48 Hours in Neukölln is an annual event celebrating the artistic culture and diversity of Berlin. This year marked the 17th occasion of the festival, and the theme was S.O.S – Art Saves the World. Over 1500 artists from all over the world participated.
As a newcomer to Berlin, I had never before attended the festival and was excited to see what it was all about. I left my apartment armed only with my iPhone and of course my go-to camera app ProCamera to document my experience.
When I left my front door, the sun was shining on a perfect Summer’s day. When I stepped out from the Neukölln U-Bahn station 20 minutes later to see an exhibit at Tempelhofer Feld, I noticed that dark, ominous clouds had already formed in the sky above. By the time I made it out to Tempelhofer Feld on foot, thunder struck and rain began coming down hard. I was soaked within a few minutes, but I managed to find some places to take shelter so that I could continue to document my day.
Stormy days make for great photo opportunities!
Luckily, the exhibit I was going to see happened to be a giant inflatable lifeboat. Very convenient for keeping dry! The exhibit was called LIVEBOAT – CHAPTER 5 and was created by the Berlin art group Plastique Fantastique. The work addresses the plight of immigrants who set sail from their homelands to seek better lives abroad. Inside, there was audio of a man’s voice who describes his harrowing experience leaving Syria and coming to start a new life for himself in Germany.
Inside LIVEBOAT – CHAPTER FIVE
Taking shelter inside the exhibit!
ProCamera performed incredibly well in these spontaneous situations. Because this powerful tool is located inside my iPhone, I have no heavy equipment to heft around and yet I still achieve professional results which I am proud to share. Each photo you see below was made using the HDR function. Because of the quick succession of photographs ProCamera and vividHDR automatically takes, I don’t have to worry too much about ghosting (this is when you see a haze or duplicate objects in a photo when something moves suddenly). I purposefully captured moving people in this project because I wanted to see how well ProCamera HDR could perform in tricky situations (both in terms of movement and in challenging lighting scenarios).
ProCamera HDR does a wonderful job at capturing texture. I like the contrast of the plastic sheet with raindrops against the Berlin landscape.
Moments after the rainstorm.
I used ProCamera’s robust editing tools in post-processing. I adjusted a few photos using the Color Temperature and Saturation tools. But I only made minor adjustments, as I wanted to keep the photos looking true-to-life as I saw the scene. I also sharpened the photos in order to bring out more detail in the textures. I hope you enjoy the rest of the photos from my 48 Hours in Neukölln. In spite of the rain, or perhaps because of it, I think I managed to get some interesting shots.
Since this article was made, ProCamera has released their newest version complete with new artistic effects and an updated Curve tool, among many other features. I am excited to test these out on a new blog post in the future!
Again, the HDR capability of ProCamera enables me to capture lots of texture and little details even in less-than-idea lighting situations
An example of how ProCamera was able to capture the detail in the architecture and in the clouds above using HDR.
The HDR function is great for textural details.
Just follow the S.O.S signs!
Even in very low light situations ProCamera performs very well.
Hi,
Great pictures and write-up! Just curious, when using the HDR feature, did you choose different presets or always use the same setting? Do you have it setup to ask you to pick a preset on every image capture?
Thanks!