Category Archives: travel

Dresden, a comeback story

The fire bombing of Dresden in February of 1945 effectively destroyed the city center of what had been known as the Florence on the Elbe. Much of what I knew about Dresden before visiting came from reading Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five as a kid. Vonnegut had been a POW in Dresden during the raid, and drew heavily from that experience for the book. This is what Dresden looked like following the air strikes:

Image found on Wikipedia here. Bombing info can be found here.

That’s nearly a reverse view of my shot that opened this post. The dome in the upper right of the historic photo is on the left in my photo. The bridge on the left of the historic photo is in the foreground of mine. The pile of rubble just left of center in the old photograph is the remains of the Frauenkirche, which you can see has been rebuilt in the recent photo — it’s the white dome at the center.

The reconstruction that has taken place in this city is unbelievable. Just when you think that the only things humans are capable of building anymore are Walmarts and Home Depots, you see something like this and realize that true craftsmanship and vision are not a thing of the past. I’m sure it would have been much easier for Dresden to have rebuilt in a modern style with reinforced concrete and steel towers but they didn’t. They respected their traditions and heritage and look at what they achieved.

Grimma, Germany

A portrait of a man in a traditional military uniform in the beautiful small town of Grimma on the river Mulde (just east of Leipzig) during a quick stop on the way to Dresden. I’m afraid I was much like an annoying fly to this poor man, as I photographed him from all angles while he stood in the square. I was using my Nikkor 80-200mm zoom, so at least I was a distant fly. This angle with the fall color in the background against his blue uniform turned out to be my favorite. To be honest, he was a great sport and seemed more amused by the attention than annoyed.

Special access

When I get special permission to shoot in museums, I take advantage of it. I’ve been in some situations — even on press trips specifically arranged for journalists — where photography was not allowed and note-taking was even banned. As a photographer, that kind of tour is of no use to me. I could enjoy myself as a tourist but as a business person, if I’m not walking out with images on my card, there was no point in my being there. I can tell when the point has really been lost when the museum’s PR person tells me that images are available for free from their office. That’s fine if I’m writing a story on their museum — at least I’d have some way to illustrate it — but I’m a photographer. I make my living by licensing my own images. Knowing that they have images available for free doesn’t really help me. Actually, it doesn’t really help them either as more major publications won’t want to use free images from a PR department because they want something unique and not the same photos that are appearing in every other magazine.

The three photos above came from the Grassi Museum in Leipzig where I was allowed to shoot by special permission. No flash, but that’s fine. I can understand them wanting to limit damage to the artifacts. Thank you, Grassi Museum, for understanding why I was there and seeing the benefit of having more images of your collection available to publishers. I hope that every image I get published sends people through your doors.

Leipzig in blue

On an early morning walk through the old city of Leipzig, the light was a tad underwhelming. A little overcast and cool in color temperature, my inclination was to warm up the white balance of my Nikons to correct the color to a more pleasing tone. I almost always leave white balance set on cloudy for just this reason. I tend to like the warmer color cast for tourism shots. Back home and looking over the images on the computer screen, however, I found myself second-guessing that decision in this case. This photo didn’t respond very well to the warming and there were some distracting color combinations in the distant buildings that just didn’t come together. I decided to go against my natural tendencies and try a cooler color temperature to enhance the blueness that the scene had naturally and give more of the feeling of that early morning hour. I think it worked. The color pallet is more monochromatic and cohesive. The mood is stronger.

Digital provides so much flexibility in cases like this. I love having the ability to continue to experiment and play rather than having all my decisions set in stone once the initial film choice, exposure settings and filter selections are made on location. It’s a power that shouldn’t be abused, however. I don’t want to push things to a point that they no longer represent the actual scene — at least not for journalistic stock — but having the ability to tweak my on-site choices later, when I’m not pressured for time by changing light and other locational obstacles, is a great thing.

Do I wish that the street lamps had been on? Absolutely. But I stopped myself short of adding a lens flare in Photoshop. You have to draw the line somewhere.

Arrival: Leipzig

I didn’t arrive in Leipzig by train but the main station — or Hauptbahnhof — was just a few blocks from my hotel so it was one of my first stops. Built in 1915, this grand station was heavily bomb-damaged during WWII and was restored in the 1950s. In the years following the reunification of Germany, the building was modernized to include multiple levels of shopping and dining but the architectural grandeur remains. Even though this was not the portal through which I entered Leipzig, it seemed a fitting place to begin my exploration of this city and the federal state of Saxony. Often the first glimpse of a new place colors your impression of everything that follows. That’s what these train stations were all about. They were symbols of progress and status that left no doubt that you had arrived at a great destination.

Two weeks in Germany

A quick note of apology for my lack of posts recently but I’ve been shooting in Germany and the schedule left barely enough time to offload cards every couple of days (I did, of course, manage to make time for plenty of beer and brats). As of last night, I’m back home and facing a mountain of image editing. Lots to see in the coming weeks — I’ll share as I process the photos — but for now, I’ll leave you with this teaser from a path leading to the Monument to the Battle of Nations in Leipzig.

What a difference a day makes

One waterfall, two flavors. The shot above was taken in the rain last Friday. The one below, barely over 24 hours later on Saturday.

I like each for different reasons but I expect the second one will have more value as a stock shot as I’ve found that tourism folks love those blue skies. Myself, I like the feathery nature of the water on the first shot and others from that day. By Saturday, Friday’s rain had made its way into the stream and the falls were much heavier. Still nice, but a different look.

Portrait of Minneapolis

I found this location last week while working on an assignment in Minneapolis/St. Paul but the weather was bad. You’ve probably read about all the flooding southern Minnesota and Wisconsin. Well, I can vouch for the amount of rain they got. Anyway, driving back from the North Shore on Sunday it was nice and sunny and it seemed like it might be worth a quick stop to see if I could get the shot. It was a pretty stunning location. You can always tell when you’ve found “the” spot in any city when there are 500 kids getting their senior portraits made there. I nearly had to stand in line to get this view, but at least I now have a postcard-esque portrait of Minneapolis in the files. And I still made it home in time for the season opener of the Amazing Race (my guilty pleasure). Something about seeing other people having difficulty navigating foreign destinations really makes my day. I’m just glad I’m not behind them in line at the ticket counter.

Lake Superior, North Shore

After a couple of assignments in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, I’ve been working my way up the North Shore of Lake Superior looking for Fall color. It’s here alright, but the weather has been less than cooperative. Heavy rains and high winds are making photography difficult and are threatening to strip the leaves away. There have been breaks, however, and I’ve been making the most of them. The rains have the waterfalls running nice and heavy so I’ve been concentrating on shooting those and the breaking waves on the shore as seen above. I’ve made use of the overcast skies and dim light in both instances to get some slow shutter speeds to blur the water and make it nice and silky. To extend those shutter speeds further, I’ve also been using neutral density filters stacked with a polarizer and I’ve been bumping the ISO artificially down to 100 (200 is the lowest “real” ISO on the D700). In the shot shown above, I even added a graduated neutral density filter to the sky to help balance the exposure.

Shooting through all of these filters is a bit like shooting through welder’s glass but it’s doing the job. This shot was made at f/22 and resulted in a 4 second exposure. The waves crashing around the large rocks look almost like fog.

Tomorrow is supposed to be a little dryer but still cloudy. Sounds good to me. At least I’ll have both hands available for adjusting the tripod again. One was constantly holding an umbrella today.

Louisville, Kentucky

100916louisville_sotc

It’s been a while since I was on the road but I broke the dry spell with a quick trip to Kentucky over the past few days. A couple of assignments and a chance to do a little stock work took me to Louisville, Bardstown and Frankfort. The shot above was taken from a popular spot on the Indiana side of the Ohio River, looking back at the skyline of Louisville. Google maps and its satellite image feature was a great help in determining the best location. I added a 4-stop neutral density filter to cut down on the light and allow for a longer exposure (30 seconds) to get the river to turn silky. An aperture of f/11 gave me the star points on all the lights. They’re hard to see here but add a nice sparkle when you see the image full size.

I’m looking forward to a busy Fall. I believe it may be my favorite season although it always feels the shortest. When possible, I like to stretch it out by heading north for the early Fall color and then following it south. I’ll soon be starting this year’s season by heading to the North Shore of Lake Superior where the color is already beginning to peak (or so says the internet — what did we do without the web?). Hopefully I’ll catch it before it goes. Whether I’ll be able to get more Fall color is in question as other travels will take me elsewhere. Hopefully I’ll at least have a little time to enjoy the season at home. But, where ever I am, I’ll be looking for color.