These are some photos of my trip to Porto a couple of weeks ago. I hope you like them!
Does anybody else have been there? Did you like it?
Feel free to see more on my homepage or on my facebook page.
Schlagwort: travel
Nürnberg 2016 – Digital
More of Paris 2015 – Digital
Ich war ein paar Tage in Paris und da habe ich natürlich ein paar Fotos gemacht. Es gibt was vom Louvre bis hin zum Eiffelturm und allgemeine Fotos 🙂
Schwierig in diesen Reisefotografien ist stets eine Linse dabei zu haben, die auch für jede Situation passt. Meist benutze ich das 50mm Objektiv, da ich es auch schon in Thailand mitgenommen habe und auch immer so zurecht kam damit. Ich sehe mich jedoch stets in den Grenzen, wenn es dann doch platztechnisch nicht klappt…aber bei größeren Gebäuden und etwas Abstand klappt das bisher, wie man auf den Fotos sehen kann 🙂
Photowalk 2015 – Digital
This is a re-upload, I hope you don’t mind. I will not change the theme again…I swear.
Diese Fotos entstanden auf einem Fotospaziergang mit einigen sehr tollen Fotografen aus Köln und sehr mutigen Models, die der Kälte getrotzt haben für diese Fotos.
Ich danke euch für diese Einladung und hoffe auf erneutes Treffen bald!
Das sind meine bisherigen Ergebnisse aus diesem Treffen. Ich hoffe euch gefallen sie und ich würde mich über jede Art von Kritik freuen 🙂
Auf Bald, Masi
Short Trip to Paris 2016 – Digital
This is a re-upload from my former portfolio-page. I hope you don’t mind…
Letztens war ich kurz in Paris und konnte wieder diese tollen Gebäude genießen. Einfach eine wunderschöne Stadt, die man wirklich öfters gesehen haben muss. Ich genieße es wirklich durch die belebten Straßen zu gehen. Dieses Mal war ich nicht so lange dort und konnte auch nicht allzu viele Fotos schießen, aber dafür ein paar. Ich hoffe euch gefallen sie.
Wer gerne mehr sehen möchte, gerne auf Facebook oder meiner Seite 🙂
Marokko ’16 #1
Morocco again and this time I got some more photos out of it, because I was not as afraid as last time to take some photos. I hope you like it, there is more to come 🙂
Experiences in Marocco
A couple of weeks ago I was in Marocco, visited Casablanca, Rabat and Marrakesh. What I noticed in my behaviour is that I was very wary of my camera. You have to be that way, always. I think you can’t feel really safe anywhere you are, whether you are in your country or somewhere else. It can always happen that somebody sees your camera gear and wants to steal it. In an unknown country, however, I get very cautious and get a little paranoid, especially in not too touristy areas of the city, i.e. small streets, where the common people always tell you that this and that street are closed and I had to go the other way (yes, that happened). It is a kind of paranoid time, where you think you definately get mobbed. The same happened in Thailand, where a taxi brought me off the main street and stopped at a remote place for a few minutes. Besides having my gear stolen I thought I get physically hurt. Anyway, that’s another story 😀
In Marocco it’s even more weird having a camera out, because I was there with my girlfriend and that means that a lot of men will be looking at us. This is a common way of living there. Every woman outside of Marocco are seen as exotic. So we where looked at and so my camera, which I often put away, so it would not be so noteworthy to others.
This all can be my own fear of having things stolen or the actual case of real danger. Nothing happend, thank god (or other imaginary creatures). In Marocco I mostly took photos of the street, no asking strangers to pose or something like that. I’ve read a lot about the conservative nature of the people. They do not want to get photographed as easily as european people maybe and especially not in their religious surroundings. I kinda needed to learn that with this research and I did not try to offend them in any way. One small story was in the mosque Hassan II, the second biggest mosque in the world. There are only muslim men allowed in. If you saw my photo on my About Me page you can see that I do not exactly look muslim like the other maroccan people. In fact, I am muslim, on paper anyways. And I really wanted to get into the mosque! First I tried to get in with the dslr, but of course they would not let me. Then I just walked in (after some discussion with one guy if I am muslim or not…) with an iPhone in my pocket. Inside I did not want to take pictures right away, rather wait until everybody prays and then take them. I could not imagine how they would behave if I just went in to take photos after I told them I could pray (which I can’t, not in the proper way anyway). After a few minutes sitting down at the end of the hallway I saw another young guy grabbing his phone and taking photos. I observed him a little, the others as well. The other men were not even praying, they talked or just lay down and cooled off from the hot sun. So I felt a little more comfortable to take photos as well. I still could not walk as freely as I wanted to, so they were just snapshots to hold the visit in my memory.
After some time I thought that I could not possibly stay there for too long, so I went out with a bit of a rushing heartbeat. I did it 😀 This was one of the experiences I had with the more religious side of things in Marocco. It was nothing compared to Thailand, where it is so normal to take photos inside the temples. The reason may well be the amount of tourists and the culture to nourish them. Marocco is not up to this standard and that is good. With this it will stay not too touristy and still a little more dangerous to take photographs, I guess. In any case, if you just be discrete, don’t offend people, then it should be alright – just like any other place in the world.
Thailand, Koh Phi Phi/Koh Lanta
I finally arrived at the beaches, the beautiful sunsets, the parties, the fun. Everything was true what others told me about the islands. It was, indeed, very beautiful throughout. Ok, maybe not every beach was so clean as I wished it to be, but better than any beach I ever was. In truth, I am not the beach person, so I did not partake in much water activities, but I tried to capture the beauty of it. There is one big viewpoint in Koh Phi Phi, where everybody goes to see the sunset. It was very nice, indeed. The bad part was that the sun was behind big palm trees, so you only could see the colours, which were beautiful on their own. There was one other night, however, where I just went to the beach to see the sunset and it was the most beautiful one I’ve ever seen. This is the one I will remember for a long time.
Another great thing was the fireshows at the beaches. There I took some really great photos in my opinion. I hope you like them as well 🙂
Koh Phi Phi was mostly enjoying some party and some beaches, so I did not take as much different photos. In Koh Lanta there was rarely anything to do and not too much was interesting enough to photograph. I was at a national park there with some monkeys, but there I only almost got bit while I tried to take some photographs of them. The sound of the camera was to distracting for them I think 😀
Plus, it was almost the end of my journey, so I did not focus as much on photography and just relaxed. Nevertheless, there were some cool shots and I hope you like them!
Thailand, Krabi – A little beach, not quite there yet
After the north part of Thailand I wanted to go to the south and enjoy some beaches on some islands. I had only one week left, so I could not go everywhere. First I had to get to the south by flying to Krabi (skipping Phuket) with the plan to go to Koh Phi Phi and Koh Lanta. I did go to the islands, but after this part I still had to go the same way back to Bangkok for my flight back. So firstly I show the Krabi part. The only beach I visited was the Railey Beach. Krabi on its own was a little too quiet, nothing much to see. The highlight would be the Tiger Temple on top a mountain. You had to take the stairs, 1237 steps to be exact. This was very exhausting, but worth it. Other than that there wasn’t much to see unfortunately.
I still hope you like the photos and feel free to connect with me via Facebook, Instagram or Twitter 🙂
Thailand, Pai or Chillcity of Thailand
There has been a lot of buzz about Pai. I had to go there, everybody said. And after my visit I can say they were right. Pai has the reputation as the small city, where you can chill all day, enjoy the landscape and yeah, take drugs, I guess. I met some people who were there for a couple of weeks even. For me Pai was great because of some very cool landscapes and my first experiences on a scooter. I shot a lot of photos one sunset over the mountains and could have used all of them. I chose some photos I want to share with you here. In it is the Lod Cave, the Pai Mountain, the Memorial Bridge and some general shots I did there.
I hope you like them and feel free to connect via Facebook, Instagram or Twitter! 🙂
Thailand, Chiang Rai or how I just wanted to get away from this place
Chiang Mai was awesome, I really liked it there. It had a good vibe, it was not too big, not too small, a nice town to stay for a couple of days. However, I wanted to see something else in my month in Thailand. So I decided to stay a little in Chiang Rai, way up north of Thailand. From friends I heard a lot of good things about it and I was really excited to go to some nice viewpoints. This, however, did not happen. I could not get to the best place to be: Phu Chi Fa. For getting there I needed to drive four hours on a dangerous road, which I could not handle. That’s what the people told me. Just google the place, it seemed like the best viewpoint in the whole of Thailand. Bummer.
Arriving at Chiang Rai was also not that great. It felt like a too small place with a bad vibe. I do not know why, but I immediately had a bad feeling about it.
This is why I did not do sooo much in Chiang Rai. I stayed there for two nights and that was it. In this time I still did a little: The White Temple, The Black House and the Long Neck Tribe. These are some impressions of it. I hope you like them! Feel free to connect via Facebook, Twitter or Instagram! 🙂
Khitos, Khitos or how I do not rest until everything is okey – Blogchange #2359
Soo…what I did: I imported everything from khitostrol.wordpress.com into my main blog. Why? Because it seemed that everything that I did while being on the other site got directed into my writing blog, where I really did not do much in the last months and won’t in the next.
I know, it is a rather sudden to change everything, but I think the three followers can handle it 😀
Let’s see if this works out. If not, I will change it again or stick to this forever.
Thailand, Chiang Mai
Chiang Mai, one of the cities I spend the most time in. First there was the overnight train from Ayutthaya and then a lot of temples. At one of the temples, the Doi Suthep, there were some kids wearing traditional clothes. This was of course a nice motive. The Problem however is that they were there for a reason: Tourism. The always wanted money in exchange for a photo. It is sad to see them only standing there and smiling only for that reason. I did take a shot without knowing this, but it’s just not genuine. I did not like it as much. I will just show another shot I took, where they were chilling on the steps to the temple. I felt this was more interesting than a fake smile.
In Chiang Mai I strolled around a lot and found a great hotel, where you had to go through a nice hallway with pictures on the walls. It was a bit curved, which build nice lines. Another nice place was the Wat Chedi Luang, which was one of the most beautiful temples I’ve seen in Thailand. There were also monks who sang a song and hummed. It was really great to experience this.
I hope you like the photos! Feel free to contact me via Twitter or visit my facebook page 🙂
Thailand: Ayutthaya
The next stop after Bangkok was Ayutthaya. First there was a train ride of about 1 3/4 hours where I shot a harmless lady in „ninja mode“. I was a bit hesitant at the arrival, because I always read that there would be pack of dogs who could chase you in the streets. And I really did not want to get chased or bitten by animals while in Thailand…but that never happened. There were dogs, but they were not as photogenic unfortunately. The highlight of this town would be the ruins which I visited within a couple of hours. It was all new to me, so I was astounded by these stone buildings and which rich history they contain.
There were also birds flying around the peaks of the structures, but I seem to never capture the right moment where they flew in masses. Bummer. I waited some time, but did not get a photo I really wanted. I did however get some shots I like, some rather only for documenting the visit, but some more artistically I think.
I hope you like them! The next stop is Chiang Mai.
Thailand ’15
My first big trip. Alone. I needed almost one month to finally muster up the courage to click on that „booking“ button for the flight to Thailand. I am glad that I did it eventually. First I wanted to go away for about three months, then I decided to be away for one month, at the end I should have booked for a longer time. It is always like that, the travel bug gets’ya. Still, I enjoyed the month in Thailand, although there were some hickups. I want to go back to asia in the future that’s for sure.
My trip involved these locations in chronological order: Bangkok – Ayutthaya – Chiang Mai – Chiang Rai – back to Chiang Mai – Pai – Krabi – Koh Phi Phi – Koh Lanta – Krabi – Bangkok
Because this is my photography blog I only want to get into the photography side of my journey. I shot almost 3000 photos, the iPhone ones included. Most of the time I just wanted to remember stuff, locations etc. just for me, so these will never get to the public. There won’t be so many photos which are artistically worth mentioning. I just took my time with my back-series (click here for that). The other ones are just for pure documentation.
At first I did not have the courage to take every photograph I want, because I didn’t want to harass the people. With time I got a better feeling for Thailand and therefore got more out of myself and even asked people to stand for me in front of a background. I still don’t like the feeling of taking photos of different cultures. Somehow it feels like they are some kind of zoo animal and the visitor takes photos of them, because they are so different. To make it worse, they want to get photographed, because then they get money or more leverage to get more money out of it. I mean, these were the people who dressed up exactly for that reason or live off off the tourism business. The „real“ thai people I asked did not want a picture of them taken, so I let it be. At the end I just wanted to capture the atmosphere of the places I’ve been, not forgetting to make it interesting somehow of course.
I think I have to split up the photos into parts, because it’s easier to pinpoint where everything was. The first photos are from my flights, my hostel, Wat Pho and the streets I walked around in Bangkok.
Feel free to comment and connect 🙂
Tumblr, Upcoming and Co
So, I finally got to the final posts of my change and can post new stuff, which I already did with my photos of Alina. The other things which will be coming soon are my photos of Thailand and another shooting with Ole. I already did an unplanned shooting with Ole on a lazy sunday afternoon. Now I wanted to plan it a little more and had some ideas how I wanted it. He plays the violine, which can be a great asset and I really wanted to establish a contrast with his suit/violine playing to the background. I still need to sort them out some more and then comes the editing. The „problem“ is that I will be gone again for two weeks in Marocco next week, so I won’t have the time to edit as much. On the plus side, as always, a lot more to post when I’ll come back 🙂
On another note: I tried tumblr again and will try to post other photos on there, often times maybe the same. Feel free to check it out, but it still has to be filled with content. To the tumblr.
Cheers, Khitos
KHITOS 