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Above/featured: U2 train departing Berlin’s Zoologischer Garten station – 28 November 2021.
I look back at an eventful 2021 year with 21 images with personal questions about how impending- and actual-loss affect how life proceeds beyond death, and how feelings of real belonging are different from feelings of a proper home.
Above/featured: S-Bahn station Messe Nord/ICC – 27 Nov 2021 (X70).
I’m going home to Berlin, for the 1st time in 4 years.
To travel at all, and to go international, is a big privilege; I’m grateful for the window of opportunity.
After a long gruelling emotional 2020 year taking care of an elderly parent at home with cancer and accompanying them safely to their final days, I’m desperate to get outta Vancouver for a break. But another 9 months pass before the largest roadblock to travel is dissolved. At the end of October 2021, the Canadian government releases a digital vaccination certificate suitable for domestic and international travel. Within a week, I have a set itinerary using credits from a cancelled trip.
The following describes plans and unconventional sights for Berlin, Germany over 11 days in the 2nd-half of November 2021. As case counts change and situations evolve at both ends, travellers must remain vigilant with extra preparation and adapt to changing policies, protocols, and requirements by different countries for visitors, ensuring safe and smooth travel, out and back. I go over all guidelines supplied by Germany’s Federal Foreign Office and the city state of Berlin.
I’m not going to lug my DSLR camera and extra glass for this quick trip. Instead, I’ll only use my 340-gram (12-ounce) compact fixed-lens camera. In all respects, it’s a big weight off my shoulders.
Above/featured: Misty autumn morning on Lake Constance (Bodensee): Konstanz, BW – 23 Sep 2017.
Sometimes on travel, I’m focused on achieving learning goals that I forget simply to stop and take in the surroundings. It’s a frequent error I’ve made in the past, and I’ll continue making that mistake. Fortunately, there’ve been a number of occasions where I stopped myself in time to soak in the scene and drink in the colours.
During the northern autumns of 2015, 2016, and 2017, I travelled through various parts of the German federal states of Baden-Württemburg (BW), Bavaria (BY), Brandenburg (BB), Hesse (HE), Lower Saxony (NI), Rheinland-Palatinate (RP), Saxony (SN), and Saxony-Anhalt (ST). You might ask about Berlin where I’ve visited countless times and accumulated months in total. I’ve dedicated a separate post to Berlin’s autumn colours with images from 2006 to 2017.
As for the rest, I hope you enjoy the following moments of autumn colour.
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.
Above/featured: Vancouver landmark: two towers of the Lions Gate Bridge – 17 Jan 2014 (6D1).
Some time ago, I wrote about my photographic journey which has included a point-and-shoot camera, an introductory crop-frame camera, a consumer-model full-frame camera, and a compact mirrorless camera.
The way people see the world is best encapsulated at focal lengths typically around 35mm. Portraits of people start at about 50mm, and go as “long” or “tight” at 80mm. With larger zoom glass and longer focal lengths, “action at a distance” becomes accessible; examples include “close-up” views or moments at sports events or bird-watching from afar to avoid spooking the birds. At focal lengths below 35mm, the accessible field of view becomes much larger; for example, one of the “widest” fields can be found with a super-wide piece of glass at around 16mm.
I’ve made photographs across a wide variety of focal lengths: from wide (16mm) to long (480mm). I once imagined I would spend most of my time photographing “long”, at focal lengths beyond 100mm. I soon learned I prefer photographing (well-)below 50mm, with the lion’s share of my images in the “wide field” at focal lengths in the range 24 to 28mm.
Fotoeins Fotografie 