Clouds – rain – spring – river – sea – evaporation – clouds – rain – – – the circle of life.
Can you see the newborn Lion King?
Clouds over hills and dales –
Clouds over the empty festival grounds which are home to the world largest beer festival once a year, the Münchner Oktoberfest.
And one big thick cloud and not nothing else.
A host of clouds behind a silhouette of trees.
And again stretching over hills
offering a peephole into the sky.
For Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Clouds.
“Photography is about finding out what can happen in the frame. When you put four edges around some facts, you change those facts.”
Garry Winogrand
Step through the frame and find out (Leazes Park in Newcastle).
And he stepped through the frame.
In Ladenburg they have these signs all over town to show how the landscape was changed to make paths and parks more inviting. On the left are photos of what it looked before and it can be compared with the reality today. It was found that just putting up the photos wouldn’t be enough, so a frame was offered, similar to the frame of the old photograph to make the views comparable. Because a frame changes things.
A frame also helps to focus the attention. Or possibly, it allows people to cope with nature if they are used to seeing things only framed ?
Linked to Travel with Intent. More photos inspired by the quotation by G. Winogrand (what a wonderful name!) are collected here.
The landmark of Heidelberg – the castle above the historical town – was destroyed during the 17th and 18th century, by war and fire and fires caused by war. It has been partially rebuilt but its fame is founded on its pictorial decay. Yet even this decay now needs care. The castle is hardly ever without some kind of scaffolding. A few years ago it was even advertised in the local newspapers that it would be free of any kind of visible building activities for a whole of two weeks. On the next rain-free day my sister and I went to take pictures of this unusual event. Alas – look closely:
Linked to One Word Sunday: Restoration.
It’s difficult to see the building that is only about 100 years old in this photo. The ruin of castle Windeck in the middle is approximately 1000 years old, the tower on the far left, part of the old town wall, is several 100 years old. But the castle, called Wachenburg, right on top of the Wachenberg is pretty exactly 100 years old. The building was started in 1907 and completed in 1928.
It was meant to look like a medieval castle.
And althought the overall effect is just that, close up it looks just a bit too well preserved.
It was commissioned by a convocation of fraternities of students and they still have meetings up there.
If there are not there, it is used as an event location with a restaurant, and in summer beer garden.
Linked to A Photo A Week: 100 years or older.
I will never run a marathon (or even a half marathon) but I will keep supporting my foolish friends who think they need to it.
For Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Roads.
Schifferstadt is a town on the Rhine near Ludwigshafen. The old part has many half-timbered houses dating back several centuries – many are restored or are in the process of being restored.
Traditionally, these houses show the contrast between the dark brown or black wooden beams and the whitewashed mortar pieces in between.
Sometimes these colours are offset by colourful, often red, shudders.
Green is also a favourite, for shudders as well as for window frames.
However, in recent years more and more half-timbered houses have started to sport a coat of paint, ranging from soft pink like the one below to really dark or bright colours.
Often the panels are accentuated with two-tone coloured paint. The writing on the beam reads: Joseph Maier and his wife Katharina built this house in the year of the Lord 1835 (Dieses Haus erbaute Joseph Maier und seine Ehefrau Katharina im Jahre Christi 1835).
Blue is a fashionable tint for half-timbered houses these days. It goes well with green climbers and red geraniums.
Linked to Monday Window. For more windows, click here.
Where would we be without books? Where would books be if Johannes Gutenberg hadn’t invented movable letters? Probably not in a very different position than today.
No, this is not Gutenberg but Peter Schöffer. An early collaborator of Gutenberg who scholars today think was more than an apprentice but quite essential in the devolopment of book printing and publishing. The wikipedia article in German on him is much more detailed than the English one but for what it is worth if somebody is interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Sch%C3%B6ffer
This statue stands in Schöffer’s hometown of Gernsheim, about 50km south of Mainz, where Gutenberg lived. And as an aside: I like his legacy. It’s a very tasty beer!
And the connection to culture and alcohol is never far away in a wine growing / beer brewing area. Rheinhessen advertises this on the cable car, pure and culture rhyme in German.
Linked to One Word Sunday: Culture.
Counting chimneys in Mainz.
What’s the collective noun for chimneys? A smoke of chimneys? I know that the collective noun for chimney sweeps is sweepdom.
I found counting chimneys much more fascinating in England and Scotland, here in Edinburgh.
How many do you count?
To counterbalance all these huddles of chimneys here is an impressive solitary one.
And what would a post about chimneys be without at least one sweep.
Linked to Cee’s On the Hunt for Joy Challenge: Counting Chimneys.
There is something about the landscape of the place in which we grow up – it’s edged in the soul, together with the people and the time it makes up what in German is called “Heimat” and for which there is no proper one word translation (essays and books have been written on this “most mystic of German concepts”).
As I live on the slopes, it is combination of rolling hills in the back and a long plain in the west, edged again by more hills. I could say I live “on the edge” if that wouldn’t conjure up sharp ridges and drops which do the softness of the landscape no justice.
The upper Rhine valley is at this point bordered by the Odenwald in the east (my figurative backyard) and the Pfälzer Wald in the west.
The reverse view with forests and castles and houses is contrasted by the view to the west:
A closer look reveals the mixture of agriculture and heavily populated near the Rhine, including large industrial sites (in fact, the world’s largest chemical complex is just a camera swipe to the left, on the other side of the Rhine).
It’s this diversity that I cherish, and that I call home.
For A Photo a Week: Landscape.
pictures imperfect blog 