Tag: water

art, monochrome, nature, photo-of-the-day, photography, winter

Monochrome Monday 9-51

solaner

That day was a bad one. Heavy winds pushed low-standing clouds over the sea towards the coast. Clouds, full of water and ready to pour it over the scene. So, we had to secure the doors when getting out of the cars. A mixture of rain, hail, and snow welcomed us. No hard rain, but enough to keep some of us inside the cars. To make it even worst, the ground was covered merely with ice and rain poodles on top of them. Very careful movements were an absolute necessity. These were not the conditions we came for. What a difference to 2016, when I was there for the first time.

This time we needed the shortest shutter speeds, even when using wide-angle lenses. While setting up a tripod was possible in those conditions, it was impossible to use it. The wind not only pushed the tripod and made longer exposures impossible, but the guts were also even so strong to make the tripod tumble down.  So, I opted for another way to get a long exposure of the waves: I put my beanbag on top of the concrete wall securing the parking ground from the cliff, and pressed the camera in the bag. That way, everything was stable enough for a 20-second exposure at 97mm.

For a long, I was hoping for such a location and the right conditions. You see, you have to be open-minded when arriving at a location. Don’t stick to the idea of recreating the images you have seen online, in books, or have on your bucket list. Look around and discover what the scene and the conditions have to offer. Benefit from what you have in front of you. In German, we have a saying: better the sparrow in the hand than the pigeon on the roof (Besser den Spatz in der Hand also die Taube auf dem Dach.).

Take care!

 

nature, photography, travel, winter

Throwback Thursday: the sea

solaner
capturing the sun in the waves – click on the image to increase it

In German, we have the word See for the sea. But, it can have two different meanings, depending if one uses the male (der) or the female (die) article.

Der See is a body of water enclosed by land and translates to “lake” in English.

Die See is the same as “sea” in English, but also a poetic name for seas. In addition, we have the word “Meer”, which also translates to “sea”, but this is a more ‘technical’ and emotionless description of “sea”.

Btw. the word “ocean” also exists and is used in the same way as in English.

“Die See” is also referenced when saying “Ich fahre / er fährt zur See / Er is Seemann” (it’s used to describe, the I / he is sailing (the work) or a seaman/sailor).

I love standing or sitting near the sea and watching the waves come in. I love the distinct smell and the sound of the crashing waves. I love the feeling of having sand below my feet or at least below my shoes.

Take care!

 

nature, photography, travel, winter

Throwback Thursday: huge nature vs. tiny men

solaner

 

This is one of my favorite images taken in Norway this year. Without being disturbed by the wind, the water in the fjord perfectly mirrors the surrounding mountains. The rising full moon gives this scene a very calm ambiance. In addition, only the peaks of the mountains are still touched by the warm light of the setting sun, while the rest of the scene is already bathed in cold blue light.

Just before we arrived at the small parking lot, two minibusses drove out, stopped and spit out a dozen people. The minibusses clogged the whole parking lot because of stopping right after the entrance and parked side by side in the road instead of giving room for other vehicles. So our own two cars filled up the remaining space and even had to park in knee-deep snow. While most of the minibus passengers didn’t seem interested in the location or the scene, others crossed the road and the guardrail to head down to the water through the still untouched snow. One of them is in the image. Try to find him 😁!

Our hope was to see white-tailed eagles here. When I was there, back in 2016, we saw a couple of them here. They were either in the air or sitting on the ground beside the water. Because of bad weather and being on a long transfer trip, it wasn’t possible to get nice images in 2016. This time, there were no eagles visible. But, we were compensated by this awesome light and mirror. For me personally, the rising full moon and its reflection is an additional eye-catcher that upgrades the image from great to awesome. 

Take care!

 

art, nature, photo-of-the-day, photography

Monochrome Monday 9-44

solaner

recently, I stumbled upon an image of this tree online. My own images of this tree are all in color. But, that fellow photographer developed and showed a monochrome image of that tree. Seeing his image, I copied mine and played a little bit around. This is a second, more traditional, version of the image.

Do you like it? Or do you like the inverted version from last week more?

Take care!

 

landscape, nature, photography, travel, winter, world

Throwback Thursday: I’m back …

solaner

… from northern Norway again. During the last 12 days we tried to meet the Green Lady again, but the overall outcome is quite disappointing considering the current peak of solar activity which is the cause of the Aurora.

At first, we had 2 days in and around Tromsø with snowy and rainy weather, but no Aurora. Next 4 days on Senja: snowstorms, thick clouds, and partly rain 😲 to melt the snow, and such even prevented nice winter images.

Thus, after checking the weather forecast for the greater region, we left 1 day early, canceled the next location, and postponed another one. Instead, we escaped to Sweden, which was proposing the best conditions for the next few days.

It was a horrible 320km drive to Sweden crossing a mountain pass: towards darkness during a snowstorm on such a steep and small road is quite a challenge, even with spikes. At first, we lost an hour because the pass was closed for rescuing a truck stuck in the snow. Snow chains were an absolute necessity for trucks. The bad sight demanded further delays because of the quite slow speed for driving. Driving convoy was also necessary to make sure to not lose sight of the car in front of us. 

After dinner on the arriving day, we noticed a greenish glow above the town. So, two of us (me included 😁 of course) decided to give it a try. Despite being quite late (in comparison to their usual schedule), she popped out and danced for us. We were back at the hotel at about 2 a.m., tired, but with happy smiles on our faces. My companion even wanted to stay way longer. The first meeting with the Aurora for this trip. The others were too tired from the drive. 

Unfortunately, the next two days she was shy again and didn’t show us more than a weak glow between the clouds, that already arrived there, too, although the weather forecast said differently. 

After 3 nights in Sweden, we headed back to Norway for the remaining 3 nights.

When we arrived at our last location, we struggled again with bad weather. One day and night got lost to another snowstorm, but we also got two crisp clear nights, but she didn’t pop up. While we got at least a short and weak Aurora in one of these two nights, the other one was completely Aurora-free. At least we got some wonderful sunny winter days.

Overall, this year’s trip for seeing the Aurora was quite disappointing although the conditions are extremely good this year. Solar activity is at or near its maximum. Surprisingly, a green Aurora was visible even in the middle of Germany but not in northern Norway. I guess, because of the high level of solar activity, the center moved south so that we couldn’t see Auroras north of the polar circle in Norway as expected.

The green lights are at about 40km high, while the reds are up to 100km high. Thus, middle Europe usually sees the red lights of an aurora, when a strong Aurora happens. But green lights are extremely rare at these latitudes.

On the other hand, this was again a nice winter trip with nice company and quite well-prepared (although it seemed a bit chaotic sometimes). 

Surprisingly, I have more the half of my images already developed and even started creating an ebook with some of my monochrome images taken during this trip. So, even the days with bad weather delivered. During the last third of the trip, I definitely had the best weather. So, be prepared to see some of the images in the future. 

For today I have one Aurora image for you (how could it be otherwise). You might have already seen it on Instagram.

Second, an image taken while coping with the bad conditions on the pass. Coincidentally at that time, the shuffle function of my audio collection decided to play „May it be“ by Enya from the first Lord of the Rings movie where it is underscoring how the fellows hiked upwards the Caradhras pass.

The third image is one of the last images, taken near sunset on our last day. 

One of the other highlights of the trip was our visit to the Ice Hotel in Kiruna. You can rent a room for a night made of ice. Sleep in a sleeping bag on a bed made of ice covered with reindeer furs set up in a room made completely of ice. They offer three different kinds of such rooms. First, they have the standard rooms, where you feel like standing in a room of the gigantic crystalline fortress made by the green crystal thrown by Clark Kent (the later Men of Steel) in the Canadian Arctic. Other rooms were more individually decorated, like the one in the image below. All of these are supposed to melt as soon as spring starts and return their water to the lake beside the hotel. In a separate huge hall, there are individually designed rooms by some ice artists. I suppose those rooms are not for rent. According to the website, “the room holds a temperature of -5 to -8 degrees Celsius. The bed is covered with reindeer hides and you sleep in a thermal sleeping bag. Instead of doors, the hotel rooms have curtains that you draw to give you and your company privacy.“ So, I wish you a good night and sleep well 😁

 

In this room, the lights are changing colors constantly but slowly. An amazing show. Look carefully to recognize the details.

The entrance fee for seeing these rooms is quite high but definitely worth the money. While I was expecting only a bar made of ice set up in a room made of ice and equipped with chairs and tables made of ice, I was visiting an art gallery where not only the rooms were made of ice, but also the pieces of art itself. Btw. they also have the bar 😁.

The final image for today is one of the monochrome images taken at a beach in the greater Tromsø area.

Here, the different layers work best in monochrome. The foreground is made of gray rocks, the middle ground is made of dark rocks and the background is formed by the mountains. All of them are well parted by the moving water of the fjord and the white splashes stand out well from the dark rocks while the shoreline leads the eye from the lower left right to the splashes and thus makes them the main subject. The color version is on Instagram for comparison. 

So, my advice for photographing on a trip. Don’t stick to the ideas you have on your bucket list. Instead, try always to get the best from the situation you’re in. There is always something for you to take. Use your time well and the location will pay back. When sticking to the ideas from your bucket list, remember that you will never be in the same situation, in the same conditions, and probably in the same place as the photographer whose picture you saw. But, it will limit your ability to see the scene with your own eyes and capture the beauty laying in front of you. Be a creator and not a copycat.

Take care!

 

art, nature, photo-of-the-day, photography

Monochrome Monday 9-43

solaner

recently, I stumbled upon an image of this tree online. My own images of this tree are all in color. But, that fellow photographer developed and showed a monochrome image of that tree. Seeing his image, I copied mine and played a little bit around. In the end, I got this: monochrome and inverted.

Do you like it?

Take care!

 

fall, landscape, long exposure, nature, photography, travel, world

Throwback Thursday: working on my backlog

solaner

For a couple of months, I work to reduce my backlog of undeveloped images whenever I have some spare time. Over the years, some (many) folders of undeveloped images found their way only to my external disk The oldest folder is dated from 2009 😲. In general, these folders contain quite often only images of flowers, birds, cats or so and nothing from more important trips. But, also a couple of trips are among these, just like the one, I’m talking about today.

Back in October 2014, I was in Flandern at the Belgium coast. A few images were already developed, but the majority were still waiting.

When looking at the image files, I remembered at once, why they were still waiting for development. Especially in the upper parts of the images, the sensor captured a lot of dust spots. I haven’t counted them, but I guess, each image had more than a hundred of these spots to be removed. Fortunately, I took those images raw, so that the removal didn’t cause any quality problems and the raw development software is so well developed to remove these spots in general without any glitches.

Although having dust spots is not that uncommon, the enormous number of them, I was faced with, is. You have to clean your sensor when photographing with a camera with interchangeable lenses regularly. Back in film days, you did this each time when putting a new film in. Now, having a digital sensor, the sensor has to be cleaned regularly. In case, you’re not familiar with this, drop me a comment below.

As I said, having dust spots is annoying but not uncommon. But, the camera I was using at that time, had a huge problem. Those spots were not only dust. In addition, each shutter release distributed a tiny amount of machine oil being used for the mechanical part of the shutter over the sensor. Fortunately, this issue was accepted by the manufacturer and a portion of this camera model based on a certain range of serial numbers was called back for repair. Also, I would have been glad, if the call back was much earlier.

Take care!

 

nature, photo-of-the-day, photography, spring, travel, world

Travel Tuesday: abandoned house

solaner

On one of our trips, we saw this abandoned house beside the road. Sure, we had to have a closer look. It was amazing. But, the longer we stayed, the sky became darker and darker. Drizzling turned to rain. Most of us headed back to the road and to the pub nearby, our destination for a coffee break. One couple was a bit more water-resistant and stayed a bit longer. When they finally also turned back, the guy had an accident and his wife had to help him walk. When we noticed this, we also went out to help carry his gear and give him support to walk. One of the drivers got the car to drive him the short distance to the pub. The rest was very welcomed by him.

The next day was our last day. He couldn’t benefit from that day because he was still unable to walk. On their way back home, she had to take care of all the luggage and so on. At home, it turned out, he got a ligament stretching from his misstep. Painful, but fortunately not a torn ligament.

Every time, I see one of the images from there, the memories come back at once. Take care of your footsteps when on uneven ground.

Take care!