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.
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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).
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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!
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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.
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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.
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When the days are too hot, life changes to the night. After a buzzing 37°C day, the Camplin, Krk's main plaza, was buzzing even at 11:00 in the night. I took out my venerable 1,7/50mm lens, and did I praise the Anti-Shake in the camera already? So that photographing lady's pose got fixed in 1/8th of a second, quite unthinkable in film times.
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Today is the 3rd day with temperatures high in the 30th (Celsius), and sitting outside is no real joy if the breeze stops. The good thing is that the internet speed in the campground lobby now is aczeptable - in the evening it reminds more of old 2400 Baud modem times.
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In the narrow alleys of Krk the shadows of the houses make shure that it does not get unbearable hot (though unbearable is relative, today we had 37°C). However it gets dark pretty soon in the evening down there, and only the windows of the upper floors still catch some daylight or reflect it when seen in the proper angle.
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The harbour water is not such an attractive medium - oily, smelly and so on, probably the same in every harbour of the world. Amazing enough locals are fishing there, and I guess even that fish is ending on the table.
But the reflective qualities of the water are still intact, and the way the ripples dissolve the form of the ships was really amazing.
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It is probably a question of personal affinity that I find the fishing boats on the pier in Krk so rewarding in terms of pictures. In spite of the small number of possible positions to photograph from I always find new things worth to be picked out.
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The fine light in the afternoon in the many narrow alleys of Krk brings out shadows of all kind on the walls, which were already subject of a number of posts in the past. Maybe the Solar Electric Mantis was the most prominent example. Here is a more reticent specimen.
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Practising really pays out: I just had 20 minutes after a shopping mission, and those I spent sitting on a low window sill in the main square of Krk, watching the people passing by. In holidays situations, nobody seems to care about a guy with a camera, even with an impressive long zoom.
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The colors of the mediterranean countries in the summer are blue and white, and most famous for this combination are the greek islands. Here in Krk you have to actively look for these iconic colors, I found it in an unusual place, high on the upper deck of a large fish trawler. The setting evening sun has muted the intensity already, humid air had softened the blue of the sky, but a bit of rust provides enough complementary color to give the blues their intensity back.
This is one of my preferred photographing styles: looking for form and color combinations and isolating them by a long focal length and a tight framing.
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Not the blue sky nor the blue sea, just the pyramid shape of the young men grouped on the rocks made me take out the camera.
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