Photos make men tired

The best wife of Allen wanted to visit her family. And I had booked a photo – workshop with the German street photography icon Siegfried Hansen.

Thursday was the day, we flew off. We stayed at the Motel One in Haidhausen. A nice hotel that, with its location on Orléans Street, has easy access to both the East Station and the 62 bus line, which stopped virtually outside the door.

The workshop started on Friday at 10:00 am. We met in a training room of an organization called “One World” or something like that. There were three other participants, another had fallen ill. Siegfried began a short entertaining presentation. A few photos were shown of each participant, which we had to send in beforehand. And everyone should briefly answer a few questions like “Why street photography?” or “How long have you been taking pictures?”. Quickly everyone agreed that the definition of this photo genre is rather unclear. And that we just like to take pictures. Each with a different focus.

Siegfried photographs very focused on lines. How he came up with it was an interesting development that led via ice cream cones and packed motorcycles. Today he is one of the hottest photographers in this genre. He pays a lot of attention to geometric elements in his photos, which ideally still form some kind of connection. Or add another layer. But also verbally his North German – dry way is an entertaining inspiration, I immediately stole the word creation “Liniengewitter” from him!

After the presentation, we went out. The weather was great but we went underground. Many places Siegfried showed us in Munich were subway stations. There is a lot of metallic mirroring there. Or glass walls with stripes. Or glossy floors, all perfect for exciting reflections. Especially when there is still light coming down through the stairways.

In between, we quickly shoveled in a kebab. Then it was on to an outdoor location near the Theresienwiese.

In the evening we were ready. And that in many respects. I couldn’t imagine at all how exhausting it could be to take photos all day. Our coach always took time for each of us. And presented us with his picture ideas, which then made it easy for us to turn them into halfway usable photos.

And indeed, after a few hours, the first training success was already apparent. I could no longer walk through stations without looking for lines. Curse and blessing. On Saturday we went to the Wiesn in the morning. What motifs! Madness.

And Sunday we rattled off more places.

The workshop was top! I’ve never experienced such a challenging, yet nurturing, small group experience. I was relieved that it did not go longer, but this is not meant in any way negative. It was just really incredibly exhausting. Probably the brain of us hobbyists is not used to this kind of focused wandering around. And it just stresses us out. But it was amazing to see how we all developed over the three days.

I can only recommend the workshop. 900,- Euro scarce are certainly not a pittance. But if you really enjoy photography, then they are well invested.

In fact, we’ve also seen the pro just walking around with a fixed focal length camera instead of a backpack full of gear. And later defined in Photoshop or Lightroom the image section that best suits his image.

In fact, my conclusion was that I preferred to shoot with my small compact D-Lux7. Simply because it is super light and super fast. And in the end, you only take a photo when the camera is there.

Hope you like some of the photos! And if you are interested in Siegfried Hansen’s photos or one of his workshops, here is the link: https://siegfried-hansen.de/