Fotoeins Fotografie

location bifurcation, place vs. home

Posts from the ‘MyRTW’ category

My around the world journey: Dec 2011-Jan 2013

My Cologne: there’s a lighthouse that never goes out

Above/featured: Mural of the Helios structure, Köln Ehrenfeld, 9 Jan 2013 (450D).

Why is there a lighthouse located in the middle of the city? That makes no sense!

Did the Rhine river once flow here? Is that why there’s a lighthouse?

Is the structure some kind of forgotten remnant of the past?

Maybe that’s not a lighthouse, but rather a beacon that lets people know about a fire somewhere in the neighbourhood.

These are some of the questions and statements posed by Cologne residents when asked if they know anything about the lighthouse in their midst.

Located in the Ehrenfeld1 borough of Cologne is a red brick 44-metre (144-foot) high lighthouse. But why is there a lighthouse at all in the “middle” of Cologne? The Rhine river flows through the city, but the river is hardly visible from the lighthouse at a distance of about 3 kilometres (2 miles). The structure is not an actual operating lighthouse; it’s a symbol of early 20th-century enterprise from what was once one of the most important companies in Europe and marking the location of a big factory that once manufactured electrical equipment including maritime lights.

Founded in 1882, Helios2 established their presence in the town of Ehrenfeld before the latter was incorporated into the greater city of Cologne in 1888. The company once boasted a staff complement of over 2000 people, with products sold in Germany and Europe ranging from electrical generators and transformers, light bulbs, light fixtures in public spaces, and electrical streetcars. Helios also built light towers for the North and Baltic Sea coastlines, including ones at Roter Sand (Weser river estuary), Borkum and Wangerooge (East Frisian Islands), and Sylt. The onsite lighthouse in Ehrenfeld was constructed as a testing facility and never used as a navigational aid or marker. The company overextended its financial reach until Berlin’s AEG3 purchased Helios in 1905. Manufacturing operations in Ehrenfeld ceased in 1930, bringing a final end to Helios’ business presence in Cologne.

The present-day buildings which remain are used as office- and art-space. As historical landmark, the “Helios Leuchtturm” remains as part of the urban heritage in Ehrenfeld and Cologne. If the people in both borough and city have any final say in the matter, the lighthouse will never have to go out.4

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Altstadt, Inn river, Inn, Innstadt, Passau, Bayern, Bavaria, Germany, fotoeins.com

Passau: the town of Three Rivers (Dreiflüssestadt)

Next to the Austrian border in the southeastern corner of Germany lies the Bavarian town of Passau. At the city’s so-called ‘Ortspitze’, three rivers converge: the black Ilz from the north, the green Inn from the south, and the blue Danube from the west. The unique setting provides the city with the nickname or moniker “Bavarian Venice.” Facing east and up and over the hills in the distance is Austria.

With a few short hours of late-autumn and winter daylight, I chase the remaining light on foot through a bitter windchill. The following pictures show it’s worth the effort and the sacrifice of comfort: “always for the shot(s).”

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Vietnam’s Mekong: Life and Traffic in the River Delta

Under direct sunlight, the deep ochre hues in the Mekong are initially unsettling: is the entire river made of chocolate milk? Vibrant reds and blues await around the bend, amid the nutrient-rich fine rock-powder silt floating down from the continental interior.

The Mekong river stretches over 4200 kilometres from its source in the Tibetan plateau in southwestern China1 through Burma, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam, to the river’s mouth at the South China Sea. The Mekong is one of Asia’s longest rivers, and is one of the world’s most productive rivers with number and volume of fish. There are over 1000 species of fish known in the Mekong, and despite the critical importance of the inland fishery industry, dangers are posed by overfishing threatening overall supply, disruption of natural flood cycles, and by the inhibition of spawning and migration from present dams and future dam construction. Based on the silt flowing from the Tibetan plateau, the Mekong Delta is also a critical fertile growing region supplying food and economic wealth throughout the region. International challenges remain about proper usage of the Mekong River.

We reach Mỹ Tho city (tp. Mỹ Tho), a two-hour drive from Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). People have gathered at the docks, ready to join one of many river tours. Some boats are ferrying residents from the mainland to islands in the middle of the Tiền river (sông Tiền), the northern branch of the Mekong.

We hop from one wooden boat to the next, alternating between water and land, slipping in between and hiding among mangrove trees. The midday sun beats down, and the heat and humidity are unescapable. As we dart around the islands near Mỹ Tho, my eyes swing from one boat to the next: floating fish-farms, ferries shuttling people, dredging ships carrying mounds of silt towards the South China Sea, men carrying their hauls on fishing boats carrying their hauls, women running errands on skiffs.

Only four short decades have passed since the end of “The American War”: bullets flew, chemical bombs fell, landscape blighted, blood spilled, families destroyed. The smiles and hard looks are a big part of an indelible visual memory, a part of this nation’s recovery and of her people’s endurance.

I’ve had a few hours only to gloss over the machinery of daily river life, but like countless other experiences in the year-long worldwide journey, this afternoon is representative of another introduction, another “appetizer”. Because there’s always more, here and elsewhere, up- and downstream. It’s easy to forget we’re only 50 kilometres (30 miles) from the South China Sea.

1 See the location here or the map here

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Central Market, Adelaide, SA, Australia, fotoeins.com

Adelaide Central Market: sweet, savoury, books!

Ah, the importance of correctly using the Oxford comma …

In the midst of my year-long around-the-world walkabout, it might be the middle of winter in Australia, and the weather is perfect for both a stroll and a coffee. I’m in the South Australian capital city of Adelaide, and my friend, Emily, insists we stroll through the Central Market. No surprise, then, my arm is sufficiently twisty and rubbery for the …

Bacon.
Colourful fruit and veg.
Assorted of used books.
Chicken hearts and livers.
A chocolate fountain.

But not all at the same time. Please …

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