Fanal Forest

Coming to Madeira, as a photographer, you are faced with a great challenge. 

The number of landscape photogenic places is enormous. In my case I combine this passion with hiking. In Madeira I did almost 100 km on foot. Not in every interesting place I managed to be at the golden hour, but it was a certain compromise in order to sightee and photograph.

Fanal Forest was undoubtedly one of the main points of the photo agenda. I approached the subject three times. 

 

The first time was foggy but horizontal rain and a strong wind soak my back side in 5 seconds and it made almost impossible to take out the camera. For the sake of balance I drenched my front in a moment I turned to admire all around the forest. Nevertheless I walked around the forest for an hour looking for some frames.

The second time was foggy, but the fog was too high. So nothing really atmospheric could be made.
It was only the third time that I found a decent fog and the lasted for an hour.

So as you see there is no particular time, morning or evening to catch a fog. Pitty little bit that there is no  webcam to spy the situation ;) 

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Meteora

This is one of those places, for a landscape photographer, where you feel awe and even fear not to spoil something, like wrong ISO, something not sharp enough or the wrong weather.

However, the weather leaves no choice and you have no influence over it, but if it is rainy it just sucks. I experienced already such photo trips...

Despite the weather forecast it was not so bad. Just once I had to land with a drone quite fast to escape from a cloud, that I saw from a distance, however I wanted to pack some more photos just to be sure to have a big selection of them.

Meteora offers a lot of interesting points. Those that can be viewed on google maps are great and on my way I discovered some many more of them. Almost everything is well seen and in good perspective just from official viewing points or just from a street, which connects all the monasteries.

Some advantage is of course a view from above.That gives more interesting perspectives, like winding roads or unusual views of monasteries.

 

 

There are some examples of this what you can shoot just if you stop on the parking lot. Not without reason you can park in there :)

Sunrise with view towards the Monastery of Roussanou. Very small piece of rock so stay stable...

This view point towards Holy Trinity is a little bit hidden. As well along the road. But not the main road. This road leads to some kind of picnic area called Meteora Tzertzi

The Monastery of Roussanou in the evening with the stormy clouds in the background

Shortly after the rain. Not far from Great Meteoron

 

 

 

 

 

There is a small from above glimpse how it is there with view points and roads

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Winter Zugspitzland

 There is a hidden unkown peak with amazing view towards Wetterstein Range near Garmisch Partenkirchen in Bavaria, Germany.

What more the Alpspitze locates itself almost automatically in rule of thirds frame :)

To get there you have to leave a track and wander a little bit off the beaten track. You can not even see this small hill from the path. This place called Hirzeneck offers an incredible mountain view with a little effort. Only around half-hour approach... from Kranzbach. Deep snow is a really slow-down factor. It is good to keep this in mind when going to catch a sunrise not a short breath ;)

Very nice place to observe the changing light. How it hits the mountains and changes the atmosphere around.

Very usefull in this situation a polar filter that cuts the sky well from the mountains.

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April in south Black Forest

Short trip to Swarzwald. Interesting photo points, trekking routes, main highlights, which can be done in three days.

Of course some of them must have been left for later. We had to choose so that three days were varied and did not consist only of waterfalls or gorges. There were routes of a panorama, a mountain top (phot. the peak of Belchen -Most beautiful panoramic mountain in the Black Forest), a gorge and a waterfall.

Old watermills like this one near Elzach. Lots of small local breweries or the bigger and famous like Rothaus in Grafenhausen near Schluchsee, that is an attraction itself...

The real highlight is a Triberg Waterfall. Picturesque path prepared also for strollers. The Triberg Waterfalls are among Germany's highest waterfalls, with a drop of 163m and seven steps. You can visit them till 10 PM. The waterfalls are illuminated and you can enjoy a very special atmosphere.Parking situation is a little bit thight so it is worthy to be not so late.

 

 

For our gorge path we choose the short atraction in Ravenna Schlucht. We went there late afternoon and it was really empty. In comparison to Triberger nothing was like going on there.

 

At the entrance to Ravenna Gorge you can stop at the Ravenna creek. There is a nicely located small house, that you can consider as an interesting photo point for starters :). In the background there is a rail viaduct from end of XIX century.

For photographers a must-see or must-photograph point is for sure the curve just next to Ravenna Gorge. The well known piece of road is called Kreuzfelsenkurveand it is probably the most spectacular curve in the Black Forest. 

What I chose for myself for some sunrise photo shooting was the picturesque countryside around the village St. Märgen with the Ohmen Chapel.

The easy to reach view point with the panorama view over the lanndscape near St. Märgen with the Ohmen Chapel

 

Of course if you are already in St. Märgen it's worthy to get closer to the chapel. the chapel itself is an attractive object for some photos, especially from a drone.

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Rothenburg ob der Tauber

The New Year trip, or a few day later... Rothenburg off-season

The city is already so famous, thanks to social media, that even in January you have to be patient to get your frame. Around the famous road crossing das Plönlein there are light crowds moving around. Cars, selfie funs, tourists, walkers, someone is passing by all the time in front of your camera. I just put my big stopper to get the long exposure really long to make the frame de-crowded ;). I don't even dare to imagine what is going on there on summer evenings.

 

Afterwards I decided myself to make a quick look at the walls, or rather from the walls, because you can walk around the old town on the walls, and under the roof. Perfect in the rain. What was our experience next day.

 

But first I got to my another planned photo spot, Gerlachschmiede. I thought I'd run into a similar crowd there. Because Gerlachschiede is another landmark of Rothenburg. After couple of minutes the christmas tree lit and it became like in a fairy tale.

 

Next morning the weather was not such in a photography-mode. Rain and one has to be careful not to get the lens so rain-dotted. What was the advantage, the lack of people and for a composition the wet cobblestone and still illuminated city.

 

 

 

After some breakfast we made our sightseeing tour.

Rothenburg offers a lot of old town atmosphere. The highlight for sure is the around 4 km walk on the city walls.

You can get down through the city park down to the river Tauber and to the Topplerschlösschen. The house high on a stone platform. It was the summer residence of one of the former mayors. Going along river you can admire a city view. Go on the double-bridge and get back to the old heart of Rothenburg

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Autumn Vibes

It's been a long time again since my last post. It is actually already a winter time but for a snow I assume we have to wait.

So I drop you back into the autumn with its beautiful colouring and moody foggy mornings.

I had a couple of possibilities to catch some autumnal atmosphere this year and last year...

 

 

Very interesting for top down catch is the area of the Eibsee, with the small hut island and whale-tail-like bay. Some things occur to you when you see them from above. Even google maps doesn't give that impression. But this is one of my main tools to look for any interesitng spots. Another example is the perfect horseshoe street near Kochel.

 

 

What I like about autumn are the colourful reflextions of course with some epic landscape around. There are some places I can recommend for such reflections-hunt. Like for example the Riessersee, just a neighbour of Garmisch Partenkirchen.

What is always on my agenda in the autumn photography is the landscape with fog. Which sa typical for cold mornings and mostly with the clear sky. To check, just to be sure, that some more or less picturesque fogs are going to appear I use weather forecast. And first of all one parameter which is Relative humidity, often expressed as a percentage.

You can check this for example on wetterzentrale.de

 

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Cherry Blossom

 

Spring is such an enchanted time of year when we are suddenly surrounded by the magic of colour and fragrance. This year I did a little hunt for cherry trees in bloom.

A well-known point on the cherry blossom map is Olympiapark in Munich. But you have to be aware of the crowds there since the place has become an Instagram hotspot. This is undoubtedly one of the most interesting places to photograph sakura. You can easly achive there a nice composition of the Olympic tower, park paths. It is also one of the first cherry trees that bloom in the city.

 

Another interesting place to admire sakura is the Westpark in Munich. The trees bloom at the same time as at the Olympia. There are much less people but also the area of the Japanese park there is very small.

Sometimes the inspiring frames are being created just unexpectedly. This are really places that you are lucky to discover just for you. Like this tree and car for example                                                                                                

But there are also other more or less hidden, known and unknown places that come into color in spring...

I know one small avenue with the white cherry but this is out of the city so I have to like guess or rather estimate when is it so far that trees are white

This year I was there too early. The flowers had bundles of color barely but I was lucky with some fog that really made a november feeling entirely with the below zero temperatures.

I've almost forgotten to mention another place with a late sakura. That appears one month or even later than cherry in Olimpia. This is a garden of the Dachau Palace near Munich.

You can consider this as a hidden gem. Not so crowded and last but not least the charming location of the Dachau Hofgarten on a ridge offers a magnificent panoramic view all the way to the mountain range of the Alps.

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