Technically (uuh I actually hate myself for starting a blog like that!) as a photographer you are already using the light painting technique all the time.
Literally, photography means writing (or painting) with light. The word has a Greek origin, “phos” or “photos” means “light” and “graphê” means “writing” or in a bigger context probably painting.

Zhiyun or a glidecam?

One of my favourite Youtubers is Devin Graham. He started his career with amazing looking travel videos and became a really famous youtuber with his action videos. He always used a Glidecam, a gimbal that worked only with weights as counterbalances. It takes a lot of practice to get great stable footage out of it, and they are fairly bulky to transport.

This photo was one of my first proper twilight images, where I nailed it after a lot of practising. It is actually not that easy to practice on luxury private houses, because you cannot really show up at a mansion and ask them to take a picture.

Yes, you might wonder, what is so special about bedrooms and how hard can it be? Here are 3 reasons why bedrooms are actually tough to photograph

I’m blown away. I started this account as a little private experiment, to show some of my photography work. In just 4 months it grew to 1k follows, even I’m not uploading regularly and stopped with my stories due to some projects going on. I promise to start vlogging again soon. I’m really pumped. Thanks for the love, comments, double taps and DMs.

Getting on adventures with my girlfriend is my absolute passion. When I see this image of Portofino it reminds me of one of the best times I had so far in my life.

When you are shooting architecture for a realtor it is different to shooting it for commercial purposes of an architectural office. The creative part is less but that doesn’t mean it less fun though!

Yep, everybody who is into night photography might have heard about star trails. So let’s talk about them for minute. I’m a huge fan of star trails and I think they are great creative detail in photography that reminds somebody on the same time that we are just a tiny little appearance in this wonderful world.

Every time I look at the stars it makes me just humble and let me forget a minute about all the daily nonsense I think might be important. It’s just mind boggling that every star is actually a solar system with planets and shit. Then there are billions of these solar systems which build a galaxy. On top of that there are billions of those galaxies which are part of a cluster. And then there are billions of these…. UUUUUUH you see what I mean. Sometime, it just freaks me out a bit when I think about it.

I’m actually not an expert in night photography

Unfortunately, I’m not watching stars as often as I like. One of the many reasons I wanna dig deeper into the night photography game. Before we talk about capturing star trails, we should talk about taking a “normal” night image.

What gear do you need?

Yep for every kind of photography you need a certain type of gear. Before you heavily invest in it, you should always consider renting stuff and check if it is really up to you. In case you wanna achieve high quality images, I would recommend a full-frame camera with a good sensor that offers a good low-light performance and a wide fast lens with an aperture of at least 2.8. I recently switched from Canon to Sony. The good thing about that is that I can use now really old lenses as well. There are some manual focus lenses with an amazing aperture for cheap money. I really want to try one of those as well one day.

I fucked up.

When I captured this image I made it with Canon 6D and my 24mm Tilt-Shift lens which has not the best aperture. Then this photo was taken in the middle of Cologne where is a crazy amount of light pollution. For night photography you should stay away as far as you can from cities. That night I god perfect weather conditions but captured only a few stars. My result was bad, so I used another star trail exposure I had in my catalogue and cheated a bit.

The lighten blend mode is the secret

Here is how you do it correctly! You need to capture a lot of images, I would say at least 50 – 500 photos of the stars. Then you put those files together in Photoshop using the lighten blend mode. Because the stars are moving, they produce star trails. If you get really creative, you can blend these star trails into a blue hour shot with low ISO and therefore almost noise-free, like I did for my image.

I need to practice more

Now it’s up to you. Try to shoot your own star trails. Once you achieved that, blend them in a blue hour shot. I really have to practice more and will do soon.

When you’re hustling everyday you need some kind of escapism to keep your sanity. Since I founded my media agency MontMedia AG, I don’t have time for socialising or any other kind leasure. The only spare time I have, I like to spend time with my family. So my escape is the following:

In my earlier blog post „What is a twilight image?“, I mentioned that you can use the twilight technique to get stunning interior images.
Here is one example!

When I started my professional photography career, everybody told me to niche down.

Sure it makes sense to do that. To become a real expert in one field is mainly achieved by practising like crazy.
Then, there is the gear issue.
Every type of photography uses different kind of gear. As a portrait photographer you would need a telephoto lens or a prime with great bokeh.

The most exciting angles are often found at extraordinary places. Industrial photography has the potential of finding these special angles. As a photographer you climb in crazy heights of a warehouse, send your camera through an assembly line or stand in the middle of steel factory in a shower of sparks. I really love the challenge to pursue the best angles for you.

Well, I think you guessed correctly, it’s basically an image done at twilight ;).
In architectural photography a twilight image is balances at least two light sources, the natural light and the interior light of the building. You can add as well some flash light to get more creative.

This is the airport of Luxembourg.
Like every airport it’s an absolute busy place, which is a common problem in architectural photography.
There are different options to deal with unwanted people, cabs, constructions sites or anything else that doesn’t belong in a proper architectural image.

These are the golden Towers of Luxembourg. They belong to the European Court of Justice and currently they are a building a third one. There is a lot of love and hate whether they are beautiful or just the ugliest thing on the Kirchberg in Luxembourg. Things that polarise bring always good publicity, so I decided to use this image for my portfolio.

In short, I didn’t! Here is why. Basically there are 3 options to take an image of a driving car, which work best.

As an architectural photographer you work either with realtors, architects or do commercial stuff. Realtors are pretty forgiving when it comes to perspective distortion, architects and agencies not so much. See, when you use a wide angle lens and tilt your camera up, buildings get really distorted. That’s were tilt shift lenses come in play!

Like in the real estate market, location is key to take amazing landscape images. I’m absolutely convinced that you can find nice angles everywhere to make beautiful images. Even in landscape photography the worst places can have a nice charm.

People always ask me why their images don’t look as clean as mine do. To take clean shots, you need a clean room. I know, it’s not the most pleasant part of architectural photography but probably the most important.

When it comes to selling luxurious buildings, high quality photography is crucial to generate leads.
Unfortunately, it competition is getting more brutal, because most of the listing are online anyway and the competition is bigger than ever.

I was born in Trier, which is really close to the border of Luxembourg. In like 10 minutes, me and my family could cross the border and hop over from Germany to Luxembourg.
Therefore, I never really felt German that much. Before the borders were opened in 1995 (I think), we had to show our passports and were checked by the customs.

You want business? You want to build a portfolio as a photographer? You want more exposure?
Work for free!

I’m a person who learns best by self education.
I saw a video of Rob Grimm on YouTube, a beverage photographer with tons of experience and an amazing portfolio.
Since I saw him in the video taking an image of a beverage in front of an aquarium where he threw fruits in, I decided that I want to try something similar.

Do you struggle to take good interior shots? It’s actually not that complicated. Here are 5 Tips, how to take nice interior shots.

Yes, I’m a petrol head and it’s my favourite thing to take images of cars. I like driving cars, I like listening to cars, I like the shapes of cars and I like the engineering of cars.The Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren is a very special one and this example is one of the first, built in 2003. A carbon fibre super car with 626 HP, a top speed of 334km/h and from 0 to 100 km/h in 3.8 seconds. I was so happy as I got the chance to take an image of the SLR.

This is a special photo for me, because it was the excuse to finally buy a drone even though I didn’t have the money for it.
I was yearning for years to have a drone, because first of all, I still have a mind of a 5-year old, thus I like all kind of gadgets.
Second, as a photographer it was never so easy to get into aerial photography. Everybody was taking these amazing images, and I was still saving money for my drone. (That was in 2016, btw)

This image tells the story of the foundation of my professional career as a photographer.
Although I’m doing any commercial photography, I love taking images of architecture, but had no idea how to make a living in this field.

This is me. My name is Dominik. I’m a photographer born in Germany and based in Luxembourg. I like taking pictures of cars, architecture, landscapes and any sort of commercial imagery, like beverages, products or business photos. Until today, I never shared any of my photos on the internet. Actually, I just launched my personal website a few days ago 🙂
It would mean the world to me, if you check it out.