Dead in the Sea? In the Dead Sea!

Sunset swim in the Dead Sea on the Jordan Shore
Sunset Dip | Dead Sea | 2019

This is how The Significant Other and myself did spend our Halloween evening. Taking a splash in the Dead Sea. We’re both in this picture (courtesy to a smartphone picture by our friend Ralf). Life’s been crazy lately, but I’m still alive. Sandwiched between business trips to the USA and India, the wife and I are spending a week touring beautiful Jordan.

Continue reading “Dead in the Sea? In the Dead Sea!”

Nuremberg’s Best Sunset

Sunset behind Nuremberg's Imperial Castle
Imperial Sunset | Nuremberg | 2019

I always wanted to capture this photograph. The best sunset my city can possibly offer. It graces the cover of a coffee table book about Nuremberg by famous local photographer Herbert Liedel, who passed away in 2015. But this image it is hard to get. To find out why continue reading…

Continue reading “Nuremberg’s Best Sunset”

The last sunset

1/80 sec - f/16 - ISO 640 - 40mm
Depoe Bay – Oregon | 2018 | 1/80 sec – f/16 – ISO 640 – 40mm

Okay, maybe the title is a bit exaggerated – it was only the last sunset of November. But a dramatic one for sure. After a day full of Oregon liquid sunshine and a nasty drive from Portland to the coast I just made it to Depoe Bay about 30 minutes prior to sunset. And after all that heavy rain the sky amazingly cleared for a few minutes, just as I got to the coast. I snapped away with two cameras, the OM-D E-M1 with the 40-150mm F/2.8 and the PEN-F with the 12-40mm F/2.8. With the heavy wind, plenty of salt and water in the air I was glad I had two bodies and didn’t need to change lenses in those conditions. After 15 minutes all hell broke loose with a thundershower with another downpour and hail. Before it cleared the sun was down and the last day of November was lost in a wet, dark night. For a few more photos continue after the jump… Continue reading “The last sunset”

Weekly Photo Challenge: Rise/Set

Etosha Sunset
Etosha Sunset | Etosha | 2017

Rise/Set” is the theme of this week’s WPC from Word Press’ “The Daily Post”. This is a perfect challenge to send us all into a (hopefully) sunny Easter weekend. In Germany, Good Friday and Easter Monday are public holidays, so we have a long weekend ahead. Time to spend with friends and family, time for some photography. To see some sunsets (and a sunrise) from my travels around the world, continue after the jump…. Continue reading “Weekly Photo Challenge: Rise/Set”

Sunset at the end of the road

African Sunset
African Sunset | Swakopmund | 2017

Driving on African gravel roads is tiring. The landscape around you is fantastic, bit keeping the car steady on the gravel or sandy roads takes a lot of effort, you can never drive on “autopilot”. After a 380 kilometer and 6 hour trip on unpaved roads we arrived at the coastal town of Swakopmund. After checking into our B&B we went straight to the historic jetty to experience the African sunset behind the Southern Atlantic Ocean.

Despite having a coastline of 1400 kilometers, Namibia has only two natural ports, Luderitz Bay in the south and Walvis Bay just 30 kilometers south of Swakopmund. As Luderitz was limited to the diamond mining operations and had no real access to the rest of the country due to being isolated by the Namib desert, and Walvis Bay was British, the German colonial authorities founded Swakopmund as a city that had at least some access too fresh water and decided to built a Jetty in 1905 to help the unloading of cargo from ships and support the settling activities. At the Ocean end of the Jetty is a great restaurant where we enjoyed a great fish dinner after getting the obligatory sunset pictures first.

The Ocean waves where impressive, as was the colors of the sky after the sun went down behind the great Oceans waves. I wanted to create a long exposure image of the waves, creating that dreamy effect. In order to achieve the longest possible exposure time I set the PEN-F to its smallest aperture of f/22 and the lowest native ISO of 200, resulting in a 6 second exposure time, long enough to create what I was after.

To keep it simple, I did not attach any filters, and neither I used a tripod. I simply set the camera on on of the rocks between the road and the beach and used a 2 second self timer to avoid any camera shake after pressing the shutter.

The photograph is a jpg out of camera, no postprocessing was applied.

Have a great Friday!

Marcus

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Namibia Explored – Quiver Tree Forest

Quivertree Forest 01
Quiver Tree Forest | Namibia | 2017

The “Streets of Nuremberg” continue with the road trip through Namibia. After leaving the capital Windhoek, we drove around 500 kilometers down south. First stop in the South of Namibia was Keetmanshoop with its famous Quiver Tree Forest.

This unique piece of nature comprises of about 300 trees of  “Aloe dichotoma”, more commonly known as “quiver tree” or kokerboom, because bushmen traditionally used its branches to make quivers. The tallest quiver trees are two to three centuries old.

Quivertree Forest 02
Quiver Tree | Namibia | 2017

 

Quivertree Forest 03
African Sunset | Namibia | 2017

We arrived at the Quiver Tree Forest in the late afternoon, it is spectacular in the light of the fading day and to photography the tree silhouettes in front of the golden evening sky.

Tomorrow we will head to Fish River Canyon, the second largest canyon in the world only behind Arizona’s Grand Canyon. Stay tuned for more of Namibia!

Have a great day!

Marcus

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A Pacific Sunset

Pacific Sunset
Pacific Sunset | Oregon | 2017

I’m back in Portland after a great weekend on the Oregon coast. I took too many photos that will take a few days to sort through and post-process. So like yesterday I show you once more the final image of the day, a sunset scene near Lincoln City. Isn’t this what a drive along the great ocean is all about?

In my free Learning Center is a post how to shoot silhouettes, check it out!

Image was taken with the Olympus OM-D E-M1 and the mZuiko 40-150mm F/2.8 Pro Zoom. Image specs 1/2000 sec @ f/9 and ISO 200, 90mm focal length.

I wish all of you a great week.

Marus

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A German Sunset

German Sunset
German Sunset | Franken | 2017

July is upon us and with it the time for glorious, fiery summer sunsets. In the colors black, red and gold. The colors of the German flag.

And the start of July treated us German soccer fans to two international titles. First the Under 21 national squad won the European title by defeating Spain 1:0 in the finals. And tonight our National Team won the Confederations Cup in St. Petersburg with a 1:0 win over Chile. And this with a B-squad, as the key players from the 2014 World Cup Winner were given the summer off to get the needed rest before the pending start of the new European soccer season that will be capped with the World Cup 2018 in Russia next summer.

The two victories give is plenty hope we can defend our title next summer.

Image specs are 1/3200 sec @ f/7,1 and ISO 400. The short exposure time ensure the rendering of the landscape as a black silhouette.

Have a great July!

Marcus

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A Capital Sunset

A capital Sunset
Capital Sunset | Berlin | 2017

We’re in our Capital this weekend. After seeing a marvelous concert in the Berlin Cathedral with music from Karl Jenkins we walked out just in time to see this splendidly colored evening sky behind the Spree river.

Image specs are 1/80 sec at f/4,1 and ISO 200,17mm focal length. Camera was the OM-D E-M1 with the mZuiko 14-150mm F/4.0-5.6.

Took quite a few photos yesterday, but returning to our room only way past midnight and needing to get up early in the morning to go to the next event I just downloaded my photos, but had to time to go through them.

So with this quick sunset snap I wish you a good Friday and a hopefully relaxed start into a blessed and peaceful weekend!

Marcus

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A distant sunset

Tramonto
Tramonto | Sardegna | 2003
The start into the working week at home was quite tough, not much time for blogging, and for sure no time for any photography. While driving home I saw a nice sunset, but was unable to capture it. So now, shortly before midnight, I did a quick dip into my vast Lightroom archive searching for sunsets and I came across this one I took back in 2003 on Sardinia, the magic island off the west coast of Italy. Back then I was just three years into digital photography and my camera was a Minolta Dimage A1. Anyone members that?

Sometimes I love diving back into my archive, look at the images and still can recall the emotions of that special warm summer evening on Sardinia. I lived four years in Italy and I have still plenty memories to share from that time.

Hope you all had a good start into the week and have a fun time getting ready for the Easter days.

Marcus

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Long Distance Birthday Kisses

Kissed by the Sun
Kissed by the Sun | Isola d’Elba | 2016

Today is a happy day! My big boy is turning 17. But it is also a very hard day. For me. Because it is the first time I can not be with him to celebrate. Because I’m half a world away. It is the first time ever in my life that I’m not home for a family birthday. To be where the job that pays the bills requires me to be was the only rational decision. We face-timed while back at home he blew out the candles on his birthday cake and unwrapped his presents before going to school. While video phoning home I  was already in bed ready to go to sleep after a long workday in Portland. Where I was it wasn’t even his birthday yet due to the 9h time difference. I was there but I was not there. Virtual hugs and kisses are not the same. Happy Birthday, Daniel! Love you, kiddo!

A Valentine Sunset

Sunset in Camogli
Sunset | Camogli | 2016

I just felt today like I needed to post a sunset photo for all those Valentine Loveducks out there. The weather in Nuremberg during the day was quite nice although still too cold. But with some haze and clouds out and about there was no such thing as a nice sunset. Don’t remember when I saw the last nice one, might have been the one I saw from the plane when arriving to Los Angeles the other week.

As the weather forecast for my next business travel destination (going to Portland via Seattle tomorrow) calls for torrential rain, I decided to go into last years archive and post this beautiful sunset from the little town of Camogli on the Riviera di Levante near Genoa. Not without reason this coastal part of the Ligurian Sea is called Golfo Paradiso. The pebbled beach with the colorful historic town houses (there is an image in this post here) is the perfect swimming destination with crystal clear water and splendid views of the Monte di Portofino, and the sunsets behind the Basilica Santa Maria Assunta and the Castello della Dragonara are one of a kind. And for all you Valentines out there, on the terrace above the beach are plenty of great cocktail bars.

I took the photo with my Olympus PEN-F with the mZuiko 14-150mm F/4.0-5.6 travel zoom. Image specs are 1/320 sec with f/10 and ISO 200, focal length was 22mm (equals 44mm in full frame equivalent). RAW conversion was done in Adobe Lightroom CC where I applied the VSCO 4  Fuji Astia 100F+ preset to warm up the image slightly.

Have a great Valentines Day !

Marcus

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