Just couldn’t resist the quote… as well as this wonderful combination of colors, pose and expression. I loathe those usual beach snaps, so you rarely will find me with a camera there (if at all, that is). But there are often some small details to record and remember, especially when the light gets softer and warmer late in the afternoon.
This post goes with special regards to Earl, who featured his morning coffee spot here! The coffee shop you see above is the eldest in the town of Krk, already mentioned in documents of 1763, thus the name. It has recently been revamped and for sure sports a fine place for an early morning cappuccino, especially when the crowd is still sleeping: They open at 07:00 and in the tourist season close only well past midnight. The coffee is as good as it can get, and leaning on a 500+ years old wall can give a special feeling.
The tourists are catered in shops everywhere, in shops with souvenirs of all kinds. But sometimes they have strange things in their displays!
Found in the alleys of Krk: The ingredients of this image come from a long stretch of time. The oldest for sure are the cobblestones, next comes the fountain, now deprived of the red communist star (visible here or here), and the youngest is probably the ATB. And me? I do enjoy the moment and the light.
Today was my last morning in Krk, and after my morning cappuccino in the harbour I found those two buoys absorbed in their tête-à-tête, but closely guarded by the port entrance light house.
The drive home was not so much fun then (Carl: my inner trucker seems to be miles away), but coming home was a joy. Relaxed (and somewhat deprived from, say, a fast internet connection) it is of course easy to indulge in things that were just commonplace before the holidays. Tomorrow I will have a look at the backlog of too many unread posts.
Krk suffers as all tourist locations under the extreme oscillation of population. Permanent jobs are quite rare, and a lot of commuting traffic (or emigration) the inevitable consequence. But a small number of local companies tries to make use of the location, combining quarry stone houses on roman foundations and venetian sprinkles with newest technologies. And, as I found out just now, the center of Krk with its numerous caffés is a free WiFi zone.
Steep shadows under the wires and ACs provide a nic(h)e playground for the viewer. Not that I am particularly fond of this decoration of a medieval town, but then: this is life, and optically interesting.
Many of the houses in Krk are 500 years or even older. The arc in the first floor in this example can well be from Venetian times – the electrical wiring is definitely more recent, and indispensable for the energy hunger that is constantly growing. But as you can see to the right, this will be only an intermediary solution: preparations for underground cables are well under way in the old cobblestone alleys. But up to then, the open wires will provide interesting patterns in the sky.
The ubiquitous growing of AC units on the facades as well as the – connected – plein air electric wiring became the main fields of interest during my wanderings through the Krk alleys. The images need some editing and selecting, so I have postponed the creation of some galleries until I am back home.
But then, I will also order as many stocks as possible of mediterranean energy companies and public utilities: this seems to be an enormously growing market, and if we all have to suffer under a climate change, I do at least want to have my share (sic!) of it.
Found on the Krk Waterfront. I admit that sometimes I doubt the wisdom of the family’s decision to spend the holidays every year in the same place. But then: I don’t remember ever coming back with an empty memory card from my strolls through the city. So this decision can’t be too wrong.
Still wednesday, still wordless 
Wordless wednesday. Enjoy!
Shipping Vessel “Karlo” in Krk harbour. Thanks to the intensity of light the dirt and grime in the harbour spill remains invisible.
Krk Harbour, before the Krk – Grad regatta started. There were a lot of spectators, both foreign as – in this case – local. The regatta itself was not spectacular in any sense, starting in an almost complete calm, and the bigger part of the high-tech yachts wasn’t (for me) either. But he was.
Nota bene the battery of trash cans in the background: Maybe the situation is a bit intimidating for the little boat.
Oh yes, and that was a situation where I was caught *without* a camera: ran back to the trailer, got it, captured just two frames and then car and trailer drove away.
The peak in tourist season is said to be over, but still hordes of tourists crowd the small streets of Krk. The morning is the best time to avoid this – for me demotivating – scenario, and often there are new, improvised and short-lived sceneries, ready to be savoured and transformed into bytes for further perusal. I like this jaunty proceeding, independent from complicated techniques, so very conversant with the camera that it becomes just a natural extension of the eye. Holidays!
Found during my morning strolls through the city.
There is not much left from the importance or even glory of the once ruling communist/socialist party and their world-shaking ideas here in Krk. The only visible leftovers are some fountains (like here) and plates, but besides that: Cuba libre is just the name of the drink, and this fountain is degraded to a cheap billboard. Not that there is any reason to glorify those times, yet some sensitivity for the history is everything else but superfluous.
Dagmar Franolic opened her show “Hello Tree” in the Gallery Decumanus in Krk last saturday. Until then I had seen aquarel paintings from her, but for “Hello Tree” she extended her technique and included collage elements, wooden blocks and multimedia to her palette. “Hello Tree” focuses on – hard to guess – trees, which are less prominent here in Krk than small alleyways and medieval walls, but nonetheless form an integral part of the city. The old Zürgelbaum (celtis australis) next to the main gateway is maybe the most promient specimen in town, but there are some very old olive trees well hidden in the north-east of the island.
You can see some parts of Dagma’s work also here on flickr
Blog note: Posting works now, but line speed here is terrible during tourist season, which makes reading an posting a major pain. Still no fun.
Authors’s note: Increasing the amount of voodoo and using a vpn to a befriended server, I finally managed to upload some images. In the end it was less about posting and more a personal challenge if my skills would suffice to overcome this provider’s faulty setup. Finally by pure guessing on my side it turned out that the MTU (Maximum Transfer Unit) of the network connection was by default set too high. One simple (again black magic) command: sudo ifconfig wlan0 mtu 576, and the network connection ran as it should and does everywhere else.
Linda Gordon’s biography of Dorothea Lange was given to me as a gift from a fellow photographer. And after having recovered from the travel and set-up chores, I started to read and was immediately fascinated by the intensity of this book. The many aspects of Lange’s life and story get unfolded and form an immense micro-history of that important time also in the history of the United States of America. Only one sentence in the foreword makes me hesitate a bit: Gordon compares the movement and effects of the New Deal with the feeling of a fundamental change during the last presidency election campain. And whilst I do wish she will be proven right, I could not help but notice a feeling of deep disappointment about the current development in the U.S.
The title of this post is the middle part of a Dorothea Lange quote. Developing the craft and art of seeing certainly is the key factor for any artisanal or artistic endeavour. And what I have read so far from Lange’s life, it was accompagnied by an openness to and in life, that formed many facets of her personality. I guess the latter is the real general key of personal development, also as a photographer, whereas the camera is the same kind of tool the individual scalpell is for the surgeon: indispensable yet in no way defining competence or skill.
For completely unclear reasons I cannot upload any image files to my hosting account from Krk in Croatia at the moment. I have tried every available trick including commandline voodoo magic, but no file gets transferred by more the 12% of it’s size.
Posting will be resumed whenenver I am able to overcome this problem. Until then, I am going to enjoy my holidays 
The Vienna architect cooperative Coop Himmelb(l)au is responsible for some remarkable buildings in Munich. Their Munich Academy of Fine Arts is featured in the gallery here, and for this years opera festival they have created a pavillion for the more avantgarde presentations. This pavillion is transportable and will travel the world after having served here, a true messenger of architecture’s ingeniosity.
No words wednesday
The August wallpapers are available from the wallpapers page. Enjoy!
Sometimes a lake full of water can be too much, especially when this water is not thoroughly warm. Then a small basin, barely large enough to sit in, can be more attractive than the whole lake.
School’s out here in Bavaria, and we used the first holiday weekend for a visit to some relatives in Austria. Besides the welcome opportunity to cool down in the lake – temperatures are in summer range again – the old boat house offered visual delicacies as well.
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