Wanderung zum Prebischtor in der Böhmischen Schweiz.

#sliderssunday

#yourbestshot2020

This is my personal "Best Shot of 2020". Taken during a visit at the Olympiastadion Berlin in September which also had been my only real photowalk in 2020. While the image in the first comment might be a little more compelling, because it shows the historical Olympic cauldron of the Olympic Summer Games of 1936 and also the interesting-looking open part of the roof of the Olympic stadium, this image includes the two things that made an already wonderful day special – and one of them also is a symbol for the changes the Corona pandemic has brought to our lives. The image of the Olympic cauldron was taken from the exact opposite position of this photo; while we were at the Olympic cauldron (here you can't see it, but you can see the marathon gate below the tall, slim bell tower), I noticed that all of a sudden a larger group of teenagers and children appeared at the opposite entrance of the stadium. I wondered what was going on, because I couldn't imagine that in those pandemic times there would be any school field trips. And soon it became clear what this was all about, because once the children had taken their places, they started to warm up by singing scales: This was a choir practice :) Of course I tried to find out which choir it was that got the marvellous opportunity to practice in the empty stadium, with enough, safe distance to each other, so I searched for "choir practice at the Olympiastadion" later and learned that this was the youth and children's choir of the Deutsche Oper Berlin (STRG/CTRL+ www.berlin-buehnen.de/en/theatres/deutsche-oper-berlin/). Here you can read more about this unusual collaboration if you like: STRG/CTRL+ olympiastadion.berlin/en/news/children-choir/.

And so the rest of our photowalk was accompanied by beautiful singing which tremendously added to the elated, relaxed, literally free mood of that day :) What a wonderful, unexpected gift which was made even better by that wonderful sunset we saw when we went back into the stadium for a few last shots: This was my personal "Wow moment" of 2020 :)

Dear Flickr, friends, I wish you a Happy and Healthy 2021! Let's hope that, step by step, the "new normal" will eventually be replaced by our old normal, at least a little bit :)

Für mich mein schönstes Foto des Jahres 2020. Aufgenommen im September im Berliner Olympastadion, das herrlich leer gewesen war an jenem Tag, sodass wir unbeschwert nach Fotomotiven suchen konnten. Das Foto im ersten Kommentar, das die Original-Feuerschale der Sommerspiele von 1936 und den interessanten offenen Teil der Dachkonstruktion zeigt, ist vielleicht das spannendere Bild, aber es zeigt nicht die zwei Dinge, die diesen ohnehin schon tollen Spätsommer-Tag zu etwas ganz Besonderem gemacht haben: Als wir bei der Feuerschale waren, die sich exakt gegenüber von dem Stadion-Eingang befindet, von dem ich später dieses Foto gemacht habe, sah ich auf einmal eine ziemlich große Grupper Kinder und Jugendlicher ins Stadion kommen, was mich doch wunderte, weil ich mir kaum vorstellen konnte, dass in Pandemie-Zeiten größere Schulausflüge möglich sein würden. Des Rätsels Lösung: Sobald die Kinder alle ihre Plätze eingenommen hatten, fingen sie auch schon an, sich einzusingen. Und nicht etwa mit Fußballgesängen ;) Es fand eine Chorprobe im Olympiastadion statt, dem zu normalen Zeiten wohl unwahrscheinlichsten Ort zumindest für klassische Chorgesänge, zu Corona-Zeiten aber wie dafür gemacht: mit recht guter Akustik und genügend freier Fläche, um mit Abstand und dennoch gemeinsam singen zu können. Ich habe dann später recherchiert, welcher Chor das wohl gewesen sein könnte; es handelte sich um den Kinder- und Jugendchor der Deutschen Oper Berlin: STRG/CTRL+ olympiastadion.berlin/de/neuigkeiten/kinderchor/.

Was für eine tolle, fast schon surreale Atmosphäre das war, der dann zum Schluss auch noch der herrliche Sonnenuntergang mit diesem typisch goldenen Septemberlicht die Krone aufsetzte :) Mein persönlicher "Wow-Moment" des daran gewiss nicht reichen Jahres 2020 :)

Ich wünsche Euch allen ein gesundes und, trotz aller Ein- und Beschränkungen, die uns wohl noch eine ganze Weile begleiten werden, schönes Jahr 2021!

Explored February 17, 2022

One of many staircases at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin that lead inside the stadium and to the galleries, and an example of the original 1936 architecture. Photographed with the Ricoh GRIII.

The final result is kind of my own interpretation and combination of two of the quite many in-camera Jpg film presets: "Bleach Bypass" and the rather popular "High Contrast BW". While both presets had yielded nice, interesting Jpgs – Bleach Bypass did a great job with the facade's (which is made of Franconian Muschelkalk / shelly limestone) texture and patterns, while High Contrast BW created a very dramatic, dark and moody image –, I still had not been 100 percent happy with either: I didn't like the way the camera had processed the colours in the Bleach Bypass mode, and the High Contrast BW mode had smudged the fine details quite considerably. But since I luckily had set the camera to record both Jpg and Raw I was able to process the Raw file so that it now has the drama and moodiness of the High Contrast BW, and also the details of Bleach Bypass.

By now I've long returned to shooting Raw only with the Ricoh; it saves battery life (the tiny GRIII has an equally tiny and therefore not particularly long-lasting battery), and if I wish I can still apply one of the in-camera film presets to the Raw file later. But actually I prefer to do my own processing :)

Eine der vielen Treppen des Berliner Olympiastadions, die ins Stadion hinein- und zu den Rängen führen.

Fotografiert mit der Ricoh GRIII und als Bearbeitung meine Interpretation / Kombination zweier Kamera-Jpg-Voreinstellungen ("Bleach Bypass"- und "Hochkontrast S/W"-Bildsteuerung). Beide von der Kamera automatisch bearbeiteten JPgs "hatten was", gefielen mir letztlich aber nicht zu 100 Prozent. Bei "Bleach Bypass" hatte die Kamera die Textur und Musterung des fränkischen Muschelkalks sehr fein und schön herausgearbeitet, dafür aber gefielen mir die Farben nicht so gut; Hochkontrast S/W hingegen hatte zwar ein wunderbar dramatisches, düsteres Endergebnis erzeugt, dafür aber die Texturen deutlich vernachlässigt. Da war es nur gut, dass ich die Bilder sowohl als Jpg als auch als Raw aufgezeichnet hatte und das Foto noch einmal von Grund auf neu entwickeln konnte: mit dem Drama von Hochkontrast S/W und den Details von Bleach Bypass.

Mittlerweile bin ich bei der GRIII längst wieder dazu übergegangen, nur Raw zu fotografieren. Das schont den recht schwachen Akku – und eigentlich bearbeite ich meine Fotos sowieso lieber selbst. Und wenn ich mag, kann ich nachträglich in der Kamera immer noch eins der vielen Film-Presets auf das Raw anwenden.

#MacroMondays

#Dots

Another theme, another watch ;) No, seriously, I struggled with finding something interesting with dots, even though for this theme dots can also be small holes or droplets. The original plan was to photograph the hour and minute separator (the colon) on one of my Casios. Although I was a little in doubt if these counted as dots because on a digital watch these "dots" are squares. But when I got really close to the display with the macro lens, I discovered dots of a different kind: the pinpoints of light of the LCD panel. My "dot-finding problems" were solved ;)

I assume that the panel used for this display is a TN-LCD (TN = Twisted Nematic) because that is what Casio uses for most of its digital watches while the better STN-LCD panels are reserved for the high-end models. TN-LCD was introduced in 1974, and it is still used even for cheaper (UHD) monitors and such. The display of this watch is a negative one which means that its legibility is not the best, especially because this is also a tone-on-tone coloured display made of a very dark, almost black-ish purple as background and a warm rose-tone for the numbers, etc. And unless there is a light source from above (daylight/sunlight works best) checking the time is a guessing game. But since I never wear this watch at home, only outside, the legibility is still good enough, and I bought that thing for its multicolor bezel anyways (please check the first comment where you can find a detail of said bezel which I'd photographed for our "Low Key" theme in September '22) ;)

Setup: The best way to photograph the watch's display was to mount the camera to my repro/copy stand and shoot straight from above. I still had to do some book stacking to get the watch as close to the lens as possible, but that was nothing compared to the days when I had to clumsily balance the table tripod on a (very unsafe) pile of books to be able to shoot straight from above. I also used the Oly's High-Res mode so I would be able to crop out a small part of the image while still retaining a good resolution and a big enough frame. My lightsource was a single photo LED lamp with natural light from the left. Processed in DXO PL6, LR, and Color Efex.

In case you wonder what the diamond-shaped symbol in the lower right corner is: it's the "alarm on" indicator, and it blinks a few times every full hour (and the watch bleeps).

HMM, Everyone!

#morakami #florida_birds #florida #best_birds_planet #planet_birds #birdbrilliance #birdphotography #nature #wildlifephotography #birdextreme #bestbirdshots #discovertheworld #nature_perfection #wildlifeperfection #gregorymountainpacks #canon #gitzo #leofotousa #markins #manfrotto #TKpanel #luminarneo #adobe_LR_PS #nikcollection #topaz #dxo #capture_1 #rrs

Oh dear, oh dear, such a difficult theme. I took tons of photos on Sunday, and I only liked two or three. And it's never helpful when Monday is free so I can continue to take photos... The one you see here is a Monday photo. Literally ;)

I had a certain idea that I simply couldn't make work. I knew that I wanted to photograph my old Ray Ban Wayfarer sunglasses. That was the easy part. I've gotten them as a teenager, and I remember that I'd wanted them so so badly ;) The frames were expensive, and on top of that I needed extra prescription lenses for them to be swapped with the originals. Well, to make it short, in the end I got them, and I've kept them to this day. Except that nowadays we're speaking of progressive lenses that I'd need for them ;)

With these vintage (I guess you can call them that) Ray Bans, the brand name and Wayfarer lettering were still engraved to the inside of the temples. I was torn between the "B&L Ray Ban U.S." engraving on the right temple piece and the "Wayfarer" engraving on the left one. For the "Ray Ban" lettering I'd envisoned a light flare or light star to be created with a glass crystal and the star filter; it never worked the way I wanted it to. I also experimented with a red laser pointer (to highlight the "Ban" part of the lettering). The latter worked out OK-ish. In the end it boiled down to two images out of many, and it was difficult to make a decision, but "Wayfarer" won, because focus, DOF and light were slightly better. And because I simply couldn't skip anymore ;) Oh boy, I hope the next theme will be easier for me ;)

HMM, Everyone, stay safe and take care!

And fun with the Lensbaby for #sliderssunday :)

First outing with the LB SOL 22. I thought the Botanical Garden would be the perfect place to check this lens out in real-life conditions, because it's nearby and I've been there so often before, with various cameras / lenses, so I thought a photowalk with the Lensbaby would allow me to capture some new aspects. It did, and it's also such fun to use :) I'd also brought the GR III along, so I have a "clean" version of this couple chilling in front of the greenhouses. I'll upload that photo, too, maybe already for Monochrome Thursday next week.

The pose of this young couple had caught my eye, and also the fact that they were playing around with a real camera, not their phones. I was also a little afraid that they might notice me, as I usually only photograph people in candid situations when they are far enough away or have their backs turned on me, so I acted as if I was interested in the greenhouses only ;) Since you can see a little bit of the guy's face, I've added some motion blur to it in PS, just to make sure one can't recognize him. The couple could have been better in focus, but I think there's enough sharpness to make the scenery pleasant to look at (and the GR III image is sharp all over).

Happy Sliders Sunday, Everyone, and have a nice and safe week ahead!

Erster "Feldversuch" mit dem Lensbaby SOL 22. Der Botanische Garten war der perfekte Ort, um dieses ungewöhnliche Objektiv auszuprobieren. Er ist leicht zu erreichen und ich war schon so oft dort gewesen, immer mit anderen Objektiven oder auch Kameras, da konnte ich mit dem Lensbaby nach Herzenslust herumprobieren, ohne Sorge haben zu müssen, "das" Foto zu verpassen. Das Objektiv ist sicherlich nichts für jeden Tag, macht aber großen Spaß, auch wenn man sich in die Bedienung erst reinfuchsen muss.

Da ich auch die GR III dabei hatte, gibt es von dieser Szene zwei Versionen – diese leicht verschwurbelte und ein "sauberes", scharfes "Streetfoto", das ich Euch demnächst auch noch zeigen werde. Normalerweise fotografiere ich Szenen, bei denen mir fremde Menschen eine Hauptrolle spielen, nur, wenn diese weit genug von mir weg sind oder mir den Rücken zukehren. Hier aber fand ich die Synchron-Liegepose dieses Pärchens einfach zu charmant, um das Foto nicht zu machen. Ich hatte aber schon etwas Sorge, dass sie mich bemerken würden, deshalb tat ich so, als würden mich einzig die Gewächshäuser interessieren ;) Da man hier ein bisschen vom Gesicht des Mannes (er beschäftigt sich mit einer Kamera, nicht etwa mit dem Handy!) sehen kann, habe ich seinem Gesicht in PS ein wenig Bewegungsunschärfe verpasst – sicher ist sicher. Auf dem Ricoh-Foto (auf dem die beiden liegetechnisch sogar noch mehr Synchronität zeigen) sieht man die Gesichter gar nicht, und das ist mir auch immer am liebsten ;)

Ich wünsche Euch einen guten Start in die neue Woche, liebe Flickr-Freunde! Passt gut auf Euch auf, Delta schläft nicht.

#hutchinsonislandsunrise #florida #sunset #waterscape #landscape #nature #discovertheworld #nature_perfection #gregorymountainpacks #canon #gitzo #leofotousa #markins #manfrotto #TKpanel #luminarneo #adobe_LR_PS #nikcollection #topaz #dxo #capture_1 #rrs

Wassertropfen

#MacroMonday

#Zed

Photo taken by Roby (please see the first comment) as she approached the fourth planet of the Zed Zolar Zystem on another mission to cause some UFO sightings. Ever since Earz's closest neighbour, the Rose Planet, had been made inhabitable, and a commercial shuttle service has been established, it has become the dernier cri for Earzlings to have a cottage on Marz, and to spend at least a few weeks there each year. Since Roby so enjoyed to cause UFO sightings on Earz – they always cause such a pleasant buzz, and they always guarantee such a huge TV, internet and newspaper coverage –, she had decided to expand her planet coverage.

As you know, Marz possesses two irregularly shaped moons, Phoebe and Deizel, and here you can see Phoebe with its characteristic protrusions facing Marz' west pole in the famous "Afternoon Tea" constellation that Phoebe reaches every day precisely at five o'clock in the afternoon, while Deizel is still hidden from the beholder's view, hovering over Marz' south pole (also known as "Marz' kitchen"). Unlike the Earz-like Marz, both Phoebe and Deimos consist mostly of NaCl. This breakthrough discovery made during the 2021 Marz mission "Perzeverance" – which had been expanded to the exploration of Phoebe and Deizel in 2022 after the Marz rover's AI had miraculously developed awareness, and was therefore able to conduct and expand self-reliant experiments beyond Marz' surface – was the final proof that Marz, Phoebe and Deizel originated from the Zechstein Zea (located in the European Permian Bazin which stretches from the east coast of England to northern Poland). It layed the foundation for the settlement of Marz under Perzy's (the name the Marz rover chose for it-, pardon herself) conduct.

So what do we have here: A backlit rose quartz sphere / ball – 2,5 cm / 0,98 inches in diameter –, and a side lit rock salt (Steinsalz) crystal which is 0,9 cm / 0,35 inches wide. I had to focus-stack both the salt crystal and the rose quartz, because anything stopped down further than f/4 resulted in a too prominent background (black glitter foamsheet), but with this relatively wide open aperture I never managed to get both the salt and rose quartz sharp in one shot. The salt crystal was held in place by tweezers (which I'd mounted on a clamp) – another idea had been to photograph the salt crystal only and make it look like a precious raw diamond held by a diamond cutter's tweezers for a close inspection of the "stone's" quality –, and I've retouched the tweezers with the clone stamp in Photoshop post-processing. Further processing was done in Analog Efex.

HMM, Everyone, and stay safe and healthy!

Thank you very much for your faves and comments.

Namaste!

#surfing #florida_birds #florida #best_birds_planet #planet_birds #birdbrilliance #birdphotography #nature #wildlifephotography #birdextreme #bestbirdshots #discovertheworld #nature_perfection #wildlifeperfection #gregorymountainpacks #canon #gitzo #leofotousa #markins #manfrotto #TKpanel #luminarneo #adobe_LR_PS #nikcollection #topaz #dxo #capture_1 #rrs

Goslar/Harz Niedersachsen GER

Bäckergildehaus von 1501, Obergeschoss von 1557, Sitz der Industrie- und Handelskammer in Goslar, Bergstraße…

Goslar/Harz GER

www.instagram.com/ruediger_wacknitz_photo

Burg Kriebstein - die schönste Burg in Sachsen.

7DWF, Fridays: Flora

Have a beautiful weekend, dear Flickr friends!

Thank you very much for your comments and faves ;-) They are much aprecciated !!!

I always say: one's company, two's a crowd, and three's a party.

Andy Warhol

#roseate_spoonbill #florida #best_birds_planet #planet_birds #birdbrilliance #birdphotography #nature #wildlifephotography #birdextreme #bestbirdshots #discovertheworld #nature_perfection #wildlifeperfection #gregorymountainpacks #canon #gitzo #leofotousa #markins #manfrotto #TKpanel #luminarneo #adobe_LR_PS #nikcollection #topaz #dxo #capture_1 #rrs

Aus dem Dunkel in das Licht ...

Die Burgruine Monolithos auf der Insel Rhodos.

See my most popular photos by clicking JuanJ's TOP PHOTOS.

Thank you to everyone who takes the time to view, comment and Fave my photos!

Digital downloads and prints available at www.jlimages.net/.

“When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.”

~ Marcus Aurelius ~

Or rather on a crystal vase behind my living room curtain, illuminated by the strong afternoon sun ;-). The cat is a Schleich figurine, 6,5 cm (2,55906 inches) from tail to nose.

I have another one, two very famous silhouettes ;-), from behind that curtain which I will upload tonight, they exceeded the 3 inches rule by a pinch (8 cm / 3,14961 inches wide).

Thank you for your kind comments, I appreciate every single one, and your faves!

Die Katze auf dem heißen Blechdach - oder besser auf einer Kristallvase auf meinem Fensterbrett. Vorhang zu, Nachmittagssonne drauf, Silhouette der Schleich-Katze fertig ;-)

Ich habe noch eins "hinterm Vorhang", zwei sehr bekannte Silhouetten, die die 3-Inch-Regel knapp überschritten haben. Die beiden kommen heute abend ;-)

Vielen Dank für Eure tollen Kommentare und Faves!

A Happy Macro Monday, Everyone! Und noch einen schönen Pfingstmontag!

#MacroMonday

#unusualpatterns

Weather forecast on a knife blade. On a Damascus steel knife blade, to be precise. Not what I initially had in mind, but that so often is the case when it's one of the "MM themes of the 1000 possibilities". Usually, for such a wide theme, I only have a few vague ideas what I could do for it, and the end result is pretty much a random surprise of what looks, firstly, most interesting through the macro lens, and, secondly, best as a photo, of course. Also, what is easy when it's not asked for - such as finding interesting patterns - becomes nearly impossible when it's required: patterns positively seemed to escape me as I went looking for them around the apartment ;-) And when I saw the knife in the kitchen (I hadn't even considered it as a possibility) I just thought "OK, that's probably very boring, but I'll give it a try." As for the "macro lens surprise", that was that not only did the banding typical for Damascus steel looked like waves (often an intended effect, but I only learned about that when I did my research on Damascus steel for the description and the tags), but those scratches from sharpening the knife that you can see in the upper part of the image also looked like heavy rain. And here it was, unfolding before my eyes: the high seas tempest.

The setup for the photo was as simple as it gets: I simply propped the knife, sharp side of the blade up, against a jar of sugar (my photo studio also doubles as breakfast and dinner table), both of it sitting on top of a heavy book to give it the same height as my camera on its small table top tripod, positioned one LED lamp (warm light) at the side of the table and grabbed my LED torch (cold light) to illuminate the blade from above (which also added the ever so slight 3D effect on the upper part of the blade), enabled the in-camera focus-stacking function, and hit the shutter button. I shot three focus stacking sequences of different parts of the knife of which this looked best.

Processing steps: The cold / warm light effect is something I get quite often when I use different light sources as above mentioned. It even works with one artificial light source (provided it gives warm light) and daylight from the window. Here I liked the split tone effect very much because I think it adds more depth to image. I wish I could have achieved the vivid colours you see here entirely by the use of light and the use of a colour filter (warm-cold or a combination of a cooling and a warming filter), but I've only recently considered to buy a few photo filters to improve my landscape photography, and since a good filter is expensive, I think I will buy one or two more versatile filters first before checking out the more exotic colour filters. So the colour enhancement here was done in Lightroom, where I tweaked the saturation and luminance of the blue, yellow and orange tones, and then in Nik's Color Efex, where, as final touch, I applied a Bi-color filter. I hope that these processing steps are deemed OK according to the new MM rules regarding the editing of an MM shot. I also did some sharpening and de-noising in Topaz Sharpen AI ("Focus" yielded the best result).

HMM, Everyone, and have a beautiful and safe week ahead!

#white_pelicans #florida #best_birds_planet #planet_birds #birdbrilliance #birdphotography #nature #wildlifephotography #birdextreme #bestbirdshots #discovertheworld #nature_perfection #wildlifeperfection #gregorymountainpacks #canon #gitzo #leofotousa #markins #manfrotto #TKpanel #luminarneo #adobe_LR_PS #nikcollection #topaz #dxo #capture_1 #rrs

texture: www.flickr.com/photos/skeletalmess/3668428864/in/set-7215...

DEMO S@R Hybrid Avatar Head_Nea

marketplace.secondlife.com/stores/131442

I love this little patch of wild grasses against the lawns.

I scattered some chicory seeds here last year, but don't think they have germinated.

Looking East towards Alabama Hills and Death Valley National Park mountains in the far rear.

3 exposure HDR.

Thank you very much for your kind comments and faves.

The Brighton Marine Palace and Pier is a pleasure pier in Brighton, England, which opened in 1899. It is generally known as the Palace Pier for short but has been informally renamed Brighton Pier

Maybe it's the days getting shorter and darker as winter approaches, the results of the election, or my husband now in memory care, but the days ahead look grim.

"A good half of the art of living is resilience." ~ Alain de Botton

balconies of the so called V Huset (V House) in Ørestad, Copenhagen (Denmark).

Designed by JDS Architects and Bjarke Ingels Group

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VM_Houses

Such great architecture there in Copenhagen !!

Deliberately moody edit (DxO Silver Efex 2 and Affinity Photo) to emphasize the somewhat threatening spiky-ness ;))

I am just having fun going through my archive on this rainy Sunday while doing a backup ... Happy (Sliders) Sunday, everyone !!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

... "stachelige" Balkone des sogenannten V Hauses (Bestandteil der VM Häuser) in Ørestad (Insel Amage), Kopenagen, Dänemark

Architekten: JDS Architects and Bjarke Ingels Group

de.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%98restad

Kopenhagen hat tolle Architektur zu bieten - und wir haben lange noch nicht alles gesehen !

Bewusst 'düstere' Bearbeitung, um den Gesamteindruck dieser etwas bedrohlichen, stacheligen Balkone zu verstärken.

Einen schönen Sonntag wünsche ich euch !

At midday we arrived at Vik. And the weather was just brutal. Walking over the black sand, we had to be careful not to get blown over and our faces got a free scrub treatment. Luckily we found a shelter a little further on the beach. This is almost a sort of cave and we were protected against the wind completely. Although I do like rough conditions on the beach, this was a bit too extreme. So we waited, I started looking around and saw some interesting textures in the rocks. Maybe a bit far-fetched, but for me it was fun to find this fish on the shore, but not in the water!

Thanks for having a look! All faves and comments are highly appreciated!

eingefrohrene Erdbeere