1804 - time has stopped

April 18, 2012 in 18-55, 400d, abandoned, architecture, brown, building, canon, decay, eos, factory, stairs, suburb, urban, zeulenroda

setup: canon eos 400d with efs 18-55mm | 18mm | f8.0 | ISO100 | 1/160 | aperture priority | raw files cropped, aligned and processed in lightroom 4

... in east germany.

like i said yesterday we unfortunately had to give an immediate family member to tina's grandma. ria, as tina's grandmother is called, lives in thuringia close to the town zeulenroda with her husband guenther and her dog lea. because tina and i want to support zizou during her acclimatization here in thuringia, we'll stay at grandma's home until friday. besides fitful sleep this circumstance means that i'll have the opportunity to shoot some decay-tinted pics in the rustic area of the former gdr.

i've really turned the kind of today's photo over in my mind. should i publish a espacially brutal and negativ photo of a destroyed factory that you can find here at every turn? or shall i take a pic that shows the great boom of the last twenty years? i decided to pursue the middle course. on the pic above you can see an old disused building of the former government enterprise wema, what is a german abbreviation for tool machinery factory. as you know the german democratic republic was an almost complete closed economy. that's why a great many of companies had to be closed in the course of the german reunification, the so called turnaround in 1990.

as part of the omission of the gdr four to five years after the turnaround the wema broke away, too. the clock on the front of the wema building seems to act out of spite - it has stopped years ago.

cu, trshptr

1704 - farewell

April 17, 2012 in 18-55, 400d, animal, brown, calm, canon, cat, eos, eyes, face, germany, home, portrait, rest, whiskers, zizou

setup: canon eos 400d with efs 18-55mm | 28mm | f4.0 | ISO800 | 1/8 | aperture priority | raw files cropped, aligned and processed in lightroom 4

today it was a very sad day. we gave our first kitty zizou to tina's grandma. unfortunately we hadn't seen an other possibility to solve nila's suffer.

zizou, you are of a real character, gracious and unique. but you together with nila, that doesn't figure anymore. nila's doom vs. your move, these options were available. you would have chosen equally. what is exceedingly important to me: after almost six years of living together and that huge bunch of problems that we have mastered as a team you will be stored in our hearts forever. we hope that you know that we haven't betrayed you. :-(

please be always careful - after your infestation of fleas as a baby, your bad liver problems as a teeny and your accident with a car two years ago there are only four of seven lives left.

cu when i'm of good heart again, trshptr

1304 - upright

April 14, 2012 in 18-55, 400d, architecture, brown, building, canon, colour, contrast, eos, germany, light, light track, long-time exposure, markdorf, night, pattern, red, street, tripod, urban

setup: canon eos 400d with efs 18-55mm | 22mm | f4.5 | ISO400 | 25s | manual mode | manual focus | raw files cropped, aligned and processed in lightroom 4

while i was cruising around by bike this evening i saw different places and objects that were worthy of detailed examination. in so doing my short ride was extended to a two hour trip. as a result i have really struggled with choosing a candidate for today's posting. finally i decided to apply the upright photography that you can review above to animate my blog today. some other samples are listed at my tumblr webpage dated today.

the pic of the building site was shot in markdorf again. the light conditions were really very, very bad, the usage of the automatic focus wasn't possible. so i had my first attempts with complete manual shooting: both focus and exposure were manually controlled by me. to accomplish a suitable exposure i had to raise iso speed to 400 and aperture to the almost fastest configuration at this focal length - although i exposed for a long time... i think you can reconstruct how dark it was there.

why this composition? for a variety of reasons... the pillars seemed to have an infinite depth, the lights were playfully reflected by them. the streamers that were hanging from the ceiling breezed in the wind. the silence was impressive. only every now and then a car went past. fortunately i caught one by shooting the pic above.

btw: i have raised the local contrast of the pic while postprocessing to create a hdr-like effect. accenting the size of the builing site i renounced to remove distortion caused by wide-angel.

all being well my project will finally start next week. officially.

cu, trshptr

0704 - lovingly cleanliness

April 07, 2012 in 18-55, 400d, architecture, bathroom, brown, canon, cosmetics, eos, furniture, germany, handicraft, light, night, public convenience, reflection, refreshment, toilet, vanity, wash basin

setup: canon eos 400d with efs 18-55mm | 18mm | f6.3 | ISO1600 | 1/13 | aperture priority | raw files cropped, aligned and processed in lightroom 4

it´s saturday and thankfully we are still having visitors at the moment.

visitor days are always structured equally: after a tremendous breakfast at home we ask our visitors out, for example for a boating excursion or a trip into the countryside. usually we do not turn our´s back on hardly any pub or local all day long. finally as a result of this approach at the end of the day we come out - surprisingly - not really hungry in a restaurant for the next meal, dinner. pooh!

yesterday we upped our feast once again. as if we hadn´t had enough dishes during the day and evening, we additionally made a stop at an inn in our home village shortly before midnight. after another two drinks i urgently had to visit the public convenience.

inasmuch as sunday had begun already, i took my camera along to the toilet. i have rarely seen such a lovingly, with that much blood, sweat and tears erected handicraft.

cu tomorrow, trshptr

0404 - resistance

April 04, 2012 in 18-55, 400d, agriculture, brown, building, canon, cloud, countryside, decay, derelict barn, eos, germany, house

setup: canon eos 400d with efs 18-55mm | 21mm | f8.0 | ISO200 | 1/125 | aperture priority | raw file cropped, aligned and processed in lightroom 4

almost every morning of the last three years i pass a moody derelict barn that decays nearby a main road between salem and markdorf. shacks like that inspire me and draw my interest. again at last i feel like a baby boy when i´m exploring the area and the hut itself.

today i took time to discover this piece of history shaped by nature and the ravages of time. tina dropped me off close by the shack. i only had to plough through a non-vegetated, lumpy field to reach my today´s object of photography.

after i had walked around for half an hour to take some photos i got a feeling for the history of this scarred building: today it is used as a compound site for wood and a carport for a probably equaly aged tractor. but rust, moss, fungi and dust occupy the surface of the shack for a long time.

i wish to elapse the whole story of the shack in fast motion to marvel at its decay. however more admirable than its decline is its resistibility. since a bunch of decades light, rainfall, snow, cold and heat, storm and seasons fall on its roof like warriors on their enemies without receiving any maintenance besides patchwork.

but it resists. and it will resist the next twenty plus years.

cu, trshptr