To integrate my blog with a gallery and portfolio website, I have decided to move from blogger.
The new site is http://markus-spring.de, and I would glad if you would follow me to this new home for my photography on the internet.
Thanks for your interest - we'll meet over at the new blog.
Markus Spring
For 1.5 days now I have changed the computer keyboard (and the camera) for a power drill, circular saw, cordless screwdriver and so on. Reason was that the pellets storage room for the central heating needed an improved floor to ensure that the material is gravitation-driven moved to the conveyor screw. The old, already angled floor was not steep enough so that huge piles of pellets never got transported to the oven.
My father in law as house-owner was chief engineer while I worked as saw-servant and screw driver. The whole thing was made complicated by the existing floor that was already angled in two directions, so all metering had to take into account those non-horizontals and verticals. Furtheron leading the pellets to a circular transport area required sophisticated bended forms of the new flooring in order not to waste storage room.
Some rights reserved.
Here in Germany nobody uses the term 'daylight saving time'. It was introduced decades back under the pretense that it would support energy saving, but there are serious doubts: in the end everybody makes best use of the longer evenings, and many activities are connected with energy consumption. We use the term 'summertime' here, and that's the reason for the title.
I found it a quite creative way of tackling the DST problem in a zero-emission-clock, but of course nobody is allowed to be really picky about precision here.
Some rights reserved.
I found this beer brand poster in a window in Bakar, Croatia. The bar behind it was as empty as this poster is weathered.
Meanwhile I am fiddling with the domain name system for my new web presence. What is easy and straightforward when you order domain and web presence in one shot can become at least a bit demanding when you distribute those parts on different companies. At the moment I keep my fingers crossed that by tomorrow the DNS will know about that 'markus-spring.info' domain and point to the correct server.
Update: http://markus-spring.info is now working. I have added another gallery to the 'peoples' category. Now I have to fix the rss links.
Some rights reserved.
Over at The Public Eye Martin Storz yesterday celebrated his post no. 1000. This is definitely a sign of perseverance, even more so as photoblogging in Germany (and in German) rarely leads to frequent commenting and lively discussions that can be seen in the English speaking net world. But even if you can't read German, his blog is worth regular visits - after all photographs are not that language dependent, and Martin's projects like 'Always take the weather' bring together different photographers and styles.
Some rights reserved.
Living throughout the year in a small town in the alps, everything in a harbour is potentially interesting. At sunrise I found these reminders of a 'HiFly' windsurfer, turned into plastic trash over the years, hazardous waste if you would take it really correctly - but nobody does bother here.
The small series is visibly now on my gallery-website-to-be, still under a makeshift domain name here.
As soon as I have finished the works over there, I will shift the blog, too. But hardening the blog against attacks is serious work, and I don't want to hurry this. Experience has taught me that amount of time necessery to clean up after a successful attack is a multitude of the amount to be invested before.
Some rights reserved.
With such a foreground, it is probably hard for a small town to survive. This coal loading/unloading unit claims a similar amount as the whole city of Bakar. Up to the nineties it served a coke oven plan, which is not running any more. It has had a changeful history: Up to the first world war, the Austro-Hungarian navy had one of its most important bases here.
Now the croatian flag is flying high again, but Bakar has lost its importance.
Some rights reserved.
... make sure that you get some of the finest liquor made on the island. That it is presented so invitingly makes the purchase decision not easier as there are so many different flavours. And the opportunity to taste could easily lead to a purchase bigger than originally intended.
Some rights reserved.
Today I am on a short trip to Croatia again, helping my sister to clear up the caravan and prepare it for hibernation in a local garage. Travelling alone, I could afford to stop in Bakar, a former important harbour in the bay of Rijeka in Croatia. It once hosted one of the croatian navigation schools and was the home of a number of captains.
Some rights reserved.
It's easy to guess from the headline that I am not smoking. Not smoking any more, that is.
But here I was more fascinated by the replicating leaning forms that manifested themselves in the viewfinder. To emphasize this a little bit I used bibble5's layers for burning and a bit desaturating the borders. The more I play with this software, the more interesting it becomes despite its overly long beta status and still unresolved bugs. It is just the right tool for my way of handling the raw files, quite straightforward, no fancy effects, just carefully helping to show what's already in the raw file. As a linux user, all that lightroom and photoshop is a non-option, so I am even more glad that bibble5 now fulfills such a great part of my processing wishes.
And despite all criticism in the forums about bibble's slow development process, this definitely is not a case of 'hopes to ashes'.
Some rights reserved.
The triangle of blue colors grabbed my attention, and then the self-aware laziness of the pose on the billboard. The whole image speaks 'night', just the billboard seems out of any time context here.
It's not an image I would try to print really large - it was too late at night and the wine was too good, making me forget to check the f-stop and shutter speed, so sharpness is probably insufficient. But then I just might rely on Cartier-Bresson and proving that I am no bourgeois...
Some rights reserved.
Mornings can be hard; The unread paper in one hand, the camera in the other, eyes still tired, brain slow - the night was just too short. Only 1 minute left until the train leaves. Fumblin' with numb fingers at the f-stop dial, knowing that some DoF is needed. 06:06 - just getting two shots.
Some rights reserved.
The days becomes shorter, the sun rises later, and the distinctive golden glow of the light is definitely a sign of ending summer. The good thing is that I don't have to get up that early to stalk the first light, and the golden gleam paints everything in the most favorable colors. In that way, parting with summer is easy, and the misty, cold, grey daysare are still far away.
Some rights reserved.
Of course the kids made me go to the fairground - in the province, loud music, sales booths in the street and a merry-go-round are rare and therefore attractive. While I regarded the whole thing as less interesting than noisy, at least the old chairoplane provided attractive food for the lens. Stopping down to f22 produced the nice star effect, which was however invisible until I used bibble5's highlight recovery. To be honest, this produced some artifacts which I had to clean up in a last step with gimp (which was faster done than written).
Some rights reserved.
Early morning has a quality of its own. The mind is not loaded already with all the associations and patterns of the day, and the thoughts can run freely. This new built house seemed to be guarded by the cypress soldiers, whilst an officer in yellow is in charge of the guardsmen.
In maybe two or three years these Thuja bushes will have grown to a veritable wall, completing the repelling expression of this house.
Some rights reserved.
At those times, when Bad Reichenhall was famous and rich and through it's salt manufactures contributing one third to the state of Bavaria's budget...
Can you imagine - a small place of only several thousand inhabitants contributing that much to a state's budget? (Now it is a small place of just a bit more then average prominence, still struggling to find it's link to presence and future)
At those times this place was so important that Ludwig I, King of Bavaria, sent his star architekt Friedrich von Gärtner to erect an administration building in the style of the capital's (the City of Munich) most important boulevard.
Well, that was then. Now it's still beautiful, especially early in the morning, when the low sun lets the sycamore trees cast their shadows on the facade.
Some rights reserved.
Open for interpretations, maybe even inviting to it - I found this empty phone booth on a very late walk back home when the bus hadn't come, rain was setting, I was tired and all that. No "saturation to the max", I swear it. The magenta of the handset is like that (this is the brand color of German Telekom), and what is ok in this context can hurt your eyes when you see it on larger installations in historical places.
In case you haven't found and followed it on Joerg Colberg's Conscientious, writer/photographer Matt Mendelsohn's piece The Lessons of Lindsay is highly recommended 'though tough. And if you are at it, do read a Q & A with Matt about this story here: http://www.sportsshooter.com/news/2267. That this story was published in sportsshooter is a revelating thing in itself - more fitting papers had declined to bring it. Highly recommended.
Some rights reserved.
Whilst the kids were fascinated by the wonderful missals in Krk's church and exhibition room, my eyes were attracted by the remainders of the wooden statue of an angel, up to 1973 situated on top of the cathedral's clocktower.
Some rights reserved.
It seems as I can't escape the heat, so this beach photo is more then adequate. Today was an office day here in Munich, and temperatures in the street are up in the high thirties again. In a southbound office room this does mean quite a bit.
Fortunately enough Munich tap water is at least as good as Croatian bottled water, so my liquid level does not suffer - add a bit of coffeine to the (hot) water and I can be happy!
Some rights reserved.
The holidays ended yesterday with a night drive back to Bavaria, and the first day working of course meant searching through a pile of emails and sorting and organising... Still the memories of Krk are vivid, and a number of raw files wait to be evaluated and developed. This self-confident tomcat was one of the rare Krk locals that did not avoid meeting hundreds of tourists that went by his window - the people usally do, and I can fully understand this: in the summer the population in Krk just triples, meaning that there is not too much left the way it is over the quiet off-season.
Some rights reserved.
Different islands, similar lanterns: Just have a look at Martin Storz' public eye blog. On Tenerifa he has found a shadow casting lantern, mounted on a skilfully crafted wrought iron arm. My Krk lantern shows splendid clear lines, but I fear this is not caused by the islanders' love for straight forms (there ceramics at least speak a different language) but because of the chinese lamp producer's knowledge about market acceptance.
Some rights reserved.
