in search of the remnants of the prosperous times of my hometown – we are going to celebrate 850th birthday as a town this year – i am consequently strolling through the older quarters here. the different balcony grids grabbed my attention. whilst most of the old-style attice windows have been replaced by the better insulated and easier-to-clean one pane windows, some of the old balconies have survived without many modifications.
even on one of the houses that have been completely gutted during renovation, they re-attached the completely renovated grids. protection by-law of the cultural heritage does really help here, and savvy architects manage to balance it’s necessities with the functionality of the building. the only following injustice is that the owner bears the biggest part of the higher costs whilst the public enjoys the results. but this is covered up by our constitution, stating that ‘property entails obligations’.
just wondering where this is brought into application in the current financial disaster. but i’m disgressing.
beautiful details..
I often roam through your and my hometown but I must admit that I have big problems finding things that are – in my opinion and for my kind of style – worth to be photographed. I think the reason for this is that everything seems to be so familiar and known and this influences the photographic view in a negative way. So I appreciate your pictures very much, Markus.
Johannes, I know this problem finding pictures in the familiar enviroment you are describing. For quite some time I rated photographing in Sri Lanka, China or elsewhere as much simpler – and the stimulating effect of the new is still alive.
Two thoughts made me intensify my search for pictures in daily situations:
1. Reversing my perspective to those of the viewers of my pictures made me admit that for them Bad Reichenhall is interesting as it is unusual because it is far away from their daily life. So searching for the beautiful and interesting here does make sense even under the ‘materialistic’ aspect of attracting visitors.
2. Overcoming my own habit of getting stimulated by the unknown multiplies the situations where pictures emerge. I have got motivated quite a lot from http://workingpictures.blogspot.com and http://ora2.blogspot.com and now try even more intensively to open my eyes and see and train my eye for graphically appealing situations.