Tag: Germany

View things upside down

View things Upside down -Nuremberg's Sankt Lorenz Church
Rainscape | Nuremberg | 2016

Sometimes it helps to take a different perspective on otherwise common and familiar objects. To make the ordinary special again. To view things upside down. Also in Street Photography. These are reflections of Nuremberg’s Sankt Lorenz Church and of a Bratwurst Hut on the wet cobblestones of the Karolinenstrasse.

I photographed this puddle reflections with down on my knees in pouring rain to the amusement of the passing shoppers who must have wondered about this crazy guy who took photos of a puddle.

Using the LCD back screen to compose the shot, I also could have turned camera upside down. But instead of generating even more curiosity in my onlookers, I rather flipped the image later on in Lightroom. I also worked a bit with curves, increased saturation and clarity to bring more life into this image from a very dull day.

And to show a very common and popular sight of Nuremberg in an unusual perspective. By viewing things upside down

For more tips and inspirations around street photography, head to my free Learning Center.

Have a great day Thursday

Marcus

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Work the scene

Happy Girl in front of fountain
Happiness | Munich | 2016

These days I’m revisiting some older posts to clean up some SEO errors I did in my earlier blogging years. Originally titled “Apocalyptic Fountain”, it very well describes my approach to Street Photography when I work the scene. When I see an interesting setting, just like a stage set. Then I wait for things to happen. Click below to see more street shots from that apocalyptic afternoon in Munich….

Continue reading “Work the scene” →
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Ice Ice Baby

Ice skating little boy
Ice Ice Baby | Nuremberg | 2025

Walking into the city the other day, I was quite surprised to see an ice skating rink on the Main Square in Nuremberg’s Old Town. And many people, old and young, obviously enjoying themselves. An awesome opportunity for some low light street photography. Ice Ice Baby….

Continue reading “Ice Ice Baby” →
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Merry Christmas from the Streets of Nuremberg

Merry Christmas from the Streets of Nuremberg
Imperial Castle | Nuremberg | 2024

To everyone out there, but particularly to all the many magic people I’ve had the blessings to meet virtually and face-to-face during my eight years of blogging on the “Streets of Nuremberg”,  I wish a peace- and joyful Christmas and much love and laughters together with your family and friends.

Merry Christmas from the Streets of Nuremberg

Marcus

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A Royal Smile

Nürnberger Christkind
A Royal Smile | Nuremberg | 2024

With December 1st upon us we are now officially in the festive season. In Nuremberg, the famous Christkindlesmarkt, our historic Christmas market on the main square in the Old Town, opens Friday before the 1st Advent. Sure enough I ventured into town to watch our Christkind speak the famous “prologue” from the balcony of the Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady).

The Christkind became the face of our Christmas market in the mid-20th century. Every two years, a local teenage girl is chosen to embody the Christkind. She wears a shimmering costume of white and gold with a distinctive golden crown and long blonde curls. Her role is to spread the spirit of Christmas and officially open the market with a heartfelt prologue from the balcony of the Frauenkirche (Church of Our Lady). She visits schools, hospitals, and nursing homes, spreading holiday cheer to all. Her iconic presence at the Christkindlesmarkt makes her a beloved symbol of joy and hope.

Nelly, in her second year, did a wonderful job opening the market with the famous words “You men and women who once were children, too, be happy that Christkind has come to you!” After the opening ceremony she posed for selfies with the many little kids admiring her with big eyes, and also threw the passing street photographer a royal smile.

Taken with my Olympus OM-D E-M1X and the mZuiko 12-100mm F4 Pro Zoom. Image specs 1/30 sec @ f/4 and ISO 3200 with 100 mm focal length. Post processing in Lightroom Classic.

Have a great Sunday

Marcus

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The night something magic happened

Aurora Borealis in Germany
Aurora Borealis | Nuremberg | 2024

Faithful readers of this blog know I have a passion for the Aurora Borealis, the Northern Lights. I was blessed enough to have seen them three times from an airplane window during winter night crossings of the Northern Atlantic Ocean, and I’ve shared those stories here and here. Unfortunately, The Significant Other was never with me when the magic happened. So we continued to have the dream to one day see the “Dancing Lights” together, during a winter travel to Norway, Finland or Iceland. But then, this past Friday, the Aurora Borealis unexpectedly came to us, in the night something magic happened…

Continue reading “The night something magic happened” →
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No polar lights

Star spangeled Sky

This photograph taken last night with my iPhone 14 Pro from our bedroom window is the byproduct of a fruitless hunt for the Aurea Borealis. Due to a recent coronal outburst of our sun, the magical fairy lights were visible much farther south as usual, and the past two nights they appeared over Germany, something that rarely happens. But they didn’t make it down to Frankonia. There were no polar lights.

But what amazed me was the lowlight capability of the iPhone’s camera. It was pretty much pitch dark outside. And this was, what the iPhone saw on a 3 sec exposure, handheld. Insane. Why bothering putting a system camera or DSLR on a tripod for a long esposure??

I was sorry for The Significant Other, who never witnessed the Aurea Borealis. I had the chance to see and capture the polar lights a few times while crossing the Northern Atlantic Ocean at night on a plane. Looks like one day we need to travel north in winter to make the wife’s dream come true…

Have a great Tuesday

Marcus

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Summer in the City

Entla's Keller Erlangen
Entla’s Keller | Erlangen | 2022

Summer in the City. The Significant Other and I spent the last evening of June in style, at the Entla’s beer cellar in neighbouring Erlangen. The site of a major 10 day beer festival each year, it’s actually much nicer visiting “The Mountain”, as it is called by the locals, when it is not packed by thousands of people standing shoulder by shoulder…

Continue reading “Summer in the City” →
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Merry Christmas from the Streets of Nuremberg

Snow capped roofs in Nuremberg's historic Old Town
Merry Christmas from the Streets of Nuremberg

To everyone out there, but particularly to all the many magic people I’ve had the blessings to meet virtually during my six years blogging on the “Streets of Nuremberg”,  I wish a peaceful and merry Christmas and much love and laughters together with your family and friends. And please stay safe!

Merry Christmas from the Streets of Nuremberg

Marcus

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Happy Halloween!

Ghosthouse in autumn forest
Happy Halloween | Plech | 2021

Tonight is “All Hallow’s Eve”, the eve before the religious feast All Saints (aka All Hallow’s Day), remembering the dead, saints and martyrs of christianity. Many of the traditions of Halloween are believed to originate in ancient Celtic harvest festivals and pagan traditions. It was mainly Irish immigrants to the USA who brought along the many more secular traditions like  trick-or-treating,  Halloween costume parties, carving pumpkins into jack-o’-lanterns and lighting bonfires. In Europe, All Saints was mainly celebrated in the religious sense (remembering the dead, lighting candles at their graves). Only in the last ten years the more “American” way of celebrating Halloween became more popular into what is now a big commercial business for retail.

This year, we in Frankonia are blessed with a colorful and sunny last October weekend. And with this image of an enchanted haunted house in a forest near Nuremberg I wish you a very happy halloween!

Photograph taken with my iPhone 12. Jpg out of camera.

Marcus

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16

Home away from home

A pumpkin patch in Germany is definitely nothing native. Sure, we grow pumpkins, we eat pumpkins, but buying pumpkins is something we typically do in a grocery store. Not so in a village south east of Nuremberg. Jerry is a farmer from the US who moved to Germany a few years ago. Unable to find the familiar huge pumpkins, he started to grow them himself on his farm. Then he turned it into a business. “Best Darn Pumpkins on this side of the Ozarks!” is his claim. His clients are mostly US citizens living in Frankonia and Upper Palatine, English was the most spoken language of the families collecting the pumpkins. And they sure have fun roaming the patch and taking home one (or two of three or four) giant pumpkins. For those families something ordinary like a pumpkin patch is special, it’s a piece of home away from home.

Continue reading “Home away from home” →
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Good Friday

Statue in der Pfarrkirche St. Willibald in Möning
1/250 sec | f/2 | ISO 1600 | 50mm

Good Friday is a public holiday in Germany. Time to commemorate the crucifixion of Jesus and his death at Calvary. Time to unwind a bit, taking The Significant Other and the Leica and heading out for a little hike near Etzelsdorf, visiting the site were the golden headdress of a bronze age sun priest was found that I wrote about in this post about our last trip to a museum.

While today’s images still are on the SD card in the camera, I want to share a photograph taken with the Leica M (Type 240) and the Summicron 50mm F/2 during another recent Sunday afternoon hike around the village of Möning, a few kilometers from our house. We took a peak into St. Willibald church, where I was immediately hooked by the rays of light falling through one of the windows of the old church dating back almost one thousand years.

That moment I was glad I had brought the Leica on this trip, as none of the other cameras I own would have been able to capture the magic of this moment as the vintage full frame rangefinder. The tonal range, the softness of the light is special to this sensor almost ten years old now. A perfect image to share on this Good Friday.

If you feel like picking up your camera on this (hopefully for you as well) long weekend and are still looking for more tips, explanations and inspiration around photography, check out my free Learning Center. And then have fun hunting for those magic rays of light.

Have a wonderful Easter weekend and stay safe!

Marcus

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