spring2life take2

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.

Not only the windtalkers were specialists in unbreakable code, in a certain way all generations have developed their own codex, much to the annoyance of the elders, who did not understand a single word of this language. So this day marks a birthday: I stood before this sticker and no clue at all what it could mean. At least I did not remain stupid, thanks to my mighty friends, the search engines. And to reveal the secret: the “rude girls” is a local series of drum/bass events, featuring djanes and promoting female artists in that scene. Now you know. Me, I prefer that photography to the real music, probably.

The locomotive driver probably did not share my adventurous feelings regarding a trip to Rome – and I guess he had to go up to the border to Austria only anyhow. Different perspectives everywhere, and differentiate I did also (again) with a big f-stop, and afterwards in postprocessing by working on that cold-warm contrast as well.

From the number of keepers within that week that I own this lens now it seems that this purchase was a good decision. That (slow zoom lens induced) lack of shallow DoF is the only drawback I see at the moment with my APS-C format camera. But with the right prime it is not an issue any more. That I get high shutter speeds even in the darker times of the day is another benefit, albeit a smaller one when taking that great high-iso performance of the current camera generation into account. Oh – I have to say yesterday’s camera generation, as my model is already 2 years old – an eon in today’s camera makers fast development rhythm.

After a long dry period now autumn rain calls the shots. Here in Bad Reichenhall lmost all fountains are switched off and covered by now, with the ones in the spa gardens as lonely exception. But the water doesn’t spray in the fountain any more, instead cold raindrops make strolling a different experience.

The gold of the maple leaves slowly starts to fade, and sometimes it seems as if this cold and this humidity, that reinforces the felt coldness, also affects the passers-by – head between shoulders, viewing straight ahead now everybody tries to minimize the time she spends outside of buildings. Winter doesn’t seem to be far anymore.

Found in the pedestrian area. Due to the (usually) moderate climate, sycamore trees grow to large sizes here in Bad Reichenhall.

A climate change we have for sure, just no local warming, at least not for the moment: 9 days ago sweating in +25°C (which is 77°F) and now the rain is mixed with snowflakes already. But I do accept it, in spite of photography getting different if not more difficult with the receding light. And as today’s image clearly shows, this kid doesn’t mind as well.

I was so busy with that small scenery of grass and lake in almost complete darkness, hiding under a large umbrella held by my tip-toeing daughter, that I did not look up to the mountain and the clouds on the other side of the lake until the kid’s voice told me something about a strange light in the sky. With the clouds moving fast, this mystery soon was resolved: the mountain top hotel of Mt Predigtstuhl, were the world’s oldest large-cabin funicular drops passengers since the year 1928. But in the moving clouds one could have thought that a spaceship was looking for a place to land.

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.

our photowalk was a wet affair, but spirits were high. after 2 hours in all sorts of rain from drizzle to downpour the small group met in a local inn for hot drinks and a first review. in spite of the unfriendly weather we all had lots of fun, photographing or watching.

the saalach river, full with water from the rainfalls of the last days, provided a more dramatic scenery than the quiet grey and green landscape or the not-so-populated alleys.

an improvised slideshow immediately after collecting most of the images was the final part of an excursion that all of the participants want to repeat the nextx year

the rainy weather continues, but, having adapted to it at least photographically (and anyway sitting in the office during the day) i do not mind that much any more.

even here, from the train window, the rain has it’s merits. and i would definitely not like to swap seat with those drivers that are speeding through the rain.

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