the axelmannstein hotel, where i found this abandoned showroom, had it’s high times in the 20th of last century. at that time, everybody who was rich and/or famous spent his/her time in this summer health resort, famous for the healing effects of the brine aerosols on the respiratory system. the tailors had their summer business…
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top court
today was city festival here in bad reichenhall, so a lot of people went around even in areas that are normally not open for the public – a good occasion for a seeing wanderer. on my ways i came to see the outside facilities of one of the oldest and most renowned hotels here, the…
spirea and hazel
contrary to the common beliefs (read the landscapist for details, especially the nonsense about ‘hue and saturation to the max’) what the ‘beautiful pictures crowd’ does, i was working with the saturation slider in negative direction. the forenoon light, evened out by some clouds, made the spirea glow, so i could reduce the corkscrew hazel…
weariness in vision and written
as always commuting into the city confronts me with urban sceneries very different from what i would prefer to have as my surroundings. but in contradiction to the gut feeling i know that this tension presumably keeps my senses active and vigilant. but that morning i found the weather as grey as my mood, matching…
car triptych
who invented the white-balance automatic? and who told me to leave it switched on? egad, sometimes i feel sympathy for mike johnston’s ‘the leica as a teacher idea. at least no whitebalance-automatic that, as every automatic, does as good as it can, but doesn’t help me thinking. and getting the balance manually, just by optical…
cascades and bluebells
in case you have difficulties to find the bluebells: better click on the image and see it large! trying to find the best compromise between sharp water droplets and the impression of fast moving water i did a small series with different exposure times, and 1/100s gave the best result. this was a bit astonishing…
moss, aruncus
having re-vitalized the rubber boots was the first step for enjoying the rain, and having learned to trust the weather sealing of the camera is the second and even more important one. usually i am quite concerned about my gear and don’t want to take a risk, but taking no photos at all because of…
vivid waters
the amount of rainwater we received in the last two weeks changed also the appearance of the small cascades that are tributaries of the ‘weissbach’, a creek in a canyon not far from home. a canyon walk in the summer is nice as you experience temperature and brightness differences, but at that time of the…
street encounter
the wet weather here in bavaria was not only in the headlines of the yellow press. even serious newspapers ask meteorologists for scientific explanations and/or longer-term forecasts – which are impossible to give for our geographic situation. the only reliable trends are for higher average temperatures, but this is not so surprising. and for local…
rainy days
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…
wet tin roof
the prospect is wet: meteorologists predict heavy rainfall for my hometown, up to 100mm within 24 hours, which means flooding of many secondary roads and potential damage to the railways, too. in the long term, i guess it’s better to get used to weather extremes as this might be the future: the climate change will…
3 + 1
real life kicking in can mean: coordinate reprojection utility has to be done before yesterday, printint utility does not work, car has to go to the workshop, kid 1 has to rehearse violin, kid 2 harp, kid 3 is unhappy with the maths test, wife away for a parent-teacher conference, the most urgent letter has…
vicinity
what an amount of books sofobomo yielded this year! i did go through only a small part up to now and already found quite a number of really precious, extraordinary ones. so on top of the personal success of having really created my book, analyzed in part what it meant to me and what it…
sofobomo: a victim of the selection process
nice synonym for the catch i sometimes find on my flash cards. but sometimes those emblematic empty bottles just hide their merits (or less sugarcoated: they have to wait for a more clear-sighted moment). carl weese hinted in a comment he made yesterday on the value of an archive and the necessity of a 2nd…
sofobomo 09: strengthening my vision
reviewing my selection process for the images to be included into the book, i made an interesting observation, for which today’s lead shot can serve as an example. during the first review of the pictures within days after their creation, i had a very different attitude towards their qualities. the image above came out only…
sofobomo 09: finished it is
finished. after some intensive hours my sofobomo 09 book is ready. it is available from the sofobomo website here: batticaloa fishermen. scribus proofed to be a reliable tool for this work, it can only be recommended. the resulting pdf is 7 mb for more than 40 images with 150dpi, so compression works reasonably well. plans…
hiding in the tree
another find from a stroll with the kids: a wonderful round tree shadow. the only difficulty was the photographer himself. i didn’t want to take a self portrait with tree, so after some difficulty i merged my shadow with that of the tree’s stem. oh yes, and the rarely used tamron 11-18 again performed well…
shadows on the wall, and power lines
the already familiar alleys of krk showed different aspects in the late afternoon soon, walking them together with the kids. the earlier visits i had paid to them early in the morning, when light and air were cooler and daily life was just starting. together with the family, working a scene was not possible –…
see the details
with only 3000 permanent inhabitants, the city of krk on the island of krk in croatia is really a small place. but wandering with open eyes again and again reveals beautiful details, those door handles among them, found on the church of sv. kvirin, the patron of krk. and i never before found such a…
krk beach
family holidays in krk mean spending quite some time on the beach, often without the camera. but when i finally took it with me and dug out my 11-18 lens, it was quite nice to make a wide beach scenery out of a nice small spot. guess it should qualify for the mindful eye’s assignment…
sofobomo status
using the evening hours for sofobomo work, i learn to master scribus more and more. it turns out that the first framework i had prepared did not make proper use of the templating functionalities, so modifying fonts and text colors turned out to be more tedious then necessary. as i prefer the systematic approach, i…
fully insured
to describe traffic in sri lanka along european criteria, there is just one word: insane. even for a seasoned driver, not shy of left-hand driving, it is so much better to have a careful sri lanka driver and a working seat belt. and when you have the lorry so close in front of you, it…
blue boat, blue bike
sometimes colors and forms just grab me and for moments i stop thinking about the stories behind. those occasions i do cherish, even more as they don’t happen too often to me. in these rare moments i can see beyond simple shapes. but they are rare. travelling to sri lanka, i had david duchemin’s new…
barrel door
a matching door for the fence blinds shown yesterday, this door is one of the rare cases where the recycling/upgrading path left the original structure well visible and self-contingent, not mixing in or adding other components. the fence, too, is a case of recycling: the net was beyond repair and unsuitable to catch fishes any…
metal structures, batticaloa, sri lanka
in sri lanka, plots are usually at least fenced with barbed wire. only the wealthy ones can afford real walls, often topped with bottle bottom fragments. To protect the owners from the curious views of the bypassers, the street side of the fences is usually equipped with blinds. traditionally they were made from palmyrah leaves,…