The other week in our Southern Home in Genoa, I woke up in the middle of the night and noticed something different in the room. The full moon was shining through the bedroom window. I was immediately intrigued by the scene, the light kind of magic, the textured curtains casting soft silvery shadows onto the bed. It felt simple but special. I had to get up and grab my iPhone 14 Pro to capture that moment. Sometimes, the best scenes are the ones you almost miss.
Taken with my iPhone 14 Pro with the built in dark monochrome filter. No post-processing.
More monochrome photography in this post. Taken yesterday on a stormy highway while enroute to our Southern Home in Italy. No worries, I didn’t drive under the influence (of photography). Our e-car was driving autonomous on the highway in Southern Bavaria, supervised by Big Boy sitting behind the wheel. While I was snapping at the amazing cloudscape with ever-changing light with my iPhone 16 Pro Max from the passenger seat. To see more images of this photographic road trip continue after the jump….
Yesterday afternoon, The Significant Other and I went for a walk up the mountain behind the house we’re staying. Sure enough an opportunity to capture some of the surrounding beauty on a sensor. As “real” camera I brought the Nikon Zf plus some primes. And then there are the two iPhone cameras in my office phone (iPhone 16 Pro Max) and my personal device (iPhone 14 Pro). The camera I grabbed for our walk was the technically “weakest”, the iPhone 14 Pro.
Photography literally means “drawing with light”. There is no reference about technology in this. While having a capable device to capture light on a sensor (or film) certainly is a prerequisite, it is not the key component for taking good photographs. In fact, some of the world’s greatest images have been captured with technology that was far inferior to what we can use today. Photography is more about the eye, the creativity in our minds than technology. Taking landscape images, it is about light, contrast, color, shapes, textures and composition. And this for me is the fun when out and about, doing my “visual push ups”. So come along for a walk with my phone…..
Today, October 3rd, is the German Unity Day, or “Tag der deutschen Einheit”, as it is called in our language. It commemorates our countries reunification in 1990, when the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) ceased to exist and joined the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), so that for the first time since 1945 there existed a single German state. German Unity Day on 3 October has been our national holiday since 1990, when the reunification was formally completed.
In this post I share some (vintage) images from the Reichstag dome on top of our national parliament building in our capital Berlin. Continue after the jump for its history and some more image, taken back in 2007 and 2008 with a Nikon D80 – remember the old days 😉 ?
Happy Birthday, Streets of Nuremberg! No, not to this blog that carries the name, which is also in its 10th year. Happy Birthday to the real Streets of Nuremberg. Yesterday, our city celebrated the 975th anniversary of the first documented mention of Nuremberg. On July 16, 1050, during the reign of Emperor Henry III., the city was referenced in the so-called Sigena document, which was issued at a Hoftag (imperial assembly) held in Nuremberg. In this document, Emperor Henry III confirmed the release of a woman named Sigena from servitude. This day is considered our city’s founding day.
At that time, Nuremberg was noted as the site of an Imperial Castle situated within a large imperial estate. This strategic location between East Francia and the Margraviate of the Nordgau (in what is now Bavaria) marked the beginning of the city’s historical significance.
This image is the oldest printed view of Nuremberg that was published in the Schedelsche Weltchronik back in 1493.
A few weeks ago, at the end of May, The Significant Other and I went on a 10 day trip to Uzbekistan. Since my teen years I wanted to tour the magic cities along the Silk Road that I read about in the adventures of Venetian merchant Marco Polo. With Khiva, Bukhara, Shakhrisabz, Samarkand and Tashkent we visited five Unesco World Heritage Sites along the ancient trade route between China and Europe. This post in my series “Uzbekistan explored” takes you along to a place that feels like it’s been untouched for centuries. But that’s exactly how it felt the moment we stepped through the gates of Khiva, the desert city in the far west of Uzbekistan, rising out of the stark beauty of the Kyzylkum Desert. An ancient Silk Road oasis frozen in time.
I wish all my friends a blessed, happy, marvelous, successful, beautiful, inspirational, creative, wonderful and especially healthy 2021! May all your wishes and dreams come true!
I wish all my friends a blessed, happy, marvelous, successful, beautiful, inspirational, creative, wonderful and healthy 2019! May all your wishes and dreams come true!
Christmas Season below Nuremberg’s Imperial Castle
Sitting in my office in far away Oregon, I swiped though my Instagram feed during lunch break. Somehow I was surprised to see all those images from the grand opening of the historic Nuremberg Christmas market. Being fully engulfed in my work on the other side of the world, it completely dropped off my radar that this weekend is the start of Advent season, the four weekends prior to Christmas. And traditionally, on Friday night before the First Advent, is the festive opening of Nuremberg’s Christkindlesmarkt, as it is called locally. And with that, the historic old town below the Imperial Castle turns on the lights of all the festive street decorations. Seeing the Instagram photos I’m feeling a bit homesick, but that comes with the job that pays the bills. At least I get to spend two days at the coast of the great Pacific Ocean, albeit with plenty of Oregon liquid sunshine forecasted, but I will make the best of it.
The photograph was taken with my Olympus PEN-F and the 12mm F/2 prime lens, image specs 1/60 sec @ f/2 and ISO 1600.
If you want to pick up your camera on the weekend and are looking for tips and inspirations around photography, visit my free Learning Center .
Wish you a great weekend and a peaceful Christmas season.
This post falls under my category “Nuremberg Explored”, although the Ludwigskanal is a bit outside of the city, just a few kilometers from our house. After yet another warm and sunny Saturday The Significant Other and I decided for a late afternoon trip to our favorite little Beergarden (Gaststätte zum Ludwigskanal) in Schwarzenbach for some food and a sunset beer. Just in case I decided to bring a camera, so I grabbed the PEN-F with the 12mm F/2. After dinner and just before sunset, we took a small walk along the historic Ludwigskanal, a now abandoned historic canal. For a bit of history and a few more photographs continue after the jump…
As the work week is finally coming to a close, there is a lot to smile about. After the passing of a cold front, the weekend is supposed to be beautiful again, with lots of sunshine and warm temperatures.
We’ll be spending the weekend in our nation’s capital to visit close friends and roam the Streets of Berlin, always one of my favorite places for Street Photography. Good that I spent a good part of last night giving my cameras and lenses a thorough cleaning. I also finally hooked them up to my Mac to do the firmware updates I wanted to do for quite some time now. So all is ready for a weekend of shooting.
Yesterday I also received the printed and framed photograph that I ordered to be included in a year long exhibition of the work of local artists. It opens at the end of September, and I’m really exited as it will be my first ever exhibit. The theme of the exhibition is “on the road” , and I submitted the image of the historic jetty in Swakopmund, Namibia, I took last year and blogged about in this post.
I didn’t even realize it when it happened, but sometimes last week the “Streets of Nuremberg” has exceeded the threshold of 5000 followers. When I started this little blog two and a half years ago, I would have never even dreamed about one day reaching this number. Then again, blogging for me is not about statistics. By sharing my photographic experiences and tips via my posts and my free Learning Center, I want to inspire and empower others to get more involved in photography and the visual arts. And I want to give back to the community that gave me so much over the years. And the best part of blogging is making all those wonderful connections with likeminded people all over this planet. So to all of you a heartfelt “Thanks” for being part of my journey.
The photo was taken with my Olympus OM-D E-M1 and the 12-100mm F/4. Image specs are 1/400 sec @ f/5.6 and ISO 200. RAW conversion in Lightroom Classic CC
Street Fun | 2018 | 1/640 sec – f/7.1 – ISO 200 – 100mm
I’m welcoming myself back to my own blog, after a small summer break I took after returning to Germany from our family vacation trip through the Pacific Northwest. I guess everyone needs a timeout once in a while. The transition from a splendid three weeks off work back to the job that pays the bills was just too hard, and in the evenings I was just too tired to get in front of my computer to blog.
But there is plenty to do photographically, I still need to edit and post-process most of my images from our trip, write the remaining “PNW Explored”posts about the Oregon High Desert, our trips up the volcanos Mount Hood and Mount St. Helens, and to wrap it up, a visit to the fascinating Museum of Flight at Boeing Field in Seattle, just hours before we boarded the flight back to Germany.
I dearly need to clean my camera equipment, the dust and dirt really took its toll after three weeks on the road.
And I really have to catch up with all the comments on this blog I haven’t answered, plus check out all the blogs I follow and I haven’t visited in the past weeks.
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