clashing horns

April 06, 2013 in 50, action, agriculture, animal, b+w, bermatingen, bokeh, candid, contrast, countryside, eyes, face, germany, grain, hair, light, nature, nex 7, old photo, portrait, sel, shadow, sony

a few weeks ago i stumbled upon google's nik collection discount: only 149$ for six pretty useful lightroom plug-in applications, srp actually round about 500$, that sounded too good. go for it!

today i'd like to show a first result, that was processed with the newer version of silver efex pro - i had used the predecessor for a while, too - and explain, with which workflow the shown sample, that was photographed today a few minutes on foot away from our home, was edited by me: firstly the import in lightroom, application of lens correction, convertion to tiff and transfer to sharpener pro 3 (part 1) for raw pre sharpening, in between buffering in lightroom, transfer to silver efex pro 2 and main editing, again fransfer to sharpener pro (part 2) for final output sharpening and finally export the image from lightroom to jpg. pooh, and all that with my good old laptop... i'm going to familiarise myself with the new software during the coming weeks and i will surely publish more samples.

snow curves for circles

February 28, 2013 in 50, b+w, bermatingen, contrast, germany, landscape, nature, nex 7, pattern, sel, sony, winter, snow, grain, field, agriculture

really don't know what the farmer has done here. whatever, the shapes make for a good subject. btw: you'll find a few new photographs in the glimpse galleries.

2111 - disenchanted world

November 21, 2012 in 50, abstract, agriculture, autumn, contrast, decay, field, fog, germany, grain, landscape, markdorf, mist, mood, nature, nex 7, partial chromatic, sel, sony

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f4.0 | ISO100 | 1/100 | lightroom 4.2

it's incredible how fast the nature changes its appearance in november. two days ago the landscape was barely shining brightly, and several hours after this photograph was taken the mist had already cleared away again. these days our environment often seems to be part of a strange, alien planet's landscape. only a few signs point to the presence of the human race.

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f5.6 | ISO320 | 1/80 | silver efex pro for lightroom

besides the wonderful coloured, falling leaves the late autumn always implicates the decay of the other, non-hardy plants. all the small bushes, tall grasses and flowers die, at least the parts of these plants that were growing and shining at the surface for the whole spring and summer period. anyhow you can cherish a hope that they will appear next spring again.

cu, trshptr

2308 - ripening

August 23, 2012 in 50, agriculture, bokeh, colour, countryside, fruit, germany, green, leaf, nature, nex 7, plantation, red, sel, sony, summer, sun, vineyard, wine, yellow

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f1.8 | ISO100 | 1/400 | lightroom 4.1

weekend after next the wine festival of our village is due. today in the evening we went for a blow in the vineyards with kingston, the dog of our neighbours. the light came in in a shallow angle and pierced the leafs of the vines. funnily there was exactly one yellow-red leaf that shined out the bulk of green ones.

the stroll generated a thrill of anticipation to the festival where the different wines of the last vintages will be served. a year from now at the latest we'll see if this year's vintage will be as good as the last ones.

cu, trshptr

1206 - garden-fresh harvest

August 12, 2012 in 30, agriculture, farmer, feet, field, food, garden, germany, green, harvest, home, nature, nex 7, personal, plantation, salad, sigma, soil, sony, vegetables

setup: sony nex 7 with sigma 30 f2.8 ex dn | 30mm | f5.6 | ISO125 | 1/60 | lightroom 4.1

i know what the saying "living from hand to mouth" rather implies: you are so poor that provisioning isn't quite possible because you need simply everything you can find for your daily ration. fortunately this state isn't appropriate for us, actually most of the people of the first world don't have this problem. everything is available almost everywhere.

nevertheless also in the industrial countries some people still carry on a kind of organic farming and grow products that are obtainable in stores and shops, too. vegetables of all kinds are grown, so for many recreational farmers a hobby is associated with a useful thing - your daily bread. regardless the use of the saying of the first paragraph is also suitable for them: provisioning isn't convenient because garden-fresh, natural products are easily perishable.

the topic is present in the first place because this week tina and i care for the kitties and the great many plants and vegetables of our neighbours because they are currently on vacation. since we are assertively allowed to pick their ripe harvest, i think there are worse jobs on this planet.

cu, trshptr

0308 - late night shopping

August 04, 2012 in 50, agriculture, countryside, eating, fruit, germany, light, markdorf, market, nex 7, night, people, personal, schnapps, sel, shadow, sony, street, vegetables, wine

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f2.5 | ISO200 | 1/20 | lightroom 4.1

like i already said, the area around lake constance is characterised by agriculture, especially fruit and vegetable cultivation and the processing of these products. so you can buy regional products like apples, courgettes, grapes, cherries, cucumbers or homemade juices, vines, liquors and schnapps for little money in every store.

the most of the farms also sell their agricultural products in small self-service kiosks at the streets. of course depending on the time the offer is more or less opulent because their commodity is always fresh. in our case we've stopped at the kiosk at 10pm after we'd have dinner with friends in their favourite balkan restaurant: for that reason the number of products was limited, but you always get anything.

cu, trshptr

2407 - descending branch

July 24, 2012 in 50, agriculture, cereal, contrast, corn, countryside, field, flare, germany, hay bale, landscape, markdorf, nature, nex 7, orange, sel, sony, summer, sun, sunset

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f13 | ISO100 | 1/160 | lightroom 4.1

sometimes life is a bunch of contrarieties: tina has a day off, these days the sun appears at 5am on the eastern horizon and sets not before 9pm in the west, the water temperature is absolutely refreshing and normally the work brings more joy than worse. regardless real pleasure isn't raising at the moment. why that?

today the other side of the coin is the outlook to tomorrow: tina is going to undergo a medical examination tomorrow and i won't be able to support her before or afterwards the appointment because at the same time i will be at work in munich for a business trip. unfortunately!

so today was characterised by the preparation of tina's nasty examination. she had to take a bunch of medicine and she isn't allowed to eat anything for the period of 24 hours before the examination. an undesirable side effect of the medicine is the rising probability that you break into shivers. although there are still 28 degrees at 8pm in our yard, she isn't feeling like sitting outside in the setting sun but tucking herself up with a blanket and drinking a pot of hot tea.

this is only one of many contrarieties of our lives, but fortunately anytime everything will be balanced out again. that's why i'm thinking positive and looking forward to thursday evening, when i'll be back home and enjoy the warm summer and the chilly lake, in that case together with tina again.

cu, trshptr

0807 - natural evanescence

July 09, 2012 in 50, agriculture, blossom, bokeh, countryside, field, flower, germany, green, landscape, light, nature, nex 7, sel, sony, summer, sunflower, sunset, tree, yellow

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f1.8 | ISO100 | 1/400 | lightroom 4.1

no matter how bad the mankind worries the earth, the natural regulation will gain. although this means that the mankind itself will go down, the nature will survive even if maybe only in an other form and not before dozens of centuries of regeneration.

that's why these days flowers stand not only for beauty but also for evanescence. as long as light incides on the earth flowers will come round again and again. and when the light will forever disappear at some point, the time will also stop at this time: there is no need for beauty in everlasting darkness.

cu, trshptr

2906 - among the others

June 29, 2012 in 50, agriculture, blossom, bokeh, cereal, corn, countryside, field, flower, germany, green, landscape, nature, nex 7, sel, sony, summer, sunflower, sunset, yellow

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f2.0 | ISO100 | 1/800 | -0.7ev | lightroom 4.1

tomorrow we will depart germany towards portugal. a few days of surfing will be combined with a roadtrip along the southern west coast to lisbon. for that reason today we were enjoying our spare time after work before we will have to leave our home: besides some hours of chilling in our yard under the sun umbrella in the afternoon tina and i had a long walk through the fields around our village where we played hackysack and badminton and watched the sunset till the mosquitos began to eat us alive.

when you observe the edges of the fields attentively you can sometimes spot special sceneries of the vegetation: at odd times a complete different breed is arrayed among the others. similarities to real life can't be denied.

cu, trshptr

2606 - dead wood

June 26, 2012 in 50, agriculture, b+w, bokeh, book, contrast, germany, home, nature, nex 7, novel, pattern, reading, rest, sel, sony, still life, texture, tree, wood

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f1.8 | ISO100 | 1/640 | lightroom 4.1

tina is one of the old school - reading becomes accepted only on paper. printed matter is highly regarded by her, kindles are admired but fundamentally not used (yet).

"there are enough reasons against these items. what would for example be that they don't smell. or that i can't open a kindle up."
"yes, you can. use a cover and you will be able to open it up."
"but the smell..."

ok, a compelling evidence is nonexistent, but life isn't always logic and coherent. reading a novel has to do with dreaming and the medium has to transfer this atmosphere. so i can absolutely take her point.

for our upcoming surf vacation in portugal we bought a novel for each of us: tina is going to take jonas jonasson's "the hundred-year-old man who climbed out of the window and disappeared" along and i'm going to read mcgrath's "white heat". maybe i'll tell you more about these two pieces of poetry after the vacation.

since we ignore electronic reading material we put a direct strain on the nature - for the most part paper is made of wood. i don't exactly know what is worse for the environment: the complete life cycle of a handheld reader or the consumption of the at least renewable resource wood. my gut says that i'm currently on the correct side of the green conscience, even if only just.

cu, trshptr