Our photographer of the month January 2004 is Nikolaj Marks.

 

Nikolaj Marks

In his near 20 years of photographic experience, he has specialised in a remarkable and advanced photographic topic: night photography.

Nikolaj's photographic journey started with a classic – a Hasselblad 500c/m with a couple of lenses.

The “antiquated giant”

Nikolaj, not knowing at that time what kind of treasure he was holding in his hands, was interested to learn more about this “antiquated giant of a camera” (as he thought at that time).
Eager to learn more about his camera, he visited his local photographer to get some help and to find out if his camera was any good.
When the first reply he got was “Is it stolen?” he began to wonder if there was a little bit more to this clumsy mystery than at first glance.
Fortunately, the photographer decided to teach Nikolaj the basics of photography.

As Nikolaj was starting to learn to handle and appreciate the camera, he started, like his stepfather who had bequeathed Nikolaj the Hasselblad, to investigate architectural photography.
Unlike his stepfather, he concentrated mainly on detail photographs of single parts and structures of castles, churches and ruins.

A fascination dawns

After a couple of years of working with his beloved Hasselblad, Nikolaj acquired a MinoltaX700, which was much easier to carry around owing to its size and flexibility.
With this camera, Nikolaj started to discover his real photographic passion – night photography.

The night has always been fascinating for Nikolaj, because of its unique calmness and tranquillity without traffic and other background sounds which we have got so used to that we don't even notice them anymore under normal circumstances.
Another thing that makes the night so special to Nikolaj is its ability to cover all traces of modern civilisation with its darkness, to show “how life must have been many, many years ago”.

Hurdy-Gurdy

These tranquillity of the night and its seclusion is a factor, which Nikolaj constantly tries to include in his work as a painter and musician (Nikolaj focuses particularly on traditional, exotic instruments like the hurdy-gurdy, French bagpipe and Swedish Nyckelharpa in his work).

 

“...next time without the lenscap”

As Nikolaj was starting out with night photography, he encountered a problem, which he wasn't able to master despite of his photographic skills and his imaginativeness; most of the times he brought his films to a photo vendor he received pictures back, which had been changed from black to grey by the colour correction.
More than one time he was greeted with well-meant advices like “try next time without the lenscap” when he was trying to explain that he wanted his pictures to be pitch black in most parts.

It is no wonder that as the first digital cameras appeared on the market Nikolaj became interested in this technology.
But he also realised, that the technology would still need a few years before it was able to achieve results comparable with film photography.

So Nikolaj waited until Spring 2003 before acquiring a digital camera – the DiMAGE 7i.
While the camera met his expectations in almost all areas, he still was depending on his inventiveness to achieve his particular purpose.

The exposure length of four seconds, for example, which is the longest available when the camera is used without a remote control, was not always long enough for his requirements.
But that couldn't stop Nikolaj.
Since the DiMAGE 7i in combination with the remote control RC-1000L makes it possible to choose exposure times as long as 30 seconds (when using such long exposure times it is necessary to eliminate the camera shake caused by pressing the shutter release button) Nikolaj started to use it for his exposures.

But Nikolaj had other improvements in mind too.
He began to search for a way to not always have to measure the exposure time manually.

The lord of the times

This was made possible by an adjustable relay which he combined with the remote control, which could be set to any period of time between 1 and 30 seconds.
With the two channels of the remote control it is even possible to to trigger the autofocus prior to operating the shutter release.

Another self-developed gadget is extremely useful for his other photographic passion; photographing the dolls made by a friend of his, the artist Bernard Martens.
Here Nikolaj aims for the unique ambiance of renaissance paintings, and tries to incorporate it into his exposures.

Since these paintings were mostly painted by candle light, Nikolaj tries to simulate this diffused light-source by mounting an unusual light-source, an apparatus consisting of 12 high-power LEDs on a Cokin fiter adapter, like a filter to his lens.

 

Using this device, Nicolaj is able to make macro exposures in the the dead of night, without the subject having specular highlights as would probably happen with a torch.
By combined his ligt source with fibre-optic cables he is able to achieve a mood, which make the goblin dolls appear to be living personalities.

To achieve this, Nikolaj does not shy away from using digital image processing software.