spring2life take2

Piding, Bavaria

Piding, Bavaria

Among the 5000+ inhabitants of the village of Piding there must be at least one avid smoker. Maybe not the worst way to gain equilibrium in grey, cold winter hours.

Once again I was taking advantage of my daughter’s musical education: Acting as a driver for her rehearsal purposes, I walked my camera and used the blue evening light to train vision and lens.

Bad Reichenhall, Bavaria

Bad Reichenhall, Bavaria

Moving a bit away from the window theme I was pursuing in my posts lately, this image was a gift of today’s snowfall. Later in the afternoon we had rain again, providing us with abundant grey slush. Not my kind of weather now, but I was prudent enough to sample some snow images when occasion was there.

Bad Reichenhall, Bavaria

Bad Reichenhall, Bavaria

Bad Reichenhall, Bavaria

Bad Reichenhall, Bavaria

Bad Reichenhall, Bavaria

Bad Reichenhall, Bavaria

No, the kings were not fleeing. They headed through inclement weather to the cathedral for the final mass after their mission – singing, frankincensing and inscribing C + M + B on the browpieces – collecting donations for people in need.

Bad Reichenhall, Bavaria

Bad Reichenhall, Bavaria

Bad Reichenhall, Bavaria

Bad Reichenhall, Bavaria

Enthusiastic business hopes quite often founder here, leaving empty shop windows sometimes even in prime locations. Here the leaves in the pedestrian area seem to have extended right into the shop.

Bad Reichenhall, Germany

Hochschwarzeck, Bavaria

Preising, Bavaria

Hochschwarzeck, Bavaria

This goes with special regards to Chris, who stated that he doesn’t “trust air that I can’t see”. Enjoy and download as usual from here.

Hochschwarzeck, Bavaria

No danger for Dr. Faustus here, as lingering (by car) is forbidden.

Preising, Bavaria

Some weeks ago, we had a typical grey and misty November weather. I enjoyed it in spite of the cold fingers when dealing with the camera.

Bad Reichenhall, Bavaria

In this deeply Catholic country, the Buddha’s eyes on a facade are still unusual.

Bad Reichenhall, Germany – click the image to see a larger version

Update: Corrected the spelling of the title thanks to the hint from Tyler.

Bad Reichenhall, Bavaria

First of all: Thanks to all of your for encouraging words re. my epic failure in a competition. Of course my disappointmant was big at first, but meanwhile I am over it. I guess my images and the expectations of the jury were just in some parallel worlds – no meeting possible. As it’s now almost 01:00 in the morning I’ve postponed further responses to your comments until tomorrow, instead I found one image of a friendly fall landscape, taken last week only. For November, where cold and dreary and sometimes even snowy weather is to be expected, this pastoral scene looks almost too friendly, too inviting. But I enjoyed the warm weather and golden light, knowing that it’s only a question of time until the cold time will come and stay for long and dark weeks.

Hochschwarzeck, Bavaria

Hochschwarzeck, Bavaria

Hochschwarzeck, Bavaria

An artless image probably, but for me the art is in the creation. Have a good weekend everybody!

Bad Reichenhall, Bavaria

Bad Reichenhall, Bavaria

Bad Reichenhall, Bavaria

Bad Reichenhall, Bavaria

Bad Reichenhall, Bavaria

Found in the Spa Center. Some more ‘Brr’ for Martina. And congratulations to Carl Weese for his post No. 2500, which he celebrated with a wonderful quiet, beautiful instead of pretty image. That’s what I call real perseverance.

Bad Reichenhall, Bavaria

Steinhögl, Bavaria

Bad Reichenhall, Bavaria

Bad Reichenhall, Bavaria

Taking up Juha’s recommendation on yesterday’s post, here is squareness presented in square format. You find assembled a good deal of the necessary ingredients for solid square enjoyment: freshly brushed tar, neatly trimmed bushes in cast-concrete pots, a high and opaque fence and last but not least the silver Benz…

Using the square format without a square viewfinder is possible, at least with non-moving subjects, and so I continue to use my familiar DSLR. Skimming the web for information about alternative cameras, I had to learn that 6:6 is superior to 1:1, at least it has to be, otherwise Olympus wouldn’t denote the square format as 6:6 in their data sheets – but well, maybe this is just another twist in their (former) management’s attempt to hide facts. Who knows?

The new Sony A77 however does offer neither 6:6 nor 1:1 aspect ratios, a fact that I can’t understand, as it would have been extremely simple to implement with an exclusive electronic viewfinder. Without that, the camera looses quite some attractivity for me, additionally to the 24 MP image size that I do not need yet and that only would slow down my workflow and flood my harddisks.

Bad Reichenhall, Bavaria

Re-thinking what is typical for my hometown, I came to the conclusion that cleanliness, probably even squareness, and the 99% complete absence of disorder is one of the characteristic of this place. Certainly worth deeper inspection.

Westend, Munich

On the brink of gentrification, the Westend in Munich is one of the old quarters, traditionally home of workers and craftsmen, now to be taken over by business school graduates and the like. The still mixed indigenious population – many Turkish people live here, you get Halal food on every corner – recedes slowly with rising rents for the flats and the advance of stylish cafés.

Adlgaß, Bavaria

Adlgaß, Bavaria

Adlgaß, Bavaria

Frillensee is Germany’s coldest lake, and we are lucky that it did not fell prey to a ice rink planning already decades ago.

On another topic: This was not the only image I had set hopes in, but the only one where the lens was fully shaded by some trees. As I had neglected to clean the front glass from dust, three well composed images are just pixel trash due to dust and sunlight forming large bright spots. Note to self: take more care of the gear…

Bad Reichenhall, Bavaria

Marquartstein, Bavaria

Hammerau, Bavaria

I hope that not too many of you have suffered from the technical issues this blog had in the last days. Today the account got moved by the truly responsive Hosting24 service crew to a new datacenter, it seems at least to me that load times are considerable shorter now. Additionally I have tried to distribute the load by using the Cloudflare caching and content distribution network services. The latter doesn’t seem to be without side-effects though, at least Martina has seen a number of error screens. I have meanwhile tuned down the cloudflare settings quite a bit, but I depend on your, the visitors from allover this planet, feedback to learn if the blogs behaviour and speed are acceptable or if there are continuing errors. For this I have created the email address blogerror@markus-spring.info, which I kindly ask you to use for positive or negative feedback on the blog performance. Thanks.

Thumsee, Bavaria

Hammerau, Bavaria

Noticed and framed during one of my prime-expeditions earlier this year, with a borrowed Minolta 1.7/50mm. Too long for an allround lens on APS-C, it is well suited to concentrate on the subject and cut off distracting elements.

Bad Reichenhall, Bavaria

Thumsee, Bavaria

Just some shapes and colors for today, which found during our last bathing excursion to Thumsee (already quite cold it is, with autumn so near). I had brought the old Minolta 1.4/85mm lens, which I love very much for the soft transition into the unsharp, also in this image. Despite being something purely technical, I love that play with sharpness in photography very much. I think this is unique for this visual art, not available in painting or drawing. And it can give very pleasing effects, like here, where I did not open the diaphragm to the maximum to get a subdued effect.

Thumsee, Bavaria

Thumsee, Bavaria

Krk, Croatia

Not that the LX3 would be *the* camera I chose for low-light work, but it is possible. I truly despise public relation monsters like the MEGA O.I.S. name that Panasonic gave the image stabilisation mechanism, but I have to state that it works: a quarter of a second handheld yielding in sufficient sharpness for sure is fine.

Munich, Bavaria

This truck delivered plaster just opposite my office window. The inscription struck me as somewhat dissonant, and after some consideration I discovered why: .com is for commercial enterprises. “Gott kennen”, knowing God is, well, not really commercial, at least not here in Europe. I’d even dare to say that there is a certain antagonism, just thinking of the traders in the temple.

But then, if they signed not to vote in favour of any tax increase, maybe they think they have made a good deal with God?

Hammerau, Bavaria

Update: Following a conversation with Carl Weese, I created a new version of the first image, removing partially the color cast in the first image. To the right is the version posted originally, for comparison.

Only one day later, commuting home, the scenery had changed completely, when rain had washed away all romantic assets.

Piding, Bavaria

Spa Garden, Bad Reichenhall

This special kind of traditional socks is called “Stutzen” in Bavarian dialect. Seen at the Traditional Music Festival in my hometown.

Spa Garden, Bad Reichenhall

On a July Sunday, almost 200 young folk musicians met in the Spa Garden of my hometown for several sessions. Each set of performers, single or group, was guided and moderated by an experienced adult, who explained the music to the listeners and motivated the musicians. Not only a great variety of styles and skills, but especially a lot of joy for musicians and the auditorium.

It’s a bit like in photography: whilst consuming can be fun, participating is even more interesting.

Krk, Croatia

Konzum parking, Krk

Waiting for the shoppers to return, I tried some framings including the mirror, when suddenly the view changed and the lady’s silhouette added some “drama”. Basically Carl Weese’s recipe: Having an image 90% ready and wait for something that comes and completes the composition.

Bus Workshop, Krk

Different kind of square here, only in the windows. But as I wanted to capture the play of light as well as those two tubes, the classic Leica 3:2 aspect ratio was suitable here.

Bad Reichenhall, Bavaria

Aufham, Bavaria

Aufham, Bavaria

Despite the recently acquired LX3 I still do enjoy my SLR, like here with a long focal length. The two cameras instill different ways of photography, sometimes enforce them due to their limitations (namely composing on a display instead of a viewfinder, especially in bright light), but it’s not that one could rule out the other. And they both inspire me to look and to try and to see. What better could I say?

Forstamtsstrasse, Bad Reichenhall

Bad Reichenhall, Bavaria

Bad Reichenhall, Bavaria

Bad Reichenhall, Bavaria

Bad Reichenhall, Bavaria

I almost killed my DSLR yesterday. I had left it on the table under the office window when an evening thunderstorm brought so much rain that the lightwell outside the window filled with dammed up rainwater that the sewerage system could not drain any more. So the water pressed through the window sealings and – I discovered it only minutes before it would have reached the camera. Narrow escape…

Bad Reichenhall, Bavaria

All my sympathy is with the people of Joplin, Missouri.

Town Hall Square, Bad Reichenhall

Behind the train station, Bad Reichenhall

And, for a given reason, it was taken with a Leica Lens!

Old Saline, Bad Reichenhall

Update: I replaced the image with a newer version that I prepared for printing: keystoned horizontals, some vignetting to take emphasis from the corners. In my eyes it works even better.

Bad Reichenhall, Bavaria

Bad Reichenhall, Bavaria

Bad Reichenhall, Bavaria

Thumsee, Bad Reichenhall

This is the first line of a poet of Friedrich von Schiller, one of Germany’s greatest poets, living from 1759 to 1805. Unfortunately I could not find a complete translation of the poem in the web, but I am sure it must be somewhere.

Thumseebad, Bad Reichenhall

Thumsee, Bavaria

The weather was friendly, however with gusts of cold, continental winds, the water magic blue-green, almost inviting. Yes. One person dared to swim, but only one. No wonder, the water was 13° C/55.6 °F

Old Spa Hall, Bad Reichenhall

Spa Gardens, Bad Reichenhall

Bad Reichenhall, Bavaria

Sparkasse, Bad Reichenhall

Just opposite the New Spa Center is the Municipal Savings Bank, which throughout Bavaria, maybe even Germany, has a renommée for not always lucky architectonic choices.

New Spa Center, Bad Reichenhall

New Spa Center, Bad Reichenhall

Poststrasse, Bad Reichenhall

Bad Reichenhall, Bavaria

Grossgmain, Austria

While static subject matter is no challenge for a tiny camera, moving subject is. In order to avoid exceeding stress, I worked the camera at the set-up festival for the maypole in Grossgmain, an Austrian village in the neighborhood. Unless I’ve learned some more tricks, sceneries like that are challenging the photographer (aka me) more than the camera. The good thing with that short maximum focal length is, that I had to foot-zoom right into the scenery to fill the frame, always remembering Capa: “”If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough”.

Streitbichl, Bavaria

One of the reasons to enjoy life: It’s beautiful in my hometown. This image was taken on a stroll, barely 10 minutes from our flat. Photographically one could argue if there is enough detail in the shadows, but I decided against some technical surgeries for the simple reason that, observing the sky and the clouds, I did not see too much minutiae in the trees, and I wanted to render it as it was, leaving it dark and not having to crank up saturation to reanimate a brighter image. Enjoy!

Thumsee, Bavaria

Another signboard, this one for a less orderly reason.

Hotel Axelmannstein, Bad Reichenhall

For sure, Germany doesn’t suffer from a scarcity of “Es ist verboten/It is forbidden” signs. Reassuring to see that even these decay, loose their strictness and their statement, and nothing remains than an empty frame.

Florianiplatz, Bad Reichenhall

Marzoll, Bad Reichenhall

The title of this post actually is a a Bavarian pun: “she has wood in front of the cabin” is the local way of describing a well endowed lady. But so much literal wood in front of a farm house I haven’t seen before. But maybe in Kansas…

Florianiplatz, Bad Reichenhall

Thumsee, Bad Reichenhall

Bad Reichenhall, Bavaria

Bad Reichenhall, Bavaria

Bad Reichenhall, Bavaria

Karlstein, Bad Reichenhall

Staffabruck, Bad Reichenhall

Today was the first really warm spring day with temperatures above 20° C (68° F) which means an explosive developement of the vegetation – my nose feels this earlier than it becomes visible. Anyhow, the soft light around sunset was inviting enough for a walk, where this tree saw me, maybe 150m from home.

It may serve also as an illustration for a topic that was recently discussed on the Landscapist’s blog: the question of color accuracy. The software I use for raw conversion, bibble5, offers several basic color characteristics, on which one can base the treatment of each image. For me the ‘product reduced’ way is in most cases the profile to start with, while the ‘product’ profile (to the right) starts with a clearly higher saturation, but still within the correct range, according to my memory.

Much more than the question of accuracy I ask the question of purpose. In this image, the subtle grace, the fine patterns and textures of the bark on the stem, all get supported by choosing the variant with the lower saturation. It could well be that the color in the sample to the right is more correct, for example I did not pay attention to the color of the junctions between stem and branches, but from my gut’s feeling, the impression of the big image comes closer to what resonated within me when making this image. Color accuracy here certainly is of secondary importance.

Sometimes images don’t get recognized immediately. After downloading it from the memory card, it got buried in the todo-pile, and it took quite a while until I unearthed it. Only when playing around with the overall contrast and the rendering of the textures – there’s still some headroom – I noticed small details that finally made me decide in favor of the image.

Other than pursuing my photography hobby, I am holding my breath and clenching my teeth watching the events in Fukushima as well as Libya. Whilst in the first case it seems to be much easier to pinpoint the sequenc