#365 - Leaving Germany

Two from my flight, phone pics only, but better than nothing ;-)



I was surprised when we passed near my home town and I saw the 'Laacher See' :-)

And this one should be somewhere near Cologne or Duesseldorf.

#Germany - A new bunny trail

#Germany - Genovevaburg Mayen

#Germany - Maria Laach, Laacher See

From Germany

#Germany - Rhine valley near Bonn

Rhine valley near Bonn, Germany Postcards by NicoleB Photography
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#Germany - Silbersand bei Mayen

From Germany

I remember driving by this house with my Mom on my way to or back from my Grandmoms.
There's two houses in this valley and one bus station.
I wondered what it would be like, living here out in this remote area.
I would have loved it. Being in the woods, playing in the river.
At those days you could ride your bike from Mayen to Rieden as a child without too much worry.
Of course you had idiots on the roads then too, but today I wouldn't advise that any more.
One house is still inhabited, the other one was crumbling and succumbing to Mother Nature then already.
Not much left today.
Just memories.

From Germany

From Germany

From Germany

From Germany

#Germany - Kletterwald bei Mayen

I should have edited these photos a long time ago.
We were on a day out, my best friend and her two nieces.
For one reason or another I just didn't feel like dealing with the photos.
Well, time to get to work,...
:-)

From Germany

#Germany / Mayen, Kuhdrift

From Germany

Module 4 a - Advanced Mentorship for Photographers

Not completely happy with the results, but for starters,
here's a photo from a Medieval market in Koenigsfeld, Germany 2012

On all photos (except for the original) I have edited with fill light & contrast. For the b/w (sepia) one I have used a LR preset with the above adjustments.
Same for the 'creative' one (I would have loved something different, but I couldn't get there). 
The 'creative' one is a Holga preset & I've filled some light and added some vibrancy.

Original

From G+ Advanced Mentorship for Photographers - Playbox

Colour enhanced

From G+ Advanced Mentorship for Photographers - Playbox

Creative - aka Holga effect

From G+ Advanced Mentorship for Photographers - Playbox

Sepia - my favorite

From G+ Advanced Mentorship for Photographers - Playbox

Module 3 - Advanced Mentorship got Photographers

My results for week 3 in the G+ Mentorship program for Photographers.
Not my greatest week ever. Cold, windy and either raining or snowing.
I took the few hours I had last Thursday in between work and went to the Rhine river with his flooded river banks.
I accidentally shot everything on ISO 1000, oh well.
The least edited photos are due to my (non existent) editing skills and the ones with some more editing due to Lightroom presets.

Well, I wish you all a great weekend. Maybe I get some sunshine tomorrow :-)

From G+ Advanced Mentorship for Photographers - Playbox

From G+ Advanced Mentorship for Photographers - Playbox

From G+ Advanced Mentorship for Photographers - Playbox

From G+ Advanced Mentorship for Photographers - Playbox

From G+ Advanced Mentorship for Photographers - Playbox

From G+ Advanced Mentorship for Photographers - Playbox

From G+ Advanced Mentorship for Photographers - Playbox

From G+ Advanced Mentorship for Photographers - Playbox

From G+ Advanced Mentorship for Photographers - Playbox

From G+ Advanced Mentorship for Photographers - Playbox

From G+ Advanced Mentorship for Photographers - Playbox

#365 -2013 #011 / I can proof it

We had sunshine yesterday.
30 min of it and I missed 25.
When I got ready to take the dogs I could snap this last snip[pet of blue sky while outside. The clouds to the right are covering the skies since then and icy rain drops are falling.
I still enjoy being out. It's Sunday and in this weather, not many people are out.
If it were sunny, the were shitloads of folks out there ;-)

From 365 - 2013

To silence 4-legged complainers

Someone's been complaining that there are only weird wired haired dogs in my stream lately ;-)

Gotta run again, off to work, gotta spend my day in Neuwied since school's out early today and it's not worth coming home in between to pick the brats lovely kids up again ;-)

I hope I don't get a full scale cold. My body is fighting it fairly well.
Let's hope for the Best.

Wishing you a great day too and well, if you find that time that keeps running away from me, I pay a finder's fee ;-)

From The kids

Week 2 - G+ Advanced Mentorship for Photographers by Ron

One of the goals for this week was to shoot 3 images of one topic. 
Done that.
Another goal was to produce them tack sharp.
Failed.

Foggy, gloomy conditions make a bit of a trial for taking tack sharp images.
I got some good tips from our mentor and will (hopefully) give it another go today or tomorrow, depending on the weather and depending on how my cold advances and how I feel.

At least I used my Tri -  and Monopod this week. 
That was another task, start to form some good habits. 
I failed on the Shop and Storage clean-up part, but I keep working on those two habits ;-)
Forming bad habits seems to go faster than the good ones ;-)

From G+ Advanced Mentorship for Photographers - Playbox

From G+ Advanced Mentorship for Photographers - Playbox

From G+ Advanced Mentorship for Photographers - Playbox

And here is my original Plus post for this week, just for my own memory:

Mission 2 - Plus post

Well, well, I did manage to go out and shoot. Time and weather sure wasn't on my side, but that's just a lame excuse.
I did get my three photos, even the ones I did plan and the way I thought of them.
They are not tack sharp as requested, me bad.
I DID use a monopod (tripod was too much of a haul for the distance I had to cover and the little time I had), I did use AP since the camera has been smarter in this kind of weather than me.
But the foggy, cloudy conditions are defo not my best friend.
But I tried (and nearly froze my ass off, there's enough left of it though ;-))

As for the habits, using a tripod wasn't on my list, but since I did better with that than with the planned half hour work in my Zazzle shop and my archives, I think I should mention, that I took my tripod out (and used it) two times this week. And one time I took my monopod.
I still keep my planned new habits on my list and will follow through with them.
I guess new habits don't form overnight.

As for learning buttons on my camera, that came in handy today while trying to snatch some shots of a raptor in a far away tree. I wanted to rush to get my proof shots of my Lifer (Birding terms for a new bird that I hadn't seen before) and so, knowing where the buttons were and remembering that I can see what I am dialing in my viewfinder helped a lot while using exp. comp. I just took a few photos to get the bird. 
Then I could take all the time I wanted to set up my tripod and camera and shoot for better detail :-)

#365 2013 - #010 - That's what I get...

... for not playing with her with a stick

From The kids

G+ Advanced Mentorship - Playing with Long Exposure

One thing I am trying to get the hang on since a while is Long Exposure.
I've often played, but never have been persistent in trying.

Two days ago I took my Tripod with me. Since there was not much to shoot on my short walk, I took the opportunity to play a bit for the Mentorship program.

I set the lens settings from 'active' to 'normal' and turned also the 'image stabilization' off (as suggested by Ron).

I manually set the aperture on 22 and played through various shutter speeds and exposure compensations (i did the viewfinder thing, without looking at the display for a few images, but had to check to see what the results were).
Suggestion in my manual was to go with 'Bulb' setting (Shutter speed) for Long Exposures. That doesn't help me when I have very mixed conditions (gloomy day with bright snow). I had to set the ISO on very low and also maxed out the exp. comp to -5 (the darkest possible).

But heck, at least I can see now the milky softness that a long exposure can produce on running water.
That was my goal :-)
Easy for some, a tough one for me, for whatever reason ;-)

From G+ Advanced Mentorship for Photographers - Playbox

From G+ Advanced Mentorship for Photographers - Playbox

From G+ Advanced Mentorship for Photographers - Playbox

From G+ Advanced Mentorship for Photographers - Playbox

Photography Mentorship - Week 2 - Playing around

Collared Dove, Mayen Nette

So, yesterday I took my camera and my tripod out.
I mainly wanted to play with the idea Ron gave me about using 'aperture priority'.
I had the dogs with me and the weather sort of sucked (it wasn't snowing at that moment, but foggy and overcast).
On this photo I didn't use the Tripod yet, but I figured since Mrs Collared dove didn't fly away, I would at least fumble with the camera and try out the 'AP'.
It's not a killer sharp shot, but I can already tell the difference and that the camera is much smarter than me in choosing the right setting when it comes to aperture.
This will be interesting in the future. Maybe I get the hang of it this way ;-)

#365 - 2013 #009 / Lonely winter days - Kuhdrift, Mayen

From 365 - 2013

Have a great week everyone.
I will be digging into the new Mentorship week and most
likely post more than be around. 
Will catch you on the bright side :-)

#365 - 20213 #007 / Frozen spring

From 365 - 2013

Frost was the death of these little Beauties. They popped up after the last cold spell, as soon as it got warmer. Got a wee bit mixed up, I think.

I am starting to feel a bit better. I guess after today, the back pain at least will be gone again. Perfect for the new work week. sigh :-)

Wishing you all a great Sunday! We had fresh snow. Hope it stays long nough for me to take some more purdy snow pics (maybe with some blue skies for once, pretty please?!)

#365/213 #008 / Different shades of grey

Different shades of grey

From 365 - 2013

That's sort of how I feel today too.
Backpain resulting in headache, combined with a hurting knee and various other small things. 
Time to go to bed yet?

#365 - 2013 #006 / Down the river Styx

From 365 - 2013