Experimenting with HDR

I took this photo from the second tier of the Eiffel Tower looking down at one of the legs of the base.  Instead of fighting the long lines to ride the elevator up, Brandon and I took the stairs up (don’t worry, we didn’t go all the way to the very top) and I think we both realized how out of shape we are.  With our burning lungs, the only thing that made us feel better was the fact that no one passed us.  The climb was definitely worth the gorgeous view of the city.  I also loved being able to see the tower from a different vantage point; it really is an amazing structure.

This is my favorite photo of this week from our trip to Berlin.  This was taken at the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin at sunset.  These concrete blocks vary in height and in the center are around 12-15 feet (?).  Looking from the outside the memorial doesn’t look like anything really spectacular, but as we walked through I was really taken by the enormous size of these blocks.  Walking through the 2,711 concrete blocks was pretty powerful.

  

Amazing Berlin!

Brandon and I headed to Berlin for Labor Day and were greeted by amazing weather, a wonderful city and some truly memorable sites.  Due to the history of East and West Berlin, the city is fairly spread out, but we just put on our comfy shoes and had a great time walking all over the city to the various Platz’s (city squares), sites and monuments. 

No trip to Berlin is complete without a trip to see the wall.  This portion of the wall is still standing near the Topography of Terror, which is a place I would highly recommend visiting.  The photos and displays were incredibly interesting and very eye-opening.

I love the contrast in the architecture of the Reichstag Building which holds the German Parliament.  The dome was damaged by fire and was rebuilt in a more modern style.  Unfortunately we weren’t able to tour the inside because you have to schedule a tour in advance due to security, but it was still really remarkable from the outside.

I guess this is the Berliner version of hanging out at the beach.

The inside of the Sony Center.

Reflection

The grounds at Schwetzingen Palace were so peaceful and offered so many incredible sites and views.  Besides the tons of flower macros, this was one of my favorite shots from the day.

The Zeiss Ikon Nettar 515/2 finally makes its debut…

This camera was one of the first vintage cameras that Brandon and I bought, so it was nice to finally take it out and shoot with it.  I was pleasantly surprised with the way the photos turned out, considering I was experimenting with settings and really had no idea what I was doing.  I really love the square (almost) frames and the settings were fairly easy to figure out. 
Each roll of 120 film can take 8 square frames with the Nettar 515/2 camera.  I was able to get 8 full frames, a few were throw-aways because I was metering for the sky to try and get a feel for the camera and see exactly how it shot.  We shot on a sunny day, but there was still a bit of haze in the distance.  While shooting, I wasn’t exactly confident that the photos would turn out, but am fairly pleased with the camera and the results from our first shoot with it.  I have to say, there is something that I really love about the look of these film photos taken from our vintage camera. 

Looking down at Heidelberg Castle.

Monastery ruins at Heiligenberg.

Some shots from the Meopta TLR Flexaret Automat

Shooting with the Flexaret was so different from anything I have ever shot before.  While the settings were pretty easy to figure out, just lining up the shot in the viewer completely threw me off.  The Flexaret is a twin lens reflex camera and you have to look down at the viewfinder to see what is in the frame.  Because I am so uncoordinated, the mirror-effect in the viewfinder made it difficult for me to line up the shot.  It was difficult to get my mind to move right when I wanted to get more in the left side of the frame.  I was not used to that at all.  I will say that the picture in the viewfinder was incredible.  The image is so crisp and looks almost 3D.  I just wish I was able to translate that image onto the film. 

Since this was the first time using this camera and we were simply trying to figure out how this particular camera shoots (and if it even worked), I guess I shouldn’t be too disappointed.  The camera seems to over-expose a bit so I will have to remember that the next time I shoot with it and adjust my settings.  The day was sunny, but it also created a bit of a haze that definitely shows in these photos. 

Here is a shot of the actual camera (taken with my D300s), and the others are taken with Flexaret.  The first two shots are of Thingstatte, an old Nazi amphitheater in our area and the last one is monastery ruins next to Thingstatte.  Each roll of 120 film can take 8 frames in the Flexaret.  However, considering this was my first time using the camera, I lined up the film wrong and was only able to get 6 frames from this roll.  Not the greatest, but I am happy with them considering this was a test roll for this camera.

Thingstatte

Looking up from the stage of Thingstatte at the seating.

Monastery ruins

52 week photo project: Week 12

I played around a bit with my settings to get this sunset shot.  I metered off of the sky instead of the building to get a silhouette.   In reality, there was actually quite a bit of light left. 

These two photos were taken in Heidelberg’s Altstadt.

Super Moon

Here are my attempts at shooting the super moon.  Unfortunately my longest lens isn’t as sharp as my other lenses, but they didn’t turn out too bad.

 

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.

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:

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. 

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!

Linked to:

                  

SOOC Sunday

I’m trying to make it a point to participate in more photo challenges and be more active in the blogging world.  Not only to make more connections, but also to try and improve my photography skills. 
So today I decided to participate in SOOC (straight out of the camera) Sunday.  The only editing was a crop/rotate in Lightroom and that was it.  Click on the link to participate and submit yours!

ETA: I forgot to add that this is a photo of the Heidelberg Castle.  I'm new at this...forgive me!

52 week photo project: Week 4

As I said last week, Brandon and I decided to play tourist in our town and visit some of the places that we take for granted.  One of those places is definitely the Heidelberg Castle.  It is too easy just to admire it from afar and keep telling ourselves that we’ll visit it again someday. 
In the numerous places I have lived, there are always one or two places that I have passed by and always wanted to go visit, but never did.  Who knows if I’ll ever be back to those places or if they are even still there, but we are trying to make it a point to visit the places that we want to go and not hold it off.  We have a little over a year left here in Germany and our to-do list is long, so I guess we need to start working on it! 
-Visit Heidelberg Castle together (we have been there separately)----check!



A couple of the huge wine barrels within the castle.
 

A bit of a repeat from my SOOC Sunday post above, but this is the same photo with a tiny tweak of editing in LR.

52 week photo project: Week 3

Our week started in Mayrhofen, Austria and ended with a day in Heidelberg, Germany.  Although it may sound pretty exciting, everything in between involved work, laundry and just hanging around the house. 
Sunday ended our snowboarding trip to Austria and I got a couple pictures of our wonderful little hotel. 

On Saturday we decided to play tourist in Heidelberg (about 20 minutes down the road from our house) and headed to the Zoo to play with the animals.  We were pleasantly surprised by the zoo and had such a great day checking out all the animals.