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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i guess is what the landscapist might label it, but i can't help: this is part of bavarian pittoresque, like it or not. 10min by bike from my home, the farmers of "schleicherhof" accomodate guests and care for their fruit orchard and their horses. the farmhouse is situated at one of the most scenic points opposite the entrance of the valley to berchtesgaden, overlooking the meadows to grossgmain, a village already on the austrian side of the border.
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this wooden ornament decorates the door to maria bühel, a pilgrimage church dating back to the 17th century. located not far away from the holy-night-chapel in oberndorf, austria, it is a quiet place, not getting that tourist attention as the former one.
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i guess it was not the wedding in the church that made the pidgeons flee... the church is beautiful, freshly renovated, which indicates that the roman catholic church in bavaria is still well-heeled in spite of the many difficulties it is facing in these fast changing times.
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weddings can be a challenge photographically, but most definitely they are a challenge for the stomach. to prepare for the refill at dinner, we had an opportunity to wander through dachau palace. this is a small palace, built 1546 and heavily renovated in the 18th century. the vicinity to the church of dachau is astonishing - at those times secular and ecclesiastic powers were really close - and this is what attracted my attention here.
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late afternoon light had already left st. pankraz church in the shade. due to the cold air and light wind there were almost no distortions by the heatings from the houses of bad reichenhall under this scenery, only the object contrast turned out to be really low - a bit more then 3 f-stops is really not much. i had exposed to the right, so i hoped there was enough differentiation in there for a detail-rich image. playing with lightzone allowed to increase the local contrast and with the result i am quite happy.
just one thing keeps nagging me: even from the tripod all my shots are tilted to right - it seems almost impossible for me to adjust the camera horizontally. so the next thing to get is a rrs lever clamp with a spirit level. not that i would not like to tilt some shots on purpose, but never getting it level even if i want to is more than annoying.
oh yes, st. pankraz was already the subject of this post. it seems to attract me especially during winter time.
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this photo on flickr.
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bavaria still is one of the roman-catholic heartlands. no politician will stand a chance opposing the church - the green party at the moment has to learn this the hard way, it seems. this domination was in former times even a physical one, as you can see in this picture: the church really towering over a village of maybe 10² houses.
This image needed some more postprocessing: removing CA with gimp, adding saturation to the not so blue sky, incrementing local contrast etc. i am still amazed about the performance of this budget/lightweight/small tamron lens.
this photo on flickr.
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always good for a postcard-quality picture, the church of maria gern is located on a very powerful place just over the street coming from berchtesgaden. evening is an excellent time to go there as it is almost abandoned then and the noise from the surroundings and the streets has pretty much died down. the mountains in the background - untersberg - are still and proud in their serenity and watch over the place.
sounds to much like a cliche? it just is as it is, maybe you have to experience it to believe.
this photo on flickr.
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the sun was in the perfect direction and angle to highlight the iron nails and the lock as well as to shed some light on the the cast iron trellis with its golden coating
I had to change my raw converter as lightcrafts decided to drop the linux version of their lightzone raw converter. The really upsetting facet is that they use (legally, of course) a lot of free software in their product but resist to return something to the community. Pretty much the behavior of a leech, isn't it?
this photo on flickr.
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it was quite dark in this church - 0.5s on a monopod is long, even with internal stabilization.
i love the scenery with that single woman adding scale to this big hall.
this photo on flickr.
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the raw file gave an severely underexposed impression, but this retained the sky instead of letting it become just white. masking in (lightzone/linux allowed to keep the sky and brighten the clocktowers to realistic values again. this is just a great piece of software.
this photo on flickr.
and here is a b&w version of this picture. i have to admit that i am still undecided which one to prefer
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heavily clouded sky alternating with drizzle provided extremely soft light during yesterday's walk through salzburg, austria. Inside the cathedral it was amazingly bright.
without any tricks or excessive processing, the b&w conversion of this picture already achieved highly graphic and abstract quality. this photo may give an hdr-like impression or a change between a positive and negative form, and that's why I like it.
this photo on flickr.
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over the roofs of my hometown, Bad Reichenhall. the clocktower of St. Ägidius, and in the background mt. Hochstaufen.
just discovered the linux version of lightzone. amazing user interface, excellent sharpness. the tone curve tool is just extraordinary, and the possibility to work on regions is great. however, speed and memory requirements are an issue. but bibble has got a strong competitor in the linux market.
The highlight recovery of lightzone astonished me: see the clock face: even plain sunlight I was able to work out some details.
this photo on flickr.
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I love the overwhelming impression that the interior of this church imposes on the visitor through its narrowness and height.
this photo on flickr.
I love the strong geometric elements of the tower of St. Ägidius church in Bad Reichenhall, my hometown.
this photo on flickr.
