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

1506 - 9645km remembrance

setup: sony nex 7 with sigma 30 f2.8 ex dn | 30mm | f2.8 | ISO320 | 1/60 | lightroom 4.1

yesterday i received the message that i will get my nex7 back on friday. today is the day, a compact parcel caused huge zest. the show can go on.

as a side note today i also received the response to my service request from sony, as late as today... fortunately i've cared for a repair shop by myself.

after my exhausting one-week business trip i've used the afternoon to take an extensive rest in our courtyard and furthermore for a long running. then in the evening we visited the opening of the photo exhibition "9645km remembrance" of helena schätzle, who has followed the trails of her grandfather for the war-time and postwar. the second world war is of course an often discussed topic but helena schätzle looks back on and reappraises the era and links this issue to her personal family history simply wonderfully.

besides many impressive portraits of contemporary witnesses and landscape photos of the war scenes several quotes, interviews and a few mementos are exhibited. the old combat jacket is captioned by the quote

"i'm sitting in the barrack room with some fellows in dead silence. 

everybody's sad thoughts are in the homeland at the beloved ones."

today's pic isn't really good, but i desperately wanted to tell the story of somebody whose relatives were killed in war, so you can understand that persons are deeply moved only by words or images.

cu, trshptr

1306 - relation

setup: canon eos 400d with efs 18-55mm | 55mm | f5.6 | ISO100 | 1/500 | lightroom 4

i don't know if you are informed of the special history of alghero - it is the only city in sardinia where catalan is spoken. this fact concerns with the circumstance that alghero was conquered by the catalans in 1354 and colonists from barcelona populated the city after the conquest.

even today alghero is called little barcelona, barceloneta or la picolla barcelona what is due to the similarities in their townscapes.

cu, trshptr 

0806 - fluent passage

setup: canon eos 400d with efs 18-55mm | 28mm | f8.0 | ISO200 | 1/400 | lightroom 4

especially in the first days of our sardinia trip we had spotted many of these very elemental landscape scenes where of course several photographs were shot by me. the route between alghero and bosa is simply beautiful.

the impressive landscape in spring in combination with misty and foggy weather created a mysterious mood that had to be captured in an image. if someone had been sitting on this bench i'd probably have to remove this person from my scene.

cu, trshptr

0606 - bastion of calm

setup: canon eos 400d with efs 18-55mm | 18mm | f8.0 | ISO100 | 1/80 | lightroom 4

during the last night (almost without sleep) i have decided to use the nex free time for publishing a multi-day sardinia series on the basis of my pics from april 2012 to keep the blog alive. the wonderful island really deserves this honor, i'd definitely entrust a sardinia trip especially in spring to everybody who is interested in elemental nature.

the first pic of the series shows the famous capo caccia at the west coast of sardinia. the building in the upper right corner of my image lies 110m above the sea level at the edge of the cliffs. when the waters are calm you can visit the neptune's grotto at the foot of the cliffs.

the cliffs seem to be solid as a rock. but in a margin of several ten thousand years even the rock isn't more than a blink of the eye.

cu, trshptr

btw: the photographs of this series will not be published at flickr because i'll have to pre-plan the postings because of a business trip next week.

0306 - ladies at their best

setup: sony nex 7 with fujian 35 f1.7 | 35mm | f1.7 | manual focus | ISO1600 | 1/20 | +1.7ev | high contrast monochrome jpg | cropped and optimised in lightroom 4.1

time flies, on a large and also on a small scale. it's been round about seven years that tina's best friend jeen visited us in hamburg for the first time. it's all water under the bridge.

but time flies in microcosm, too. just arrived some blinks later the weekend and their flying visit are gone again. nevertheless we four had a great and impressing time with talking, laughing, eating and drinking, sightseeing, boating and fortunately a bit sleeping. there's a reason for that: tina and jeen are a bit like chalk and cheese and jeen's boyfriend is simply a terrific choice, we and especially i really enjoyed the time with him.

even if today's picture's technical implementation can be allocated to the "fun and imperfection" - category, i really go for the moment i captured with my fujian toy lens: today i wanted to play around with the high-key effect for what i overexposed the ladies sitting in front of a window by round about two exposure values, using the high contrast monochrome mode in my nex. afterwards while post processing i raised the exposure and the different values for black and contrast once again in lightroom. it's a first high key attempt, not more, but i like it! whereas this might be down to the wonderful ladies...

cu, trshptr

0206 - tally

setup: sony nex 7 with sigma 30 f2.8 ex dn | 30mm | f3.2 | ISO100 | 1/200 | lightroom 4.1

there are people who have much to answer for. somehow facetiously that i've shot this pic only one day after preaching the prosperity of the region around lake constance.

you can choose different approaches to handle scenes like a confrontation with a social poor situated guy: first and common one is to ignore the fact that there are people that have to live in these circumstances. this is the path of least resistance and completely stressless. most of the people would go and go this way. second one is to take notice of and maybe to pay a minimum of attention to him. i appeal to your common sense - you don't have to talk to him or donate food or money, a inviting smile should not be too much to ask for.

unfortunately there are also people who had quit their lives in spirit already well before. i rather think that the guy in my pic comes under this ones.

cu, trshptr

2605 - bride

setup: sony nex 7 with sigma 30 f2.8 ex dn | 30mm | f2.8 | ISO1600 | 1/30 | lightroom 4

in europe there are a couple of regular customs that appear odd and curious to me. the rituals of stag and hen night may create funny stories in some cases but i can't see any sense in the foolery of selling useless items to pedestrians. however yesterday i was one of the pedestrians whom was being offered a bunch of clutter and ...

funnily yesterday's offers contained above all very useful articles for a party night - shorts. in fact shorts of different sorts! after a short conversation with the leader of the party gang - a hen night party - we bought a silver crown for tina and three shorts, jeagermeister, feigling and another one. in this way we got deeply into conversation with the bride who is a really very cute person. buck the trend and make the best of your upcoming marriage!

fortunately she had nothing against me snapshotting her, so i was allowed to keep this authentic pic.

cu, trshptr