2305 - castle of dreams

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f8.0 | ISO100 | 1/80 | lightroom 4

after three years of permanent, weekly travels because of my job i really don't want to be lonely anymore. for this reasons night duty days of tina sometimes put me into a slightly depressive mood. there it was a heaven-sent opportunity that my evening mountain bike tour led me into the well-lit forest where i finally was acting on my feelings. and fortunately on my way to nowhere i almost accidentally came by the castle of salem.

we live at the lake constance for three years now but during this time we have never been at the castle, even less its inner yard or garden. i did not know how great the whole grounds actually are. moreover today evening an enchanted atmosphere was dominating. the pic above expresses this hogwart like mood very well - no, i'm not a harry potter fan, i had to google the name of his school - although i applied only a little bit of post processing to the raw file, excluded the black and white conversion. i will definitely come back to this magnificent area to accurately inspect the total and its details and to tell you more about its history.

previously two more nice pics of today evening can be found on my flickr stream.

cu, trshptr

1805 - illuminated

setup: canon eos 400d with efs 18-55mm | 55mm | f5.6 | ISO800 | 1/50 | lightroom 4

for our today's excursion we visited the monkey hill in salem. round about 200 barbary apes live in a mostly species-appropriate husbandry on an area of approximately 12 hectare in the forest in the middle of nowhere.

it was very interesting to observe the social structure of their hierarchy. the 200 monkeys are separated into three groups of 50 to 80 animals. each group has one male and one female chief. furthermore the whole population has a overall chief of each gender. at monkey hill the most important rule is to avoid any contact with the current babies. every monkey would protect these little newborns against any - in his opinion - negative influences. to sum up i can say that in many aspects barbary apes are very similar to human beings.

however evident similarities between yesterday's and today's subject are quite accidentally. ;-)

cu, trshptr

1505 - rear view

setup: canon eos 400d with efs 18-55mm | 55mm | f5.6 | ISO200 | 1/800 | lightroom 4

the rape's blossoms were sprouting quickly during the last days. now the yellow colour mixes well with the green stems. moreover today we had perfect dramatic nature shot weather. the weather conditions were changing, strong winds came down. therefor all parameters seemed to fit for a nice landscape pic.

fortunately i was able to convince tina to model for me. she was the most important parameter. she was the most important parameter for my shooting. and indisputable she is the most important parameter for my life.

we've had enough of words - a beautiful rear can also endear.

cu, trshptr

1005 - curved lines

setup: canon eos 400d with efs 18-55mm | 55mm | f8.0 | ISO100 | 1/250 | lightroom 4

currently we have foehn at the lake constance. today the temperature increased about eight to ten degrees, the humidity decreased and now the sky is full of cirrus clouds. i'm going to tell you more about the microclimate at the lake in the near future, i have the wish to combine this information with a great panorama of the alps with the lake in the foreground. unfortunately here at the lake constance we need very special conditions to have good visibility and one of the essential parameters is the foehn, of which more later.

nevertheless at prime weather i was seeking for a nice scenery for today's posting. the fruit farmers have already prepared their plantations for the protection against birds that perhaps consume the yield and possibly eventuating heavy thunderstorms that are also conditioned by the microclimate at the lake. for this reason they fixed meshes above their fruit trees to protect them against birds and hail. the meshes are not yet stretched but when the fruits finally grow or the forecast switches completely the farmers will be well-prepared.

cu, trshptr

0805 - the early bird gets the worm

setup: canon eos 400d with efs 18-55mm | 55mm | f5.6 | ISO400 | 1/50 | lightroom 4

while i was processing the planned image of today's posting sitting on a deck chair in the yard my remaining kitty nila spotted an eurasian blackbird. whereas i hadn't been completely satisfied with the light conditions of this shot, i came naturally to desist from the pic - you will see a better version in the near future.

so nila and i observed the in my view cute, in her view delicious little bird that had caught a fat worm for his infants. by the way i shot some pictures of the blackbird, only the maximum focal distance of my kit lens hampered a better result. the blackbird was remaining calmly while i approximated because he was constantly assessing the situation.

moreover he was in a favourable position and he had already caught his worm.

cu, trshptr

btw: the picture above is far away from being a masterpiece, but it is not so bad after all and above all today it was important for me to share nila's and my experience with you. and: yesterday the third lens for my nex arrived - the sigma 30 f2.8. tiny little black piece of japanese engineering.

0705 - downhill force

setup: canon eos 400d with efs 18-55mm | 18mm | f4.0 | ISO800 | 1/800 | lightroom 4

actually i'm a big fan of the uphill climb. that's why i own a hard tail mountain bike and a racing cycle. although i'm usually not frightened to go downhill, there are enough reasons for me to live without a full suspension bike.

besides the huge maintenance expenditure of the additional hinges, the irreversibility of the drive train, the higher injury risk while going downhill and higher acquisition costs the main purpose of my in the summer almost daily used bike was the clincher: i use it especially to get to work, to go on excursions with tina and to exercise my endurance. therefor you don't need no soft tail. that's enough of factual explanations.

after a usual working monday i had to supply my need for a little uphill tour. while i was sneaking uphill i thought about the loneliness and solitude that you can find in forests only on monday afternoons. everybody seems to have more important things to do than a walk through the trees. fortunately i had resisted the rationality and suddenly my life was enormously slowing down, if only for this brief moment.

only the downhill force awaked me from my daydream.

cu, trshptr

btw: no, the pic above was not shot with a go pro hero. 8) sadly the exposure time was set up a little bit too short to show the real speed of me and my bike of round about 30km/h. at least the fork is sharp.

0105 - cheeky easiness

setup: canon eos 400d with efs 18-55mm | 55mm | f5.6 | ISO100 | 1/400 | aperture priority | raw files cropped, aligned and processed in lightroom 4

1st of may, national holiday, may day or labour day in many countries. in the most states of germany the rite of walking and cycling has a great vogue. you have the sense that everybody is on the streets in these days.

of course we were on the roads today, too. during our bicycle tour with friends we stopped at the lake for an ice and a cappuccino. i spotted the scene shown in the picture in hagnau sitting next to the gangplank. the family on the right side was enjoying their sundae while the cheeky little girl on the left showed her butt for a funky shooting. please always keep your easiness, little lady!

cu, trshptr

3004 - s-curve

setup: canon eos 400d with efs 18-55mm | 18mm | f5.6 | ISO100 | 1/640 | aperture priority | raw files cropped, aligned and processed in lightroom 4

today and tomorrow are fortunately still non-working days, at least for me. tina had to work today because diseases aren't directed by the calendar. so i had decided already at the weekend that today should be a bicycle day for me.

while my excursion i was cycling through three countries: of course germany with its regions baden and wuerrtemberg, austria with the vorarlberger land and finally the switzerland. at romanshorn i took the ferry back to friedrichshafen. at the end of my tour i had driven 120km by bike. not that bad, besides my butt i feel fine. you can comprehend the whole route here [click].

one special thing attracted my attention: after the very modest, peaceful and contemplative holidays in sardinia i was really shocked by the prosperity tourism and the conceited high society that i had to see today. it was a scenery like a disney land for pensioner. huge mercedes benz with gold decorated ladies inside were parking in front of showy golf and yacht clubs. barf!

cleanliness, perfection and wealth - these things were hard to take for me today. fortunately the surroundings were getting more authentic in the switzerland. i saw construction zones, suburbs and eventual more normal people than tourists. finally i found the gangplank shown in the pic above near rohrschach, where ornithologists had arranged themselves for the observation. moody chill out area.

cu, trshptr

2904 - green lungs

setup: canon eos 400d with efs 18-55mm | 18mm | f9.0 | ISO800 | 1/125 | aperture priority | raw files cropped, aligned and processed in lightroom 4

again at last the first night in my own bed after the return of two weeks of travel. once i had ended the first session of post-processing of the accrued pictures at 0130am and my subsequent sleep at 0900am i considered the next big bunch of pics that i had shot in sardinia. unfortunately i'm still not half-done. cheer up, the way is the goal. learning by doing, that's what it is all about.

at 0300pm tina took me out to an excursion to a keep-fit-trail in the middle of the forest of the hill gehrenberg. we really had a lot of fun while we were running through the course. 13 sporty stages had to be done.

the 14th one was called breath. always keep breathing.

cu, trshptr

2504 - insights

setup: canon eos 400d with efs 18-55mm | 18mm | f11 | ISO100 | 1/100 | aperture priority | raw files cropped, aligned and processed in lightroom 4

okay, it's an idyllic shot. but you would have been impressed, too. please enjoy the view over baunei, a beautiful mountain village to santa maria navarrese and the tyrrhenian sea. the altitude difference between the site of capturing and the sea amounts round about a half kilometre. really stunning.