Dachstein

Sorry for not posting in the last time, I'm too busy...

Last weekend we were hiking in the Dachstein mountain range. The weather was bright and sunny, a welcome change after a very cold and wet May. It's said it was the coldest May since beginning of weather recordings. So you can image how we enjoyed the sun and being out all day.

Because of the bad weather there is still lots of snow in the mountains as you can see in the picture. The snow reached down to 1800m altitude, which is just where we walked that day. As we passed the track to the hut you can see in the middle back of the image, we had to cross some avalanches. The snow was fresh and clean, an indicator that the avalanches occured just recently.

And that's why we don't understand that the hiking trails was opened. Usually the authorities very quickly close trails in the Alps as soon as the danger of avalanches rises. But there many hikers and tourists walked that passage, right accross the avalanches that happend just days ago.

It was clear to us that it was not a good idea to walk there. Talking to the manager of our local hotel he agreed with us about closing the path. While we paused at the hut (and had some fine snack) we heard new avalanches coming down the mountains. It's a unqiue sound, like thunder in the distance. Sylvia also watched a small avalanche coming down at the place you see here standing in the image.

As for the image, its a panorama made of 4 shots. Using my new camera, the Canon EOS 7D, I'm amazed about the good quality it delivers. The image has 33 MB and thanks to the 18 MP of the camera I can zoom in like never before. I can switch from having the full view to see Sylvia's face in clear detail. I guess I will make some more panoramas in the future. It's fun.

Click in the image and zoom in to get the full view.

(Copyright Notice: All pictures and text are copyrighted by the blog's author. You may not download the images and use it except with written permission.)

Look Up!

This was a great winter day, I walked up a seldom visited side valley near Hinterstoder. There I reach the Dietl Alm, in spring it's a beautiful alpine pasture. Now in winter all is covered in thick snow and its very quiet and tranquil.

After walking to the end of the valley, right before the mountains' walls, I stopped and enjoyed the scenery. There was total silence, not even a bird was flying or singing. Lookup I noticed that gorgeous blue sky peeking through the white branches. It was amazing!

The image got really well, the bright contrast between the snow and the sky is perfect. I also managed to have all trees point to the middle.

If you ever need a break from everydays hustle I recommend a walk in the forest. Best you can do for your soul.

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Praslin

A panorama of 4 images of Praslin island, Seychelles. The images has been taken from near the highest mountain on La Digue island.

Only recently I started to try out panoramas and it's fun. But sometimes it's not easy to find the right motif or to take the proper images. If you are not thinking twice it's easy to fail with the images. They just won't fit together to give a good panorama.

What I'm doing is: measure the exposure in all images you think you'll need. Remember the exposure with the shortest time and set your camera to manual mode. Adjust the settings to the exposure/aperture you measured and take the series of images. Focus can be different but the exposure should be always the same.

For the images try to make them overlap at least by 10%, even more. It's better for your panorama software to stitch the images when there are enough overlapping details. Also using wide angle for panoramas can be tricky as the single images are so distorted they won't properly fit together.

Another issue is the distance to the focal point in the single images. This Praslin panorama was easy as all images have the same distance to the motif. But I've taken panoramas of mountain scenes where the rightmost image focuses on a wall only 100 meters away while the leftmost image shows a distant hill 500 meters away. Although the hill is much higher in reality the panorama shows something completely different with a real huge wall and a tiny hill far away...

But in the end, just try it, make different series with different settings. You'll see on your PC what works and what not. Give it a try... :-)

See all my panoramas at RedBubble.

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Visitors

This has been shot when we travelled along Australias east coast on Nov. 2007. It's a detail of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and I still like the image a lot. The five people are visitors that walk along the bridge - of course secured. We learned that it's a rather expensive adventure but still I think it would be fun to do it one day. I'm sure not with my wife, she's thinking I'm crazy.

From this angle the steel beams look really interesting and give a good feeling of height and how massive the bridge is. Added the people you have a good sense of scale. Surprisingly there are rare images of this kind around. People always like to photograph bridges in full view. I think they miss something.

As I sell some images to stock image agencies I was amazed to find out that this particular image has been used as a CD cover. Have a look here. Although it was cropped to fit the CD square format, it still looks good, I think.

Sometimes your are rewarded a way you never thought before :-)

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Island

While we were in the Tux valley I did a short walk in rainy weather to get some fresh air. As usual I took my camera with me - you never know what to find. Near some depots filled with heaps of shavings I found a rusty and weathered white container. Actually I passed that place many times and never noticed anything special.

Not until this day, the weather was not good and I had time to stray around. I inspected that container and found it was full of bright orange rust marks. So I started to shoot in macro mode and looked for unqiue and different abstracts of rust.

There were lots of them! The image shows a figure that resembles a flower, corn or and island. The black lines of the flaking paint are a wonderful detail. And the orange of the rust harmonizes very well with the bright white of the paint.

You can see more of the series here.

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Entry

After a while away from the Blog I will continue to show more images. I've just been too busy.

This photo has been taken at the entry to the Weitental valley which is located near Tux in Tyrol, Austria. Actually you have to hike upwards about one hour from the village of Hintertux to reach this spot. In the background you can see the waterfalls named Schleierfall. There's little water now because of the cold season. In summer there's much more water pouring down.

To get into the valley one has to follow the path through the gates and walk up a steep and narrow path on the right side of the waterfall. You can see the path on the upper part of the image where the hills form a "V".

Now in November there should be much more snow already. But this year it is a really warm fall season and we had 5 degree Celsius up to 3000m altitude! So you won't see much snow in this image, although there is some on the way leading up. Especially in the shadowy parts where there's no sun all day. The valley itself is covered on snow.

I followed the path up but I used my crampons to pass the snow and ice. When you have to pass a slope with a lot of inclination which is covered by frozen snow you know what I mean. It also feels much safer.

When I returned I rested at a bench right besides the wooden gates you see in the picture. Then I noticed this would make a great image and took this shot. It really works for me because of the combination of unusual angle and light contrasts. I also like how the waterfall is in the lower part of the image and so it's not the main focus. You also can see the primary colors for this season in the Alps: brown, blue and white. Soon it will all be covered in bright white!

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Primeval Paradise

We're back from our vacation to the Seychelles Islands. Two weeks in tropical heat, strong sun, heavy rain and gorgeous scenery. We liked the islands, lots to see and explore and the landscape is really unique and beautiful.

The image has been taken on the famous beach Anse Source d'Argent on La Digue. We arrived on the island at noon and decided to walk to the beach (which took us about 1 hour). The weather was not so good and we already thought we would not be able to make good photos. Lucky us the sun broke through the clouds right as we arrived at the beach.

And you need sun to really appreciate the beauty of the rocks, beach and sea. The granite rocks are impressive and the water is crystal clear in the bright sun. The color of the sea shines from deep blue to a light turquoise. Of course there are a lot of tourists, you just have to wait for a good and undisturbed view.

Still it is not easy to get interesting images. I tried to find the right angle and composition to combine the rocks, the water and the blue sky to a perfect image. I think these settings works best when the motifs are reduced to "pure" lines, geometry and colors.

This image, for example, works for me because of the lines of the rocks and clouds. Both lines lead to the center of the image where then the pristine water is the main focus. And I even waited for a wave to come towards me ;-)

I will now work on the Seychelles images and probably will show more here. You can find all at my RedBubble site.

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(Copyright Notice: All pictures and text are copyrighted by the blog's author. You may not download the images and use it except with written permission.)