1112 - luff

sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | f2.8 | ISO200 | 1/1600

today strong winds were blowing from westerly direction. on the crust of the trees close to the lakeside little snow ridges were banking up.

with today's icy cold the lakeside wasn't a comfortable ambiance.

0812 - defenceless

sony nex 7 with walimex pro 8mm f2.8| f5.6 | ISO100 | 1/4

are these art or trash, what do you think? unfortunately light wasn't as it ought to be today in the early morning, so that an ordinary landscape shot was no option. so i thought about a way to express the greyness of landscape, the defencelessness of these gracile plants and the circumstance that the already hurt, huge grasses are completely and utterly at the winter's mercy.

sony nex 7 with walimex pro 8mm f2.8| f5.6 | ISO100 | 1/2

only a few of the blades are still standing. the rest is fractured and snapped of. beneath the burden of the heavy, relatively wet snow they are not able to resist.

0412 - shady side

sony nex 7 with sigma 30 f2.8 ex dn | 30mm | f4.0 | ISO100 | 1/640

in times of passages from one season to the other the forces of both usually fight very hard against each other. thereby the opponents conduct war by every trick in the book - providing cover is only one of the applied methods.

cu, trshptr

2511 - smooth forest

setup: sony nex 7 with fujian 35 f1.7 | 35mm | f1.8 | ISO800 | 1/25 | lightroom 4.2

long walks in the woods ease my mood. every time i go into the forest all the unnecessary information is erased and space for new activities is created.

in my case the recovery of energy from the indefinitely complex nature is tremendous, even if the lights are almost gone already. when the shadows gain the mastery over the whites, all the parts of nature put their shapes down and become softer and smoother. what a great sight!

cu, trshptr

2111 - disenchanted world

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f4.0 | ISO100 | 1/100 | lightroom 4.2

it's incredible how fast the nature changes its appearance in november. two days ago the landscape was barely shining brightly, and several hours after this photograph was taken the mist had already cleared away again. these days our environment often seems to be part of a strange, alien planet's landscape. only a few signs point to the presence of the human race.

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f5.6 | ISO320 | 1/80 | silver efex pro for lightroom

besides the wonderful coloured, falling leaves the late autumn always implicates the decay of the other, non-hardy plants. all the small bushes, tall grasses and flowers die, at least the parts of these plants that were growing and shining at the surface for the whole spring and summer period. anyhow you can cherish a hope that they will appear next spring again.

cu, trshptr

1911 - light saw

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f5.6 | ISO100 | 1/125 | lightroom 4.2

today i captured the best photograph so far. on my way to work with the mountain bike i drove along a track that leads to a small t-crossroad in the middle of nowhere. heavy fog narrowed the sight distance to not more than 30 metres. the air was cold, humid and fresh and dew lay on meadows and fields.

just when i headed for the crossroad the fog tore partly open and let a few sun beams pass through the grey curtain. this circumstance made for a three-dimensional stagger of the background and additionally the foreground was gleaming what was due to the illuminated dew. so only fore- and background would have been a great scenery for a dramatic photo but, believe it or not, things got even better: suddenly a throng of round about fifty chattering geese appeared with a farmer in tow. the farmer seemed to herd them onto a new meadow. the whole scenery was completely surreal and i really thought that i'm in the wrong film.

today i captured the best photograph so far, but i captured it only in my mind. i arrived a few seconds too late, so that the animals and the farmer had already passed the perfect spot for a great, candid picture. only a few minutes later all the magic was over and the sun prevailed, at least temporarily. fortunately i decided to stop my bike in the forest some minutes after i'd met the farmer and, anyhow, i took an also nice, if not necessarily extraordinary image.

cu, trshptr

1611 - burning bum syndrome

setup: sony nex 7 with sel 50 f1.8 | 50mm | f1.8 | ISO160 | 1/80 | lightroom 4.2

since i hanged up my active football career in may, cycling has come into my focus more and more. my bum isn't accustomed to the daily rides yet, so many a time it gets me back for stressing it permanently.

nevertheless currently there is nothing better and relieving for me than riding a bike in the cold mornings or evenings and a hot shower afterwards. 

cu, trshptr

1311 - still upright

setup: sony nex 7 with walimex pro 8 f2.8 fisheye | 8mm | f4.0 | ISO800 | 1/60 | cornerfix & lightroom 4.2

the lights are often harsh in november and the temperatures decrease constantly, all the contrasts get harder. the falling and especially the already fallen leaves give a premonition of the coming winter.

only a few leaves are still solidly attached to their mother plants. mainly the small plants that have enjoyed the protective shield of the conifer wood treetop all year still resist successfully against the ordinary course of things. from their points of view they appear not that small as they really are what might empower their war of resistance again. but in not too distant future they, for sure, will shed their last bright, yellow leaves, too.

cu, trshptr

0811 - sweep of the horizon

setup: sony nex 7 with walimex pro 8 f2.8 fisheye | 8mm | f2.8 | ISO1600 | 1/15 | cornerfix & lightroom 4.2

next birhday, next journey - today we drove to the carl-zeiss city jena to visit the planetarium with tina's father, who turned 47 this week. it was only the second or third time overall that i went to a planetarium. the appertaining facilities in jena and also the whole technical audio and video equipment was modernised during the last months and the outside of the astrodome is currently rebuilt to the historical, original condition by being painted in the same colours and decorated with the same pictures.

unfortunately today's image had to be underexposed by almost two stops because there was simply not more light emitted by the projector and i did not want to raise the iso value over 1600 to keep as much details as possible in the raw file and the shutter speed was with 1/15 already at the upper limit, too. consequently exposing any longer was also no option because the whole sky was spinning. so i had to push the highlights and whites during post processing, but by now i really don't know if the results wouldn't have been a bit better if i'd used 6400 and as a result exposed almost correctly.

whatever, despite my bleating the overall result is still pleasing. and of course the visit and the whole day were nice, too.

cu, trshptr

2910 - relationship

setup: sony nex 7 with sigma 30 f2.8 ex dn | 30mm | f5.6 | ISO100 | 1/250 | lightroom 4.2

have i ever told you that i really go for trees? i think so.

trees and humans share many things - both grow up in a couple of years, appear luscious in youth but develop their whole beauty not before middle age. there are different shapes, colours, sizes and origins of both of them. and both the trees and the humans wish for the sun and the warmth and suffer from darkness and cold.

only the mix of all of them (and us) makes for the pure beauty of our world. and i love how trees like the big one of my today's photograph set us humans in relations to unshakeable things on this planet.

cu, trshptr