Black and White Wednesday: Rainy Day

A rainy morning in Strasbourg, France made for a beautiful black and white photo.

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Happy Monday: Yellow

We found this cute little yellow restaurant as we wandered through the city of Strasbourg, France this weekend.  It was a cold and rainy day, but it was such a cute little place that I had to get a quick shot!

52 week photo project: Week 7 - Strasbourg

Brandon and I took at little trip to Strasbourg, France this weekend since we had never been there together, and it is only about an hour and a half down the road.  Even though it was a bit chilly, we really enjoyed relaxing and exploring this beautiful city.  As we walked through the area of Petite France we found this very colorful bike and thought it would be perfect for the Simplicity photo challenge, not to mention my 52 week project.

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Scavenger Hunt Sunday

Here are my interpretations from this week’s Scavenger Hunt Sunday.  I shot most of these on our trip this past weekend to the wonderful city of Strasbourg, France.  I wrote down all the topics and I must say, it made for a fun weekend as Brandon and I hunted through the city for these items.

1. Chocolate: The city of Strasbourg is filled with chocolatiers and other delicious sweets and pastries, making it more than just a little difficult to stick to my diet!

 

2. Numbers:  We found these interesting Roman Numerals on a tablet in the Strasbourg Cathedral. 

3. Canned Food: My favorite canned food and soup is Kurbis Crème Soup (Pumpkin soup).  This is seriously the best soup I have ever had out of a can.  I love it when pumpkin is in season because there are so many restaurants around here that have incredible Kurbis soup, but this stuff holds me over when I can get the fresh soups.  I’m not sure what I am going to do when I move back to the States!

4. Music: The gorgeous organ inside the Strasbourg Cathedral was absolutely amazing.  I got this shot literally seconds before they turned out the lights on it.

5. Stack: In my quest for chocolate, I found a very colorful stack of chocolates that were just too cute to not get a photo.

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Black and White Wednesday: More from Thingstatte

I blogged earlier this week about our visit to the Nazi amphi-theatre, Thingstatte, and I thought some of the photos from that day would be perfect for B&W Wednesday.  When shooting the site, I found it hard to capture the feel of this place.  While modern day Thingstatte is still an impressive site with its massive stone benches rising up the hilltop, it also has a sense of modesty and calm as it sits in the forest at the end of Philosopher’s Way and next to old church ruins.  Locals visit the site and run up the stairs on their afternoon runs, they wander through on their way to do a family picnic or just as a cut-through on a leisurely hike, tourists visit and take photos and think of what this place once stood for.  What it once was is certainly not what it is now, and that was what made it difficult to capture in photos.  It is both beautiful and ugly all at the same time.

I’m still working on trying to master black and white conversions and have a very long way to go, but I thought B&W was a good way to present some of these photos from this historic site.

This engraved stone sign sits close by and directs visitors to Heiligenberg, the location of Thingstatte.

The view from “backstage” looking out onto the seating where the crowds would have gathered for the festivals and rallies.

The view from the top of the theatre seating, looking down on the stage.

Macro Monday

I haven’t had much macro practice this winter, so when my husband and I went out exploring this weekend, I was excited to get the chance for some practice.  Unfortunately, there wasn’t much in the way of flowers for me to practice on.  I did, however, find some moss and a pine cone wreath (at Ehrenfriedhof) that I did get a couple shots of.  My husband looked at me a bit funny after about 10 minutes of shooting moss, but it actually looked pretty interesting.  As usual with my macros, I struggled with focus and composition, but I guess that is how it is with macros, especially since I am new at it and very much out of practice.  I can’t wait for spring to get here so I can shoot something a little more interesting than moss!

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Ehrenfriedhof

The German WWI and WWII Cemetery, Ehrenfriedhof, is a place that my husband and I passed by once before and have been meaning to go back to.  It is one of those places that is so close by and easy to get to, that you keep putting it off and seem to never get back to visit.  However, the nice weather and sunshine we had this weekend gave us the motivation to get out and explore a bit.  We decided to head down the road to Heidelberg and visit a couple of historical sites in the area.  We visited Thingstatte, a Nazi amphi-theatre, and finally made it back to Ehrenfriedhof to take some photos of this beautiful site.

The first photo is SOOC and linked to:

A love letter to Kitty Paw

When Ashley at Ramblings and Photos announced her “Love Letters to Kitty Paw” contest, I knew I had to enter.  After serious collaboration with my husband and our two cats, Spitze and Mia, we think we came up with something that will win Kitty Paw’s heart.  What could be more romantic than Shakespeare combined with our boy Spitze’s movie star good looks?  Surely Kitty Paw will not be able to resist him!

Disclaimer: Mia came up with the Shakespeare quote (she is the smart one of the two) and Spitze came up with the very witty “purrrty” comment!

 

52 week photo project: Week 6

There are so many things I love about living abroad, one of them is the number of historical sites that are within a short drive of our house.  One of the places that we have been wanting to visit is a place called Thingstätte, in Heiligenberg.  Tucked away in the forest overlooking the city of Heidelberg and it’s castle, is an old open-air amphitheatre built in the 1930s by the Nazi party.  I need to research Thingstatte a bit more, but it was apparently used by the Nazi party during WWII for rallies and festivals.  Standing on the stage and looking out at the rising rows of stone seats, it is hard not to wonder what it looked like when it was first built and think about that dark time in German history.  It is truly an impressive site and one that is hard to capture with just photos. 

SOOC Sunday

My little girl kitty was featured yesterday in my 52 Week Project, so today I have to share a photo of my little boy cat, Spitze.  My cats are indoor cats but are allowed to go out on the patio/balcony because there is no way for them to get down into the yard and escape.  Patio-time is their favorite time of the day and we joke about how Spitze over watches the backyard area like it is his job.  He takes patio-time very seriously and without his oversight and regulation, I’m quite sure the neighborhood would turn to chaos.  Here is a photo of my boy “working”.
Spitze has his game-face on.  Seriously, would you mess with this guy? 

In position and focused.

I decided to not even mess with cropping these photos.  Just added the watermark in LR. 
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Scavenger Hunt Sunday

I am a huge fan of the Ashley and her blog, Ramblings and Photos, and finally decided to participate in this challenge.  I have been wanting to participate for awhile, but always seem to get distracted before finishing up with all the photos.  This week, I set my little post-it list next to my computer as a constant reminder and finally did it. 
1. Water – I pulled this one from my archives from our trip to Dublin.  I loved this photo of my husband standing in front of the waterfall inside the Guinness Storehouse.

2. Quote – I love quotes.  I have books, magnets, cards, frames, coasters, etc.  everywhere of quotes.  They are inspiring, cute and make fantastic decorations throughout the house.  This is my address book that I have had for the last few years.  I absolutely love this quote.

3.  Window – This is one of my favorite windows in the house, and it is also a favorite of our cats too.  It is on the top floor loft and offers an overview of the entire neighborhood.  My little boy cat sometimes looks out the window and plots his escape.


4. Activity – Typing on the computer is a frequent activity in our house, for both me and my husband.  Occasionally we do like to “unplug” but that is pretty rare.  Sometimes I wonder what we did before computers and the internet! 

5. Page 25 of a magazine – This is page 25 of a recent “Runner’s World” magazine.  I love the quote, “Somebody has to run the world”.

Link up at Ramblings and Photos and join in the fun!

52 week photo project: Week 5

Since I have participating in quite a few photo challenges lately, I haven’t posted too many photos of my kitties.   Since my little girl, Mia, loves to have her photo taken and loves attention even more, I decided to post photos of her this week.   Isn’t she gorgeous?

You Capture: Red

My favorite coffee mugs are the ones we bought in at this cute little pottery shop in the Alsace Region of France.  They are the perfect size to wrap my hands around and I love how they look.  This red mug was perfect for this week’s You Capture theme, so I grabbed a shot of it as I was waiting for my coffee to come out of the machine. 

Friday Foto Fun!

I love Fridays.  Not just because it means the weekend is here, but also because there always seem to be great photo challenges on Fridays.  These Friday photo challenges get me excited to share my photos and get me amped up to get out and practice my photography on the weekends.  Yay for Fridays!

This photo is from our trip to the Heidelberg Castle.  I thought about cropping it a bit, but decided to leave it as is, SOOC.  I’m not sure what kind of tree it is, but thought it looked pretty interesting on the castle grounds. 

These are from our trip to Rothenburg ob der Tauber and I absolutely loved the look of this old walled German city.  The gates to the city walls were peppered with amazingly big and mossy old trees, gorgeous!

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