I'm sure I will post more about the New England architecture here sometime but I like to share with you today this nicely decorated house that we saw this morning. We are wrapping up our trip to Maine at Acadia National Park and this image was made at Bass Harbor near our current campsite.
Tomorrow is Independence Day here in the US and most people will enjoy a four day holiday weekend. Reason enough to post something different as usual and that's why I show a few car details that I shot last night at the Hot Summer Nights Cruise-in at one of the casinos in Dubuque, Iowa. The owners of vintage cars meet there ones a month during the summer to socialize and show their cars off. I like the beauty of some of the old cars and enjoy pointing my camera at car details if the existing light emphasizes them nicely. Nothing spectacular but it is fun to do different things ones in a while... ;-)
I wish all my friends and family here in the US a wonderful holiday weekend!
We spent Easter on the farm with our family in Northwest Iowa. Thank you to Don, Shelly, and Shelby for having us again and for being such wonderful hosts! Beside eating a wonderful Easter dinner we spent quite some time outside and despite a snow shower coming down we had a nice fire going.
It is an exciting time on the farm. Eight calves were born in the last few days and a few more are expected soon.
I always like to walk around on the farm with my camera and look for interesting subjects. This time I was on a mission. I have made many pictures of the more than 100 years old barn before but this weekend was probably my very last chance to work with this old farm building. It will be replaced by a new barn very soon because its shape may bare a safety risk and repair is not really an option anymore. The barn is still in use and everybody is a little sad about the fact that it has to go. It was the first time that I made pictures of the barn at night. There is a lamp post right beside the building and its position is just perfect for this shot. The fresh snow solves the problem with the muddy foreground and shoots some extra light towards the barn.
Anytime I have been in Downtown Chicago during the last few years I made a visit to The Cloud Gate, aka 'The Bean', in Millenium Park. Never ever I thought it would be possible to make a picture of this great piece of art without any people in the frame. Well, last Saturday during the St. Patricks Day parade the plaza around the sculpture was blocked for the public. I don't know why this restriction was in place but here was my chance to make the click.
Because of the really dull and gray sky the image needed some enhancement. I'm testing some new software, the OnOne Perfect Photo Suite 7, in my post process work flow at the moment. So far I'm quite impressed what it can do for my photography. I really like how subtle some of the effects can be applied to an image and I believe after driving through the learning curve it can become a big time saver in my post process. Right now I'm just at the beginning of a free trial period and more testing needs to be done before I may come to a final conclusion. I still like and use the NIK Software plug-ins, especially Color Efex Pro 4.0 and Silver Efex Pro 2.0, but as many others I wonder if there is any future for these great plug-ins after Google bought NIK. Hard to believe but only time will tell...
We spent the weekend in Chicago for celebrating the 30th birthday of Joan's son Evan. He was born on St. Patrick's Day and so we went downtown to see some of the St. Patricks Day events.
Despite some cold and nasty weather thousands of people wanted to see how the Chicago River gets dyed into a shade of Irish green by the plumber union people, a tradition since many years. All kinds of watercrafts were on the river and their owners enjoyed the attention from the crowd.
I made several clicks of this interesting MINI-Cooper boat but none of them really told the story about time and location. Part of the problem was that our viewing point was way too high above the river and the reflections of a gray sky on the water are just not really appealing. Later, when the crowds moved on to the St. Patricks Day Parade, I found a better spot and as the guy turned in front of three iconic skyscrapers (the two towers of Marina City, Mies van der Rohe's IBM building, and the Trump tower) I knew I had a shot that would work.
Actually I had other things in mind (Bald Eagle photography!!) when I went out today for a trip on both sides of the Mississippi River. Despite gorgeous weather it didn't work out and I ended up taking this image of the "Denniston House" from 1836 in Cassville Wisconsin. Before I wreck your nerves with my "Sauerkraut-English" what this house is all about, I like to cite the website www.cassville.org :
DENNISTON HOUSE (1836)
Built by the Daniels-Denniston Company, land speculators from New York, to house legislators and officials should Cassville become the capitol of the new Wisconsin Territory. When Madison was chosen over Cassville to become the capitol, the building and village went into decline until 1855 when former State Governor Nelson Dewey purchased the Denniston interests. He converted the building into a proper hotel. It operated as a hotel, dining room and bar until 1985. Today it stands empty. Many additions were added to the "Big Brick" as it was proudly called; but they all have been removed, along with the fifth floor ballroom and widow's walk on the roof. Built of solid brick on a limestone foundation, bricklayers used the sturdy Flemish bond method of laying brick. You can clearly notice its pattern on the side wall. The building still stands proud, though a bit drab, extolling the dreams of a past era.
It think it is too bad the house is in such bad shape. I'm afraid if all buildings like this will be gone and be replaced by industrial architecture with no "soul" at all, villages like Cassville may have no charm anymore and will be good for passing through only. I just hope this will never happen...
I like to share another image that I created with the same technical means I have described yesterday here in the blog. Indoor pictures with great architecture can really benefit from HDR, with or without ton mapping, as you can see in this photograph I made inside the St. Vitus's Cathedral in Prague, Czech Republic. There is just no way that you can catch the details in the sculptures without blowing out the highlights in the stained glass windows with a single exposure. You sacrifice one part for the other if you only make one click. By blending a series of exposures (here I used 4) into one 32-BIT image I was able to expand the dynamic range and the result is much closer to what our eyes have really seen in this wonderful cathedral. This image is part of a special project I'm working on at the moment and that I will come out with hopefully soon. So please stay tuned...
I like to continue my series about the 2012 photography opportunities and highlights. July was very special for us. My youngest sister Claudia visited us on her way back to Germany from Sydney, Australia. She worked at the University of Sydney during the last couple of years in chemistry research. We did a lot of different things together with her, paddling in Wisconsin, local sightseeing in Iowa and Illinois along the Mississippi, and even a visit of the world famous spam museum in Austin, Minnesota was on the agenda (Well, I had to take her with me on a business trip to Austin and while I had my meeting she spent time in the museum, the only attraction in this town :-) ). Finally we spent three days in Chicago before she took the plane home to our mom in Bautzen, Germany. The kid moved on and lives and works now in Basel, Switzerland. What a small world... ;-)
Landscape and architecture photography can be quite a challenge in the heat of July here in the Midwest and it wasn't any different this time. From harsh light, like at the "bean" in Millennium Park, to killer light on the Trump building at the Chicago River, we had a little bit of everything. Photography wasn't the purpose of the trip to Chicago but I can't go out without my camera over the shoulder...;-)
OK, here is part 6 of my 2012 photography review. Number six indicates June, but I'm still in May with the images I show today. After Seraphine's and Andre's wedding we went for a wonderful trip to Prague, the capitol of the Czech Republic. This is only three hours away by train from my home town Bautzen. I have been there many times before in the old days (Oh boy, it always has been a Mecca for interesting experiences of art and architecture, mostly followed by endless "beer drinking nights" during my 20's and 30's. Those trips where legendary.. ;-) ). Joan hasn't been there before and so we went. Prague is a city that wasn't damaged during World War II as much as other cities in Europe. History is present by looking at any single stone in a wall or on the streets. As the avid follower of my blog knows, my main interest in photography is wildlife and landscape photography, but an opportunity like Prague, with lots of architecture, art, street, or just travel photography, can't be ignored. We loved it, including the good Bohemian beer again... ;-)
May 2012 was a month full of joy. We were over in Germany and attended the wedding of my son André and his wonderful wife Seraphine. It was nice to see all my family gathered in one place and we had a great time. Beside that it was just a good feeling being back in my home town Bautzen. I claim that I know every single stone in the old quarter of the city by name (just kidding :-) ), because I grew up in this part of town. Joan and I enjoyed walking through the streets of this over 1000 years old city again and I will never get enough of it, especially since I live in the US where many cities look very uniform.
The first picture shows the Rathaus (city hall) and the Dome St. Petri in the background. This old church is, as far I know, the largest church in Europe that is shared by two confessions. The western part with the tower is used by the Protestant Church St. Petri and the eastern part is used by the Catholic Church.
This image shows the Nicolai tower, one of the old access gates to the city. It was part of the defense system in the old days. I have taken pictures of this tower many times before but the light did something very special for my image this time. The photo was made in the evening and light of the low sun got reflected by a house on the right hand side next to the tower (you cant see much of this house). The bouncing light illuminated the old wall and the cobble stones in the lane, which would be otherwise just in the shadow. I liked that effect and was happy to be there at the right moment.
