spring2life take2

Salzburg, Austria

Max-Reinhardt-Platz, Salzburg

“Gurkerln” by the Austrian artist Erwin Wurm.

Salzburg, Austria

re:public, Salzburg

Salzburg, Austria

Salzburg Train Station

Steingasse, Salzburg

Steingasse, Salzburg

This image also refers to Tyler Monson’s Austrian Symbolism: The sign here marks the end of the “free contracting zone”. Proof: The image to the right, found some 100m before the sign.

Steingasse, Salzburg

Steingasse, Salzburg

Steingasse, Salzburg

Salzburg’s Steingasse certainly is a road with many different faces, the modern architecture of yesterday just a small number of steps away from this abandoned antiques shop.

Steingasse, Salzburg

Salzburg, Austria

“Art Dealers And Children First” – this begs for a number of questions to be asked, like “Is there a catastrophy ahead, Titanic-like, and the survival of Art Dealers is critical?”, or “Are Art Dealers more helpless than women?”, and “Will the Art Dealers take care of the children?”. I have to admit that I don’t get the sense of that provoking question. Oh well, probably great Art, and me, I am too small for it.

Steingasse, Salzburg

An answer to Martina’s comment on yesterday’s post “It’s the same everywhere in Germany, isn’t it?”: In urban areas, probably yes – even in Austria.
Admittedly I like Bauhaus design very much, so I am somewhat ambivalent especially regarding the architecture in yesterday’s image. In dreary weather it looks depressing for me, whereas today’s Salzburg example with blue skies and blossoms certainly looks more appealing.

Deutsche Bank, Salzburg

Just wondering what secrets a king’s daughter disguising as a goose farm servant might nowadays communicate with the head of a horse…

Nonntal, Salzburg

Salzburg, Austria

Salzburg, Austria

Nonntal, Salzburg

Nonntal, Salzburg

Nonntal, Salzburg

Hopper’s light here immediately struck my eyes.

Karl-Weiser-Platz, Salzburg

With the title I am connecting to Andreas Manessinger’s recent series of non places.

St. Peter’s Monastery, Salzburg

St. Peter’s Monastery hosts a large collection of minerals under the very roof of the church itself, collected over centuries by scientifically inclined monks. In earlier times the (Roman Catholic) church in Austria was very rich and active in economy, not only regarding salt from which Salzburg has its name, but also mining for gold and other metals and accompagnying and promoting these endeavours with applied science. Our photography group was invited to visit both monastery and collection.

St. Peter’s Monastery, Salzburg

Vandal is the brand name for a product family of moth poison and traps. The presence of this name in that freshly renovated room in the monastery I found a bit bizarre.

St. Peter’s Monastery, Salzburg

St. Peter’s Monastery, Salzburg

St. Peter’s Monastery, Salzburg

St. Peter’s Monastery, Salzburg

St. Peter Monastery, Salzburg

The March wallpapers are available as usual from here. This month’s image was made in the monastery of St. Peter in Salzburg, where I had the occasion to enjoy a special guided tour for the photographers group of my hometown.

Getreidegasse, Salzburg

St. Peter Monastery, Salzburg

Museum of Modern Art, Salzburg, Austria

Salzburg, Austria

Salzburg, Austria

Unterach, Austria

Today we spent a wonderful day at Attersee in Austria, with both air and water temperatures high enough to make swimming very agreeable – probably one of the last weekends this fall for such activities. And when in the evening smoke from one of the houses made the golden sunlight visible, we were presented with a perfect scenery. It made one of my daughters even forget her Ligretto game and grab my LX3.

Salzburg, Austria

This image I made back in July. Besides that I fact that I like it, it may serve the purpose to illustrate why I hold my standard zoom in high esteem: My standard focal length would be more in the 35-50mm-e range. When this Muslim lady walked by, there would have been no chance to change lenses in the time I spotted her until she reached that crossing point.

Of course I would have framed with whatever lens on the camera, but this image with the crossing lines and the inclusion of the cloudy sky, adding the necessary blue tones to the whole composition, would have probably been impossible without the wide angle of a 24mm-e focal length. Opportunities like this at least make me enjoy the freedom a good zoom lens can provide.

Wals, Austria

University of Salzburg, Austria

University of Salzburg, Austria

University of Salzburg, Austria

University of Salzburg, Austria

University of Salzburg, Austria

Same location as where this months’s wallpaper was created, but according to the exif data just three minutes later and a different part of the sky. What looked threatening in fact brought only a small amount of rain.

Salzburg, Austria

The wallpapers for August 2011 are available for download as usual from here. This scene mix of modern, sober walls and an almost pastoral idyll was recorded in the University of Salzburg, where I attended a conference on Geografic Information Systems.

Salzburg, Austria

When I read Carl Weese’s post here, I immediately remembered a similar event in 2007. Funny thing is that both the boys and I were native German speakers. But in Salzburg everybody strolling around with a camera seems to wear that invisible “tourist” badge, and tourists usually come from abroad. So those cool Salzburg youngsters addressed me in English.

Central Underground Parking, Salzburg

Salzburg, Austria

Salzburg, Austria

Maybe this can be explained by the fact that Austria has lost all their Imperial and Royal coasts in WWI. Other attempts might result in speculations if air pollution is so high, or it is necessary to hide something… or there might be nothing to hide given you buy this outfit, or or or… Most probably I am truly, completely and forever lost for the world of fashion. But I don’t repent!

Update:

It’s not the Salzburg girls (or boys?). That much I can confirm.

Himmelreich, Austria

The name of this village right outside of Salzburg is indeed “Himmelreich”, not to be translated other than “Kingdom Of Heaven”. And a true kingdom of consumer’s lust it is, with probably more square meters of shopping area than for housing!

Salzburg Cathedral, Austria

The Salzburg cathedral greets all the visitors with this banner, showing a sentence from the Holy Bible’s book of wisdom (9:14). I follow the anti-nuclear movement since 25+ years, but I can’t remember a bishop’s church publicly giving such a firm statement.

A worthy cause – albeit not the strongest image – for my blog post No. 1000, given wordpress’ calculations are correct.

Downtown Salzburg, Austria

Update: Replaced the image with a new jpg version from raw, where a tad Noise Ninja USM adds sharpness. I am still in the experimenting phase with the raw conversion from the LX3.

And please remember that most of the images in this blog open in a larger version when you click on them.

Wals/Salzburg, Austria

Tyler Monson again provoked me for an image selection with his wonderful Museum Scenery. My image was made in the Salzburg Museum of Modern Art, a place where photography (not of the artwork) is usually allowed.

Astonishing enought, they don’t forbid cameras in the Salzburg Museum of Modern Art – given you don’t try to take pictures of the artwork. Anyhow, the environment sometimes provides food for frames as well.

No words wednesday

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.

This certainly is a diametral counterdraft to yesterday’s Bus Stop photos. Prince Archbishop Markus Sitticus erected this garden with its aquatic surprises in the early 17th century for the pleasure of himself and his aristocats. Democratized now, they are visited by legions of tourists and provide a major source of income for Salzburg.

Just across the Austrian Border, the traditional costume association “D’ Lattenberger” set up the maypole in the museum village of Grossgmain. Instead of the blue-sky-green-grass sceneries I’d like to present some details which make pretty much the essence of the procedure – which is the important thing, not the final result itself.

Salzburg’s Train Station is undergoing modernisation at a grand scale. Up to now the platforms still had their delicate cast iron structures, subject of this post. As in Austria there are quite a number of succesfull examples of modern architecture, also of good old-new combinations, I am curious in a positive way about the outcomes of this transformation. But up to now all that’s visible is a great hole in the earth.

Found in Salzburg’s Train Station. Van Gogh’s image “The Mailman Roulin” is the icon for the exhibition “Summit of Modernity” in the Museum of Modern Art.

The museum of Winterthur, Switzerland, has closed its premises for renovation and lent its collection to the Salzburg Museum of Modern Art for exhibition. What  made the visit even more enjoyable, was the fact that photographing was not prohibited, as it is so often in museums. I have to admit that this makes me somewhat angry, as we tax payers have provided the ressources to erect or maintain those buildings and often also to collect the exhibited pieces of art. And I do remember my angry feelings when in the Bilbao Guggenheim I was forced to seal my p&s camera in an opaque plastic bag after having shelled out quite some bucks as entrance fee.

But not so in Salzburg, where the presentation offered some possibilities to see and photograph artwork in new perspectives. And were it not for the exhibition, the architecture of the museum alone would be worth a visit. Unspectacular from the outside, the staircases and funnels create exciting interior situations.

Located in a “Durchhaus”, probably best translated as a combination of passageway and courtyard, is the Cafe Schatz in Salzburg. From all the Cafes – and as a coffeine addicted I do know many – this seems to be one of the eldest and most traditional ones in Salzburg. The coffee is great, so is the pastry, and the whole institution including the waitresses has an aura that seems unchanged from maybe 40 years past.

This is even more stunning as many of the streets in Salzburg now are governed by the great international brands, leaving less and less space for local flair. So the “Cafe Schatz”, and “Schatz” means treasure, really is a precious place, moody and relaxing (at least off season).

Update: I had edited the first version of the lead image on a color calibrated, yet not brightness calibrated monitor, and this resulted in an image that was way too dark. Lesson learned: I wil redo the calibration and double check the brightness level instead of using the all-auto setting.

I found these in Salzburg. The center of this town is so attractive for tourists from all parts of the world, that they have a shop selling Christmas decoration throughout the whole year. But to top this, they’ve invented easter eggs with Santa on it. That’s what I’d call real creativity and serving their customers. And if people buy this…

Found in Vienna’s Westbahnstrasse, this abandoned shop probably waits for renovation. The handwritten sign in the window states the retirement of the shopkeeper. Deducing from the fancy tilework on the floor, this shop probably has been run for many decades without major reconstruction. But probably these tile’s future now is a very limited one.

Matching to the return of grey winter weather, not only here but also in the new world, like in Woodbury. Here is an image that was taken outside the Museum of Modern Art in Salzburg, Austria. Even without the works of art inside the museum, this place should be on everyone’s agenda when coming to Salzburg, and if it’s only for this view

Contemporary architecture in Vienna seems to mix effortlessly with all the well restaurated buildings from the k.u.k. times, and even the extreme examples like the Museum of Modern Art above convince (me) with their intransigence and their presence. This certainly is a field, in which my 2nd hometown, Munich, is falling behind substantially. The Automobility Temple of BMW (here) is the only recent example and far away from the center of the city, only the Academy of the Fine Arts by the same architects as the BMW World, coop himmelblau.

Having discovered that my images of the Academy never got published in any way, I have set up a small gallery here.

The doors of Vienna provide sufficient subject matter probably for many days of photography, and even in the small number of hours that allowed me to visit a really little part of this city, I found more than suitable for series of postings. So I will probably make a small gallery, which also meets my growing interest for images in a series. Diptychs and Triptychs are a bit special in this sense as they are designed to be viewed together (and therefore I find it more complicated to come up with good ones), whereas small series allow for greater variance while still following a common basic idea. And, the latter are easier to show on web and the restricted screen area available for most viewers.

A business trip to vienna gave me the opportunity to stroll through this beautiful city for some hours. My old obsession for doors found sufficient visual food here, but additionally the entrance halls behind the doors provided some wonderful sceneries. And luckily enough I turned around to enjoy the opposite vista as well.

More doors to come tomorrow.

With the Schengen treaty, de facto ending border controls for traffic inside the European Union, the advertising at the German-Austrian border for the casinos of Salzburg and other places lost most of its attention factor – no car has to wait here any more. The buildings of the former checkpost as well as this one are now in different states of decay.

My preference for shallow depth of field is well known, but of course it is not suitable for each and every subject. Since some time I am experimenting with means to transport the specific way in which the camera records to the viewer. Shallow depth of field is, as well as bokeh,  a concept unknown in human seeing with the naked eye, as we are constantly accomodating and combining the images of the different focal planes in our visual conception. Combining two such images in a kind of diptychon is – for me – a promising way of enhancing the visual experience.

I hope a grey day in Salzburg, with a subject photographed probably a gazillion times, is a suitable example for this approach. Oh yes, and don’t forget to click on the image to view it large.

It’s easy to guess from the headline that I am not smoking. Not smoking any more, that is.

But here I was more fascinated by the replicating leaning forms that manifested themselves in the viewfinder. To emphasize this a little bit I used bibble5′s layers for burning and a bit desaturating the borders. The more I play with this software, the more interesting it becomes despite its overly long beta status and still unresolved bugs. It is just the right tool for my way of handling the raw files, quite straightforward, no fancy effects, just carefully helping to show what’s already in the raw file. As a linux user, all that lightroom and photoshop is a non-option, so I am even more glad that bibble5 now fulfills such a great part of my processing wishes.

And despite all criticism in the forums about bibble’s slow development process, this definitely is not a case of ‘hopes to ashes’.

Of course the kids made me go to the fairground – in the province, loud music, sales booths in the street and a merry-go-round are rare and therefore attractive. While I regarded the whole thing as less interesting than noisy, at least the old chairoplane provided attractive food for the lens. Stopping down to f22 produced the nice star effect, which was however invisible until I used bibble5′s highlight recovery. To be honest, this produced some artifacts which I had to clean up in a last step with gimp (which was faster done than written).

The post-fairground part of the stroll for sure was a bit boring for the kids, but I did enjoy the in comparison even deeper silence of an off season tourist resort at the lake. Unterach at the ‘Attersee’ in Austria can be a wonderful place – the painter Gustav Klimt stayed here for quite a number of summer visits, and the light for sure has influenced his painting.

Both my images needed postprocessing, the fence door a good portion of burning to bring out the gestalt of the iron work, and the flower facade a bit of perspective correction. Interesting enough, several in houses in Unterach are inclined towards the lake, sign of a not completely stable ground.

White walls don’t have to look white. I knew this effect from sunset colorings as well as from mixed light situations, where the same material can look so different depending on the source of light that is reflected. The turquoise cast however caught me by surprise…

… until I looked consciously into the water where the ducks played. Still much to learn, and a relaxing afternoon is not the worst environment for this.

many of the howto-photobooks i have read recommend repeating patterns as a recipe for better pictures. so i couldn’t resist this setup (in the science center of salzburg’s “house of the nature”). the first pictures with only yours truly as subject were a bit dull, but soon one of the daughters came to look. this was already better, but really good it became when she was joined by her twin sister. aah – and don’t think that clothing them equal is a quirk or a deliberate decision of the parents: it is purely a strategy to avoid unnecessary fights for this or that special t-shirt (replace t-shirt with pants, sweater and so on, ad nauseam).

with the colors i am still not completely content, but the color cast from the green walls was so strong that i couldn’t find a better correction without loosing that green, which in itself is a strong component of the picture.

trying to get at a new ‘airiness’ as well as combining photography with family undertakings, i had to resort to some shots without framing. of course the reject rate was a bit more than marginally higher, however one shot came out as good as expected: those armstrongs-to-be had the road for themselves on a sunny sunday in april, when all cars were banned round attersee in austria. and whilst some made a race out of it, dressed like top performers of the giro, others had their fun and aching muscles the next day.

and not being pressed (on the contrary, slowed down by the daughters) i had time enough to have a look over the lake to the shore we had passed some hours ago. early spring is a wonderful season, cautious, almost retained sometimes but already full of promises. what a wonderful time.

when i started photography roughly 30 years back, lenses with a focal length of more than 300mm were regarded as professional tools only and priced like this. today aps-c digital slrs with their crop factor of 1.5 plus the development in the area of long telezooms offer the possibilities to use a 450mm-e lens (the mm-e were introduced by mike johnston here and i regard it as a sound concept, especially as it can take care of the different crop factors we have in the wild now: 1.3, 1.5, 1.6, 2…). count in optical stabilisation, and you have the ingredients for succesfull long-lens shots any pro would have licked her or his fingers up to the elbow only 20 years ago.

the really densely populated downtown of salzburg of course creates demand for some, and be it even the smallest, recreational space. down from mönchsberg, the hill where the castle is located, you have a magnificient view into a landscape of roofs, now and then interrupted by a small private spa. even a single sunlounger can qualify for this

a colorful island in all the matt roofs was this small garden with the forsythia in full blossom. spending a morning or evening hour up here for sure is exhilarating when you have to live and work the whole day confined in a building.

happy easter to all of you, and colorful months like those tulips i found in the market.

the light in salzburg was great this morning and the vision almost unreal. walking too long over mönchsberg for sure caused sore feet….

going to the zoo still is fun for the younger kids, but leaves me more unhappy than ever.

his gaze, going past those bars, has got so misted
with tiredness, it can take in nothing more.
he feels as though a thousand bars existed,
and no more world beyond them than before.

the full text of rainer maria rilke’s poem “the panther” you can find here.

flare obviously is a weak spot of the tamron 11-18, on the other hands the situation present was pretty extreme and the front lens not completely clean. oh yeah, there is something to learn from every shot… the rock formation down there is really gorgeous and i decided to come back in june to get some flood water shots. 1954 water level was so high that the whole canyon was flooded, some 5 m higher than the standpoint of this shot.

the 2nd image is from the same canyon, just a detail of the rocks. the whole place, a visitor balkony glued to the rocks maybe 10 m above the water and 20 or even more m below the surface makes you feel pretty small and humble, especially if you are almost alone like this time on a rainy father’s day.

a lesson in ‘learning to see’. i had a bland image on my monitor, taken when i was quite tired at the end of an excursion with the family. i remembered that i had taken it because of the beautiful curve of the fence posts and the shadow curves of the fence’s wire, but there was too much optical garbage clobbering the real subject. so out of a 12.7 MB file i cropped 1.5 MB, the resolution of a 2 year old mobile phone camera…

back to salzburg after a long time, and for the first time on the mönchsberg. the weather was fine for a short time and the sun already low at 3:00 pm which caused fine shadows and a great plasticity in the structures below. my favourite is this jumble of roofs and chimneys, lined up along a curved street with market stalls deep down in the shadow.

the cupolas and towers of the churches of salzburg of course form a nice scenery for themselves, and especially from this high vantage point of the so called “stadtalm” they are arranged almost in layers. aah, and if i only could blog the taste of the beer up there…

found outside a soap shop in st. wolfgang, austria.

taken with the famous beercan (ofenrohr for german-speaking), and i had to learn holding it steady

abundant flowers (pelargonium) on this facade of an old house in St. Wolfgang, austria.