so here’s a look back to winter in the Harz mountains….
Leica M9; Summilux 50; Summicron 35; VSCO;
Spring is in the air…..
Tag: Winter
Leica M2
At the beginning of the year I had my old Leica M2 from 1961 CLAed in Wetzlar. Here’s the first result……
Leica M2; Elmar 2.8 50mm; Kodak Portra 400
Christmas is banned……
As the temperatures soar above 30°C, I catch up with those winter pictures…. a (mild) winter walk in January.
Leica M9M; Summicron 35mm; Summilux 50mm; VSCO; Lightroom
The last of Winter….
Now that Spring has arrived I can keep posting those depressing shots of Winter…..
Leica M9; Summilux 50 & Sumicron 35; VSCO
Sacrow….
in the Winter….
Leica M9; Summilux 50; VSCO
Week Four – Life for Rent….
….!
Leica M9; Summicron 35; Lightroom
Week 47 – Winter Wanderings…..
There’s no snow, it’s warm, windy and wet. It’s like being back in England at Christmas.
Canon 5D Canon 24-105 f4 Aperture and NIK
Week 8 – Beware the Ides of March …..
no real change here folks…… yet!
(and as I will be taking next week’s entry this week don’t hold your breath, because we’ve had lots more snow!)
Zenza Bronica ETRS Zenzanon f1:2.8 75mm Fuji PRO 400H Epson Perfection V500
Week 7 – Promises, promises ….. some broken, some kept….
Last week was supposed to be the last of the gloomy winter posts, well forget it! Spring did appear for a couple of days and probably decided it was definitely too cold to come out. The promise kept was from Week 41 – Werderscher Damm last year, when I said I’d be back!
I won’t make any more promises about the weather, promise!
Pictures 1,2 and 4 Zenza Bronica ETRS Zenzanon f1:2.8 75mm Kodak Portra 400 Epson Perfection V500 Picture 3: Fuji GA 645 PRO Fujinon 1:4 f=60mm Kodak Portra 400 Epson Perfection V500
Week 6 – The end of Winter….
….or at least we hope so. The sun has started to shine again this week so next week’s post should hopefully be a little less gloomy.
Fuji GA 645 PRO Fujinon 1:4 f=60mm Fujichrome Provia 100f Epson Perfection V500
Week – 5 Nuthewiesen
So here goes a fresh start…. for more see and yet again in 2013.
Week 4 was taken on one of the very few sunny days of the year so far and in contrast this is what the region can look like at this time of the year.
Fuji GA 645 PRO <= New Baby!! Fujinon 1:4 f=60mm Kodak 400 T-MAX Rodinal 1:50 Epson Perfection V500
Week 3 – Winter Wonderland
I was going to do this week on derelict buildings and then I scanned these two and all that changed…..
P.S. As you see I still don’t seem to have got over my “analogue” phase just yet, and to be honest there’s no end in sight!
Zenza Bronica ETRS Zenzanon f1:3.5 150mm Kodak Portra 400 Epson Perfection V500
Week 1 – Bitterly Cold
I can honestly say that I know of no place on earth, where the wind blows straight through you as it does in that dirty miserable megalopolis that is Berlin in winter. I still love it though.
I managed to meet-up with an old friend while he was visiting. We hadn’t seen each other since we last met while I was studying and he was serving in the same town in 1990. Time flies and neither of us have change one little bit! 😉
I’m back for another 53 and I’d be very happy if you would accompany me for the duration!
Rollei 35 S Rollei HFT Sonnar 2.8 / 40mm Kodak Portra 400 Epson Perfection V500Week 52 – The Pyramid
It’s not quite over yet…. but it will be soon.
Round three? To be honest I’m not really sure. If I do do it, then it will definitely be in a different manner.
What do you think? Should I stay or should I go?
Week 6 – Cafe Barock
Back from my travels….. this is the Café Barock in Caputh, a suitable duet for the time of year me thinks.
Week 1 – Belvedere Palace
Well here we go again, another 53 weeks lie ahead of us.
If anything this next period will be more difficult than the first, if only because doing something again is often more difficult than setting out to do something the first time.
They say you should start as you mean to go on, so at the last minute on the Sunday afternoon (before the light faded), I walked up to the Belvedere Palace to shoot this.
I do hope you like it!
Week 50 – Bahnhof Pirschheide
In the Winter of 1994 I left this station for my first interview on German soil. My journey would lead me through the dreary, smog prone and colourless landscapes of industrial eastern Germany. I went through places which were synonymous with deprivation even by East German standards, places like Riesa, Bitterfeld and finally ending my tour in Leipzig. Having grown up in the industrial north-west of England, I wasn’t exactly squeamish but this certainly was a new standard.
I’ve never been through Riesa or Bitterfeld since, but I know that Leipzig is now bustling and splendid city. The station however, has over time become derelict. I managed to sneak in and get a few shots this week, some of which I’ll post on Flickr during the next few days.
I never did get the job, I presume I did not represent what they were looking for or my German language skills were not up to scratch. It was either that or the combination of my grandads old checkered jacket and my pink panther tie didn’t make the desired impression.
f/4 1/80 ISO 100 @30mm
Week 11 – Park Babelsberg
Here we are back in not so exotic territories but home nonetheless.
Many thanks to Tom for this week’s suggestion and of course to the unknown cyclist who rounded off the picture nicely. It was taken from Park Babelsberg overlooking the Havel River to the city of Potsdam.
Thanks also, to those readers who pointed out that I have been living abroad for too long and that my blog should be named “53 Weeks on a bench” rather than “53 weeks on a bank”. Although both are of questionable heritage with regard to the English language and everything else for that matter, (one being a Geordie and the other a Yorkshireman), I will none the less adapt my “Germisch” or “Dinglisch” title to the correct “Bench”.
It would have been kind if someone would have let me know a little earlier, to which my better half will undoubtedly say “I told you so!” and she is German…… nuff said!
f1.4 1/8000 ISO 200 @30mm
Week 9 – From Bremen to ….
…… tune in again next week for the sequel, you won’t be disappointed!
Thanks to Peter for his patience trudging around Bremen city centre on a cold damp winters evening.
f1.8 1/25 ISO 800 50mm ambient light
(P.S. I really do love that cheap 50mm 1.8 piece of glass)
Week 8 – Zum Zipfelteich
Here’s a picture of the little people and their mother on a rather curious looking bank. It was taken during one of those now so very familiar winter walks in the south-east of the country.
This is a place I will undoubtedly be visiting again this year albeit, in a somewhat tempered climate. I might even use this location as a changing of the seasons project within this project because it really is ever so pretty here.
f8 1/25 ISO 250 17mm
P.S. Sorry about the blown out sky but sometimes you just can’t choose when you get the opportunity to shoot, and I really didn’t want to “Photoshop” it.
Week 4 – A Blast from the Past
Karlshorst (Berlin) is the latest “in” urban location for the alternative “new” Berliners (after Prenzlauer Berg, Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain). Whilst the infrastructure, amenities and general standard of living begin to improve, and the rents increase, it is easy to forget that the district has a very special past.
After the unconditional surrender was signed by Field Marshall Wilhelm Keitel on the 8th of April 1945 in Karlshorst, the war in Europe came to a close.
On the 10th of November 1949, it was here that the Soviet administration issued the official mandate for the formation of the new East German state, the Deutsche Demokratische Republik.
Twenty years after the collapse of DDR and the exit of the Soviet troops, Karlshorst now prepares for the new invasion of Starbucks, IKEA, organic supermarkets and Montessori / Waldorf schools.
Russian T-34 (Calibre 85mm) Tank – f10 1/40 ISO 200 22mm
Week 3 – Moody Skies in the Depth of Winter
Winter once again returns.
Taken on an afternoon walk to break up the all day feast which is synonymous with rural family celebrations.
f10 1/1000 ISO 200
Facing Reality - Faces on Film 