We’re moving from a craft mentality which demanded a long and detailed mastery of all areas of a discipline into a post-craft world where the latest apps and styles take cultural precedence over perfectionism.

Alain Briot in "Marketing Fine Art Photography" writes at length about the fact that being an artist means constantly pushing toward the 100% perfection mark. In other words, being an artist (or a certain type of artist) is about the "craft mentality".


It takes a lot of time and effort to get from "good enough" to "perfect". If you switch equipment before you get there, you start over again. Because digital encourages switching equipment, far fewer practitioners reach perfection with their equipment than with film.

So maybe the fact that the "images that art culture still talks about are mostly done on film" is not a coincidence?

Afterthought: I am not claiming that it is necessary (or even desirable) to reach perfection to take good photographs. Striving for perfection may, however, be necessary to make Art.

Abstract Roof

I was recently passing through Munich central station when I noticed the play of sunlight coming in low contrasted against the clear blue sky. With the deep shadows in the roof, this gives an almost surreal image.

Abstract Roof

3 Musketeers online

A gallery of pictures from the performance of "3 Musketeers" in the Luitpoldhalle in Freising on October 28. and 29. Oktober are now online.

Here are some samples:

Milady de Winter in "Men"

Athos sings "Crystal Angel"

The choir can dance!

All for One

Using Canon WFT-E1 with Mac OS X 10.7

I've written a post about how to set up Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion) for use with the WFT-E1 (or later). As it is quite technical, I've placed it in Random Problem (solved) blog:

http://randomproblem.blogspot.com/2011/11/using-canon-wft-e1-with-mac-os-x-107.html

Enjoy!

(Another) Queen Anna

Queen Anna, too, is cast twice. Like in Joseph last year, there is no first and second ensemble, but two of equal calibre (internally, they are "1" and "A"). That is too complicated for me, so I'll just introduce the queen:

Queen Anna in the musical '3 Musketeers'.

The date of the performance in Freising is rapidly approaching. For some of the performances there aren't all that many tickets left. It would pay off to get some before it is too late.

Louis XIII

König Louis XIII in the musical "3 Musketeers" is a weak and easily to manipulate ruler. He does not know that his wife, Queen Anna, is having an affair. This gives the scheming cardinal an opening for an intrigue. Luckily, his loyal musketeers rush to aid him ...

König Louis XIII in the musical "3 Musketiere"

If you want, you have the opportunity to see the cast and the performance live in October. Check it out!