WPC: nostalgia

This week’s topic for the weekly photo challenge by “The Daily Post” is “nostalgia”.

Literally, nostalgia means to love something old, old-fashioned or vintage. Jeff came up with some of his childhood memories. Others like i.e. vintage cars or old houses.

Here we haven an image, taken last year at our local fun fair on a photowalk with a model and an assistant. She came up with this idea. You can see, even a modern girl can enjoy an old-fashioned, Mary-Poppins-like carousel.

Take care have a great weekend!

(as usual, you can see the photo enlarged, when clicking in it)

The natural monuments of Étretat

In my last posts I wrote about the Alabaster Coast in a more general style. I wrote about the materials and so on from a ‘technical’ point of view. But, because of these facts, the coast became interesting for many, many visitors. People are interested in seeing the natural monuments created by erosion. So, many, many tourists come to the coast every year.

Although, there are some more interesting places, I’m focusing here on the part of the coast around Étretat.

When standing on the beach in Étretat you can find several monuments. I start on the right. Here we have “La Falaise d’Amont”, it’s the smallest of the three gates. On your left, we have “L’Arche et l’Aiguille”, the big arch and the rock needle behind. Further left, not visible from the beach itself, we have the huge gate “La Manneporte”. In the gallery below, you can find one image with a person standing inside La Manneporte. See, how tiny she is 🙂

When climbing up the cliff to you left, you’ll come the a group of rock needles in the cliff, the “Chambre des Demoiselles” (room of the virgins). Their story is like this: three virgins were kidnaped and locked in a cave because they refused to marry him. After three days and nights muted in the cave, an old woman saw three angel-like apparitions ascending to the sky. 

Another monument is accessible from the beach, a huge natural cave. Although, the entrance of the cave is below the water at flood time, the cave has natural emergency places to wait for low-tide and come back to Étretat safely.

Take care!

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Wordless Wednesday: fall

Enjoy!

Monochrome Madness 3-24

This is my contribution to Monochrome Madness organized by Leanne Cole. Look at here site on Thursday (Australian time), to see many more monochrome images created by many other talented photographers.

It’s taken during the 500px Global Photowalk inside a closed blast furnace.

Take care!

Photokina 2016 – a review

Photokina 2016 is over now. Yesterday was the last day of Photokina in Cologne. Although it’s the biggest fair related to photography, there were less exhibition halls occupied this year. And fewer visitors, too. At least this was it my feeling while being there. You were able to touch and test some gear, talk to sales representatives or some technical staff. Not only camera and lens produces exhibit their produces. You can also find the companies producing the big studio lights, filters, albums, photo-books, canvas prints and lots more. Unfortunately, the booths were distributed over the exhibition halls very badly. Instead of organising the halls by grouping the companies according their kind of business, as they were over the last years, they were distributed following the chaos principle this year. Very annoying. You really have to visit each hall to find all the booths you’re interested in – and have a very good chance to miss some booths you’d be interested in. I.e. I missed visiting Thinktank 😦 This year it was essential, to plan your visit in advance and work strictly with the fair plan or the smartphone app. But, even with these tools it was hard work to visit all booths of interest. 😦 very sad!

I guess, photokina has a problem, as the whole photography business has. Common people don’t use cameras anymore, but their cell or mobile phones instead. So, we produce more images than ever a year. But the market shrinks. The attackers are from the movie making gear such as copters from VR and certainly from the cell phone segments.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s still need for good cameras and lenses, but there is not much ‘new’ gear. Even the big players did not have new ideas to present. The only new products they have are enhancements of already available products.

I won’t complain. I don’t need crowded exhibition halls with long queues at the booths before me and hindering me testing something. So, for me it was OK.

The most interesting product were, in my opinion, the lenses by Laowa. I tested the f2.8 12mm lens. It’s a complete manual lens for full frame cameras and has a fantastic outcome.

I also was at the Samyang boot for testing their f2.8 14mm full-frame manual lens. It didn’t convinced me. It was extremely hard, to find a sharp spot, although my camera supports me to focus, even when using manual focus.

I also tested the lenses from Lensbaby: Lensbaby Composer PRO II with Edge 50 and Edge 80 as well as Lensbaby Composer PRO II inkl. Sweet 35. The composter is similar to a filter holder, where you can plug in the optic. They are very interesting from a creative point of view. I guess, I won’t need one.

Another interesting lens, I tested, was the Tamron SP 150-600mm F/5-6.3 Di VC USD G2. In my opinion, the AF is a bit too slow to be used for photographing birds. At least inside the exhibition halls and the available light inside of them. The stabiliser works fine. But, when looking at the EXIF data, you can see, how dark exhibition halls are, even our own eye does not feel the darkness. Here you can see, how much better the dynamic range of our eyes compared to camera sensors is. A free-standing hand-held test image taken at ISO 1600, f6.3 (open aperture) with 600mm (full-frame) resulted in a quite good image.

I also tested the Tamron SP 70-200mm F/2.8 Di VC USD. I was impressed by the results. Most remarkable was the ability to zoom inside the lens. So, the length of the lens does not change. Neither while zooming nor while focussing.

I also collected some paper samples for printing images at home. I tried an on-camera GPS devices, that might replace my Garmin devices next year.

Beside impressions from different booths and a few of my test shots with the tested lenses.

On each photokina, there are also several photo exhibitions. I included some images taken at the different exhibitions, to give you an impression.

Have fun.

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WPC: quest

This week’s topic for the weekly photo challenge by “The Daily Post” is “quest”.

When I’m on a trip, I’m on a quest for searching memories. Enjoying nature behind my camera and collecting remarkable memories.

Take care have a great weekend!

(as usual, you can see the photo enlarged, when clicking in it)

The Côte d’Albâtre

The Côte d’Albâtre (literally the Alabaster Coast) is part of the French coast of the English Channel. It takes its name from the white hue of its high chalk cliffs, which stretch for over 120 km, dominating most of the coastline. It is part of the same geological system as the White Cliffs of Dover on the other side of the English Channel.

The cliffs consist primarily of white chalk and flintstones. They are between 75 and 105m high. Below, you can find many, many round washed and polished stones, once embedded in the chalk, but now forming the beaches, because of wind and water have eroded the chalk. So, the remaining flintstones form the beaches.

The Côte d’Albâtre was a favourite subject of Impressionist painters, including Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and was frequented by composers associated with sea such as Claude Debussy and Albert Roussel. Other artists who painted the coastline include Gustave Courbet and Eugène Boudin.

Take care!

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Wordless Wednesday: nature

Monochrome Madness 3-23

I arrived at the lighthouse shortly before sunset. I liked how the lighthouse and the rocks stood out against the setting sun.

This is my contribution to Monochrome Madness organized by Leanne Cole. Look at here site on Thursday (Australian time), to see many more monochrome images created by many other talented photographers.

Take care!

500px Global PhotoWalk 2016

Last Saturday, the Global PhotoWalk organized by 500px.com took place. In many different locations local photowalks participated and all of these formed the GPW. Now, each photographer has many, many new pixels on his or her camera storage card. A small selection of my images is attached to this post as a gallery.

For an additional challenge I only have had 1 lens with me: a 35 mm prime lens for my full frame camera. No zooming, but carefully selecting the frame.

I was host of the locate photowalk in Duisburg. We walked up the bast furnace of a given up steel plant, now a park. Here you can legally visit a ‘lost place’. But, it’s not really lost, because many people visit the location regularly. But, nevertheless, it’s always interesting to see all the chances since your last visit. I was there at least 5 times during the last years. And, it’s never boring.

13 participants came with me. The youngest was a baby in her stroller. Unfortunately, the planned track was not suitable for a pushchair or stroller. So, she went on her own in park while we climbed up the blast furnace.

From the uppermost platform we have had a fantastic view over the surprisingly green environment, a part of the Ruhrgebiet where once only dust, pollution, smog and dirt were dominating the air. Despite, we only climbed up to 79m, we needed about an hour. That’s because photographers always need much of time for taking photographs, searching the right angle of view, experiencing with different focal lengths and so on. And, certainly, lot of chatting 🙂 When we returned to our starting point, we have had a pause at a beer garden for eating a piece of cake or some fries and drinking something while further taking. This lasted until the rain started. What a pity.

But, tanks to all participants.

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Visiting Étretat

I told you about my trip to Étretat last year. Now, it’s time to show you some more images and tell you, why it’s worth a visit.

Étretat is a small town near Le Havre in Normandy in France. There are a lot of different things to discover in Normandy. Some of them are already here in my blog from past trips. Just use the tag “normandie” to find them 🙂

This little series is dedicated to the village and the direct surroundings. For an introduction, I’d recommend to read my previous post on Étretat first.

Despite its small amount of inhabitants, you can find all necessary shops in Étretat, like butcher, 3 bakeries, fish shop, a supermarket, post office, pharmacy, banks and a hairdresser (many some more, but I don’t remember) and some gift shops as well as different kinds of restaurants. On Fridays there is a farmers market in the middle of the village so give you access to some more products. A nice place to stay, when retired.

Now, enjoy a trip through the town and imagine the slight smell of the near ocean. 🙂 The gallery below has 40 images – enjoy!

Take care!

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Wordless Wednesday: green-blue

Enjoy!

Monochrome Madness 3-22

Welcome to Le Phare De Ploumanac’h in Ploumanac’h at the Côte de Granit Rose in Brittany, France. You might have already seen the color version of this image last week in my ‘I’m back’ post. If not, you can do so now.

This is my contribution to Monochrome Madness organized by Leanne Cole. Look at here site on Thursday (Australian time), to see many more monochrome images created by many other talented photographers.

 

Take care!

I’m back …

… from my summer vacation.

I was in France again – even in Brittany again 🙂

I love being at the sea. I love sandy beaches. And I love diversified shorelines. Brittany has all of these – and more!

Brittany is of celtic origin and many names still have their names in the old Brittonic language or have the names onomatopoeic transferred to French.

Street signs usually have the names written in French as well as in Breton, the celtic language of the native people. Despite of the french politic of suppressing Breton and forcing the people to speak French, there are still some people left, being able to communicate in Breton. According to Wikipedia approximately 200,000, that’s app. 2% of the population. Breton is relative to the Cornish and the Welsh languages, once spoken in south-western Britain regions of Cornwall and Wales. Now, there’s a trend to try to educate more pupils in learning Breton again.

Although, this was a vacation and not a photo trip, I have some very nice images for you. But, not today 🙂 Until now, I only have a few of them developed.

My first trip to Brittany, a photo trip, led me to the Côte d’Emeraude. This time I was in the middle of the Côte de Granite Rose. I love the climate here in Brittany as well as the landscapes. Even when it’s hot, it’s no so unbearable hot because of the near ocean. Many, many flowers are blooming in the gardens and beside the roads, pretty nice houses and villages made of raw stone or studwork. Everything is well-shaped and clean. Even tiny villages are decorated with flowers.

We have had an apartment right in the middle of the town, only 150m from the beach, to be able to do much without the need of a car. But, in France summer holiday season is over at August 30th. So, it wasn’t crowded anymore. During the first days we got aware, how summer holiday season looks like during July and August. But, on September 1st everything changes: opening hours of the shops and supermarkets, leisure activities offerings, beach surveillance and so on.

So, here is a small preview, what’s in the pipe :). Enjoy the images in the gallery below and

take care!

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Wordless Wednesday: summer nights

Enjoy!

Monochrome Madness 3-21

This is my contribution to Monochrome Madness organized by Leanne Cole. Look at here site on Thursday (Australian time), to see many more monochrome images created by many other talented photographers.

 

Take care!

tiny things on the beach

Today, I have some images taken at a beach. These are the tiny things, lying around everywhere. So, it’s regardless, on which beach exactly I was. But, I tell you. It’s in the north-western Bretagne (Brittany) in France. One of the beaches of Perros-Guirec.

Most people won’t pay attention to these things. They’d collect snail houses or shells and maybe even nice stones. But, for the seaweed, tangle and algae they’d only say eek, jump over them and hope for someone to clean up the beach from them.

They remain, when flood is gone. At low tide (and sometimes even at flood time in higher parts of the beach or in parts of the beach, where neither wind nor the flood itself can remove it again) they lay around with their graphical beauty and decorate the bare beach. Have a closer look to discover the beauty of each of these tiny objects. After a heavier storm you’d find more of these plants on the beach. That’s because the wind had whirled up the water and the streams under the water surface tears down parts of the under water plants or even whole plants. Now, that they are drifting freely in the water, they might be thrown on the beach with the waves and left there, when the water trickles off.

That’s nature. The plants belong to the sea, and thus to the beach also. It’s not dirty or disgusting. OK, I have to admit, having a whole beach full of these, is no fun either. But, they give room for animals to hide, feed others and while living they produce oxygen for us to breath.

OK, my aim wasn’t to write a biological essay on the necessity of seaweed, but to direct your eyes on something underestimated. 🙂

All these images are taken with my cell phone and published at Instagram during the last couple of days, and as well as a Steller story. Non of the objects is decorated. They were put by water and wind in exact these positions.

Expect the collage on top of this post, all images are unedited, even without any of the Instagram filters. So, enjoy the gallery and prepare for your next visit at a beach to have a closer look at the tiny things yourself. Discover the different color and shape of the sand corns and find out, that the sand, also looking like being in a uniform beige color, has different colors, brighter and darker areas right beside each other.

Take care!

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