Sunday 7 March 2021

The Wrong Mountain

In future, I think we'll stick to doing winter tours that we know from the summer. Yesterday The Wife and I embarked on a winter tour from one of the books I bought her for Christmas. It was supposed to take us up the 1542 m Reuterwanne above Jungholz, a small Austrian village that is accessible to Germany during the lockdown due to the fact that it exists as an enclave into Germany. Who knows what they were drinking when they drew up the borders after WWII?, but this is definitely a weird one.

From the Pfeiffenberg || Olympus 13 mm, f/8, 1/1000 s, ISO 200 
Instead we ended up on the 1458 m Pfeiffenberg because we followed the tracks in the snow. Although most of the valley snow has disappeared, it snowed again on Friday. With a cold but sunny forecast for Saturday we decided that it would be rude to sit at home doing nothing and decided to head out to the hills once more. We were treated to a day of two halves. Actually, to be more accurate, we had a foggy day with a sunny interlude because the fog rolled in again as we came down the mountain, giving us some really special images, but more of that later.

Frosty Trees || Olympus 34 mm, f/8, 1/1600 s, ISO 200
We set off from a surprisingly empty car park in Jungholz - whether people were intimidated by driving into Austria (😮), they'd been put off by the fog, or whether in March they'd simply had enough of the snow, there simply weren't that many people under way, which suited us just fine. Finding the first landmark on the tour was easy since it simply required us to follow the signposts to the Stubentalalpe. The book (and signs) had the path following up the hillside behind the hut to the Reuterwanne and so we blindly followed the tracks leading up the hillside. What we failed to see was where the path to the Reuterwanne diverged and so we found ourselves atop the wrong mountain with no discernible path to getting on the right one.

The Process

But never mind, because we came home with an SD card full of 'keepers' and memories of a lovely winter tour pretty much on our own. A keeper is a photo that I'll keep (duh!) and show either here, Instagram or on my private Facebook page. Not necessarily the best of the best, but good enough to air publicly. After years of photography, I have developed a clear sorting method for photos at the end of the day. I'll import the photos directly into ON1, applying my own private preset - a set of standard modifications that I use during RAW processing. Almost all of these are not actually applied, but available to be used at a single click rather than diving through various menus. During import, I also back the photos up to an external USB hard drive. This has actually saved my butt once recently too as I managed to delete a whole folder worth of photos from my laptop.

Keeper or Not? || Olympus 47 mm, f/8, 1/1000 s, ISO 400 
Once imported, I use the ***** system to indicate which photos I actually want to process with a single star. I'll then go through these one by one, applying the edits I think best enhance the photo to emphasise the aspect of the image that really caught my attention. The edits that I'm happy with I'll give two stars to. These are the images I end up exporting to jpg from ON1, most of which will end up being published somewhere. I tend not to be overly selective here. I have one friend who posts perhaps a couple of photos there a month and they're really top-notch images. I'm a bit more indiscriminate and tend to spray my images everywhere. The really good ones will get three stars, but that's perhaps a small handful of images in a month.

The Foggy Half

Photographing isn't necessarily the first thing you think about doing in fog - but the results can be amazing. I got a couple of really painterly images from yesterday's tour that couldn't have been taken in any other conditions.  This first one of the shed in the snow was actually the very first image I took of the day. This I might even classify as a three star image. Note that it thumbs its nose completely at the rule of thirds etc., but it works, for me at least. Great way to start the day

Lone Shed || Olympus 29 mm, f/6.3, 1/1000 s, ISO 400
As well as the fresh snow there was a wicked hoarfrost as we walked up out of the village due to the freezing fog. We tend to think of nature as a constant, what's there today will be there tomorrow, but these photos tell a different story. Even as I write this 24 h after taking the photos, I know that they were unique, unrepeatable snapshots in time. Never again will that shed scene look exactly like that. Never again will that branch have that constellation of ice crystals. The same is the case for images with powerful clouds. Sobering thoughts.

Ice Crystals || Olympus  100 mm, f/11, 1/160 s, ISO 400
I decreased the aperture to f/11 here to increase the depth of field on the crystals. F/8, my standard aperture for this lens, just wasn't doing it and I didn't want to stop down too much further as it would have reduced the shutter speed to a level where motion blur might start becoming an issue. A lot of photographers only talk about aperture as a means to control depth of field, but it's only one of three factors influencing how much of your scene will be in focus alongside focal length and focal distance (how long your lens is and how close you are to the subject respectively).

Once we reached the Stubentalalpe we were out in the brilliant blue skies of an early spring day - after all meteorological spring started last week and we continued enjoying that light until we came down again after lunch. There was fog below us and rolling over the tops every now and then, but by and large it was pure sunshine until we descended back to the hut.

Standing Out and Hidden || Olympus 20 mm, f/8, 1/250 s, ISO 200
Snaking our way back down the tarmac to Jungholz at the end of our tour we came across this group of trees across the road. At a first glance the images look black and white, but they're full colour as you can see if you look at the snow poles and trail sign. An interesting set of images that aren't quite my usual style, but I really like them and could imagine them looking good printed on wood.







The Sunny Half

Once we'd reached the Stubentalalpe it was blue skies all the way, giving rise to a different sort of monochrome - white and blue instead of black and white. The colour of the fir trees was essentially non-existent given the bright light. Normally I would have had my CPL polarising filter on in conditions like this, but because the scene was so bright anyway I decided not to use it as it would have made the skies even darker and I was looking for some brighter images.

At the Stubentalalpe || Olympus 21 mm, f/8, 1/2500 s, ISO 400
Arriving at the Pfeiffenberg we found this delightful little wooden cross. At this point we thought we were still on the right path - we weren't -  and could see the Reuterwanne but couldn't clearly see how to get to it. Again, a unique image. Never again will this particular snow pattern exist to be photographed.

Pfeffenberg || Olympus 66 mm, f/5.6, 1/4000 s, ISO 200 
This next image is a complete fake! The path ran through the snow to the left of the drift. Apart from looking ugly, I wanted to see how far I could take the image correction. There are a couple of blotches that I might be able to correct with a little more effort, but the resulting image is adequate without being a showstopper. This is about the limit of corrections that I'll apply to an image outside of focus or exposure bracketing. I won't do sky replacements, for example, not because it's wrong per se, but photography for me is about conveying the beauty of what I saw and experienced. There's an inherent authenticity involved. This is probably a step too far.

Drifts || Olympus 23 mm, f/4.5, 1/6400 s, ISO 200 
Coming off the top we descended into a mini winter wonderland of baby fir trees. You can clearly see the valley fog in this photo. The trail through the snow is the same one as the shot of the drifts, demonstrating the extent of the 'corrections' that were necessary.

Winter Wonderland ||  Olympus HR 12 mm, f/8, 1/1250 s, ISO 200
And I can't come away from a trip to the mountains without a photo of a tree stump!

The Stump || Olympus 31 mm, f/8, 1/1600 s, ISO 200
Descending further we came across a mini plateau with a series of deciduous trees that still had snow and/or hoarfrost on the branches giving rise to this fantastic vista - as well as providing a great spot for lunch. 

Ming Vase-Landscape ||  Olympus 12 mm, f/8, 1/1600 s, ISO 200
Sat opposite this vista for quite a while gave me plenty of opportunity to 'work the composition' as the profi's would put it, and I tried a number of approaches including two with some 'foreground interest', but as so often with these scenes for me, I found the best image to have been my first 'instinct' shot when I arrived at the scene. The others seem contrived somehow with the foreground detracting from the simplicity of the scene that this one conveys nicely rather than adding to it.

Long Pines ||  Olympus 75 mm, f/8, 1/1250 s, ISO 200
It was also nice light to catch a couple of rare up close shots of Sharon in her natural element - the mountains.

The Wife ||  Olympus 80 mm, f/7.1, 1/1000 s, ISO 200
Mahlzeit! ||  Olympus 12 mm, f/7.1, 1/2000 s, ISO 200
So that was our Saturday morning. What did you get up to, anything interesting?

Monday 1 March 2021

Cloud Inversion on the Hörnle

The blogposts seem to be like London buses at the moment. You wait ages for one, and then three come along at once! Don't worry, this will be the last for a week or so and there won't be as much text with this one.

Layers || Olympus 100 mm, f/8, 1/1600 s, ISO 200
We (i.e. The Wife) decided that we should go for a walk on Sunday morning, so we headed down to one of our regular mountains, the Hörnle above Bad Kohgrub at the edge of the Ammergau Alps. There was an off chance that the kiosk might be open at the Hörnle Hütte - or at least that was the carrot that was dangled before me...

I'd schlepped the regular camera gear with me (in my case this is the Oly E-M1 Mk III with by trusty 12-100 mm lens attached and the Pano Leica 8-18 mm in the bag just in case). Standing around in dense fog in the car park above the Hörnle Bahn I wasn't convinced that I'd actually be getting it out of its pouch. Oh how wrong I was!

Frozen Catkins || Olympus 41 mm, f/5.6, 1/250 s, ISO 200 
It started in the carpark already when I noticed these frosty catkins. Stopping the aperture down to throw the background out of focus and dancing around the hazel to try and get the right composition, this is the best I came up with. It wasn't until we'd got home and I saw the Girl-Child's take on this - she'd managed to get a comp with an old wooden hut in the background, but by then it was too late to go back.

The frozen foggy forest was full of little delights like this, be it the fir trees or cobwebs tucked in between the roots of a tree.

Christmas Decorations || Olympus 54 mm, f/5.6, 1/60 s, ISO 200
Cobweb Gems || Olympus 25 mm, f/5.6, 1/13 s, ISO 200
It's always worth keeping your eyes open for a quick abstract in the forest and this piece of bark caught my eye with its brown and orange tones combined with the frost emphasising the edges. The fog was working as a giant lightbox, taking away the harshness that direct sunlight would have caused.

Bark Abstract || Olympus 100 mm, f/5.6, 1/80 s, ISO 200
Handprints || Olympus 38 mm, f/8, 1/60 s, ISO 200
As we climbed through the forest it got lighter and lighter with occasional glimpses of blue sky above and we knew that we would soon be emerging above the clouds. I was ready for the sun disk, but nothing prepared us for the haunting fog-shadows caused by the trees as we reached the clear air.

Shadows in the Mist || Olympus 28 mm, f/5.6, 1/1250 s, ISO 200 
First Glimpse of Sun || Olympus 100 mm, f/5.6, 1/4000 s, ISO 200
Into the Light || Olympus 12 mm, f/8, 1/8000 s, ISO 200
Haunted Trees I || Olympus 41 mm, f/8, 1/4000 s, ISO 200
Haunted Trees II || Olympus 28 mm, f/5.6, 1/250 s, ISO 200
Edge of the Mist || Olympus 38 mm, f/5.6, 1/250 s, ISO 200
Out of the clouds the hike was pleasant enough, but without the fog as an interest there weren't so many shots to be had any more, though the views from the summit over the thick cloud bank were fine enough. There were plenty of people around at the hut and all three Hörnle summits - Vorderes, Mittleres and Hinteres.

Towards the Hörnle Hütte || Olympus 12 mm, f/8, 1/1250 s, ISO 200
Hörnle Round incl. Zugspitze || Huawei P30 Panorama
Hinteres Hörnle || Olympus 70 mm, f/8, 1/1600 s, ISO 200
We came back down via the sledge run. Fortunately we'd brought our spikes with us - poor man's crampons that you pull over the boots to give extra grip on icy ground. The fog had a couple more special shots left for us before we got back to the car.

Spot: On || Olympus 34 mm, f/8, 1/13 s, ISO 200
Bad Kohlgrub || Olympus 31 mm, f/8, 1/800 s, ISO 200
So, when the forecast is dodgy, don't leave your camera at home. Sometimes challenging conditions can give rise to some unique images.

Wishing you interesting light.

Mike