1409 - lakeside junk market

setup: sony nex 7 with sigma 30 f2.8 ex dn | 30mm | f2.8 | ISO1600 | 1/50 | lightroom 4.1

are we really serious about busing to berlin and back within 30 hours? 1600 kilometres in two nights without a bed? tina is already beginning to doubt about the trip. therefor i have to divert her thoughts with dull consumption: let's visit the junk market in friedrichshafen to get tired before our departure to berlin at friday midnight.

flea markets are commonly characterised by a comfortable atmosphere and a very diversified display. special ones like the 24 hours flea market in constance or the lakeside night flea market in friedrichshafen where we have been today in the evening enchant especially with their great and terrific surroundings.

strolling along the lakeside, grubbing for interesting stuff in the display of sellers from apparently everywhere and enjoying the fresh breeze that blows over the lake in midsummer evenings is an intense joy. and it's supposed to be a more intense joy if you are successful with shopping like we were today. and of course it's the most intense pleasure if a (little crazy) trip to our wonderful capital is due.

cu, trshptr

0909 - there's no shortcut

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f2.8 | ISO100 | 1/1000 | lightroom 4.1

being relaxed doesn't particularly mean not to be active. especially on fair weather days i have to set out into the world, whatever this is supposed to mean.

today this meant to go climbing in the danube valley with my mate martin and tina. the so called parking area rock near the village hausen im tal makes a good first step into the outdoor climb. you can burn yourself out without any problems at the 20 meters high rocks by spooling uphill after uphill. of course we have done the utmost to reach this condition at the latest today in the afternoon. next time we will probably have a try at one of the other 26 rocks in the danube valley.

whereas swimming in our wonderful lake constance is our common cool down program on those days and the very refreshing danube river was only at a stone's throw from the climbing place, we decided to go swimming in a river today what turned out to be a very cold but great experience.

at the end of the day i am finally reclining on the couch in a very relaxed condition despite being completely exhausted after a very active weekend.

cu, trshptr

0809 - summer relapse

setup: sony nex 7 with sigma 30 f2.8 ex dn | 30mm | f3.2 | ISO100 | 1/4000 | lightroom 4.1

earlier than expected the summer is back for a late summer interlude. yes, this weekend was supposed to be an active outdoor weekend but we couldn't calculate on such prime weather conditions. even better that we've had almost 30 degrees and bright sky today again.

whereas tomorrow the upper sections of our bodies will be strained by an outdoor climbing session in the danube valley today extensive hiking was due. we visited the marienschlucht, a ravine on the steep bank of the western end of lake constance. we walked almost 20 kilometres, half of it along the waterfront and the other half through the fabulous woods of constance.

of course our feet were glowing when we finally arrived bodman after our hike again. so why shouldn't we use the late afternoon for no resting and cooling down in the fresh water?

cu, trshptr

0509 - backlit beauty

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f1.8 | ISO1600 | spot metering | 1/30 | silver efex pro plug-in for lightroom 4.1

i really don't know if i fulfil my ultramodern camera's capabilities when i process images with results like today's. why do i sometimes want the results to look like photographs from the 70's? is it pure retro fashion or hipster culture? i don't think so.

first of all without the low light capabilities of my nex 7 i'd have never captured this moment on camera. the room in that tina was bustling around was almost completely dark, only the backlight of the terrace window in her back made for an illumination. furthermore the integrated spot metering mode of the camera made a perfect illumination easily available to me. so far, so good. finally the negative was quickly captured.

whilst post processing it should be the aim of the photographer to give the finished image the expression the scene had originally conveyed. if i look at my lady and see a soft, satin-gloss sepia face with an intimate expression, an analogue-like processing is simply appropriate. in my opinion it absolutely is, because the above-noted image shows exactly what i'd seen.

cu, trshptr

0209 - looking up

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f1.8 | ISO320 | 1/80 | lightroom 4.1

today was a very social day. after we had slept till almost noon and eaten an opulent breakfast, we went to the local wine festival with our neighbours and met some other friends. subsequently we continued the appointment at out place with coffee, cakes and parlour games.

today in the afternoon the particular was to get to know how (very) young children interact with such a big group of persons. my mate marcel's boy mika is currently at the age of one year - he is exploring his surrounding the entire time. his hunting instinct after our kitty nila was most amusing for us, he forgot simply everything around him when he spotted her.

additionally it was real fun to see how his mood was changing within seconds. anger and fun, disregard and admiration, all these lay close together.

cu, trshptr

2908 - silent reading

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f2.8 | ISO100 | +3.0ev | 1/640 | lightroom 4.1

it's quite possible that we've had the last day of midsummer today. probably for the last time of this year the air was pleasant warm and the lake's water invigorating cool. at the moment heavy clouds and thunderstorms are gathering over lake constance and south germany.

i'll definitely miss the daily short getaway on the lake when i'll leave the area around lake constance one day. tina was already on the lake when i ended today's work and enjoyed the silence by the water. she had soaked up the sun the whole afternoon and unfortunately her skin was already coloured in a kind of brown-red. for that reason she dressed with her white bike longsleeve and turned her back on the sun while she was reading her current (german) book "die unglaubliche geschichte des henry n. brown". she sitting in front of the glowing, silent lake was the perfect subject for today's candid picture.

cu, trshptr

2808 - the white pantheresses

setup: sony nex 7 with fujian 35 f1.7 | 35mm | f1.8 | manual focus | ISO100 | 1/640 | lightroom 4.1

in life some things make a very good match: black and white, maybe chalk and cheese and definitely tina and kitties. my gracious lady is deep in love with cats since her early youth. an old black cat was living in the yard of her grandma and accompanied tina and her friends to the bus station every morning and waited for them there every afternoon to pick the kids up after school. since with zizou the first living ball of wool has moved in with us, tina is finally and completely contagioned with the kitty virus. although zizou had to be moved from our place to tina's grandma - i've already told you about the problems between her and nila - the number of cats in our yard has still risen. luckily our neighbours brought two more, very beautiful, white kitties with them to the joint yard.

from that perspective tina is currently very happy to live on our little farm. by pure chance paulinchen, the white pantheress, was recently bursting in on a little shooting in the yard and suddenly we had newly allocated the leading role of the planned image. now we have two white pantheresses that are like chalk and cheese... 

cu, trshptr

2708 - summery enjoyment

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f5.6 | ISO100 | 1/500 | lightroom 4.1

at odd times the actual state of our living conditions passes through tina's and my mind: fortunately we are able to enjoy the four seasons in a region where the most of the germans (and also a lot italians, dutch people, polish and other europeans) want to go for holidays.

the lake, the mountains, all the boats and (sometimes even) the foreign people mix to a great pleasure. being only half an hour on the lake in the evening compensates almost a whole exhausting work day.

today we've played the joker again and faded out the time at work with a relaxing cruise in a pedal boat.

cu, trshptr

2608 - brisk goings-on

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f3.2 | ISO100 | 1/320 | lightroom 4.1

unfortunately the weekend is already gone again. it was very interesting for me to reside at andi's brother's family with some other friends of them (and now also mine) in one huge house directly next to the swiss border: altogether four men, three women and four kids bustled about the whole house and property to prepare and support the men's cycling ride on sunday and have a great time together.

after that the ride itself was a great pleasure: we worked through the distance of 100km in a group of eight riders. all of us reached the finish line without any problems. the only criticism we had was that we had to brave the storm which massively obstructed our progression, fortunately only temporarily. however finally we've defeated him in the downhill.

in the afternoon after the race there were usual brisk goings-on in the garden again. the women had already prepared the ingredients for a delicious spanish paella so that we only had to grill them in a huge pan on the gas grill. andi handled this job very experienced so that we could brace ourselves after the challenging bicycle ride in the black forest. of course the child might not be absent: they made for a quite busy atmosphere that is needed to have a really cosy surrounding.

cu, trshptr

2008 - family

setup: sony nex 7 with sigma 30 f2.8 ex dn | 30mm | f2.8 | ISO100 | 1/320 | lightroom 4.1

unfortunately we have a few issues with the topic family. it's not that we wouldn't get along with each other or wouldn't stick together - no, this all works brilliant.

the first problem is that both tina and my parents live separated. so the feelings of our youths will not arrive anymore. never again. but despite the divorced families we are now very satisfied with the situation of our parents because mercifully they are satisfied with their new life partners and lives, too. the second issue is the distance between the residences - you don't drive 550 kilometres every weekend if you want to live your own life, too. for that reason we sadly miss a lot of the growth process of our siblings.

my big sister maxi hits one growth spurt after the other. she is not far off being an adult female. take care of yourself, maxi! at least my heart goes out to you.

cu, trshptr