Archive for December, 2009
Thursday, December 31st, 2009
Well, this (modified) motto of the United States makes up for a good summary of 2009. This is a year that is characterised by disappointments in most of the fields important for humankind: The financial crisis, created by a lunatic fringe of irresponsible bankers with full support of a large crowd of power-obsessed/greedy/intellectually handicapped politicians backed up by a large population of well-to-dos that still believes in the tell-tale of the proliferation of money through speculation… I stop here.
The Copenhagen Conference was a second major disappointment (I ignore the remarkable Pres. Obama speech in Oslo): Mankind, dominated by the leaders of the most powerful states, China among them, proved to be simply incompetent to deal with the problem of climate change. I am not sure if we will have the time to remediate this failure.
That there is no end visible for the war in Afghanistan is bitter, that there are no political leaders with a vision how to overcome hatred is even worse.
So: In God we should trust. The only problem is that divine intervention was scarce at least in my lifetime (I don’t truly count former Pres. Bush’s inspiration among them).
Tags:climate change, politics
Posted in blog | 5 Comments »
Tuesday, December 29th, 2009
Found in downtown Munich.
Tags:blue, christmas, downtown, munich, steel
Posted in urban | 1 Comment »
Sunday, December 27th, 2009
In case you wonder: Wearing red underwear on new year’s eve is a tradition in Italy, Spain, Chile and (maybe) Mexico. Just to bring you luck…
And if it’s not a real tradition, at least it is marketed as such. Optically it can have it’s merits, even for father christmas.
Tags:chile, christmas, italy, new year, red underwear, spain
Posted in red | 2 Comments »
Friday, December 25th, 2009
A Merry Christmas to you all!
I know I am late, but as a father of three (one seems to have got lost) Christmas day is full of activities, carrying a harp to the church and back, decorating the tree, rehearsing Christmas carols and the nativity play ranking much higher than photography. But we had a wonderful Christmas Evening and a very peaceful holiday today, and so every effort was worth it.
Tags:candles, Christbaum, christmas, kids, tree, Warten auf's Christkind
Posted in dahoam (at home) | 8 Comments »
Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009
One of those occasions, where everything falls into place: The bus is late for some minutes and the person appears in the window. Now: The right lens is on the camera, the right iso already dialed in, I can just take this one shot, the bus comes and off we go. Was it pure luck? A well-meaning muse? Probable fortune is, when chance meets preparedness.
It doesn’t happen too often.
Tags:Bad Reichenhall, bus stop, Hopper, snow
Posted in dahoam (at home), winter | 7 Comments »
Monday, December 21st, 2009
Today the kids had their Christmas concert, organised by the harp teacher in the old saline chapel of Bad Reichenhall. The outside of the building,here, does not show what an architectural gem is inside.
As I wasn’t there for photography, here only two quick glances. But I will go back there, probably at a better time of the day to get more light through the stained glass.
Tags:Bad Reichenhall, chapel, interior, saline
Posted in dahoam (at home) | 1 Comment »
Saturday, December 19th, 2009
Found on the way to Schönram bog. Today I am too tired even for a rant, in spite of such a reason: the ignominious “results” of the Copenhagen talks (I’d wish they became millstone around the necks of those so-called leaders). Enough said.
Tags:bog, climate talks, idiocracy, Moor, politics, rant, Schönram, winter
Posted in winter | 8 Comments »
Wednesday, December 16th, 2009
Whilst winter is still not in full swing – the rare snowflakes that make it to the ground melt during daytime – in Schönram bog the scarce snow makes up for a beautiful landscape: white areas that contrast against the dark logs, green needles that still peek through the snow.
As it matches the season so well, I have put up a gallery of hoarfrost images that I took last January. It was really cold then, fingers going numb in almost no time. So besides a number of good images this day resulted in the acquisition of a pair of climber’s gloves from Black Diamond. These gloves are meant for ice climbing, the finger-form is pre-bent and the leather strong but at the same time fine enough to enable you to handle the camera. Higly recommended!
Tags:bog, Moor, moss, Schönram, snow, trees
Posted in winter | 4 Comments »
Monday, December 14th, 2009
Whilst yesterday’s image shows a slight lack of sharpness due to the flexibly boggy soil, which moved under the tripod a tiny bit, the pine tree today is almost painfully sharp. And while I do not regret that softness in the complex dreamscape, in today’s image the sharpness I think is crucial – here that tree is almost cut out against the landscape, in my eyes emphasizing that feeling of solitude epitomized by this landscape.
Tags:bog, loneliness, pond, Schönram
Posted in dahoam (at home), nature | 4 Comments »
Sunday, December 13th, 2009
While working on yesterday’s images, blue in their tint as it was what the Landscapist would label as “entre chien et loup”, I am listening to internet radio. Only recently I got addicted to this vice, after having discovered the wonderful www.wwoz.org, a blues and jazz radio station from New Orleans. Original, traditional blues is played only very rarely here on Germany’s radio stations, so I am more than grateful for this gain.
But I would also like to take up Juhaa’s comment on yesterday’s post regarding literal vs. non-literal photography. For quite a while a would have labeled the majority of my images as purely descriptive, what I would see as literal in the sense of the quote. Unfortunately neither the blog post nor the comments discuss this topic any deeper. But non-literal I would see as having a different, more fundamental statement than the subject matter would describe. And sometimes this is what I want to transport in my images. This is probably a field suitable for an “artistic statement”, but if I could describe it with words I might have become a writer, not a photographer.
Tags:blue, blues, bog, Schönram, twilight
Posted in dahoam (at home), nature | 4 Comments »
Sunday, December 13th, 2009
Similar situation as the one that had led to that post: A birthday party, that time at MacDo’s in Freilassing. It is definitely not my cup of tea, but I try to let my kids find out themselves, and at least this gave me the opportunity to go for 90 minutes to Schönram bog again. Twilight was setting in, and one of the last images I took is this one: scarce, almost zen-like, and a stark contrast to the kind of “life” I was confronted with when returning to that burger frying place.
Posted in dahoam (at home), nature | 5 Comments »
Thursday, December 10th, 2009
The human, understandable reaction answer to the fading colors of our natural surroundings are, what else, more colors. The Christmas bauble and the reflection of the raindrops play nicely with the artificial light, only the blue LED’s, replacing the small Edison-type bulbs on many trees, can get enervating because of their overly bright and cold characteristics. And while we do not suffer from the really short days Juhaa is reporting here, on overcast and rainy days there is a substantial lack of brightness. *That* makes me long for snow – it becomes brighter then – and the sudden quietness, when the freshly fallen snow dampens all the sounds.
Tags:Bad Reichenhall, christmas, decoration, pedestrian area, rain
Posted in bokeh, dahoam (at home) | 5 Comments »
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009
It’s still way too warm for the season. Last week it was like an experiment of snowfall, but it ended after three hours with barely noticable sludge on the streets. But the light is grey and tints the remaining leaves and fruits during the day.
Only at night, when the Christmas decoration starts to scintillate, some more warm tones mix into the de-energizing grey and pale blue. But there still remains beauty to be discovered, and new details get revealed to be savoured. Sometimes feeling chilly I enjoy the days.
Tags:Bad Reichenhall, fruits, leaves, muted colors
Posted in dahoam (at home), winter | 5 Comments »
Monday, December 7th, 2009
The past years have seen a constant revival of “traditional” in every context. This led to some odd results, especially ugly and hard to escape in “folksy” music. So please notice that in fashion speak men don’t really need a head – a facility for fixing the hat would suffice.
Posted in dahoam (at home), urban | 7 Comments »
Sunday, December 6th, 2009
Couldn’t help it: That Santa Claus head next to a red garter reminded me of Salome’s dance and its tragic consequences…
Tags:lingerie, nikolaus, red, santa claus
Posted in red, urban | No Comments »
Saturday, December 5th, 2009
In the alpine region there are still remnants from pagan or, more friendly, pre-christian times alive. The Krampus, in some traditions escorts of Bishop Nikolaus, are connected to the rite of the 12 days or Rauhnächte, where the expulsion of ghosts was tried with dances of wild, disguised figures. December 5/6 is taken into this old tradition, and the Krampus are now played by young men, who take the chance to wear threatening masks and – behave badly, horrify bystanders etc. Maybe 10 years ago this was really bad, resulting in as many innocent victims with injuries and traumas, now it has calmed down a bit. And while the group of Krampus now is accompagnied by their own security, trying to avoid assaults, the masks of the Krampus seem to be more and more influenced by horror movies. Now that is real horror.
Tags:12 days, Bad Reichenhall, bavaria, kramperl, kramperllauf, krampus, pagan
Posted in dahoam (at home), tradition | 4 Comments »
Thursday, December 3rd, 2009
In these not so bright days and with strictly limited daylight time budget for photography, the nearby parks and gardens are a natural choice. Using my primes at wide open f-stops, I always have to translate the image during framing as the viewfinder does not at all show the abstract patterns that get recorded by the sensor. What was first astonishing and then annoying me, has now become a nice exercise in visualizing beyond the image in the viefinder.
And sometimes the pattern of the plant repeats in the flow of the background lines. No, I did not see this before, but I was even happier when discovering it.
Tags:Bad Reichenhall, blur, bokeh, detail, DoF, park, plant, shallow DoF
Posted in dahoam (at home), nature | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, December 1st, 2009
A year ago we have had some really cold days even before december started, but this year it’s been a wam fall and up to now a warm winter. The situation above I do remember as a freezing cold scenery where I added just a tiny bit colder color temperature to better visualize what I had felt. But this year – it’s more a summer evening scenery than anything else.
Tags:Bad Reichenhall, saline, winter
Posted in dahoam (at home) | 2 Comments »
