2306 - torture ship

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f3.2 | ISO100 | 1/320 | lightroom 4.1

tolerance is a quality you have to work hard for. it seems to me that not everybody achieves this goal. today at the boarding to the fetish party on the so called torture ship where i sensed some interesting photo objects i again became aware of the parochialism of the people in germany. i had to hear dialogues like "yuck! despicable! but we watch them every year." and "kinkier!".

i don't want to live in a country where the people are insincere and mindless like that. the basic question that arises is who is perverse? the people before or the people behind the barrier?

cu, trshptr

2206 - dead of night

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f1.8 | ISO800 | 1/40 | lightroom 4.1

after the easy win of germany over greece what we had watched at a huge public viewing event in ravensburg and a few drinks in a rather chilly bar we came home late in the night. despite a few suitable shots from the evening event that were already resting on my sd card i was still searching for one special opportunity for the daily pic - the in my opinion most beautiful house in my home village.

actually i have this night shot in my mind already since dozens of days but until today a boring-as-sin-housewife-volvo was parked in front of the more than 300 years old timber-framed house every night what would have distracted from the core of my image.

cu, trshptr

2106 - oasis of carelessness

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f8.0 | ISO320 | 1/80 | +0,7ev | lightroom 4.1



setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f8.0 | ISO1600 | 1/60 | lightroom 4.1

the 100th post. wow, amazing, how the time goes by. as intended i learn day by day and have a lot of fun while using the sony. my current three lenses have established in the usage with the nex: most of the time the sigma 30f2.8 is mounted, for special uses i have the sel 50f1.8 and if technical picture quality doesn't matter the fujian 35f1.7 is my first choice, especially for dreamy portraits.

today was the date of departure, what means that we had to leave our oasis of carelessness and relaxation in the alps and return to real life. if you had a view from the terrace of your cottage as shown in the two photos of this posting, you would possibly think twice about your impending departure.

but of course you don't want to leave your lovely waiting.

cu, trshptr

2006 - royal lake

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f8.0 | ISO100 | 1/125 | lightroom 4.1

as you would expect our nature oriented training day became an idyllic one. the koenigssee, what proverbially would be royal lake or lake of the kings in english, is a very pretty place in germany and recommendable for everybody who has a thing for the landscape of for example norway or canada.

apparently there was no way round this fact for the authors of travel guides of germany. already in the early morning when we arrived at koenigssee dozens of japanese have jumped on the first boat to salet, the southeastern end of the lake. they all must have read of the speciality of the most southeastern corner of bavaria and germany in any guide, otherwise they still would have been sleeping in their hotels.

almost every asian man and woman was armed with a huge dslr (except two girls who have used the nex 5 - well chosen, ladies), most of them with nikons, and not really provided with any composition strategy - trial and error seems to be the shooting method of the most of the southeast asian tourists. why not...

nevertheless the journey was definitely worth the early getting up. due to our fast step we have been the first people who entered the valley today. unfortunately the air has been very foggy so that a lot of pics didn't turn out very well. but a few of them even profited of the special air conditions - while we were sailing over the lake suddenly the sun came into the lakeside and illuminated an abandoned gangplank. the complete rest of the hillside was residing in the foggy and misty dark. a mysterious mood came over me. nice place to be there for a while, also if you know of and live at the lake constance.

cu, trshptr

1606 - fancy bits

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f1.8 | ISO1000 | 1/80 | lightroom 4.1

i've never been at a 24 hour flea market before. what a night!

we went to the transborder flea market constance / kreuzlingen by bicycle and ferry, only this experience was worth the journey. after some burgers and beers at the minster and the football match between poland and czechoslovakia at an italian coffee shop we started our scrabbling tour with some friends - a migration distance of 14 kilometres and round about 1.000 exhibitors were waiting for us.

i turned the bedside lights off at 4am on sunday. what a night!

some more interesting pics of the event can be seen here.

cu, trshptr

0506 - encased latern

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f1.8 | ISO800 | 1/25 | lightroom 4.1

things never turn out the way you expect. because i didn't want to rely on sony's first level support i searched for an authorised repair shop in the internet and made a find. only some hours after my request to this company i got an answer and call to send in my nex asap. supposedly my repaired gadget will be back within 5 to 8 days again - i cross my fingers.

before i'll post the nex tomorrow morning, the cam had to show its capabilities in low light situations tonight. i captured the scene at the end of my night walk only at a stone's throw from my home. the little shack is used as a storeroom by the vineyard. i really go for the texture of the plaster, it's common to apply this kind of structures in the region of the south of germany.

i'm awfully sorry and feel a little bit sad: as i said before probably during the whole next week there will be no postings. unfortunately.

well, bye then, trshptr

0106 - something different

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f1.8 | ISO1600 | 1/25 | lightroom 4.1

finally we have visitors from central germany: our (best) friends jeen and diet(mar) from frankfurt are currently at our place for a flying visit - unfortunately on sunday they will leave us again for the continuation of their short journey to munich where they will call the concert of paul kalkbrenner, a reasonably famous german dj. for their visit we had to buy in, tidy up, clean house and so on - of course we wanted to receive our guests with open arms and well prepared.

back on topic of yesterday: see that i don't want to allow that the view of bermatingen develops as a completely boring but idyllic world i think that a contrary sight of approximately the same scene of yesterday's image might remedy. let me get this straight - bermatingen is not much different to the rest of germany. pleasure and harm, white and black, lights and shadows, all that is to be expected.

cu, trshptr

3105 - private peek

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f8.0 | ISO200 | 1/100 | lightroom 4.1

in regions with an appropriate social base money is not to be sniffed at. especially the area north of the alps and the lake constance profits clearly by its inherent natural beauty. the amount of money that is received in this way flows mainly back directly into the communes.

you can see this circumstance in any issue of daily life. one noticeable topic is the structural condition of the (most of the old) buildings in the historic townscapes. if you use f.e. the view of the cities in the east of germany as reference for comparison you will find a lot more derelict houses than here in suedbaden. so far, so good.  this comes as no surprise.

but what does that really mean? it seems to be a kind of vicious circle for the affected regions regarding different aspects: either tourists or qualified employees are attracted, therefor their money flows into other regions. so the communes have no funds to modernise their infrastructure, their townscape and so on. which means that everything remains as it is. unfortunately i know this phenomena from different regions of germany, among others my homeland.

the region of the linzgau was never affected by this vicious circle. the historic townscapes are in most cases proper, neat and tidy, even more than 300 years old houses like ours are in a good condition. way back when the municipal administration of our commune bermatingen had understood that buildings like the eichenhof have a great appeal with the tourists and therefor their money.

of course i rejoice at our home, it is individual, full of character and it's a pleasure to live here. i hope you enjoy the private peek, too.

cu, trshptr

2805 - air corridor

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f8.0 | ISO100 | 1/500 | lightroom 4

these days i make heavy weather of narrowing down the choice of pics for my daily posting, there are simply too many options. it's not that they all were of best quality, but they are on a similar (medium and aspirant) level and all of them tell a certain little story.

subsequent to a challenging 90km bicycle tour with andi, a friend and workmate of mine, i have chilled for round about an hour in our courtyard when tina called me for a dinner delivery service - she is on duty at the moment. so i bought us some kebab at the turk in markdorf and drove to the hospital by car. i always feel like a very important person when i see tina at her work because in that case i'm exceptionally allowed to park at the farmyard of the hospital on the parking space of the call-out service.

at the hospital we usually eat our meals at the helicopter landing site behind the main building. for that reason we had to walk along the dark and obscure corridors. the last corridor ended in the open country - the helipad area. from there we obtained the best view over the (foggy) lake. the contrast between the dark floors and workrooms of the hospital and the bright landscape was a bit surreal. and when there is nothing to do for tina, no emergencies or something like that are occurring, there are really worse places to spend your working hours.

cu, trshptr

2705 - one, two, three, whee!

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | manual focus | f4.0 | ISO400 | 1/2500 | lightroom 4

a long party night is followed by the hangover. although this morning tina was committed to drive she had slightly headache and fatigue after getting out of bed whereas i didn't have any problems despite the six beers of yesterday evening.

except our meeting with friends in ravensburg on saturday evening the whitsun weekend was characterised by the greyhound racing event that took place near our home on saturday and sunday. yesterday a breed contest was conducted by the greyhound racing club bermatingen and today national and solo races have attracted the spectators.

i have never visited such an event before. accordingly i was deeply impressed by the speed and the power of the greyhounds and the atmosphere on the ground. two notably interesting facts: firstly there were almost no brawls between the animals although at least 50 to 100 top motivated dogs were on hand and ready to start. second off the fastest runners need only a little bit more than 30s for 430m which means an average speed of 50km/h. wow!

two more interesting pics of these athletes can be found on my flickr stream!

cu, trshptr