Post Card from Austria: Vienna’s Stephansdom

I’m in Vienna Austria now. I arrived in a drizzling rain storm, a big change from the sunny hot weather I left in Barcelona. But the weather is beautiful here now. My first venture out to Old Vienna found me at it’s heart under grey skies at the foot of the the medieval Cathedral Stephansdom with a 137 m (450 ft.) spire.

… I think I saw some flying monkeys.

Terragona Spain

About an hours ride by train south of Barcelona is Terragona, a small city set on the edge of the Mediterranean that played an important role in the Roman Empire during the first and second century. The Roman archaeological complex of Tarraco is a World Heritage Site and I spent the day exploring the small quiet streets, monuments, and ruins of Terragona. One day did not seem enough and I would like to have spent several days here. The Beach was beautiful and there was much more to see and do than I had time for.

Most of the Roman ruins are concentrated within the old part of the city behind Roman walls that have been built up around over the years as the city grew and changed hands throughout history. My favorite place was the Roman Amphitheater built overlooking the sea.  The oval structure built in the 2nd century contains stands carved directly out of the underlying bedrock and held up to 14,000 spectators. 

In its day, it was the scene of fights between gladiators and against wild beasts, as well as public executions. It is easy to stand at this place and feel the excitement of how it must have been with hordes of toga clad screaming Romans packed into this amazing structure.

Aside from the history, museums, monuments and ruins of Terragona, I really enjoyed just wandering the tiny colorful streets. Once away from the major sites, I easily found quiet streets and often felt like I was the only one in the city, a vast difference from Barcelona.

Post Card from Barcelona: La Sagrada Familia

The La Sagrada Familia is one of Barcelona’s most iconic buildings and Spain’s most visited sites. This cathedral, designed by Antonia Gaudi, is over 100 years in the making and still not finished. The grounds are thick with onlookers on all sides of the building and finding an angle without heads in the foreground is a challenge. I fought my way through the crowd of pushing tourists to a railing enclosing a small section of park free from bodies. I made this HDR image under the mid day sun by merging 3 different exposures.

The Hermitages of Montsurrat

Montserrat lies a quick 50k train ride northwest of Barcelona. The name means serrated mountain and stands 1236 meters high. The limestone conglomeration forming these spires cradles The Monastery of Montsurrat at 725 meters and a complex of 13 hermitages scattered around the high part of the mountain.

I took the train from Barcelona which connects directly to the cremallera, a rack and pinion train that climbs to the monastery. Built in 1025 the monastery now serves as home to a community of about 80 monks none of which I saw. I suspect they were seeking refuge from the hordes of loud tourists.

From the monastery I hiked on a beautiful series of trails climbing amongst spires overlooking the monastery and valley far below. I saw many rock climbers scattered all over the bolted routes up each spire and it made me wish I had brought my gear. The weather was perfect and the climbing looks outstanding.

The trails I hiked climbed past several of the hermitages, each mostly in ruins and the beautiful more modern New Chapel of Saint Joan.

What an amazing outdoor playground, and so close to Barcelona. Does anyone know what this tiny wild flower to the right is? I have never seen anything like it. I can say the same for all of Montserrrat.

Postcard from Barcelona

I’m on the move again and I’ve arrived in Barcelona visiting another long time friend Kristen. She lives here now with her husband Xavier and their son Jordi. Barcelona is a big city on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea and this is my first time seeing both.

Tips for Bad Weather Travel Photography

I’ve been in Germany for a week and although we have not had a lot of rain, it has been predominantly overcast. There was a time when I would have called it “bad weather” for photography and been frustrated because I could not make postcard photos with beautiful clear blue skies. Everyone loves clear blue skies and the warm “Golden Hour” light of early morning and late afternoon. But when traveling you can not always get what you want.

The weather is beyond ones control. You can try to plan your trip around a good weather forecast, but often that is not an option. Such is the case for me on this trip. When the weather is not ideal I often plan my schedule to use such days to scout shooting locations and return when the weather is more favorable. On this trip this is not necessarily an option. I am often operating on the schedule of others and only get one opportunity to visit a given location. So when you have to shoot in unfavorable weather there are some techniques you can use to improve your results. By modifying your expectations and working with what you have you can still create good photos. Here are some tips for getting the best results from your travel photographs when the weather is bad unexpected.

Avoid Big Skies

Yellow wildflowers blanket a field beneath the town of Muenster-Sarmsheim, Germany

Overcast skies are not the best for compositions with big skies. Grey skies usually “blow out” or go all white adding nothing and usually distracting from your composition. So pick compositions which exclude them as much as possible. Include brightly colored subjects that hold your viewers attention.

Focus on Details

Cobble Stonesin the roadway at the Imperial Castle, Nuremberg, Germany

Avoid big blank grey skies all together and focus on details. Look to photograph little details that help tell the story of where you are.

Use That Giant Softbox In the Sky

Uwe Westermann helping his daughter Lea drink from a fountain at the Playmobil Fun Park, Zirndorf, Germany

Think of a big grey sky as a giant softbox. When the sun is hidden behind clouds it diffuses the light just as a softbox that a studio photographer uses would. Instead of hard shadow forming light typical from direct sunlight an overcast day provides soft contouring light. This means you can often shoot with pleasing results in the middle of the day when the sun is high overhead. It’s great light for flowers and portraits. It also allows colors to become more saturated.

Shoot at Dusk

Burg (Castle) Veldenstein at night, Neuhaus, Germany photographed in a rain storm.

I call it the “blue hour”. The best night photography is often not actually created in the dark of night, but rather in the dwindling light of dusk. At dusk there is still light reflecting off the atmosphere illuminating it in a rich blue that radiates onto the scene below. This happens just after the sun has set and the lights of the city are turning on. This is the time to create shots with a feeling of night. Use a tripod as shutter speeds will be slow and shoot through this dusk period searching for the perfect balance as the city lights come on and the light of the sky dwindles. The best part of the blue hour is that it happens rather the sky is clear or cloudy. In fact on a rainy evening you can often benefit from light reflecting off of wet surfaces.

Use High Dynamic Range (HDR) Photography

Burg (Castle) Veldenstein under stormy skies, Neuhaus, Germany, This image is made of 7 bracketed exposures.

New to my arsenal of tricks for shooting on cloudy grey days is HDR photography. The reason grey skies blow out is because the sky contains so much more light than is getting to the subject on the ground. The latitude or ability of your camera to capture this wide range of values is just not sufficient to properly expose for both the brightness of the sky and the darkness of your subject on the ground. With HDR photography however you can capture this wide range of values rendering the richness of a stormy sky while holding detail in the darker areas on the ground. To learn more about HDR photography and how it works read my post HDR Is For Me.

Choose the Proper White Balance

Remember to choose the appropriate white balance setting on your camera to fit the lighting conditions of your scene. Sunlight filtering through clouds creates a blue shift in the color of the light. The proper white balance setting will counteract this and help keep your photos properly color balanced making them look more natural and pleasingly warm. If it is an over cast day choose the cloudy setting. If the clouds are really thick or you are in the shade, use the shady setting. Of course if you are shooting in RAW you can always change or tweak your color balance in post-production, but if you are shooting in jpeg or don’t like to spend time tweaking your photos after the fact, it’s best to get it right the first time.

So change your attitude and vocabulary, there is no bad weather for photography. Adapt your approach to the conditions and circumstances you are presented with.

I Slept in A Bavarian Castle

Burg Veldenstein Castle, Neuhaus, Germany

Perhaps my biggest castle related thrill has been sleeping in a Bavarian Castle. Over the weekend I traveled with my German hosts, Gudrun, her husband Uwe, and their four children Simon, Fenja, Daniel and Lea south into Bavaria to Neuhaus, Germany. Here we stayed at Burg Veldenstein.

The castle history reaches all the back into the year 1008, when it was erected as a fortress to protect the border against intruders. Over the years the leadership has changed several times, from the Hohenstaufen to the Bishops of Bamberg, Knight of Epstein to the management of Middle Franconia.

Perhaps the most infamous resident was Hermann Goring and his family who lived in the castle during the period of the Third Reich. During this period an air raid bunker was built under the castle for protection. Rumor has it that Goring hid many Nazi looted treasures in the castle, but I found none of them.

Today the castle is owned by several people and serves as a hotel and restaurant. One of its towers is owned by a friend of my hosts, and we got to sleep in it. Here are some photos of this amazing castle.

German Castles Galore

Burg Sooneck, Niederheimbach, Germany

I did not do a whole lot of research before coming to Germany. As I have said my purpose for this trip is to get out of town for a while and visit some old friends. So there has been a lot of pleasing surprises as I explore and discover what Germany to offer. I am thrilled by the natural beauty here. It is lush and green with thick forests and beautiful tall trees. And I am completely surprised and astounded by the Castles I am seeing. I did not expect castles!

Burg Sooneck, Niederheimbach, Germany

Burg Sooneck, Niederheimbach, Germany

Castles are an unmistakable feature of the Rhine landscape.  In the narrow gorge connecting Bingen and Koblenz, which has a length of only thirty-five miles, there are more castles than in any other river valley in the world. Many are ruins, but some have been restored as hotels and are open for tours. They stand like sentinels on the cliffs above river side villages, and others stand alone surrounded by vineyards. It is like traveling through a fairytale.

Many of their founders were feudal overlords, who built them to protect their lands from marauders. Others were owned by marauding knights themselves.

Over the last several days I have been able to explore several of these castles and they are truly amazing. One can not help but to fantasize about the history of these structures and wonder what life was like in the heyday of these kings and knights.

The Burg Sooneck castle is claimed by many to be one of the most chivalrous castles on the River Rhine. Built in the 11th century, the castle served as a fortress to the legendary “Robber Barons”. I found it to be one of the most photogenic with it’s classic storybook architecture, beautiful gardens, and setting above the river.

Burg Ehrenfels castle ruin on the hill side surrounded by a wine vinyard  above the Rhine River, Bingen, Germany

My imagination was only fueled when we visited the beautiful village of Bacharach and attended a small medieval festival at the in the shadow of a Burg Stahleck.

Burg Stahleck overlooking the town of Bacharach, Rhine valley, Germany

The festival had fully costumed participants with traditional crafts, food, and music. The afternoon culminated with a battle between knights the prize being the victorious first knight’s right to his choice of a village maiden.

I’m in Germany

I’m in Germany!

It has been a while since I have been out of the US traveling. This month I find myself in Europe and I will be traveling for the rest of May. First in Germany then to Barcelona, Spain and finally to Vienna, Austria. Each of these cities are places where I have friends living and I have chosen this May to take time to visit them and explore Europe a bit. Since I am not on assignment, I am taking a slightly different approach to my photography. I am traveling light, well relatively light. Also, because I will be mostly on the schedule of others, I will not always have the luxury of positioning myself for prime lighting. So I am taking a more relaxed approach and shooting a lot of “snap shots” using my Cannon G12 point and shoot camera.

I will endeavor to post images and relate stories of this adventure here as often as I am able. Please fill the post comments with your words and suggestions for me on this journey. If you are receiving this via email post the you will obviously need to visit the actual blog to make comments.

I am staying in Langenlonsheim, a suburb of Frankfurt Germany where my good friend Gudrun lives with her husband Uwe and their 4 children. This is the heart of Germany’s wine making country along the Rhine Valley. Spring is fully sprung here with warm temperatures and flowers all over the place. The rolling hillsides are covered with the grape fields of vineyards.

My first outing, helping me to fight jet-lag, is a bike ride with Gudrun on the bike path from her home along the Nahe River, a tributary of the Rhine to the town of Bingen at it’s confluence with the Rhine River. The Nahe River banks are south facing and hold many of the regions finest vinyards. Most of Germany’s vineyards owe there existence to the Rhine and it’s tributaries.

Germany’s winter and spring have been dry and both these rivers are unusually low for this time of the year. I am thrilled however to see all the lush green and blooming flowers. I just heard it is snowing again at my Colorado home and I am glad to be here enjoying the warmth. Despite the drought the weather has been mostly overcast and hazy.

This is not ideal weather for trying to shoot large vistas. So I try to shoot scenes without a lot of sky when the weather is like this. I also like to focus on small details. Flowers especially look nice under the diffused light of an overcast sky.