Robert Matzken

Photo Avenue

The Art of Light and Detail

Our world is adorned with much beauty. In nature there is the beauty that God has spread abundantly: flowers, trees, landscapes, wildlife, people. And in cultivated society there is beauty resulting from the human sense for style, proportion and harmony: lovely gardens and beautiful buildings, industrial design, fashion, art. My aim is to capture some of it in photographs.

I am Robert Matzken. I started making photographs in the mid 1970's. I lived in Amsterdam, then, and temporarily went to work in Germany to earn some money and buy a decent camera. In the early 80's I switched to Nikon and today still use the F2 I bought back then. (I also play records on a turntable, write with a fountain pen and read every day in the oldest book on earth).

Not long ago I have returned to Germany, with Jolanda, and this is where I have settled as a Freischaffende Fotograf, a free-lance photographer.

Winter in Waldmark, 2009

The first time I had a photograph published was for a local newspaper. What a thrill that was! Then followed publications in various magazines, and a book, after which I started to work full-time with 'De Telegraaf' - the largest daily newspaper in the Netherlands. Although my job there was in marketing, I kept having pictures published in both the national and the Amsterdam editions, and learning the craft from dyed-in-the-wool staff photographers.

Christmas rose (Helleborus niger), 2009

Please contact me - robert at waldmark (dot) com - if you would like to buy a fine art print of any of the photographs on this site. I would also be happy to take commissions from people or businesses wanting photographs in the style of black & white fine art prints in which I specialise.

Inspiration

Other photographers and other web-designs

The 'cursor' on the thin horizontal scrolling line on the following pages is a reproduction of the type A focussing screen in the viewfinder of a Nikon F2 camera. Drag this viewfinder to scroll from left to right, rather than the usual vertical scrolling. You may find that the pages will not fit on the smaller resolution screens of older laptops. Sorry about that.

The photographers who have inspired me most are Ansel Adams and Andreas Feininger. I recommend their books to everyone who is interested in the art of photography.

To read up on Nikon camera's and to look up anything you want to know about any Nikkor lens, Visit Ken Rockwell in a new window.

For anything Nikon you may wish to purchase, I recommend calling Grays of Westminster in London. They stock every current model of body and lens, including a large selection of used equipement in mint condition, and they usually ship same day to wherever you are on this beautiful globe that God gave us. Visit Grays of Westminster in a new window.

Nikon describes the focussing screen mentioned above as a 'Matte/Fresnel field with 12mm centre reference circle and (horizontal) split-image rangefinder.' I copied the image from the website Photography in Malaysia, which is a good resource for detailed documentation about photographic equipment.

The idea to have one long horizontal scrollbar (and the basic code to implement it) came from Elizabeth Weinberg. Visit her website in a new window.