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	Chocolate Fish Photos as a Web Portal The Photographer behind Chocolate Fish Photos The Camera Equipment The Films Selected Publications The Link Partners of Chocolate Fish Photos

Chocolate Fish Photos as a Web Portal

Maori, New Zealand

Waiotapu, New Zealand

The Chocolate Fish Photos website exists since the year 2000 and serves as a platform to promote some of our photographs to a wider audience. The name was inspired from when the photographer, Oliver Ross, lived in New Zealand where hot chocolates in cafés are sometimes served with a chocolate coated marshmallow fish, just like the one above.

Since its humble beginnings, the website has seen major changes, the last one in March 2004 when the entire site was rewritten in PhP and MySQL based on coppermine. It is now possible to leave comments on individual pictures, or send them as electronic greeting cards. There is also a search function which speeds up the process of locating an image on a particular topic or from a particular location.

The pictures are available for sale, either as fine art prints or for commercial image licensing. See the order info page for more information or check out my portolfio.

The Photographer behind Chocolate Fish Photos

To be a travel photographer means to hike, climb, walk and experience some of the most beautiful and remote corners of the earth. It means trekking across icy mountain passes, through insect infested swamps, or along tranquil tropical beaches. It means sleeping cosily suspended in your hammock, restlessly in a flea infested makeshift bed, or not at all while travelling on some dilapidated bus. It means listening to the soothing sounds of a mature old forest, the whispering silence of an endlessly

Nelson Lakes, New Zealand

stretching desert, or the commotion of a bustling bazaar. It means meeting the friendly local who offers you food and shelter, the Buddhist monk who offers just a friendly conversation, or the con artist who offers you the free ride of your life. While all these experiences may appear very different, they all share the same invigorating simplicity and teach us an appreciation of beauty, a sense of feeling connected and close to the world, its liveliness and chaotic order.

The decisive moment!

I began with photography out of a fascination for nature and the desire to capture the inherent natural beauty of a place as faithfully as possible. Today, the natural environment is often a remote or even non-existent element in many modern city lifestyles. As a result, human activity and economic profiteering have made the truly unspoilt places increasingly rare on this planet. One of the aims of my work is therefore to try and overcome this alienation by re-establishing a sense of proximity to nature. I try to convey through my photographs these same feelings of passion and awe to the viewers that originally inspired me to take the photograph. To achieve this, I carefully select and analyse a subject until its essence is revealed and can be distilled into a single image.

It was Pablo Picasso who once said: "I have discovered photography. Now I can kill myself. I have nothing else to learn." I wouldn't give up so readily because there are still the different styles of photography to explore. More recently, for instance, I have become interested in a style which is

often referred to as photographic realism as it depicts scenes of everyday life and local culture. It is all about 'The Decisive Moment', the virtual point where eyes, heart and brain meet (the words of Henry Cartier-Bresson). So you are bound to see a bit more of this in the time to come.

Born in Germany, with a German mother and a French father, I originally trained as a scientist (MSc in Physics, PhD in Oceanography) working in the fields of optical remote sensing and bio-physical interactions in the ocean (turbulence and plankton). Through science I was not only able to gain deeper insights into the natural world but it also gave me the opportunity to live and work - or at least spend considerable amounts of time - in many of the countries that I have photographed.

Please also visit my portolfio. If you like my work, I am also available for hire to do commissions and contract work. Please contact me for details.

Equipment

These are the main items in my camera bag ...

• Canon EOS 5D
• Canon EOS 5 + VG10
• Canon EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM
• Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM
• Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM
• Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM
• Tamron SP 90mm F2.8 1:1 Macro
• Sigma 15mm F2.8 EX Fisheye
• 2x Canon Speedlight 430EZ
• Canon EOS 300
• B&W filters (UV, Cir. Pol., 81b)
• 2 tripods
• Nikon Super Coolscan 5000 ED

My standard travel kit contains the EOS 5D with the 28-135 IS, the 17-40L, and 70-300 IS lenses. The 28-135 is a great all-rounder and its image stabiliser allows for hand held shots down to 1/10s like in this example. The 17-40L is of course ideal for capturing sweeping panoramas or large interiors but it can also be used to create unusual perspectives. The Tamron is one of the sharpest lenses I ever used and

autumn

delivers beautiful portraits and macro images. With the 70-300 tele it is possible to take pictures far from the subject or to simply obtain a compressed perspective. The Canon EF 50mm delivers very sharp images and its large maximum aperture of 1.4 delivers images with an extremely shallow depth of field. With the 180° field of view of the Sigma fish-eye, it is possible to produce visually stunning photographs.

Almost all images that appeared on Chocolate Fish Photos before 2007 were scanned from film with the Nikon 5000ED film scanner. The scanning can be quite tedious and time consuming, however, especially if you have to scan hundreds or thousands of images. As a consequence, in 2007 I started to use the Canon EOS 5D with its full frame sensor. Almost all images in the Montenegro Gallery were taken with this camera. Due to its large ISO range it is also well suited for interiors like in this gallery featuring Istanbul Mosques.

Film

Images that appeared on Chocolate Fish Photos before 2007 were taken on one of these films:

• Fuji Velvia 50
• Fuji Velvia 100F
• Fuji Provia 400F
• Kodachrome 64
• Kodak Professional Elite 100
• Ilford 100 delta
• Ilford 400 delta

Selected Publications

Selected clients and recent publications featuring images from Chocolate Fish Photos:

• Blogwerk AG - ebookers.ch
• Rebel Communication
• Festspielhaus Baden-Baden
• DBB Vilnius
• Capital Swiss
• Labirinto Viaggi
• CITY ZEN - "How to drive a roundabout" CD Cover
• Ebner Stolz Mönning Bachem - law firm
• Deutsche Bank - London
• Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers
• Baum & Garten, agentur für kommunikation
• wordshop
• Ferrytells Verlags- und Beratungs GmbH
• Steigenberger Hotels
• AAA Northern California, Nevada, & Utah

• "Architect: The Pritzker Prize Laureates in their own Words", Ruth Peltason and Grace Ong-Yan (eds.), Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 2010.
• Past &: Present Magazine, 2010.
• "Rapport Schuman sur l`europe 2011" Editions Lignes de Repères, 2011.
• "Hundertwasser in Wien". Ferrytells, 2011.

Link partners