Summer | Fotoeins Fotografie

Posts from the ‘Summer’ category

My Fuji X70: Fujichrome Slide, Kodak Platinum 200 (XTrans2 recipes)

Above/featured: 1st Narrows, from John Lawson Pier.

My Fujifilm X70 mirrorless fixed-lens prime camera has been a big plus for photography at domestic and international locations. The built-into-camera film-simulations (e.g., Provia, Velvia) work beautifully in standard settings, but as I’ve never had a film camera, the advent of “camera recipes” to produce additional film-like settings stimulated interest in different colour or pictorial representations.

So far, I’ve tested these Fujifilm film-simulation (“film-sim”) recipes:

• Ektachrome 100SW (saturated warm), simulating images with the Kodak colour transparency or slide films produced 1996–2002;
• Kodachrome 64, simulating images with the Kodak colour film produced between the mid-1970s and 2009;
• Kodacolor, “producing classic Kodak analog aesthetic closest to early-1980s Kodacolor VR200 colour film that’s been overexposed.”

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Vienna’s districts 1 to 23: my highlights

Above/featured: Aspern lake at the Aspern Seestadt housing development in the 22nd district. At right in the background to the north are the Danube Tower and northern hills. Photo, 7 Jun 2022.

From early-2002 to mid-2003, I lived and worked in Heidelberg, and I travelled to Vienna at least six times across all seasons for collaboration work between MPIA and the University of Vienna. Unfortunately, I didn’t own a camera, and I have zero images from that time. “Oiiida.”

After a 15-year pause, I returned to Vienna for one week in May 2018 for the 100-year anniversary of Vienna Modernism. I brought 2 cameras, and I made a few photographs here and there. I’ve always needed more, and four years later in May 2022, I stayed in Vienna for four weeks.

The historic bread- and pastry-making company, Anker, once had a motto known among the Viennese:

Worauf freut sich der Wiener, wenn er vom Urlaub kommt? Auf Hochquellwasser und Ankerbrot.
To what do the Viennese look forward after returning from vacation? Spring water and Ankerbrot.

For all of us who’re visitors to Vienna, I put forward the modified question:

Worauf freut sich ein(e) Besucher(in), wenn man nach Wien kommt?
To what does a visitor look forward in Vienna?

There are many answers for many people. There’s art, coffee, Jugendstil, music, wine; these are only five in a lengthy list. Vienna is more than a desirable visitor location; the city reclaimed the top spot in the The Economist’s EIU Global Liveability Index for 2022.

I got to explore at least one point of interest in each of the city’s 23 Bezirke or districts. Not only did I spend a lot of time in the inner city or 1st district, but I also made my fair share in the 6th, 9th, 18th, and 19th districts. Below I provide from each of the city’s 23 districts a couple of personal highlights which may be of interest to both resident and visitor. There are more interesting locations, about which I’ll describe separately.

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Vienna: Beethovenhaus Mayer am Pfarrplatz

Above/featured: “Beethovenhaus” Heuriger Mayer am Pfarrplatz. Pfarrplatz square in Vienna’s Heiligenstadt, Döbling distrct (19.)

It’s a nation-wide holiday on the 26th of May (2022): Ascension of Christ (Christi Himmelfahrt). On a bright and warm late-spring day, people are out and about, and very few shops are open.

I’m halfway through my month-long stay in Vienna, and today, I’m in the city’s 19th district, Döbling, where in his time Beethoven spent many summers resting, composing, and contemplating life with total hearing loss. I’ve spent the morning wandering through the Heiligenstadt neighbourhood, including a visit to one of his summer residences that’s now a museum dedicated to Beethoven. Not far down the street is another Beethoven summer house that’s now a wine tavern or “Heuriger“. A hanging bunch of pine branches at the front door means this tavern is open for service, with food and their own wine on offer.

The Austrian capital city is home to the world’s largest “urban vineyard” and is the world’s only capital city producing wine within its city limits. There are some 600 wine producers; 400 individual vineyards; over 7 million square metres (75 million square feet) of cultivation space producing both white and red wines in a 80/20 split, respectively; and an average annual yield of 2 million litres or over 2.5 million bottles of wine. Most of the wine is sold for immediate consumption at wine shops and grocery stores, and at the city’s many wine taverns. The Mayer family has been making wine here in Heiligenstadt since the late 17th-century after the combined European forces successfully repelled the (second) Ottoman siege of Vienna.

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Vienna Schnitzel Love, at Meissl & Schadn

“Schnitzel: das ist nicht nur nach den Umfragen das Lieblingsessen der Österreicherinnen und Österreicher. Das ist fast schon ein Religion, oder zumindest ein Kultobjekt, der Mittelpunkt eines heliozentrisch-kulinarischen Systems.”

Not only is schnitzel Austria’s favourite food, it’s almost religion, or at the very least, a ‘cult object’ (at) the centre of a heliocentric culinary system.

“Genussland Österreich: vom Wiener Schnitzel”, by Gert Baldauf (ORF 2011).

The short wood mallet strikes with a thud.

Then, a second; followed by another.

The targeted slab becomes flatter, the fleshy disk gets thinner, growing outward with every thump. The shape is closer to circular, its size as large as a dinner plate.

The prep staff in kitchen-whites, in full concentration with their labour.

And that piece of freshly cut veal pounded thin will soon be breaded, and deep-fried to a crispy golden-brown.

That Wiener Schnitzel will soon be mine.

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4. Bezirk, Wieden, Wien, Vienna, Austria, Österreich, Fuji X70

3 fave images, 30 days in Vienna

Featured: Karlsplatz (4.) – 15 May 2022.

I recently spent 30 days in Vienna, examining her history of art, architecture, music, and science. A nation’s capital city is also worthy of photographic examination, and there are many opportunities throughout the city to absorb Vienna’s unique urban charm and style. I snapped over 10-thousand images which will keep me busy “in the archive” for some time. The following three images stand out, at least for now. Perhaps, I’ll feel differently about them in 3 weeks, 3 months, or 3 years’ time.

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