Fotoeins Fotografie

location bifurcation, place & home

Posts from the ‘Night Photography’ category

My Vienna: 22 urban frames for 2022

Above/featured: “The first Sunday.” Karlsplatz, 1st district – 15 May 2022.

Earlier in the year, I spent four weeks in Vienna, soaking in late-spring and early-summer weather in Austria’s capital city. I highlighted 3 images and scenes which in addition to time spent left personal impressions. Below, I highlight in a “last chance effort” an additional 22 visual examples of the urbanity in Wien, folding in splashes of colour, lines of focus, and accessibility to good timing.

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775th anniversary, Nikolaiviertel, Berlin, Hauptstadt, Germany, Deutschland, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday: RTW10, forty-four

10 years ago, I began an around-the-world (RTW) journey lasting 389 consecutive days, from 24 December 2011 to 15 January 2013 inclusive.

28 October 2012.

The village of Cölln is mentioned in a document dated 28 October 1237, effectively marking the birth of modern-day Berlin. The Museum Island is the present-day location for Cölln. Fast forward to 2012, the city of Berlin celebrated the 775th anniversary of the city’s founding on the banks of the Spree river. From the Nikolaiviertel to Schlossplatz, fire provided the illumination to the endless fascination of residents and visitors. France’s Cie Carabosse provided artists with sculptures breathing fire, wreathes twirling flame, and claypots as radiating sources of heat and light. In the image above, a folding wreath of flaming claypots appears to surround the Fernsehturm (TV Tower) in the background.

I made the image on 28 Oct 2012 with a Canon EOS450D (Rebel XSi) and these settings: 1/8-sec, f/4.5, ISO800, and 30mm focal length (48mm full-frame equivalent). This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-mCt.

Hong Kong Mahjong Company, Lockhart Road, Tonnochy Road, Wan Chai, Hong Kong, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday: RTW10, twenty-four

10 years ago, I began an around-the-world (RTW) journey lasting 389 consecutive days, from 24 December 2011 to 15 January 2013 inclusive.

18 June 2012.

I’m looking for something that can (partly) summarize Hong Kong in an image. That the city rarely sleeps, that there are always people streaming through by day or at night. The scene above of the pedestrian crossing is at the intersection of Lockhart Road and Tonnochy Road in Wan Chai. Notable is the neon sign at upper right, representing the 2nd home of the Hong Kong Mahjong Company (香港蔴雀娛樂). In November 2015, the company moved into a new 3rd home a block further east at Lockhart and Marsh.

What’s equally noteworthy is the near proximity to Joy Hing Roasted Meats (再興燒臘飯店), for an essential dining experience of having a BBQ-pork rice plate on a small plastic table and a little plastic chair.

I made the image on 18 Jun 2012 with a Canon EOS450D (Rebel XSi) and these settings: 1/6-sec, f/8, ISO800, and 41mm focal length (66mm full-frame equivalent). This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-m7B.

My Berlin: the buried Bibliothek at Bebelplatz

On a clear cool late-autumn morning, a young child is looking through an opening in the cobblestone plaza. She looks up to the man standing next to her.

“Daddy, why is there a glass window? What happened here?”

The thing to keep in mind is that this square in Berlin is called Bebelplatz (BAY-buhl-platz), and not Babbleplatz. It’s easy to make the mistake. After all, a great repository of books was once created inside the building seen above, in what was once home of the Königliche Bibliothek or Royal Library.

But then came along a large racist blather.

Accompanied by a big ugly fire.

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Berlin Bar and Bistro, San Miguel de Allende, Estado Libre y Soberano de Guanajuato, Mexico, myRTW, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday: RTW10, eleven

10 years ago, I began an around-the-world (RTW) journey lasting 389 consecutive days, from 24 December 2011 to 15 January 2013 inclusive.

4 March 2012.

It’s hard to escape Berlin, even on the other side of the planet 9700 km away in México. Berlin Bar & Bistro is at Umarán 19 in the centre of San Miguel de Allende (SMA). Our brief 2-night stay in this beautiful México town ends with beers and cheers. And yeah, the daily specials on the chalk board are tempting: banana peppers stuffed with goat cheese and tomato sauce; mixed skewers with skirt steak, chicken, sweet pepper, and onion; chicken stuffed with spinach and goat cheese, with mushroom sauce and rice. Prices listed are in Mexican pesos with conversion at that time about 12 MXN to 1 USD.

I made the image above on 4 Mar 2012 with a Canon EOS450D (Rebel XSi) and the following settings: 1/25-sec, f/2.8, ISO800, and 50mm focal length (80mm full-frame equivalent). My thanks to EN and ND for making my visit possible. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-lHO.

Comet Neowise, C/2020 F3, comet, noctilucent clouds, Solar System, night sky, SFU, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby Mountain, Burnaby, BC, Canada, fotoeins.com

Low light levels, mid-grade attempts

Above/featured: Comet Neowise (C2020/F3), from Burnaby Mountain, BC – 16 Jul 2020 (UTC); more details below.

One of my first lessons in photography was: covet as much natural light as possible. I’m the first to admit I’ll chase that light very hard, especially during winter conditions when days are often grey, dull, and short. Sometimes, sacrifices have to be made to get “that light.”

But diminishing light offers different challenges and opportunities to the variety of ways a person might think about a scene or situation before them. Getting the desired effect might require opening the aperture wide, upping the ISO level, lengthening exposure time, or adding light with an artificial flash. If a person’s journey goes down a “dark” path, what might a combination of internal ability and intuition mixed with external planning and happenstance create?

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The Embarcadero, F Market and Wharves, F streetcar, streetcar, PCC 1058, San Francisco, CA, USA, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday: RTW10, SanFran

10 years ago, I began an around-the-world (RTW) journey lasting 389 consecutive days, from 24 December 2011 to 15 January 2013 inclusive.

27 Dec 2011.

The F Market & Wharves streetcar line appears as a means of public transport on The Embarcadero near San Francisco’s waterfront. In this image, San Francisco Municipal Railway streetcar PCC number 1058, called the “Chicago”, is seen travelling westbound towards Fisherman’s Wharf with the lights of the Bay Bridge in the background. This streetcar was built originally in 1948 for service in Philadelphia.

I made the photo above on 27 Dec 2011 with a Canon EOS450D (Rebel XSi) and these settings: 1/250-sec, f/1.4, ISO400, and 50mm focal length (80mm full-frame equivalent). This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-lvl.

Shantung Street, Portland Street, Mong Kok, Kowloon, Hong Kong, fotoeins.com

Artificial light

Above/featured: Shantung St. at Portland St., in Mong Kok, Kowloon: Hong Kong – 12 Jun 2012 (450D).

Like many, my preference in photography is for as much natural light as possible. However, there are always exceptions, and a big one is the introduction and/or necessity of artificial light within a scene or picture. Over the course of my photographic journey, I’ve come across some wonderful examples of artificial lighting. I hope you enjoy the examples I’ve provided below, including (my love of) neon signage.

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Lights of Hope, St. Paul's Hospital, Burrard Street, Vancouver, BC, Canada, fotoeins.com

Christmas on display

Above/featured: Annual “Lights of Hope” display at St. Paul’s Hospital: Vancouver, BC – 24 Nov 2018 (X70).

Display (noun):

•   a performance, show, or event staged for public entertainment.
•   a collection of objects arranged for public viewing.

e.g., a display of Christmas lights, food, and drink in an open public venue.

In Germany, there is no admission charge to any of the multiple Christmas markets in a town or city, and there are no restricted drinking areas, as you’ll see people carrying mugs of hot steaming goodness up and down the open streets. But all the same, it’s about the lights; it’s about food, drink, and frivolity; and it’s all the better if it’s snowing or there’s a few centimetres of the white fluffy stuff on the ground.

Is there a Christmas market where you live or where you’re going to visit? Enjoy the display, and please have a Glühwein for me.

Or two. Or three.

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Festival of Lights, Potsdamer Platz, Mauerfall, Berliner Mauer, Berlin Wall, Fall of the Wall, Berlin, Germany, Deutschland, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday: 30 years after the fall of the Wall, 5 of 5

November 2019 marks the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin- and inner-German wall.

With the annual Festival of Lights casting colour and patterns, I’m standing next to the first ever traffic signal in Germany (1924), just out of view to the left. What’s highlighted is a stripe on the pavement through the centre of the frame, with the camera view south to the south entrance to Potsdamer Platz train station. The imbedded brick stripe marks the former location of the “Vorderlandmauer“, the forward or boundary wall immediately next to West Berlin). Left of the stripe would have been East Berlin; to the right, West Berlin.

I made the image above on 14 October 2017 with a Canon 6D mark 1 and the following settings: 1/50-sec, f/4, ISO10000, and 24mm focal length. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-fdf.

Location

The first map section from berlin.de shows my location and image perspective with a black asterisk and black arrow, respectively, with additional parts labeled: Vorderlandmauer (boundary or outer wall) which was often but not always coincident with the “politische Grenze” (political border) between West and East Berlin, Grenzstreifen (border control zone), and Hinterlandmauer (hinterland or inner wall). West Berlin is to the left of the red line, and East Berlin is to the right of the blue line. The second map section below is clickable via Google Maps.

Berliner Mauer, Potsdamer Platz, Berlin.de

Berliner Mauer, Potsdamer Platz: berlin.de.

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