wind

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A lazy day at the lake and not much to photograph until I saw the wind play with the leaves of that japanese maple tree (acer japonica). Here in Europe they are quite popular in the gardens because of that wonderful red of their leaves even in the midst of summer.

The image alone I found not interesting enough, but that development from the static leaves, suddenly showing their bright underside in a gust of wind and heavily shaking when the wind becomes still stronger, that was it for me.

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city bokeh, munich

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since i bought my first dslr in 2005 i am lusting for a 1.4/85mm lens just to indulge in my passion for shallow dof and fine bokeh. for the minolta a-mount, taken over by sony without modifications, this lens is available in zeiss brand for a zeiss price and used in a variety of minolta makes for less then half the price, but still hefty. just recently i've got permission from my departement of finances, but since then not a single reasonable priced specimen showed up on *bay. the strange thing now is that am not too shure anymore that i really need it. and i learned to get my airy discs by using the existing lenses, which means that i do not have to carry an additional piece of glass, which is not too bad either.

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spring springs to life

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sorry, i simply had to use this pun now. the light at the moment is gorgeous, especially if the sky is scattered with clouds and the backlight is less pungent and more revealing. even the lens flaws (my not-often-enough-used tamron 11-18) and the raw conversion problems don't stop me to include the direct sun in the picture. f22 makes up for a nice star effect even without any criss-cross-filter - i do well remember the hype around those in the 80th of last century.

the animals enjoy the fresh pasture, too. this white stallion grazes at schleicherhof, subject of yesterday's post, and enjoys its charity. with probably 30 years (24 according to the horse trader, but popular wisdom here in germany recommends to never believe a horse trader) there is no work any more, maybe a bit posing for the kids and the tourists, not to forget the photographer.

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inviting for a rest

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kind of a retro mood for soft and unobtrusive colors caught me today. maybe one of the reasons are paul butzi's post what makes you a photographer and paul lester's the beauty of the everyday. for a balanced, full life, savouring the very moment without peering for the abnormal, extraordinary is a warranty for success. and to cherish these feelings, to appreciate those unspectacular moments, one of the best things to do that i know is taking a walk in the pre-alpine hills. even 15 minutes can suffice like in sunday's visit to the hospital, where the nanny of our daughters is recovering after serious heart problems.

the light was soft, but i wanted to have an even softer impression so i carefully desaturated the reds of the roofs and only very minimally intensified the foreground grass a little bit. the picture meets the mood of this walk very well.

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stormy weather

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after the storm has been ebbing, i dared to go out again without having to fear flying branches or roof tiles. winds were still fierce so I captured the moving leaves.

a second try where the shaking spring snowflakes here. So my new tripod proved to be a stable support for the camera even in such windy situations. the strange thing is that nobody of my friends shares my joy about the tripod. everbody tries to avoid using one whenever possible. but my impression is that some shots i would have never gotten without one, some shots come out a lot sharper, and, the most important thing: it slows me down! i take more time to think and afterwards to chimp and check the composition on the display and i got the feeling that overall it's sometimes worth the hazzle.

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autumn fire in petting

a firewall in petting, a small village on the shore of lake waging. exposed to north west and getting sun only late in the afternoon, the virginia creeper showed all colors from deep green over blue to red and yellow.

postprocessing this image, i did not touch the saturation but only adjusted brightness and contrast and added a small amount of local contrast enhancement plus refocus sharpening in digikam.

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