It was non-stop snow from Friday afternoon until Sunday morning. Then the clouds parted and it was about as good of a day as can be asked for. Just a couple pics now, will post more in the next days. Busy researching any way possible so that I can stay in Germany. Have two weeks left to figure something out otherwise it’s plane ticket shopping…
Hohenstein is the highest point in the area so I thought I would head there after wandering around in the snowy forest on Wednesday afternoon. Hiking through knee deep snow up the path to the castle the world became thoroughly cold and the sun vanished behind the clouds as the the next snow flurry settled in. I could see Auerbach off in the distance, nice and bright and sunny. Soon enough, but not after nicely frozen hands, the sun was back out again for a few fleeting moments before winter once again took over.
Snow flurries taking over the landscape again…
Been snowing the last few days, which hasn’t made my morning drive very fun, but makes for kinda cool looking forests. The clouds have parted in the afternoon making for some nice light on the fresh snow and giving me a bit of hope to be able to do some night shooting (with snow), but as soon as it gets dark, it’s cloudy again. So it goes in Germany…
Was in Windloch Sackdilling cave again last night. Weather wasn’t so good, so the best thing to do is go underground. The ice-stalagmites have grown quite a bit and are pretty cool looking. I only had 1 SB-800 flash with me and no tripod as I wanted to keep things light while down in the cave, so I couldn’t do too much. But hopefully I can head back sometime this week with all my lighting gear (it’s pitch black, no natural light) and see what I can come up with. The ice is only in the first part of the cave, so no rappelling required to get there.
Crawling out from one of the small passages in the back of the cave.
Wetterstein group in winter from near Garmisch-Partenkirchen.
9 vertical images at 200mm.
Warm winter light on a cold winter day at Hohenstein a few weeks back.
Was doing some cruising around the Fränkische Schweiz (franconian Switzerland) the other week and came across this. Not anything super interesting, but for someone who spent the first 24 years of his life in Southern California, it’s kinda cool. Almost stood up too quickly and impaled myself on one of the icicles.
A light dusting of snow fell this afternoon so I decided to head down the road and into the Veldensteiner Forst, of which I’m on the eastern border of. Normally the forests around here don’t interest me much, as they aren’t really ‘wild’ and are often plantations from the last century or so. But when a light snow falls it only reaches the ground in openings in the canopy, creating cool patterns of snow and green.
I remembered a road I had driven down some months back that had some cool looking areas with moss on the forest floor, opposed to blue berry bushes which seem to be more common but not as nice looking in the snow. The road is only about 5 miles away but it doesn’t really go anywhere so I never use it.
Wish there was a bit more snow, but what can you do. Hopefully it will stay clear for tomorrow night as well and maybe I’ll think of some place interesting to go…
A couple more photo’s from Tuesday night.
Tilt-Shift panoramic of from above Pottenstein. I don’t often use ’tilt’ – to change the plane of focus – while making panos, but sometimes I think it gives a nice touch, as in this photo.
Burg Pottenstein, with it’s history dating back a 1000 years watches over the meeting of the three valleys: the Püttlach, the Weihersbach and the Haselbrunn.
