A lazy day at the lake and not much to photograph until I saw the wind play with the leaves of that japanese maple tree (acer japonica). Here in Europe they are quite popular in the gardens because of that wonderful red of their leaves even in the midst of summer. The image alone I…
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square architecture, munich
Strolling through the city last week seemed to get my optical receptors going. Both images were shot on the way to/from work. For an unknown reason it is much easier for me to set aside some 20 minutes from the way to the office, knowing that I have to stay longer, then to get up…
virtuoso violinist
The end of the school year regularly sees me at music school concertos. As the daughters decided to learn three different instruments, of course there are three events to visit, and yesterday it was the violin class. It was again a heart warming experience, because from the youngest up to the graduates across all levels…
Climate Change!! Yeah!!
I found this scribbling on a mobile phone advertisement poster in the train station in Munich. To be honest, my colleague found it, I just took the picture again with a short focal length and in a different angle. The slogan of the mobile phone company is “You are not on this world to be…
westend strip light
strange – some small areas turn out to be real photographic bounties whenever you walk through. the ‘westend’ is a quarter, formerly located at the western end of the city, but now quite near to the center, that was traditionally a lower-to-middle class quarter. some decades ago quite a number of immigrants mixed under the…
bokeh locomotive
these images, created while commuting in the rain, might have also fit martin storz’ always-take-the-weather project on his blog ‘the public eye’, but i decided to show them here as part of my bokeh mini-series. and for martin i will try to create a sunny weather image, given that we get such a thing in…
city bokeh, munich
since i bought my first dslr in 2005 i am lusting for a 1.4/85mm lens just to indulge in my passion for shallow dof and fine bokeh. for the minolta a-mount, taken over by sony without modifications, this lens is available in zeiss brand for a zeiss price and used in a variety of minolta…
travellers in upcoming storm
travelling home last week I was really p***ed: again the fast train from munich was late and the connecting train was gone when we arrived. such is the service of the deutsche bahn. my bad mood prevailed for quite some time, proportional to the non-facilities of the province railway station that freilassing is. it was…
city life
if you think ‘what a antagonism, yesterday traditional costumes and today such a urban scenery’ then you are right. but life in bavaria can be like this. my hometown with 18.000 inhabitants is just 2 train hours away from munich with its 1.3 millions, of which 30% have a migration background. and whilst i do…
marchin’ feet and costumes
in the course of such a long event there are enough occasions to concentrate on the details. the chokers i’ve shown some days ago would be worth a photo essay of their own, and so could be the marchin’ feet together with the lower parts of the costumes. those half socks, covering only the calfs,…
gamsbärt’ and real men
the ‘gamsbart’, literally chamois beard, is a tuft of chamois hair worn as a hat decoration. needless to say that the size of this thingie closely correlates with the wealth and influence of its owner. it is definitely *not* made of the hair of a beard as chamois don’t have one, unlike goats, but from…
brass bands marching
bavaria generally and the traditional mountain costume associations (what a monster expression, we just say ‘trachtler’) especially are inseparably connected with brass music. only at indoor events, we call it ‘hoagascht’, guitar, zither and hammer dulcimer replace the wind instruments. clear shapes and reflections of course make those brass units very photogenic. musically the bands…
chokers
the translation of ‘kropfband’ – the traditional necklace these women are wearing – as choker made me mistrust the various online dictionaries, as in my ears this sounds a bit weird. but as they all agree, who am i to dissent. focusing on the chokers proofed to be difficult when the groups were marching, so…
eagle downs galore
in the course of the festivities of the 850th anniversary of bad reichenhall as a city (it was a camp already at roman times) today we had the “gaufest” of the traditional mountain costumes association. the started at 6:00 in the morning with silver salute, which was resumed for probably 45 minutes after church had…
worldwide photowalk in bad reichenhall
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,…
2nd worldwide photowalk
tomorrow is the second annual world wide photo walk. i do highly regard such events as opportunities to meet and see different styles of photographing, different styles of seeing and getting new ideas. as there was no photowalk organised in or near my hometown, i decided to lead one myself. it will be a small…
sofobomo ‘batticaloa fishermen’ as blurb book
yesterday i received the printed version of my sofobomo book from print. i had been really curious about the quality, especially the rendering of the difficult, so i thought, darker regions. in this respect there is hardly a fault to find. problems however arise in two other aspects: colors, especially red and blue, come out…
climb aboard, please
this photo i took already in june, but only now, reading hans-michael koetzle’s “photo icons” and the chapter about louis jacques mande daguerre’s image “boulevard du temple” (1838) i noticed the stunning similarity in the poses. you can find a reproduction of this image on the website of timm starl.
salzachöfen dome
indulging my passion for canyons, i arranged the last family excursion to target to of the smaller canyons of salzach tributaries. unfortunately i did not pay attention to the lack directions, and arriving there it turned out that this canyon for the lack of a footpath was only accessible with ladders and climbing gear. and…
1843
taking the camera always with me has become a habit since quite some time. it helps me to get into that feeling where the images come to me and i do not have to fuzz too much about photographing but can merely react and cut out that noteworthy slice of time. but i still cannot…
portraying the che
please don’t think that i am getting cocky because i post two self-portraits in a row – these are 2 out of maybe 5 self-portraits i tried over several years. when i saw this rare bill of a socialist/marxist group in munich (there aren’t many of them left) i knew i wanted to do something…
photographer and daughters
Salzburg, House of Nature 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…
a blue bike for andreas
over at his blog andreas manessinger showcases his one-image-a-day post number one-thousand! my heartfelt congratulations for the many excellent images he showed, his extraordinary perseverance, and not least his communicative skills. andreas’ blog was the first blog i followed regularly when i started blogging myself. and in the beginning it were largely his encouraging and…
le figaro
the way home from office in munich invariably leads my steps along a hairdresser’s shop on one of the main roads, and the light and reflections as well as the colors are always interesting. this window was already subject matter for this post, but this time i caught the barber in action.
spirea and grass
it was time to revive my old acquaintance with black and white again. the spirea in the garden made up for a very patient subject matter, and the setting sun provided me with lovely backlight. removing the color information at first seemed a bit disappointing because the impression of the complementary contrast of pink and…