I promissed Marie to take her to the beach later in the evening, alone, without Joshua, so that we both can enjoy the nature and so we went for a longer walk at Hilgenriedersiel. We were lucky as it was one of the most beautiful sun downs that holliday. Far away at the horizon you can see Nordernay and its lighhouse. The atmosphere was pure magic and I shot a ton of pictures….
On our way back from a daytrip to the next Island, Schiermonnikoog, which has one of the biggest sandy beaches of whole Europe, the weather changed. The wind picked up and some dark, heavy rainclouds appeared. A few minutes later the sun ripped thorugh that big rainbringers and sent down some heavenly light that left us in awe.
A moon eclipse and a blood red moon are not quite common and so I set my alarm clock and tried to capture it, without much luck. I was to lazy to go downstairs, dress up, risking waking up Marie and my wife, so I went out on the balcony in shorts and T-Shirt, which was a little cold at 4°C. But it wasn’t only me that was shaking… the moon, while being red, not being quite as bright as usual, made me dial down the F-stops and crank up the ISO. The result is far from being crisp, but…
Catching lightning strikes is a game of chance, when you do not have a facny hardware at hand, that triggers your shot. I actually build a photoduino for those kind of stuff, but somehow lost it somewhere, without even the chance to test it. This thunderstorm was heavy and had lots of lightning. As usual, when you got people around you, while setting up your gear, you get the feeling that you missed the best ones… “Did you see this one! Boaahh!”, while you still fiddle with the settings. Nailed this one, though.
Every 5 years, I meet up with some friends from highschool and usually we rent a old shed in Isny/Allgäu to spent a long weekend together. This year we were too slow and undecisive and the Hammerschmiede (that’ s the name of the old house) was already occupied. We ended up with a new stay nearby which was, in contrast to the old one, atop of a vast meadow, with tons of birds around and plain view. This night I sneaked away from the daily booze and chat and setup my camera. No real startrails, but nice, non the less….
Today our second week of our Cronwall trip started. We had to move from Newquy to Phillack, where we rented a littel chalet in a park. There are no busses that go up here and so we had to walk the 1.4 miles from Hayle to here. Once again a rough ride along sections of the south-west coast path with all our luggage, push chair and backpacks. The first casualty was my new Dakine rollcase, that got shredded on the rough underground… big torture for Marie. More than three hours on the bus and then in the push chair, all…
A small trip to the Grünen Seen (green lakes) last weeked to catch some fresh air. The sun had dissapeared for… well I don’t know excatly, but it felt like forever…. and now it was out the first day. Till we reached the lake, it already was about to vanish again, but none the less, I caught some swans going after their business in the partly frozen lake. Like the composition and texture of of this, so I share it with you.
Catching flashes with my camera is always a big adventure. By viewing this shot it is obvious what I really need to improve… my own position. Spectacular as these shot may look, it lacks composition that is somehting that I can’t fix without retake. The big problem when shooting flashes is that a thunderstrom is right with you, most likely carrying tons of rain and so I need to get something to store the camera away safely. The roof of above the balcony at the Judohaus has served me quite well, but I was bound to stay there. Next year……
It was my second time that I went up that hill to attend the 2012 Shaolin Mountain Retreat and although I had been there almost eveery year since 2003 it is something different with the Kung-Fu brothers and sisters. The energy is there and this sundown, at the first evening, mirrored the nice days to come.
Really… time is a missing factor these days and photography has taken a beackseat, or at least the post has to wait. This one is from last years visit to La Palma. On top the Roque de los Muchachos we had plain sun, slight clouds and than this halo appeared. Now I know when people talk about having visions… this occurrence is by no means only visible on the picture. You can witness it right at spot. Amen!
Together with a bunch of friends, we spent Sylvester in the Netherlands. Although our house at Lemleveld was about an hour away from the next coast, we were all atracted to the sea and so we visited the small town Urk at the coast of Ijsselmeer. Water has something to it that makes people want more, even in winter, when like at this time the dark clouds swalloed the sun.
I was tinkering with this one for quite some time. First I wanted to show the smog that and haze that was clearly to be seen on this beuatiful day and cut off all the woods in the foreground. Now that I made the 5th version of it, I think it is even clearer with the trees in sight. Damn big cities… no good for everyone.
Happy New Year! Sylvester was set to be in Netherland this year. Together with a couple of friends we headed north to spent four days in Landalpark Oostmahorn. Sunday was our last day and we took a walk in the nature resort Lauwersmeer. We made out a little languet on the map that we longed to reach and when the sun was about to vanish, we finnaly got there. Frozen bogland below, fog right above and a red flaming sun that shed some warm light over the cool blue blue snow.
It is kind of funny: You can try to hide and not move in order to get close to animals and you get very far. The next time you are loud, noisy don’t care about any means of camouflage and you get even closer. I was about to shoot some pictures of a falcon on a nearby tree when a flock of goats passed. The falcon hadn’t noticed me, but those three saw me instantly. When I turned around and shot this picture the falcon went off. I didn’t mind. I had some decent picture of it already.
We hit the mark with our choice to go rent the Casa Bueanavista apartment. Las Tricias/La Palma is by far the best place to stay. This is the sundown captured right from our terrace. Every evening when the sun was about to vanish, the mighty clouds dropped down the hills and came in very low, rendering jawdropping views like this. Enjoy!
An old saying goes: Red Sky at night, shepherds delight. Red sky in the morning, shepherds warning. In fact the red light is the result of particles in the higher regions of our atmosphere. When the sun sets low the photons hit the particles and mostly the blue part is held back resulting in such beauty. Shot at a one week stay in Bredene/Belgium.
They do it again! NASA announced to get people back on the moon in 2020. I still look up to that big, fat rock and wonder if they really had been there in the first place. On TV they said that Apollo 11 left a mirror up there that can be focused with a laser on a certain time a day and will reflect the light directly to earth. Let’s face it: If China keeps up the pace of their economic growth and their ambitious space prgramm, the taiconauts wil be the first to find out and I bet they…
“…Nobody on the road – Nobody on the beach – I feel it in the air – The summers out of reach – Empty lake, Empty streets – The sun goes down alone…” (Don Henley – Boys of Summer). To be honest, I had to take out tons of people… you acutally never be alone on the beach of Wenningstedt/Sylt. Mhhh.. shrinking down panoramashots to fit my blog is not the best idea. I guess this will be the last pano posted here… the effect of the original 11.000px wide image is completely lost.
We drove to vienna, to wittness the wedding of Petra, a friend of Nadine. On a vienyard high above Vienna, the ceremony took place. Weather was – according to other guests – suitable for the couple. Thunderstorm, flashes, wind…. well… Despite a great panorama, where I cought some flahes, I tried to capture the contrast between the thunderstorm and the warm and cosy mood inside, by shooting this warm light against the dark horizon and the wind jogged trees. Between the newly engaged couple is creative as well -> take a look
As I said before: this year we had all the weather spectacle you could imagine. When Alex said that we are not goning sit on the terrace that night, he was wrong. Equiped with an umbrella, two 2gb SD-Cards and the whole Budocan team in my back watching me. We actually stayed outside for about 3 hours in the heavy rain. I took pictures till both of my batteries were dead, leaving me with about 300 pictures. This is one of 5 that caught the act. And murphy was there as well: Whenever I was cleaning the lens, looking for…
It always takes some time, till I get used to a new surrounding and feel comfotabel and although attending Budosola now for over 4 years I still need some time till I can take a real nap there. Claus and me seemed to have the same problem and when everybody else went to bed we put on our heavy jackets, a palette of beer and talked the night through. I set the cam to bulb and shot a couple of pictures from the star sprankled sky, figuring that bulb only is 30 minutes but mostly the battery ran dry way…
Just a spectacular night view of the WW I+II memorial. From Wikipedia: “Minnehallen or The hall of remembrance was commissioned by the Norwegian parliament after World War I to commemorate the fallen Norwegian sailors of the war. It was unveiled by king Haakon VII and was later converted to the national monument commemorating fallen sailors of both World War I and World War II.”
