spring2life take2

Can’t help it: those fishermen on the ice of the Hintersee (a rare scenery in the Bavarian alps) made me immediately think of Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon in their famous movie.

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.

Despite of the frost the bramble leaves have kept a marvellous deep red, so deep that indeed I decided to turn down the saturation a bit in order to avoid an artificial ‘vivid’ look that was significantly enhanced by the warm sunrise light. The birch leaves did not need such treatment, their thick and meanwhile dry material does not glow to the same extent as the bramble’s do.

The various groups of birches, just at the border of the tarn and interspersed into the pines in the elevated areas form excellent graphical elements with their white bark. The morning hours were not really cold, especially not for november, but this year we have the warmest november since 35 years.

Oh, but don’t care – our elected and not so elected leaders won’t bother when meeting in Kopenhagen (at least most of them). The most important thing is this generation’s prosperity – which is only relative when 1/6th of the world’s most affluent state had to live in ‘food uncertainty’ in 2007.

Song of the day? ‘Oh what a wonderful world’. What else.

Update: try to see the pictures at least in 1024px height by clicking on them – the downscaling to the posted size lets vanish quite some details.

The time in the train I spent mostly for the wallpapers today. You can reach them through the top menu. I have created them in a variety of resolutions, so you should find a matching size. If not, use the contact page. If you like them, you could use the contact form as well.

Hunger is the best sauce – and that is definitely true on a hike in the mountains. The doughnuts – Auszogne in local terms – were kept warm in the wood-fired oven and served with powdered sugar. Delicious, I can tell you!

After a day full of small-small fuzz that left the feeling of having wasted too much time, I just had a short stroll with one of the daughters, the camera on tripod and an umbrella. It was a fine occasion for some father daughter talk, she was asking and I tried to come up with understandable explanations, trying to carefully correct half-understood things. Our path led to the inlet of an almost 120 year old power plant, which now has automatic scrapers. And interrupting the boredom of a walk in a beginning drizzle, those scrapers came to life, wonderfully enough in just the right speed for a 20s exposure that captured the movement of the arms in the perfectly still lake.

Just minutes before it had just looked like this. Seeing the father busy with his camera, my daughter supported me by holding the umbrella over us, a difficult task for an 8 year old who is not on the tall side. And I got the opportunity to talk about the way the images are captured in a camera, making it interesting enough and explaining why this image needs 20s exposure time. So for both (human) sides this walk ended satisfying, and for the camera as well.

A lively beer garden this place was, only a week ago, as we had the warmest october since the beginning of the weather records (climate change? or chance?). Now it’s a more melancholic view with the empty tables and the grey clouds touching the peaks already. In only four weeks, up there will be snow.

Addendum: For whatever reason, the picture embedded in the blog came out darker than the uploaded version. The latter you get as always in a lightbox when you click on the image.

My complaints that the perception of “Octoberfest equals Bavaria” is wrong of course deserves some evidence. OK – today I had the luck to experience it (again) and hopefully I can show you some convincing images.

Beginning of october is the time of the return of livestock from high alpine summer pastures vulgo ‘Almabtrieb’, and this is also the time for some small local festivities like the ‘Almfest’ (alpine pasture festival) that we had today at the ‘Harbachalm’ (here on google maps). A local traditional band was playing, no electricity and therefore no PA, only traditional tunes from the band, but also participation from the audience in form of vocals or interspersed songs accompagnied on a solo accordeon. The weather was fine, temperatures moderately high, the beer of the local brewery cold, the backlight demanding only for the photographer… Only the sanitary facilities were sub-standard, as my daughters complained. The OO-sign points to the respective appliance, consisting basically of a deep hole…

To avoid the impression that Bavaria is some kind of backward-oriented, old fashioned, dyed-in-the-wool conservative country (no, I don’t want to talk about the elections again), just have scrutinizing look at the image to the right: You see that guy in leather pants (Lederhosen) with the Oakley – replica? -  over his eyes? No, Bavaria can be really modern, with Laptop und Lederhosen, as one of our former prime minister had put it. And still some of us don’t forget the really god things from the good old days.

 

Real brass music and vocals belong to those things, preferably in a small, manageable setting. You may see yourself, the gallery with all the images can be found here.

Well, the laughter may be electric (so were the movements) but obviously it was not really electrifying. By now, you know for sure that I am not one of the great fans of the octoberfest, an attitude that certainly puts me into quite some distance of the fanatic pro-octoberfest statements like those on the Boston Globe (thanks to Martina for pointing this out).

I am, however, a bit concerned about the impression this event gives the world about Munich: beer abundant, drunk people in somewhat traditional clothing, and, on the back side of the medal, average 10 rapes/octoberfest (official, the dark figure is about 200) and probably 2000 police operations in those mad 16 days. Well, there is not only fun and hight times.

Usually the locals prefer the quieter hours, and in the afternoon you see families with young kids enjoying all the roundabouts, horse riding places and even a genuine flea circus. I have updated my gallery section with an Octoberfest section (Wies’n is the bavarian word for this event, originally meaning simply meadow).

Revolutions without fighting, bloodshed and destruction do have their merits, even 90+ years later: When the monarchy in Bavaria was abolished in 1918, the palaces, castles, gardens etc. became public property and in the course of the years became almost completely fully accessible for the public. Some of the most beautiful gardens now serve the promenaders and joggers and attract a huge crowd of visitors throughout the year. Buildings inside the parks are now transformed into restaurants where everybod
y enjoys the fine royal ambiente.

Last week my parents celebrated their golden wedding and invited family and friends into the Nymphenburg park’s restaurant in the former orangery. Busy with my camera I followed my family and got the opportunity to photograph them in a really royal scene
ry.

i guess is what the landscapist might label it, but i can’t help: this is part of bavarian pittoresque, like it or not. 10min by bike from my home, the farmers of “schleicherhof” accomodate guests and care for their fruit orchard and their horses. the farmhouse is situated at one of the most scenic points opposite the entrance of the valley to berchtesgaden, overlooking the meadows to grossgmain, a village already on the austrian side of the border.

only 2 steps left from the position where the lead shot was taken, the scenery to the right unfolds in front of the eye. probably this can be called ‘kitschig’, but at least i enjoyed the minutes up there, the talk with the farmer (well knowing the photogenic qualities of the orchard as well as the vista with the cross, “marterl” in local language), the smell of the blossoms the sounds of the bees within together with the warmth of the late afternoon sun. of course the cars from the valley could be heard, this is reality and not backdrop for a sentimental film.

a catkin and box bouquet like the one i showed in this post usually is put next to the cross in the living room or in the kitchen of the farmhouse, however big specimen of those (referring to probably pre-christian fertility rites) are traditionally put on the meadows for the easter week and later on may end up on the wall of the stable, like here.

kind of a retro mood for soft and unobtrusive colors caught me today. maybe one of the reasons are paul butzi’s post what makes you a photographer and paul lester’s the beauty of the everyday. for a balanced, full life, savouring the very moment without peering for the abnormal, extraordinary is a warranty for success. and to cherish these feelings, to appreciate those unspectacular moments, one of the best things to do that i know is taking a walk in the pre-alpine hills. even 15 minutes can suffice like in sunday’s visit to the hospital, where the nanny of our daughters is recovering after serious heart problems.

the light was soft, but i wanted to have an even softer impression so i carefully desaturated the reds of the roofs and only very minimally intensified the foreground grass a little bit. the picture meets the mood of this walk very well.

yesterdays visit to ainring provided some more photos. perhaps not so creative as it is just a picture of someone else’s art but this maybe is more a question of amour propre. those statues to the left and right of the baroque altar had something overwhelming for me – when i saw them on the monitor.

the church itself was open, but visitors are restricted to a very small place at the entrance, separated from the room by a heavy cast iron grid. a reasonnable reaction to the many thefts of objects of art in the 60s and 70s of last century. therefore i needed the camera as an extension of the eye to fully percieve the details of the statues and the altar.

water is always an interesting topic for me. todays trip to drop my daughter at a birthday party resulted in a walk along a small creek in Ainring, not far from home.

the rain had stopped only one hour ago, so the leaves were still glistening wet in the new sunlight.

bavaria still is one of the roman-catholic heartlands. no politician will stand a chance opposing the church – the green party at the moment has to learn this the hard way, it seems. this domination was in former times even a physical one, as you can see in this picture: the church really towering over a village of maybe 10² houses.

This image needed some more postprocessing: removing CA with gimp, adding saturation to the not so blue sky, incrementing local contrast etc. i am still amazed about the performance of this budget/lightweight/small tamron lens.

had a tremendous bathing day with the kids at thumsee next to bad reichenhall. Just opposite the beach through the leaves a now empty wooden house in the middle of the natural reserve area was visible, a nice target for a swim.

Processed this image with lightzone as most of my other pictures. unfortunately lightcrafts has still not released v3.0 for linux, there are only older versions still available for this platform under http://www-old.lightcrafts.com/linux/

trellis on a wall found in Laufen/Salzach (Germany)

sky over bavaria, originally uploaded by springm.

Picture processed with

Burning Sky over Munich, originally uploaded by springm.

Picture processed with