dark corner

March 12, 2013 in 50, architecture, b+w, building, corridor, darkness, facility, grain, mood, nex 7, night, old photo, ruin, sel, shadow, sony, street, townscape, trip, urban, wall, window, portugal, lisbon

at the moment i prepare for my trip to berlin next week. needless to say that besides the actual planning of the main - the day - activities, what is, of course, the most important and time-consuming issue of preparation this week, i already long for the dark side of berlin in my spare time.

let's see how many of the daily 24 hours will be left for wandering about the townscape. till then i delight in a so far not shown street shot from the dark suburbs of lisbon.

1008 - blurry flashback

August 10, 2012 in 50, architecture, b+w, cobble, fountain, lisbon, monument, nex 7, night, pattern, people, portugal, sel, sight, sony, square, street, street lamp, townscape, urban

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f2.0 | ISO400 | 1/80 | lightroom 4.1

today in the morning all my beloved ones left me: marv and tina's mum had to depart to stuttgart for a wedding ceremony of a relative of volker, who is tina's mum's life partner. tina had to go to work, she is currently on duty. and nila was straying.

so what should i do on a lonely day off? all transactions were already transacted and all tasks fulfilled. but today i couldn't motivate myself to do anything beautiful (till the evening) and fell into a sort of limbo. well, i vegged out under the sun umbrella in the yard and went through the pictures of our last trip to portugal. fortunately my mood was lifted by viewing the images of this great trip and i braced myself up and set on the bike to ride to the lake and swim some minutes.

the really remarkable point of today was the flashback i had when i was investigating the pic of today's posting. the rossio square in lisbon is in my opinion one of the most beautiful urban places that i've seen in portugal. both at daytime when tina and i read our books under the slightly splashing water of the fountain and at night when we strolled about the square, this place appeared as a very inspiring surrounding. it has been the setting of celebrations, revolts and executions and today it's a preferred meeting place of locals and tourists. in addition to that the great architecture with the curved pavement patterns, the wonderful fountains and the monumental buildings at the edges of the square cap it all off.

cu, trshptr

1307 - outstretched tongue

July 14, 2012 in 30, b+w, decay, eyes, face, lisbon, mood, nex 7, pattern, people, poor man, portrait, portugal, sigma, sony, street, suburb, tongue, tramp, urban

setup: sony nex 7 with sigma 30 f2.8 ex dn | 30mm | f4.0 | ISO100 | 1/320 | lightroom 4.1

friday, the 13th. time for a recapitulation of my portugal trip. time to review the top 100 of images and also time to show some more of these pics. pictures of the tough reality at our beloved holiday destinations.

i have shot a similar image of a tramp in constance, germany, some weeks ago. poverty doesn't stop at borders and cares little about nationality.

cu, trshptr

0707 - depth

July 08, 2012 in 50, architecture, b+w, bokeh, bollards, cobble, grain, grey, lisbon, nex 7, pattern, portugal, sel, shadow, sony, street, suburb, texture, townscape, urban

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f2.0 | ISO100 | 1/4000 | lightroom 4.1

unfortunately vacations seem to end always in the high of the personal emotions. just when we felt comfortable with the whole surroundings in lisbon, we sadly had to depart to faro to catch our flight to memmingen.

summarising can be said that the south of portugal is also definitely worth a journey or a even longer trip in vacations. thereby both the southern region around the algarve and the north around porto have their special issues and pros and cons: as i had supposed the southern landscape is more rocky and touristic than the rest of portugal, on the other hand the north-south shore of the north is more suited for surfing.

the duel between the cities porto and lisbon ends up in a tie: both cities are located at the atlantic coast and at the mouth of a big river. both profit from the maritime influence of the seafaring, the fishing and a dozens of thousands of seagulls. porto convinces with its naturalness and unobtrusiveness, whereas lisbon scores with its variety and a great nightlife. i think i'm going to see over both of them during the next years surf trips again.

a special detail of lisbon's townscape are its streets: cobbled streets and steep descent make your life a living hell if you are old and it teems down so that the cobblestones become slippery. what appears for the visitors as an eye candy, discommodes the lives of the local citizens. good if you can move hand over hand along a dozens of bollards.

0607 - pulling the strings

July 06, 2012 in 50, architecture, art, b+w, contrast, lisbon, nex 7, pattern, portugal, public transport, sel, sky, sony, spider, street, townscape, tram, urban, web, wire

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f2.0 | ISO100 | 1/4000 | lightroom 4.1

the tram of lisbon is world-famous. the "carros eléctricos de lisboa" are operated by electricity already since 1901. due to the partially historic transport fleet and the interesting routing across the hilly townscape of lisbon the tram is very popular with the tourists.

besides the obvious points of the tram as a wonderful infrastructural feature of lisbon it attracted my attention with its spiderweb of contact wires that is pulled across the whole city centre and in that way indirectly influences the townscape. in spots only one ring sticks a lot of wires together. amazing thing!

cu, trshptr

0507 - lisbon's jewel

July 06, 2012 in 30, architecture, bench, blue, cathedral, ceiling, church, colour, corridor, igreja de são roque, light, lisbon, memorial, monument, nex 7, portugal, sight, sigma, sony, symmetry

setup: sony nex 7 with sigma 30 f2.8 ex dn | 30mm | f3.2 | ISO640 | 1/60 | lightroom 4.1

tina and i usually drift through foreign cities. of course, a minimum of preparation in advance is mandatory, but the most beautiful places always find you, not the other way round. on our way to the independente hostel of our new (world class!) canadian friends we discovered one of the prettiest monuments of lisbon by pure chance.

the church igreja de são roque is located in lisbon's historical district bairro alto and known as the jewel among the churches of lisbon. it is one of the most splendid churches in portugal. you can find a huge article about this monument on wikipedia (link) in which all its details are really well described.

the importance of this church is mainly based on the chapel of são joão baptista that you should definitely see over if you are going to visit the church at some point. igreja de são roqu is a relic of the portuguese renaissance, which has survived the vicissitudes of all centuries. it is an important mosaic of the former splendour of the mercantile and seafaring town of lisbon before the earthquake of 1755.

cu, trshptr

0407 - arco da rua augusta

July 05, 2012 in 50, architecture, art, ceiling, facility, lisbon, memorial, minimalistic, monument, nex 7, night, partial coloured, pattern, portugal, rua augusta arch, sel, sight, sony, still life, urban

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f2.8 | ISO200 | 1/20 | lightroom 4.1

for a beginner like me it isn't that easy to develop a different view on the common and sometimes most photocopied scenes of the world. there is a repugnancy: you want to attract the viewer but you don not want to bore him with well known images. for lisbon i especially set my sights on keeping the number of pictures within a limit and additionally i want to try to avoid pictures that in this way were shot already thousand times before.

let's get started with a view of the ceiling of the arco da rua augusta. it is a triumphal arch-like, historical building and visitor attraction on commerce square, built to commemorate the city's reconstruction after the 1755 earthquake. it has six columns (some 11m high) and is adorned with statues of various historical figures. originally designed as a bell tower, the building ultimately transformed into elaborate arch within more than century-long delays (source).

cu, trshptr

0307 - sea level from above

July 05, 2012 in 30, b+w, beach, coast, fun, grey, lagos, landscape, minimalistic, nature, nex 7, people, portugal, rest, sea, shore, sigma, sony, summer, wave

setup: sony nex 7 with sigma 30 f2.8 ex dn | 30mm | f8.0 | ISO100 | 1/800 | lightroom 4.1

before we leave the algarve towards lisbon besides surfing a bit of landscape exploration had to be done, too. after we visited the north of portugal with the regions around porto, aveiro, figueira da foz and peniche whilst the second of our last year's surf trips with their long and flat beaches for this year we expected a rocky and mountainous shore and more clayey soil.

and we weren't disappointed by the south of portugal: along the seaside we were walking for round about three hours from porto de mos to dona ana. it was a constant up and down with the view of beautiful postcard pictures.

despite everything i was especially taken with the special angle of the view on the things on the sea level. it was a bit like flying over the shore and observing the activities from this special position.

cu, trshptr

0207 - parallel running

July 03, 2012 in 50, art, b+w, bruno guerreiro, contrast, eyes, face, glass, lagos, light, nex 7, night, pattern, people, portrait, portugal, sel, shadow, sony, street

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f2.8 | ISO1250 | 1/80 | lightroom 4.1

many things in life run parallel. love and hate, black and white and also things that aren't that contrasting like occupation and vocation. not everybody is able to unify occupation and vocation. a great many people only work to earn the necessary amount of money to ensure the life standard and actually fulfil their selves in spare time with any hobbies.

by pure chance i met bruno guerreiro, a portuguese photographer, in the historic town of lagos today in the evening. he approached me because of my camera equipment and in so doing we got into conversation about photography and anything else. he's going to exhibit some stuff in the cultural centre of lagos starting in the middle of july. i entrust a visit of his exhibition to everybody who lives or is currently for holidays in portugal: http://brunoguerreirophotography.pt.vu

like the great many people i spoke about in the first paragraph he is also not able to earn his bread and butter with his photography but it is his passion and his heart is really in it. it was really nice meeting you, bruno!

cu, trshptr

0107 - flagged

July 03, 2012 in 50, architecture, art, colour, flag, lagos, light, nex 7, night, pattern, portugal, red, reflection, sel, sony, stairs, street, texture, townscape, urban

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f2.0 | ISO400 | 1/20 | lightroom 4.1

till wednesday everything revolves about surfing. so at present there is hardly time for other activities because after three hours of surfing you are simply dead.

after a restful sleep of minimum six to seven hours you have to breakfast extensively to accumulate an adequate amount of energy for the first lesson. after the transfer to the surf sport monte clérigo near aljezur at the west coast you complete your equipment and before the action restarts in earnest. three hours of surfing that are divided by a break of round about one hour for lunch.

in the evening we are completely starved and exhausted so much that after another extensive meal in the historic town of lagos in the most cases the next way leads us directly into bed. anyhow one or another photo opportunity falls to me. probably i'm going to zero in on photography in lisbon again.

cu, trshptr