swiss traveller

March 10, 2013 in 35, atmosphere, b+w, candid, contrast, darkness, germany, grain, nex 7, night, old photo, people, portrait, sel, sepia, shadow, sony, street, townscape, trip, urban, railstation, friedrichshafen

sometimes travelling people show unusual modes of behaviours. the man in the centre of my today's image carried a very heavy case, which, to his sorrow, had to be hefted upstairs on the platform to reach the trains.

after tina had drawn my attention to his troublesome ascent, i asked him if i can help... he answered with a swiss accent and without even looking at me that it's no problem for him to carry his case by himself. ok, whatever. although i won't go as far as tina, who presumed with a bit of black humour, that he probably carried any parts of dead bodies in his case - hopefully not! - i think, that his autarky has to do with either his attitude towards germany / germans or lived independence in old age.

however that be, i took to him.

fun ride

March 09, 2013 in 50, action, car, facility, fun, germany, nature, nex 7, old photo, people, sel, sepia, sony, street, urban, vintage, water, brown, colour, mtb, bicycle, mud, markdorf, wash

although today's story isn't about a separate business - like the title may suggest - we had to make use of one at the end of two hours of unresisted bathing in deep mud. at this season it is a common procedure that all the local (mountain) bikers wash their bicycles in the car wash in markdorf. this being the case, we didn't attract any attention yesterday, even though our heavily speckled appearance should have been extraordinary enough...

approach for feeding

March 05, 2013 in 50, art, atmosphere, b+w, backlight, candid, contrast, germany, grain, hair, lake, lake constance, light, minimalistic, nature, nex 7, old photo, people, portrait, sel, shadow, sony, street, sun, hagnau, seagull

finally it's possible to work with backlight again. frontlighting is currently one of my favorite stylistic devices when it comes to composing candid street photographs. there are two, main reasons why very strong and bright backlight seems to be useful for a street photographer: firstly the subjects are often dazzled with the (sun-)light and thereby the people have their own issues to deal with. secondly the backlight makes for very hard contrasts, that support a clear graphical structure in your frame, only if the composition is suitable, of course.

guerrilla crural cosy

March 03, 2013 in 35, architecture, blue, building, colour, contrast, fun, germany, monument, nex 7, portrait, sel, sky, sony, street, sun, townscape, urban, winter, art, statue, snow, heiligenberg

why should mankind generally accept that statues get cold legs in the depths of winter? until today i didn't know that guerrilla knitting is common in the country now, too.

“Yarn bombing, yarnbombing, yarnstorming, guerrilla knitting, urban knitting or graffiti knitting is a type of graffiti or street art that employs colorful displays of knitted or crocheted yarn or fibre rather than paint or chalk.”

— http://en.wikipedia.org

ideal world

March 03, 2013 in 35, architecture, blur, candid, colour, contrast, corridor, darkness, germany, light, nex 7, night, orange, people, sel, shadow, sony, street, townscape, urban, door, building, site, facility

compared to police stations in the centre of a metropolis like berlin the duty officers of idyllic ueberlingen's cop shop may usually spend really smooth hours without larger incidents, even on a friday or saturday night. this may be mainly due to the fact that there is scarcely anybody on the road what on the other hand can be seen as a disadvantage for those who go for busy party districts with a great many people in the street.

btw: once again new images in the galleries...

driving all night

March 02, 2013 in 35, b+w, candid, car, contrast, corridor, darkness, deeper meaning, germany, grain, light, nex 7, night, old photo, sel, shadow, snow, sony, street, winter, truck, blur, action, movement

have you ever thought about the peculiarities of an engagement as a long-distance truck driver? considering the unfavourable boundary conditions i have great respect for this profession. it's not just that the family men are mostly not at home to wake the children in the morning or to put the kids to bed in the evening (like pilots, mariners, soldiers and probably a good many other professionals, too), in return they bring in only very little money. due to the schengen agreement the average wages for truck drivers still decrease since the east european drivers do the same job with less grumble for less money.

illuminated space

February 21, 2013 in 35, car, architecture, darkness, light, nex 7, night, pattern, portrait, sel, shadow, sony, street, trip, france, townscape, urban

some things here in france don't make sense to my way of thinking. illegal rubbish dumps, decay and in the most general sense the ravages of time have left their marks on more or less every town here in the countryside. so why, this being the case, should a municipality ever invest in such a wonderfully illuminated, every evening completely unoccupied car park?

round-about orange-blue

February 20, 2013 in 35, blue, colour, darkness, light, night, nex 7, sel, sky, sony, street, trip, tree, orange, nature, landscape, dusk, mountains

whereas i'm currently busy all the day long, i only have the possibility to capture the beautiful environment of southern france in the early morning or late in the evening. since i actually prefer to sleep as long as possible in the morning (as everybody of you does probably), only the evenings are left in the basket. doesn't matter, as long as the light and the colours stay that fantastic i'll proceed with portraying the french landscape at dusk.

french countryside din(n)er

February 18, 2013 in 35, blue, candid, colour, darkness, light, nex 7, night, sony, street, trip, shadow, sel, dinner, diner, france, sky, tree, fun

france. blue hour, somewhere in the countryside. in search of a venue for dinner we ended up at a arguably typical burger stand what was a completely new area for me: i'd really not expected to find a wheeled fast food restaurant in the middle of nowhere, where moreover for whatever reason a lot of the ordinary restaurants had closed. no idea how they manage to attract ample customers here to keep theirselves above water. all i can say is that the cheeseburgers they sell are delicious. if this is already enough to successfully operate a business i should think about changing the branch.

0802 - snow streaks

February 09, 2013 in 35, action, blur, car, friedrichshafen, germany, grain, light, light track, movement, nex 7, night, pattern, sel, snow, sony, street, texture, winter

snow streaks - sony nex 7 | sel35 f1.8 | f2.8 | ISO1600 | 1/4

as one might expect particles, light and movement form interesting streaks in the eye of the beholder and of course this circumstance works also in nature.

awhirl - sony nex 7 | sel35 f1.8 | f2.8 | ISO1600 | 1/4

if in the case of a nightly car drive in a snow storm also the background contains a minimum of texture the drawn winter image should be really expressive.