So Much For Global Warming
Bloody hell is it cold right now!
Rainy window pic is from the other day, but represents the current conditions pretty well.
Bloody hell is it cold right now!
Rainy window pic is from the other day, but represents the current conditions pretty well.
As of last week, I’m a student again. I’ve signed up for a 6 month language school to get me fluent in German. Class is 5 days a week from 8:30-12:45, so I’m up at 6:30am M-F. Only problem is that I only have weekends free now, so no travels for a while. Welcome to the real world, I guess…
Yesterday I was given a tour of a super cool cave in the nearby area. I’ve never really done any “proper” caving, so it was a pretty cool experience and I’m looking forward to heading into some more, as the area is full of them.
The descent into the cave involved a 50-60 foot rappel, fun going down, but not so nice on the way back up.
Remains of an unfortunate animal. Without a rope, there is no escape from this place.
The texture of the rock was so cool. It looks like it should be all slimy and slippery, but it has a texture more like sandpaper.
In the center of the cave is a huge pile of debris from the surface world, and much of the floor of the cave is littered with quite large boulders. We were wearing helmets, but one look at the average size rock made us think that our helmets wouldn’t be of much use! While waiting to ascend back up, I heard a rush of wind and then the smashing of a rock a few feet away from me, sent a shiver up my spine. And the cave is pitch black, so no chance to see anything coming towards you…
Auerbach on a particularly fine day a few weeks ago. I had gone riding in the forest searching for blueberries, but alas, I was a bit too late and only small ones remained. I was only going to take pictures anyhow, as I’ve been warned not to eat them because the foxes carry a nasty little stomach worm that can’t be cured.
The sun sets earlier and earlier these days, another summer come and soon to be gone in a few weeks. Some of the trees are already showing some colored leaves, a bit too early I would think, but then again, I’m here in the north, so far from home. Though I must say, I’m looking forward to the colors of the fall. Hopefully I can manage a trip down to the Allgäu for some pics, but Franconia here seems a promising location for autumn color. A dream would be to head up to the arctic, then travel south with the progressing autumn over the course of a month or so. Maybe next year, if I’m lucky. Just a dream.
I remember the coming of autumn while back in New Zealand, so beautiful. Each morning I would wake up from my campsite near lake Wanaka and the snow on the mountains would be a little bit lower and it would take a little bit longer for the rock to warm up before we could go climbing. Then one day, a few weeks later, the big snow arrived and the world was white. That was in May.
I remember waiting for the snow in the autumn of 2006. Everyday I kept thinking, “It will come soon, it will come soon…” Traveling south through October and November: Scotland, Wales, England, Germany, cold, but still no snow. Finally, it came in mid December at 2000 meters in the Swiss Alps. Two days of storms and the world was white. That was the start of my first winter in Europe.
Last night we returned to the boulder on the hill for a a few more photos.
Yesterday afternoon brought some cool clouds and got me thinking about a photo. This is the cool looking boulder that I was checking out last week, with the intentions of coming back in the early morning when its north-east face (pictured below) might catch some morning light. The dark clouds in the sky got me thinking about a more dramatic shot and a couple of SB-800’s for the key light. So up the hill we went with a couple flashes, lightstands, and umbrellas in tow.
In my mind, I had the idea of a climber on the rock, lit by the flashes, with a dark dramatic sky in the background. I had to keep my flashes at a fair distance to keep them from appearing in the shot (at 12mm), but at this distance, the 2 SB-800’s weren’t able to give enough light on the boulder so I could sufficiently stop down and darken the sky. Even moving the flashes a bit closer, and into the shot, still didn’t give me enough light.
Lesson learned: Come back later in the evening with a darker sky and try again. I’m also already thinking how cool this shot could like in winter with everything covered in snow!
Shot 1: exposed for boulder/climber
Shot 2: exposed for sky (no flash)
Shot 3: flash moved closer
We next tried a shot on the right side of the boulder. Here, I was able to get the flashes close enough for something closer to what I was intending with the other shot. But this angle doesn’t show the cool mushroom-like shape of the rock, so I’m looking forward to going back at getting things right.
After one of the days climbing last week, I was shown this cool bouldering area on a hilltop near town. I had seen it in a bouldering dvd they had made and thought it looked pretty cool, so I wanted to scout the place out a bit for taking some pictures one of these days. The main boulder problem I was interested in shooting was already in the shade by the time we got there in the late afternoon, but a few other rocks were still in the sun…
I also have some cool ideas about making time-lapse climbing ‘movies’ with my camera, so I thought I’d do a quick experiment. Came out pretty cool for a quick little test. Click here for a direct link if it doesn’t load.
This photo from last April, on a cold snowy day near Neuschwanstein castle, has made an appearance on the front page for best new images at my stock photo agency Photoshelter. Cool.
I wonder if Scottish cows have accents? I’ve always thought these guys are cool looking. I think they have a mildly ‘cheeky’ look to them and I wonder how they are able to see? The little buggers are really funny looking, like some fuzz ball with long legs that runs around.
This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.
OKLearn moreWe may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.
Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.
These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.
Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refusing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.
We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.
We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.
These cookies collect information that is used either in aggregate form to help us understand how our website is being used or how effective our marketing campaigns are, or to help us customize our website and application for you in order to enhance your experience.
If you do not want that we track your visit to our site you can disable tracking in your browser here:
We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.
Google Webfont Settings:
Google Map Settings:
Google reCaptcha Settings:
Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:
The following cookies are also needed - You can choose if you want to allow them: