Amidst pines, birches, and maple trees, a signal box stands at Eselsfürth in Kaiserslautern, which was put into operation in 1938 and has long since seen its best days.
From the outside, the building presents itself in stylish red and sandstone pastel tones, but from the inside, it is likely to primarily interest fans of technology, railways, and photography.
Lost Places – gloomy and charming
Photography, because the gloomy-charming appearance of lost places can be absolutely fascinating. Exactly the right place, then, to test our new Lumen series products with photographer Sebastian Nagel from Kaiserslautern. After extremely carefully crossing active railway tracks, we reached a place characterized by a morbid image of levers and cables that have developed a dreamy patina of rust and dust over the years. The floor has a gaping hole through which one can look down into the lower floor, and magazines from a long-gone era between 1997 and 2002 lie everywhere.
"These products are, of course, extremely well suited for shoots in Lost Places because their colors simply provide truly extraordinary light" - Sebastian Nagel
Nagel photographs on-site with three different lighting setups. In one instance, he positions the new Lumen Pro upwards and places it near the wall, so that he is able to create a crisp light effect in fuchsia/magenta as a background behind model Sina. At the same time, he uses the new RGB ring light from Rollei, on the one hand, to create the so-called 'halo effect' in the model's eyes – and on the other hand, to color Sina's face in turquoise.
A photo from another planet
At the end of this very special lighting setup, Sebastian Nagel, together with Sina, created an image that seems to come from another planet and, due to its very special coloring, no longer requires extensive post-processing.
| Aperture | Shutter | ISO |
| 3.2 | 1/200 | 400 |
But other aesthetic photos were also taken in this lonely place, which, although certainly quite lonely some time ago, was at least still filled with a little more life back then.
After a long time without a purpose, the control levers found a new purpose during this shoot, as Sina took her place in their center for the next shot, while photographer Sebastian Nagel provided light from two different sides. Red light came from the Lumen Pro positioned slightly to the left, aimed at Sina's skin, her left side of the face, and a control lever. The model gets a blue rim light from the RGB ring light positioned on the right, which makes her right side of the face appear a bit more mysterious.
| Aperture | Shutter | ISO |
|---|---|---|
| 3.2 | 1/200 | 250 |
Two more pictures were also taken with the ring light in turquoise. Sebastian Nagel also gave one of the many scattered shards a new purpose. Namely, by holding only a small part of the glass into the picture, creating a blur that makes the picture even more interesting with this new element.
| Aperture | Shutter | ISO |
|---|---|---|
| 3.2 | 1/200 | 250 |
Finally, Nagel summarizes his work with the new Rollei products as follows: "You simply have so many possibilities to be totally creative with light and colors. And that also works without coloring, if you don't need it. And what also totally convinced me are the batteries in the ring light, Lumen Pro and the Sticks. This is really helpful, especially in Lost Places, when you don't have a power supply but need light. I can really work with that."
Note: The old signal box was, in terms of the theme of Lost Places, comparatively easy. Normally, it is much more difficult to photograph these places, and our article should not be an encouragement to actively photograph Lost Places. They can be very dangerous, and entering them is illegal in many cases!
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