klausbachtal forest

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in spite of the rain that now soaks the large snow heaps here in the valley, higher up in the mountains winter is still unbroken. a sunday morning, only some 100 m away from the main trail you feel completely alone when the mist swallows all sounds. that always helps me to get the right sense of scale after a busy week, partly in the city, surrounded by all high tech and acting out my high expectations and trying to meet those of others. here in the mountains is the place where i can re-connect and come down to my roots.

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st. pankraz castle and church

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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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japanese landscape, bavaria

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japanese layered mountains were my immediate association when i saw the clouds moving up on mt. predigtstuhl, seen from the middle of my hometown bad reichenhall. in fact this shot was quite extreme with a 450mme tele lens, so i had to massage the raw file quite a bit in lightzone to bring out those tufts of the clouds moving in and out, obscuring and revealing.

last week our city council voted against the construction of a statue of lord jesus on the top of predigtstuhl. it seemed a bit to be 'adabei' (bavarian slang for someone who's pretending to create to participate in public attention) and even the churches objected because the feeling was only too overwhelming, that this was just an imitation of rio de janeiro's statue and only for economical reasons.

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north face over schwarzbach

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easter monday i got some free time and went to an alpine meadow near the 'queralpenstrasse' (alpine transversal road) just 20min far from home. under the north face of Reiteralm there was still a lot of snow, and from time to time avalanches broke free high above our heads. the woods here have suffered a lot from the storms, weakened as they are by the air pollution they toppled over hectar wise. but on the north side there is still hope that a natural mixed forest will grow up again as the density of deer and roe is not as high as in the opposing south faces, where they feed every spring on the buds of the young trees to devastating effects. the young protection forest does not grow up but ends as extremely expensive mash for future trophies on the chimney wall of a hunter.

the second picture is an alpine hut there on the meadows. the cows used to graze right in the woods - with obvious consequences for the young trees - but the administration tries to buy out now those old rights.

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faint evening light

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i tried to get a japanese painter for this scenery. found none, so i did it my way.

this kind of layered landscape fascinates me since i can think, so i try it again and again in spite of the danger to get stuck in a cliché

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clearing storm over St. Pankraz

St. Pankraz church is built on one of the oldest inhabitated places in the valley of Bad Reichenhall. Accessible through only a narrow footpath, this location was safe from attacks from below and must have been an old ritual place, too. One of my best christmas experiences is connected with this church: walking 1 hour through the snow, with a pitch-torch in the hand, and then attending midnight mass.

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maria gern in the evening

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.

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aesthetics in catastrophy

this weekend, a wildfire destroyed more then 300.000 square meters of precious protection forest next to Bad Reichenhalldue to the extreme drought we are experiencing this april. But many catastrophies have their asthetic aspects, and so does this. Nine helicopters were continously flying on sunday to water the areas where the fire was already extinguished

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towards the sun

my daughter on a swing just reaching out over mt. Hochkalter towards the sun.

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mt. Watzmann in bavaria

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I do love this backlight, pre-bad-weather situations. Late in autumn the woods are very dark, burying all their energy deep inside for next spring. Picture taken last year with an Oly C-8080WZ

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