No stars in sight

Posted on Dezember 9th, 2014

It was another try to get some starscape shots with an interesting foreground. The weather forecast says yes, the nature says nope.
Therefore I was walking the whole way up and down without any nightshots. During the night the clouds were always there and I couldn’t sleep very well, but I was sleeping when the sunrise happend. And this was very sad, because clouds at night are not good but some clouds in the sky when the red sunlight is shining, is amazing.
Unfortunately I build up the tent a bit behind the pass and so I could see, what a stunning sunrise was going on behind the mountains, while I was packing my things together. So what I learned is, set always the alarm clock, even if you think you can anyway not sleep.

Waterfall

Posted on Dezember 7th, 2014

I was on my first journey with a DSLR, we just left the Yosemite Nationalpark and I saw at the border of the road some tourists hanging around.
And what should you do, if tourists are looking at something? Right, hold out, pick up your camera and explore the situation. There were two chinese guys with big cameras and large camera bags. They mounted their gear on tripods and put some large sqare filters in front of their lenses, as I now know it was a Lee filterset and on the other side of the street was a bored chinese girl waiting
I saw what they where shooting, a waterfall. And probably they want to have soft water. Hmmm, I already then knew how to do that too. I mounted my ND Filter, put my camera on my mini tripod, yes in the ancient time I wasn’t carrying a good tripod, I set my camera in AV mode und choose f/22 as the aperture. E voilà a soft looking waterfall and as I think not so bad, for a midday shot.

The winter is coming

Posted on Dezember 4th, 2014

Soon I can take images of the winter wonderland again. I only have to wait until weather in the alps are better and I can see some stars again.
Meantime I hope there will fall some snow again. The mountains are not fully covered with snow at the moment. But let us hope for a better winter in this season. Hopefully a lot better than the last one.

A thunderstorm is coming

Posted on Dezember 3rd, 2014

It was getting darker and darker, while I was reading a book. I thought, wow, the time was going by that fast. But no, there was as big cloud before the sun and I could hear the distant rumble of the upcoming thunderstorm.
What does the brave photographer in this situation? Right, he runs out and shoot images until the thick raindrops are falling from the sky. But first, the landscape was bathed in this dull, yellow light. It was looking a bit about doomsday and this at my holiday in southern France. But until the sky is only equal grey, the sky is more interesting with clouds than with boring blue, in my opinion.

The red house

Posted on Dezember 2nd, 2014

You can find this red house in Gamlebergen. Gamlebergen is an outdoor museum in Norway where you can find all the old houses which are not demolished, but instead moved from their old places to this amazing museum of bygone days.
And you will recover all over Norway these red, wooden houses. Maybe they painted it red, to find it again in the deep snow coverd winter landscapes. Or maybe they liked the color red. Or maybe the producer of red paint had a really good sales team
What ever the reason was, it is very characteristic in Norway and you can find all over the country these beautiful red houses.

Escape the fog

Posted on November 30th, 2014

Time to get winter images. While here in the lower parts of Switzerland the gray autumn is covering the landscape with fog, the mountains are now covered with snow and often the sun is shining over the fog cover.
Now I should take more time to escape the foggy area and climb up to a mountain to see the sun again. And it’s cool to take sunset images because the sun is going down early now. But on the other hand, you have to wait very long for the sunrise if you stay on the mountain during a long, cold, winter night. Mostly it is difficult to go down, because the funiculars are not working at all or only until the sun reaches the horizon. And if you think, no problems, there are slopes and you can skiing down – nope! It is forbidden to skiing on the slopes during night time.
And probably that’s better so, because there are snowcats at work and sometime they are using steel cables on steep parts. If you crash into a snowcat or such a cable, well that will hurt.

Alpine roses

Posted on November 27th, 2014

I found these beautiful flowers at my afternoon hike with Bubu. But I thought to me, what a bad light I have at the early summer afternoon.
And so I came back right in time for the alpine glow to shoot the flowers in a stunning illumination. During the sunset is the light so much better than with daylight and hard shadows under a burning sun. But it is also time critical, there are only a few minutes when you see the red light at the mountains until the whole entchantmet is gone, so be there early enough.
If it’s possible to shoot during sunset or sunrise, go for it, even if it’s hard to stand up early in the morning. And belief me, I hates to stand up early…

Geiranger

Posted on November 25th, 2014

At the very end of the long fjord, there is a small village called Geiranger, which gives the whole fjord his name.
Every day comes a really big sea ship until the end of the fjord. And unlike me, you should know when the ship is coming. Then you you can take a very impressive image of a big ship in the narrow fjord. I saw some pictures and you can believe me, it is very impressiv. I mean this landscape is anyway impressive with all the wonderful mountains and the sea in the middle. But my advice is, take the image with the cream of the crop.

Purple flowers in Norway

Posted on November 23rd, 2014

Because the weather was not that perfect during our journey through norway, we could see some very dramatic skies.
The sun was nearly covered with clouds, but there were some spots coming through the clouds and highlighted the mountains. So I decided to walk into a field of flowers to get more color into this image. I choosed f/11 which was too wide open for the perfect depth of field. An aperture of f/16 or  f/22 would have been better.
Anyway I like this image for the colors, the dramatic sky and the glaciers in the background.

Bad weather at night

Posted on November 22nd, 2014

The plan was, walking up to the Spitzmeilen hut and making fantastic night shots. The reality was, we were walking upwards through thick fog. The hike was harder and longer as expected and the weather was not like forcasted.
Well it was not as I wished and the clouds stayed the whole night long without the possibility to see not only one star. But after the night was to forget, the sunrise was really stunning. The clouds are blowing away right until the horizon was become yellow. And so I could see a beautiful sky in wonderful snowy landscape.
And for the rest of the day and the next night, were I was no more in the mountains, the sky was totally clear and nicely blue…