STREET ART

Street artist, Berlin, Alexanderplatz, Germany

As you know, I’m not a big portrait shooter or people photographer. So let me file this image under travel photography, at least that’s how I do it in my books. This young artist delivered an incredible performance with his puppet and the music they produced was just great. I have seen a lot of street artists in many countries of the world but this was one of the best I have ever seen in my life. It was a sunny day back in May and high contrast scenes were the standard all day long. I was happy that this young artist was in the shade of a building, right at Alexanderplatz in the center of Berlin, Germany, making it easy to get a shot.

BAUTZEN / UPPER LUSATIA / GERMANY

Oddly enough we had only a few hours to visit my over 1000 years old home town Bautzen in the Upper Lusatia / Germany. It was a holiday weekend and almost all my friends were out of town for a hiking weekend (a tradition we established when our kids were little), but Joan and I used the short time for a walk across the whole city from west to east.

This photo is one of my favorite views of the old part of the city, taken just a stone throw away from where I used to live before I came to the United States fourteen years ago. The picture shows several of the landmarks always worth a visit. In the foreground is the Old Waterworks, to the left Church of St. Michael, and the tower behind it belongs to St. Peter’s Cathedral, Eastern Germany’s only historic interdenominational church edifice. The tower on the right marks the town hall, the center of the historic city.

Other than with my wildlife photography I have no problem to clone out elements in Photoshop that hurt my esthetic feelings (to say it mildly). On the balcony on the right was a satellite dish, GONE! Down at the bridge that crosses the Spree River were some new tourist information signs, GONE! And a contemporary street light disturbed the view as well, GONE! Would you have known if I hadn’t told you? 😉

THE ZWINGER / DRESDEN / SAXONY

The Zwinger, Dresden / Saxony / Germany

We are back from our trip to Germany since two weeks and I have only shown one photo made during our journey. On the day of our arrival we used the afternoon and evening for a nice walk through parts of Dresden, the capital of my home state Saxony. It was late in the day when we wandered through the Zwinger, a palace, built in Baroque style and designed by court architect Matthäus Daniel Pöppelmann. It served as the orangery, exhibition gallery and festival arena of the Dresden Court. Today, the Zwinger is a museum complex that contains the Old Masters Picture Gallery, the Dresden Porcelain Collection and the Royal Cabinet of Mathematical and Physical Instruments.

Dresden is visited by over 4 million tourist every year and it is difficult to take a picture of any of the attractions, like the Zwinger, without any people in the frame. It was almost 8PM when this shot was taken and even then we were not alone on these historical grounds. I guess a little luck is sometimes necessary…😉

VOICES - MURAL ART PROJECT IN DUBUQUE

Last Saturday I was in town for a visit of the Dubuque Museum of Art, which hosts at the moment three photography exhibitions. The most remarkable is “Remnants of the West”, photography by Edward S. Curtis and Mark James, but I can recommend the other two, “Dimensions of Photography: Dubuque Camera Club 5th Annual Exhibition”, and “Curious Constructions”, photography by Les Allen, as well.

While killing some time before the opening hour of the museum, I discovered that downtown Dubuque has a new attraction. A variety of colorful murals has been painted by several artists on the sides of old buildings this summer. The project is called “Voices” and didn’t just impress only me. Several people took pictures with their phone cameras or DSLR.

I like to keep as many distracting elements out of the frame as possible, without producing a ‘mural-art-only’ photo. Too many cars parked in front of the mural can be very distracting and can take away from the subject. And don’t get me started on wires and power lines hanging between buildings! To say it mildly, the power grids in many cities here in the US are very old fashioned and fragile in comparison to other parts of the world. For photographers it means that many cityscapes and interesting views the architects had in mind are spoiled up to some degree. And maybe that’s the real challenge, coming back with a decent image despite all the distractions?

Nikon D750, Nikkor 16-35mm / f4, @ 35 mm, 1/1000s, f/5, ISO 100

‘ROMANCING’ A RAILROAD BRIDGE

Mississippi River, Swivel-Railroad bridge, Dubuque, Iowa -----

Some of my favorite subjects for architecture photography are the bridges across the Mississippi River. Unless it is a totally new subject that I haven’t shot before, there has to be a certain quality of light before I consider to take the camera out of the bag. This happened one evening earlier this month at the swivel railroad bridge in Dubuque. I had never made any close photos at the north side of the bridge and discovered just recently the access for this shooting location.

By the way, these bridges are a great subject to become familiar with new gear, like cameras, lenses, or teleconverters. Learning about depth of field, light fall off, sharpness, etc. in a controlled environment, but still with an interesting subject in front of the lens, is priceless (beats test shots in the backyard by far 😊).

This photo is another try to ‘romance’ my landscape photos with Macphun’s Luminar software. I still have a tear in my eye because the good old NIK collection is on it’s way out, but any time I gain more experience with Luminar I love it a little more. It is intuitiv for someone who has worked with Adobe Lightroom and NIK before, but I can see why it might be a little overwhelming in the beginning for someone who is new in post processing their images. There are a lot decisions that can be made how to process an image and I will be the first one to admit, overdoing it is very easy…

STORY OF TRANSITION

There are not very many farms left here in the Midwest where the old buildings and farm structures are preserved. Unfortunately beautifully crafted wooden barns, stables, and farm houses have been or will be replaced by simple metal structures, concrete, and plastic siding. This is somehow understandable because the economy of farming dictates many of these changes, but the historic charm will be gone forever.

The farm in this picture has a mixture of old and new buildings and the photographer can still tell the story of transition with his image. Including the bright clouds gives the photo some visual depth. The eye will most likely go to the brightest part of the picture first, but from there it will move through the frame.

Photo: Nikon D750, Nikkor 24-120mm / f4, @46 mm, 1/640 s, f/8, ISO100

 

SUNDAY AFTERNOON, HERE AND THERE

Nikon D750, Carl Zeiss Distagon T*, 35mm / f2 ZF ------------     

Our streak of days without sunshine seems to continue. We really didn’t see the “big bulb” much lately. Well, that doesn’t mean we can’t go out and make any pictures. Yesterday I went downtown for a visit of the Dubuque Museum of Art, followed by a little photo walk in town. I had it almost for myself, there were hardly any people in the streets. This is so different to probably any city in my home country Germany. On a Sunday afternoon people over there like to go out for walks and maybe sit in a cafe or beer garden, no matter how hot, cold, wet, or dry it is.

Dubuque has a number of old brick stone buildings and I looked around for interesting perspectives. This facade had drawn my interest and I waited about ten minutes for someone walking by, but that didn’t happen due to the lack of people in the streets. I liked the graffiti art anyway and made the click. Can’t sit home because of a few rain drops…😉

NEW ALBIN TOWN HALL

I wanted to photograph this old town hall in Iowa’s farthest northeastern town New Albin since I saw this building for the first time about a year ago. The absence of some good clouds made me always hesitate during several previous visits. Well, today I finally was happy with the clouds.

What bothers me is that big advertising sign on the side of the building. Whoever made the decision to hang this monster there had little sense for the heritage of such an old building…

All images: Nikon D750, Nikkor 16-35mm / f4

MISSISSIPPI RIVER STORIES 2017 #2 - DUBUQUE RAILROAD BRIDGE

Nikon D750, Nikkor 16-35mm / f4 ---------

This is the railroad bridge over the Mississippi River in Dubuque, Iowa. The photo was made during a little river walk on the first day of the year with family and our grandkids. At the end of the bridge is the only railroad tunnel in Illinois, only a quarter mile long. I have tried this shot many times before over the years and never was totally satisfied with my results after reviewing it on the computer screen. This time most leading lines have some light that intensifies them and even the clouds point in the same direction. The shadows of the rivets on the right hand side of the bridge tell you exactly where the sun was located. A shot like this can only be made with the same outcome at this time of the year.

The bridge is almost 150 years old, still in use, and has been a favorite subject of mine any time I go on the river walk and since we live in the Dubuque area.

THE OLD CHAIR

The old chair, Farm in northwest Iowa, December 2016 ----------------

If there is one place where I like to wander around and scan the surroundings for remains of history or traces of light that may tell a story, it is the farm in northwest Iowa where my wife Joan grew up and that is operated still today by her brother Don and his wife Shelly. The morning of Christmas Eve, when there was snow on the ground and hoarfrost on bushes and trees, I went out with the camera and just did what I always like to do in this place, walk slowly around and look for photo opportunities…

2016 RETROSPECT / 4

Bautzen, Saxony, Germany, May 2016 --------

Back in May I was over in Germany, first to see my family and friends in Bautzen and Dresden, and second for a trade show in Düsseldorf. Especially during the first half of the trip I shot a lot of pictures in my old stomping grounds. This is always fun to do in cities that are over 800 years old, like Dresden, or even over 1000 years, like my home town Bautzen where these photos were made.

RETRO AND CLOUDS (AND SOME FINISHING THOUGHTS)

Orlando, Florida

Looks like vacation again, doesn’t it? No, I just returned from GraphExpo, the annual trade show of the printing industry in North America. This year it was for the first time in Orlando, Florida. Attending the show as an exhibitor does not leave much time to enjoy the city or visit any of the big entertainment places, like Disneyland or SeaWorld.

Busy places like Orlando are anyway not my cup of tea and I’m definitely not a fan of the heat and humidity down in Florida. But there is one weather related feature I really like. Clouds and giant thunderheads showed up every day and this can always lead to some interesting pictures. The photo was made through the glass of my hotel room window in the Cabana Bay Beach Resort - Universal Orlando, which features a retro theme that takes you back to the 1950’s and 60’s. 

These were not the most impressive clouds we saw, but I like how the twilight goes together with light and colors of the hotel. The RAW file was developed in Adobe Lightroom and afterwards the photo was finished as a smart object in Adobe Photoshop, with some filters of Google’s NIK collection for tonal and overall contrast applied. Usually I do noise reduction in Lightroom if necessary, and that works pretty well for me. Shooting with ISO 500 and through the thick glass of a window created more noise in the picture than I like. As a remedy I used NIK’s Define 2 noise reduction filter and that took care of the problem.

LIGHTHOUSES

Split Rock Lighthouse, Two Harbors, Minnesota, put into service in 1910

It doesn’t matter what kind of weather we have or how good or bad the light treats me, I like to photograph lighthouses. As you can imagine there are quite a few around Lake Superior and any time I had a chance a click was made. For me it is the fascination of the technical side that every lighthouse bares, combined with the fact that not even two are exactly alike. It is story telling about our heritage and a great chance to work with architecture, quite often embedded in a natural environment.

The bivalve fresnel lens of Split rock Lighthouse was built in Paris, France. While operating, the lens made one revolution every 20 seconds, floating on a thin layer of mercury. Light for the beacon was provided by a kerosene vapor lamp, which was replaced in 1940 by a 1000W electrical bulb. (source: Visitor Guide: Split Rock Lighthouse)

Agathe Bay Lighthouse, Two Harbors, Minnesota

 

MISSISSIPPI RIVER STORIES 2016 #9 - THE SHOT IN MY MIND

Mississippi River, Bridge between Dubuque, Iowa and East Dubuque, Illinois

I wished this photo could have been made an hour later, when the light was less aggressive, as it usually is closer to sunset. But I knew these puffy clouds would not last that long. The way the weather developed today the clouds were gone in the evening and shooting the bridge against a blue sky, well, as a tourist I would do it, but as a local I feel I can wait for my next opportunity. This picture was on my mind since a long time. I found the spot during the winter, when the light of the setting sun doesn’t hit the bridge from that angle. So I thought, I come back in the summer, and that’s what I did today…

THUNDER HEADS OVER DRESDEN

Dresden, Saxony, Germany

Spending time with my German family and friends is priceless. Yesterday we made a trip by train to the more than 1000 years old city of Meissen and returned to the capitol of my home state Saxony Dresden by paddle river boat. The famous skyline of Dresden was crowned by big thunder heads. You can’t ask for more as a photographer…