1804 - time has stopped

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

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

1604 - master painter

setup: canon eos 400d with efs 18-55mm | 34mm | f4.5 | ISO800 | 1/30 | aperture priority | raw files cropped, aligned and processed in lightroom 4 

today i have brought - as the word is in germany - colour into play. this is a saying for making the things more interesting. besides this saw directly matches with the words you would say if a soccer player is straightly red-carded.

in my case today colour was brought proverbially under the skin - although today it was all about black, i exceptionally count this manifestation among the colours. in the early evening i had an appointment with konrad k., the tattooer of my confidence and owner of the studio xxxl-tattoo. as always we were in an animated conversation while konrad was smartening me up. today's subject was the tree of life, a symbol that signifies infinity, at least for me.

being at the tattooer is maybe comparable with a woman's appointment at the hairdresser. the customer has to trust the service provider blindly. at this moment you are at the contractor's mercy. a relationship of trust comes into existence only when the provider reveals its innermost thoughts. this state konrad and i had already achieved some sessions ago - most of the women vibe with their hairdressers directly after the first prosecco, too. konrad is a thoroughly honest, straightforward and positive guy from warsaw (pl) that by the way is a great tattooer. he is my master painter.

the pic was shot by me, hand-held, the left arm outstretched. it was one of round about twenty attempts. the focus is on konrad's hands.

cu, trshptr

1404 - transparency

setup: canon eos 400d with efs 18-55mm | 27mm | f4.0 | ISO1600 | 1/6 | aperture priority | raw files cropped, aligned and processed in lightroom 4

i like things being transparent. you know you get yourself into familar surroundings. if you are able to bother yourself about the worst case in this context you will not being caught unawares by anything or anybody. for that reason it is always helpful to know all boundary conditions, so you can estimate the problem's variability. ok, maybe too abstracted.

yesternight was transparent for various reasons: we felt very comfortable in the surroundings of our friends. we know the event, the long live music night is conducted every year. the locations are also well-known. all that led on to a great evening with nice music, some beers and cheerful talks.

one of the twenty stages was proverbially transparent, too.

cu, trshptr

btw: i don't want to discuss the low light performance of my borrowed eos 400d again, but it hitted the wall concerning iso and aperture so that i had to shoot with inappropriate shutter speeds the whole evening. that's why only one of ten pics turned out well. let´s forget it, only some days to go.

1304 - upright

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

1204 - upstairs

setup: canon eos 400d with efs 18-55mm | 37mm | f5.0 | ISO400 | 1/25 | aperture priority | raw files cropped, aligned and processed in lightroom 4

there are people that always use the elevator. they use it also if they work in the 3rd floor and their toilets are located in the 2nd one. indeed there are people that use the lift to go up and down for a cigarette. it's not just that they contaminate theirselves and the environment, additionally they don't go a few steps down- and upstairs to compensate their pollution.

there are people that suffer from a cardiovascular disease. fastfood, an awful lot of coffee or / and alcohol and far too little exercise confuse the human organism. if you do not take countermeasures, you will perish. 

and there are people that are aware of these and all the other critical problem areas. their daily lives are mostly characterized by stress, pace and they are often pressed for time. but they know that every thought about provision is not about half the price of the measures to revise the problems in old age.

i think i rank among the last group. i avoid to use the elevator. i do not smoke anymore. i moderately drink coffee and alcohol. i excercise minimum twice a week. i'm aware of the problems of the modern society. at least i believe it.

for this posting today we made an exception and used the escalator. however there you can also go upstairs.

cu, trshptr

1104 - moonless night

setup: canon eos 400d with efs 18-55mm | 25mm | f8.0 | ISO100 | 15s | aperture priority | multiple triggered with android application dslrcontroller | raw files cropped, aligned and processed in lightroom 4

urban abandoned places at night have a great appeal with me. see that i had to cater anything for dinner this evening, an urban self-shot was obvious.

while i was driving around the town i was on the look-out for a moody place where i could capture a frozen long-time exposed, depressed shot of a small being in the middle of impressive architecture. really no easy statement of task in the middle of nowhere but i'm not going to lower my sights until i hit the wall. satisfaction implies stagnation.

in my opinion except a little light scattering in the lower middle the picture turned out very well. it shows the educational center of markdorf that was built in 1972. i love the architecture of the 70s with its straight lines, strict symmetry, the plain facades and the primary structures made of metal. it is simple and timeless. and if you put an outlined, shadowed person in the center of attention and illumination, your composition becomes clearer and more consistent. a picture turns into a story.

cu, trshptr

1004 - open air auditorium

setup: canon eos 400d with efs 18-55mm | 53mm | f5.6 | ISO400 | 1/250 | aperture priority | raw files cropped, aligned and processed in lightroom 4

an auditorium is a room built to enable an audience to hear and watch performances at venues such as theatres [source]. once i had arrived at the hospital today in the afternoon to pick up tina, before my very eyes such an theatre-like auditorium appeared.

a grizzled old, wheelchair-bound woman was giving a lecture on something. towards her four partial grizzled women that were resting on a wooden bench listened more or less carefully to the contributor. while i observed this scene i proposed myself a couple of questions:
is the woman on the left really listening to the contributor's pleading or is she watching the fountains dreamfully? what is the discussion about? do they realize my observation? is the dog owner feeling bored? or is he sitting too far away to hear the conversations of the grandmothers? at least the dog seems to be hungry. questions upon questions and no answers. create your own story.

cu, trshptr

0904 - tickets, please

setup: canon eos 400d with efs 18-55mm | 53mm | f6.3 | ISO800 | 1/100 | aperture priority | raw files cropped, aligned and processed in lightroom 4

yesterday i waxed lyrical about this long weekend, today in the morning it came to an abrupt interruption: at 7am marv had to be taken to the railstation in ueberlingen where he got his lift to berlin. unfortunately i was not in a really good temper, probably i had slept lightly. no skiving, ok. but sometimes it has to be ok to rest easy.

while tina and marv were waiting for the arrival of the lift i took the eos and walked around at the place. ueberlingen´s rail station which was in a complete calm and abandoned state at this holiday´s morning is a deeply interesting example of infrastructure-architecture. into a subjacent platform with old brickwork and historical bridges bordering the terrain - i stood at one of this while capturing the picture above - new glazed and metallic elements like stairs, elevators and escalators were integrated.

the structural conditions combined with a fairly large quantity of doves, a very small quantity of human beings and the cold, clear air led on to the impression of a special mood. that made my day already at its early beginning.

dove, you tiny little train guard - have fun. hope you have a handle on the goings-on.

cu, trshptr

0704 - lovingly cleanliness

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