An alpine view

Posted on Mai 25th, 2015

Watch it all, from the Mythen across the Rigi and the lakes, to the central swiss alps.
While the sun is already gone down behind the horizon you can sill see her red light. And it’s already dark enough to see all the lights of the villages down in the valley.
Because this is the ending of the blue hour you can also see the first stars and you can see the two planets, Venus and Jupiter.
This is an HDR panorama image, which means I took five times a bracket  series to get all the dynamic I could also see by my eyes. My advice, if you ever go up to a sight seeing place like the Rotenfluh here, take your time and stay until it’s dark. Because after this pano I shoot also a night time pano with a lot more visible stars. The disadvantage is, after you took all the awesome photos and you are prepared to go down to the valley, you will notice that you missed the last funicular by far.

After the blue hour

Posted on April 14th, 2015

If you are visiting a city, then do it right!
You have only one night? No problem, first study the internet and ask Google for the best photospots. Then when you arrived the city, check out the best places. And at the end of the day you will get only a small time window to shoot your best pictures. First the sun sets and the sky is getting colorful and after the sun is gone, the show begins during the blue hour, when the light is still there, the sky is blue and the lights of the city gives you the orange color contrast.
And if you think, after this stressy time, you have done your work, then you are wrong. The next blue hour is coming in a few hours before the sunrise. Be prepared and know, where you can find the best spots. And still after the blue hour in the morning has finished, you can shoot such amazing images like this one.
So use the best time to take your images, and skip your lazy mood. You can sleep again, when you are back in the office

Early morning

Posted on April 8th, 2015

Empty streets in Lucerne when the night comes to an end.
You know, the best time for shooting city lights are not in the middle of the night. The best time is during the blue hour. Unfortunately during the blue hour are many people around, but you have a second chance. There are another blue hour, before the sunrise.
Okay, dudes, I know it’s hard to get up such early in the morning and during the summer you have to stand up earlier than in the winter months. And you know, I don’t like to stand up early, but look at this image. Not a black or sodium vapor lighted sky, no, a smooth blue sky. And even this small amount of light is enough to brighten up the houses, so you won’t have this yellowish look of the artificial light.
On the opposite part, you have only a half or in maximum one hour to shoot the images. So be prepared and check out the location at the evening before, but the light is amazing and all other tourists are still in their beds

Vesuv without lava

Posted on März 31st, 2015

The bernese alps seen from the Vesuv.
Well, don’t ask me why they called this small hill Vesuv. But you can check this point on the official swiss map: http://s.geo.admin.ch/639c156b2d . And indeed they called it Vesuv.
Anyway on this day I set my alarm clock to 4:30 in the morning to see the sunrise at this spot. It was the only short break on a cloudy weekend. And I used it to enjoy the sunrise on the mountains. This spot is maybe more spectacular for a sunset and if it is, then I will show you an image in the near future.

Bernes Alps

Posted on Februar 9th, 2015

I walked up the steep hill, in the middle of the night, climbed the tall tower and waited the half night to see the sunrise over the Bernes Alps.
It was a bit cold, some degrees below zero and I was waiting until I see the sun rising over the mountains. But didn’t calculate with the high mountain to the east which was covering the sun until the red light was gone. This point is called Blueme (engl. Flower) don’t ask me why and it was not so difficult to find. Maybe this position is better for a sunset, when the sun shines to the front of the mountains and you can probably see the alpine glow.
What I like on this image, are the stars. On the left side, to the east you can already see a bright day sky with a single star and on the other side you find also a few stars in the sky.

Morning mist

Posted on Februar 7th, 2015

Peaceful embedded in a fine morning mist you can find this lovely landscape near Berne.
I love this view to the village called Schlosswil at the Emmental region. I can always see it when I go for a walk with Bubu in the morning. And this time was the view especially beautiful with all the pure white of the fresh fallen snow and the pastel tones in the sky.
The only thing why I didn’t take this image long time before, are all the thick power cords hanging across through the image. It is absolutely not possible to shoot any image without this ugly cables. But this time was the mood too stunning to go home without any photo. And at this point, if you ask yourself, what is this moron talking about power cables, I have to tell you: Yes, I manipulated this image in Photoshop, removed all the ugly parts and fixed the landscape, how it should be and I regret nothing!

Sunrise at the mountain lake

Posted on Januar 31st, 2015

The early bird catches the worm or when the sky is burning.
It was realy the right decision to crouch out of the warm bed and go up to the lake for an exciting photo shooting. You may think this image is way to red but I was surprised by my self about the redness in the image on the camera with the auto white balance. I belief the white balance in my brain was too strong and I saw the landscape a bit less reddish as it was.
All the clouds above me were red and the brown and red tones of the autumn trees completed the red environment.

Early sunday wake up

Posted on Januar 20th, 2015

After a short night, because I read an evil book, Bubu wake me up early in the morning.
He was moaning and I thought it’s an emergency and he need to go for a pee, but no, he only smelled the snow and wanted to go outside to play with his ball in the snow. Well, I was not very amuzed, but it was really a beautiful morning, very cold but the clouds were gone and I could see the blue sky above me and some fog. And then it starts to glow. Because of the fog, the red sunlight was first reflected in the clouds, before I could see where the sun will come up on the horizon.
And so after all, I was happy about my impatient friend, which woke me up early in the morning.

After a dark night

Posted on Dezember 16th, 2014

This is the proof, that spending a whole, cold night in the mountains, will be rewarded. I mean, look at this … how amazing are these colors?
It was on the Melchsee-Frutt and it was summer so I left my long johns at home, what a mistake. I had to run up and down a hill to warm up. But how good was it to stay until the sun was rising up. Mostly the clouds are getting only orange, like the clouds at the horizon. But if the clouds are in the right height and the light can pass the horizon, then you can see such really red clouds in the sky. And the best of it, mirrored in the lake.
This is, what i call, a successful photo night

The shipwreck

Posted on Dezember 10th, 2014

Last year I stayed a week on the canary island Lanzarote. And I spent one night on the road to take some pictures. I was already on my way back to the hotel, as I stopped at this shipwreck.
I saw this ship some days earlier and remembered me to take a shot at the dawn. It was a bit tricky to get a good angle. Because left and right where some industry complexes. But I was early enough at the shore to catch some purple in the sky, three shots later was the sky only blue. So I’m happy to have this image, because the sky was to cloudy for starscapes and this kind of image would not be possible in Switzerland, for the reason we’ve got no sea.