Travel Tuesday: Encounter with sheep

Last week I told you a little bit about the landscapes at the Germany North-sea coast and the dikes.

The dikes are very sensitive buildings. To keep them in good shape, there are no machines allowed to use for i.e. mow the lawns on top of them. Therefore sheep are here to keep the grass short and their feed don’t endanger the soil. Perfect. In some areas there are meadows bordered with fences and in other areas the sheep are allowed to move over large areas freely while the people can simply walk across them.

That evening, we were faced with hundreds of sheep on our walk along the dike. Although, it wasn’t our first meeting with a herd of sheep on a dike, it was a remarkable encounter.

There are fences to hinder the sheep from running away or crossing streets. All the fences have gates for the people. Some gates have doors, while other gates are equipped with grids in the ground. Sheep won’t cross these grids while people can cross them easily with bikes, children’s push chair or strollers.

Take care!

 

Monochrome Madness 3-41

We have another themed MMC this week and the theme ist “reflection”. You can find many reflections around. But, not every reflection also works in monochrome.

So, I considered several images and finally decided to take this one taken last fall.

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 from all over the world.

I’d also encourage you to participate. The conditions are  published in each of here Monochrome Madness posts.

Take care!

WPC: Repurpose

What to do with old and useless cars? Let’s use them form an entry for a museum 🙂

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

 

Take care!

 

Take care have a great weekend!

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

Throwback Thursday: seals

Jan. 24th, 2016

Take care!

Wordless Wednesday: freezing

Enjoy!

Travel Tuesday: on top of the dike

Last week I told you a little bit about the landscapes at the Germany North-sea coast and the dikes.

In this image you can see the path behind the dike and the small Pilsum lighthouse. It’s located near the town Greetsiel.

Nowadays, most of the lighthouses are not in operation anymore. They are only tourist attractions. Here, i.e. you can legally get married when booking in advance.

Take care!

 

Monochrome Madness 3-40

Do you remember my last Monochrome Madness post? I told you about the weather warning we got. This is, how our garden looked like the night before the storm.

We still have snow. Although, we have had a week full of sunshine and blue sky, the sun wasn’t able to melt it down. The clear nights are cold (around -10°C). Even during the days the temperature stayed below 0°C. The forecast says, it will stay cold, but clouds are on the way to bring further snow or even rain.

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 from all over the world.

I’d also encourage you to participate. The conditions are  published in each of here Monochrome Madness posts.

Take care!

WPC: gracefulness

I’m sorry, Ben. I also have to pick a swan image for the challenge. These birds are simply a synonym for gracefulness, in my opinion.

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

 

Take care!

 

Take care have a great weekend!

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

Throwback Thursday: sledging kids

Dec. 21, 2009

Sledging isn’t possible here, anymore. Now, houses are standing on that meadow.

Take care!

Wordless Wednesday: mid winter?

Take care!

Travel Tuesday: wide land

As I wrote in one of my last posts, the area at the German coast is very swallow and flat. The highest points, beside the huge wind engines and power poles are the dikes. The dikes were built to save the land from being overflooded during i.e. storms or storm tides. The water would be able to destroy the land or at least make it fruitless because of the salt. Also, people live next to the dikes and there are some nice towns.

People used to live as fishermen, farmers and rangers here. And you can still find many, many fields like the one in the image above growing rape, potatoes, corn, wheat and other grains. In the back, you can see the dike. I wasn’t far away from the shore while taking this photo.

The dikes not only part the beach from the fertile lands, they are also nice paths. There are usually good ‘roads’ along the dikes for checking and  preventive maintenance. So, lorries can use these roads. But, usually they are for pedestrians and bikers. Cars aren’t generally allowed. Often you have one of these roads on the water side and one on the land side. So, you can change to the land side road, when the wind becomes too strong for you on the sea-side. sometimes there is a third path on top of the dike. But, this is primarily for pedestrians and gives you a nice view over the sea to one side and the land to the other side.

Take care!

Monochrome Madness 3-39

On Thursday evening we got weather warnings from the weather forecasters. A serious storm was upcoming and about to cross the European mainlands during the night. Although the temperature was slightly about 0°C it was snowing. Partly, there were heavy snow storms even in the usually snow free lowlands. This storm was called “Egon”. That’s a custom for every heavy storm, low-pressure area and high-pressure area. “Egon” came from western directions. Luckily, one major part of the storm passed about 100km north of my region. Another major part started in France (more than 300000 households were reported to have no electric power – for France that means “no heating”, because the houses usually have electric heatings) and passed east of us. So, we only got a snowy cover of about 3-4 cm in thickness, but melting because of the temperatures.

The warnings were still current on Friday, also of my region, and lasted until Saturday noon. Although a heavy snow storm came up on Saturday and hindered me from visiting a friend, we have had good luck: our region was spared from the disaster.

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 from all over the world.

I’d also encourage you to participate. The conditions are  published in each of here Monochrome Madness posts.

Take care!

WPC: ambience

 

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

Here, the sun rise lifted up the felt temperature of the snowy, cold landscape and made me feel a little warmer.

Take care have a great weekend!

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

Throwback Thursday: French Château

March 2013, Normandy

Take care!

Wordless Wednesday: Frozen

Take care!

Tideland

 

The North Sea isn’t very deep along the German coast. Instead, it’s shallow. During low tide much of the ground is free of water, expect some tidal-creeks. It’s a funny experience, walking on the ground of the sea. But, it’s also dangerous. Because the ground is so shallow, the water will come back more quickly than you can run. Even when you’re a few hundred meters away from the beach, you might be several meters below the water level. So, don’t walk too far away. Always have a look on the time (tidal calendars are available to help you being save) and live the tidal fat on time.

In Norddeich, they have stabilised parts of the coast and the beach with cobble stone and concrete from being taken back by the sea at storm times or during a storm flood. Some stairs help you, to enter the sea, as you can see in the image. The above image is taken during low-tide. During flood times only the upper one or two steps are visible.

At the horizon you can see one of the east-friesian islands: Juist. It’s about 10 km away.

Take care!

 

 

Monochrome Madness 3-38

 

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 from all over the world.

I’d also encourage you to participate. The conditions are  published in each of her Monochrome Madness posts.

Take care!

Thank you for 500 subscribers!!

Thank you guys. Thank you very much.

This morning I got notified by the WordPress backend about the 500th subscriber. That’s so fantastic.

You keep this blog running since September 2009 and nearly 1000 posts up to now. Your likes and comments are my motivation to continue this work. In the beginning, there were few or even no feedbacks. but, over time the number of feedbacks increased. And I’m very happy about that.

It takes me some time each week for thinking about new themes for the next posts,  introducing you to certain parts of this beautiful planet, taking you virtually along on my trips and investigating some fact about country, region, culture, history, animals or plants. But, as long as there is someone who likes what I write, I like to do it.

So, again, thank you very much for your support!

 

WPC: names

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

Here we have the “path of the career”. As you can see, it ist stony, steep, and in bad conditions. So, work hard, to make your career.

 

Take care!

 

Take care have a great weekend!

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

Throwback Thursday: Seychelles

 

Take care!

Wordless Wednesday: Christmas rose

Take care!

Travel Tuesday

As I already wrote, I changed my schedule a bit. You’re used to find my travel posts on Thursdays. Now, I shifted them to Tuesday. But, the content won’t change much. Despite, I try to reduce the number of images a bit to decrease the loading-time of the gallery.

Next, I’d like to introduce you to East-Frisia at the German North-sea cost.

The former pre-German tribe of the Frisians used to live along the North-sea, from around todays southern border of Denmark in the north down to the Netherlands in the west. So, you can find the West-Frisians in the Netherlands and the North-Frisians in very south-western Denmark and the western parts of the German state Schleswig-Holstein. In Lower-Saxony, the second biggest German state in size and the fourth biggest state in population, you can find the East-Frisians along the coast.

In the past, the East-Frisians have had the reputation of being silly, stupid and dull. They used to be farmer and fishermen (and wrecker). Today, that area is a popular holiday region. In both countries, in The Netherlands and in Germany, the Frisians are officially recognized as a minority with their own culture, history and language.

The history of being a vacation or cure region started at the end of the 18th century, when rich elders discovered especially the islands in front of the cost. Now, you have several options for your vacation here:

• beach holidays
• farm holidays for families with kids
• biking or hiking holidays, because the region is quite flat and beautiful
• horse and riding holidays
• sailing, kiting or surfing holidays
• cure your health in the salty air along the sea
• observe animals, especially birds

Monochrome Madness 3-37

You know, I’m living in the northern hemisphere. And you also know, it’s currently winter here and it will last about 6-8 weeks until the first snowdrops or crocuses will pop up. So, why do I post an image with a blooming plant?

It’s a Christmas rose, also known as snow rose. It’s called that name, because its blooming time is around Christmas. This plant stands in our front garden and is blooming every year. A few years ago, my wife planted two small Christmas roses, side by side in our front garden. Although, both looked the same, one of them seemed to be weaker than the other and developed poorly over time. Unfortunately, it vanished some time ago. The other one, instead, developed fantastic. Each year it has more blossoms than in the year before. It’s always a pleasure to see the fresh blossoms either between the other, seemingly death, plants or among snow (when we have some).

I took the image on December 30th at noon. That’s usually a bad time for taking photographs because of the bad quality of light at (around) noon. But, in winter, when the sun is low above the horizon, she gives a beautiful, warm and soft light even around noon. Days are short now. Winter solstice or midwinter was last week. Despite the days become longer now agin, they are still short. Sunrise is late and sunset early. Thus, fresh green or fresh blossom are very welcomed.

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 from all over the world.

I’d also encourage you to participate. The conditions are  published in each of her Monochrome Madness posts.

Take care!

2016 – A review in images

Today, we have the first day of 2017. 2016 is definitely over. 2016 has had 366 days, because it was a leap year. What happened during these days?

First of all, I’m alive, healthy and full of plans for the future. Although, there are a few little things, where I’m able to feel, I’m not 20 anymore 🙂 On the other hand, I was very, very busy for the last 2 months. A bit more than usual. I miss the time to be able to have a look at my friends blogs. I hope, this will change soon in January.

Since this late spring, I’m posting more often on Instagram and I also reactivated my accounts at 500px and Viewbug. Up to now, there is nearly no overlapping with this blog. But, I reduced my activity at G+, because of the huge changes in how to create posts and upload images. In my opinion, it’s way to complicate now, to publish at G+.

In 2016 the weather has had big impact on the country. In late spring and early summer we have had more than 4 weeks of very hard rain. Many region were over-flooded for some time. Houses, cars, streets, acres and lives were destroyed. Later, in summer, the rain was missed were hard in some regions and the lack of rain endangered the harvest. Fortunately, the weather conditions changed to the better. So, the harvest in sum wasn’t thus bad. Although, some farmers have had a very, very bad year.

Over the year I was on several trips. I assembled the best images in a short movie (30 MB), just like I did in the last two years. I put it on my other webspace, to save the available room here on WordPress. Just follow the link. It will open in a separate window of your web-browser

• In January, I was on Helgoland for seeing the seals.
• In February / March I was in northern Norway for the Aurora Borealis
• In May I was in East-Frisia at the Germany North sea coast
• In August / September I was in Brittany for the summer holidays
• In November / December I was in the Erzgebirge

The image above is a symbol. Assume, each foot print as a station, a mark or an event of the past year. Assume also, the sand is your life. So, everything happens during a year leaves a mark on your life. Although, you’ll forget several things which happened, many of them stay in your memory and will change you forever. I’m collecting these memories with my images. This blog helps me to remember as well as the photo-books I create after an important trip or at least the yearly review book containing about 50 – 70 image from the whole year.

I encourage you to review your images from the past year. How to do so, I described in one of my tech-posts: “how to select your best photo from the bulk“. Now, take the best of your images and put them together in a folder on your disc. Copying them instead of moving. Now bring them in an order you like: i.e. oder them by theme (landscapes, people, animals, ….) or order them by date. Do so, by renaming them! That’s important to ease the handling in the next step. Give them a numeral prefix 000, 010, 020, and leave room between the prefixes to insert further images between them later.

Now, when having your images sorted properly, go and find a company making a book from your images. I guess, there are some where you live. Usually the companies printing your images are also able to produce books. They will offer either a web form or a dedicated software to be installed on your computer (or even on your mobile / cell phone). Now, follow the advice given by that kind of software to upload your images and distribute them in your book-to-be-created. I’m usually creating landscape shaped books, because the majority of my images is taken in landscape mode. I almost always put only one image on a page to fill the page. For portrait images I put two of them on a page.

The uploaded images are put in a pool area to be used for the pages. The pool is already sorted because of the work I did before uploading them. All kinds of book creation software I know (web-apps as well as installable software), have an option to hide already used images from the pool of unused images. So, I can simply fill one page after another and the book creating process does not last unnecessary long 🙂

The last step is to review and proof the created book. Usually the automated process does some quality checks and maybe even with some basic spell checking. The results of these check are warnings i.e. images are placed out of a page or the image resolution is too low for a selected size. Try hard to eliminate all of the warnings before finishing the book design and placing the order. Don’t forget, to give the book an appropriate name on the cover and the spine (i.e. “My Year 2016”). Below, you can see my yearbook 🙂

In case, you need some more details, help or examples, drop me a note.

Starting this week, I’m changing my schedule a bit. Instead of 3-4 posts a week, I’m trying to publish 4-5 times a week from now on. And I changed the order a bit, too.

• Monochrome Monday (until now on Tuesdays)
• Travel Tuesday (an in detail post from a current trip – until now on Thursdays)
• Wordless Wednesday (simply an image; regardless of current or from the past – unchanged)
• Throwback Thursday (something from the past; maybe a reminder – new)
• My Friday post is following the theme “Weekly Photo Challenge” by “The Daily Post”, as far as I have the time for this post. (as before)
  I usually write my posts on Saturdays in advance and schedule them for the proposed time. But, the Fridays post is always ‘live’. So, when I don’t have the time for the post on Friday evening, I’m skipping it.

 

Take care!