Backlit shot

November 6, 2011

I haven’t done a lot of photos this year. I can’t really tell why but sometimes it’s the familiar surroundings which isn’t very inspiring. It’s sometimes hard to see the world with different eyes, to create something brand new out of something very familiar. I think this is what people call abstraction.
However I appreciated my sister asking me to take pictures in the park I live close by. As she is very familiar to me and so is the park I decided to give the pictures a punch of color and light, in order to make them something special. The only tree in the park that was still carrying yellow leafs had already been occupied by color searchers like us. But when it was our turn I dialed manual (over) exposure, pointed the camera towards the sun and tried to produce as much flare as possible. And this with a lens I preferred to buy for its flare-resistance (Nikkor 17-35mm f2.8). After some minor color adjustments in lightroom I finally got the pictures that match the colors, the mood and the time of the year.

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Filed under: Portrait — Tags: , , , — Andreas @ 11:28 AM

Polar lights in Tromsø, Norway

January 5, 2011

Northern lights near Sommaröy

It was a magnificent journey to one of the most impressive natural spectacles, when heading to Tromsø in Norway, 350 km above the polar circle. Me and my friends we booked a flight, hotel and a car a couple of months in advance, not knowing wether we would be able to see the lights. I was told that it is not about the sun’s activity (the lights will always be visible – with variable intensity) but all about the weather. And to our surprise we were blessed with four star-bright polar days and nights!

Northern lights near Tromsö

What we basically did was to spend the day geocaching, hanging out in the shopping mall and sleeping while waiting for the sky to become a little darker, as there was no sun anyway. We then packed ourselves into the rental, drove through the underground road network of Tromsø, past the airport and went out into the western outback, where the lights of the city could not reach the sky any more. In this dark sky area we passed several well lit, though abandoned, villages, with our faces always tightly pressed against the windows staring up to the sky.

Northern lights near Tromsö

And then all of a sudden someone would cry “I see green lights…”, “for God’s sake, now stop that f****** car”. And there they were…beautiful…dancing right in front of our faces. The magnificence is as hard to describe as the depth and the dimensions of the Grand Canyon. You cannot see this in a picture, you have to experience it with your proper eyes. The pictures I took with the widest angle lens I own can only give you a glimpse on what you can expect on your own aurora trip.

Making our way to the farthest western point we reached the Sommarøy Artctic Hotel (http://www.sommaroy.no/no), an oasis in the middle of nowhere. After warming-up ourselves with a hot cup of coffee in front of the fireplace we went on and found a remote house on one of the many peninsulars that stretch out into the open sea. It was such a perfect spot so that everything we had to do was to wait for the lights to come. And when they appeared I pushed the shutter to preserve the memory that will accompany me for the rest of my life.

Northern lights near Tromsö

Filed under: Norway — Tags: , , , — Andreas @ 4:31 PM

New York City

September 30, 2010

After we had taken the subway, two flights, a train and another subway we arrived at our hotel close to the Madison Square Park where we only dropped off our luggage and headed to the ferry to Liberty Island. It was a “once in a lifetime event” that I booked in advance – to be on the island at sunset (at least in September). So I had a chance to take a close picture of the Statue of Liberty at the so called blue hour. They gave us to eat and drink and we enjoyed strolling on this remote little island. The skyline is not very attracting from Liberty Island as it is from Brooklyn but at least for me it was an adventure to take the subway in Nürnberg and to end up at one of the landmarks of New York, which showed me how “close” the world became.
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I fell in love with one of the pictures I took the following days, it is a panorama of the skyline taken from Brooklyn, right at the base of Brooklyn Bridge. Despite of all my planning and dusk simulation in Google Earth before my travels my companions have to always be very patient with me. We were standing at the dock for at least one hour until the brightness of the blueish sky matched the brightness of the illuminated skyscraper windows. You could also adjust everything in Photoshop or take a HDR, but I am still too lazy for post processing.
This is the picture (four pictures stitched with Hugin).

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I do not want to make too many words about the great time that I had in Manhattan, all in all it is a vibrant city with its very own unmistakable flair.

Filed under: City,USA — Tags: , , , — Andreas @ 3:25 PM
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