In My Mother's Garden

As I start writing this, I'm at my parent's house - now actually my father's house. My mother passed away two weeks ago today and her funeral was yesterday. Quarantine rules mean that apart from attending the funeral we're not allowed to leave the property and so as well as bringing a couple of books to read, I brought my camera with me to capture some of the beauty of the garden that she and dad have created in the 20 years that they've lived in their small village in rural Somerset.

Ann Page, 31.05.1941-16.03.2021 🕆

Even though dad is the son of a horticulturalist, it was mum who was the driving force in the garden, suggesting the design and choosing the plants. Her pride and joy was the large rockery bisecting the garden and separating the upper and lower lawns.

Mum tending her beloved rockery back in happier times in 2017

The flowers and shrubs were definitely her domain and it's a real treat in spring, especially the rockery with its primulas, grape hyacinths and pasque flowers. It also forms a great home for ladybirds and spiders at this time of year. Who knew that spiders could be so cute large? (my wife certainly doesn't).

Grape hyacinths, looking towards the house

Mum had turned her hand to a number of things over the years, but was predominantly a home-builder, at least while my sister Hilary and I were growing up. She was an excellent cook and seamstress, a great hostess and had a wicked sense of humour, something that she maintained until quite near the end. It was always easy to get a twinkle out of her eye with a clever aside, even when she was struggling with words herself as she did on and off for the last few years. Especially if it was a subtle sotto voce dig at dad (who doesn't have the best hearing, bless him). Always guaranteed to elicit a sly grin!

One of Mum's greatest strengths was putting other people first, whether that meant being a stay-at-home mum for the most part or driving me all over the southern half of the UK when I was looking for university places. She loved singing, was a reluctant leader when they asked her to head up the WI or Mother's Union and loved it when she could get fresh strawberries and cream on her birthday at the end of May. In the days before the universal availability of such exotic fruits throughout the year this was always a bit touch and go. She was a great role model.

Pasque Flower

Pasque Flowers Contra Jour

As her health declined over the last years I had the impression that she was always at her best when we were visiting or when she came to us, slumping somewhat afterwards. Dad did a great job looking after her whilst that was still possible for someone in his 70s to do, taking over essentially all the domestic duties in the house over time. When we were back at Christmas 2019 the rest of us had settled in to the living room after dinner and mum was missing. Partly out of concern for what she might be up to and partly wanting to just chat with her for a bit I went looking for her and found her brightly washing up in the kitchen. It was the first time she'd done this for at least two years and we were both excited about how well she was doing and she expressed a wish to be able to come out and visit us at Easter. It was the last time that she was this well. By Easter 2020 travel restrictions were in place and her health had deteriorated again. Those precious minutes we had together in the kitchen are a great memory to hold on to.

One of the neighbours fashioned this beautiful sheath for mum's coffin

Communicating with mum has been very difficult over the last year. We were able to visit her through the window of her care home back in September just after she came out of Yeovil hospital after a protracted stay. That was the last time we saw her. Since then visiting rules at the care home have meant that only one designated visitor was allowed. Even if we had flown home and gone through the 10-day enforced quarantine, we wouldn't have been able to visit her.

Apple blossom in the Spring

Ladybird

Perrywinkle

Dandelion Flower

Telephoning was extremely difficult - she couldn't work out what to do with the smart phones offered her by the home to communicate and video calls only made her upset. In the end I resorted to old fashioned communication and wrote her a letter a week, enclosing a photo or two that I'd taken recently. Only a single page each time, letting her know what the family was up to or reassuring her when she moved home in February that we still knew where she was and she didn't need to fret - something in black and white that the carers could re-read to her when she got upset or forgot. Of all the photos I sent the most crinkled one - the one she'd apparently held in her hand the most - was a summit shot of Sharon and me in the Bavarian Alps. 

Letters to Mum

Spending the week with dad was the right thing to do despite all the hurdles involved in international travel at the moment. Although I think we'd all done our 'letting go' in the months if not years before as mum's ability to interact with her surroundings had slowly declined, it was important to say goodbye and be together again as family.

We'll miss you mum, and we certainly won't forget you!

Goodbye Mum, you won't be(e) forgotten!

Wood pigeon, ubiquitous to our garden

Wysteria Bud

Rockery Flowers

Garden Spider

Last Year's Poppy

Daffodils

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?

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

A Walk In The Park With The Olympus M. Zuiko 100-400 f/5-6.3

I was talking to a colleague on Wednesday when she let it drop that her husband, a good friend of mine, was in one of the parks in Munich photographing tawny owls with their son. I'd known about at least one of the owls - the infamous Kazimir - from another photographer's Facebook posts, but when I learned that there were four of five of them, that they were in relatively predictable positions, that the best time of year to shoot them is when there are no leaves on the trees and that the weather for the following day was going to be great, well I had to go, didn't I? Plus I have such a backlog of leave from last year that I really need to start using up and so early Thursday morning I set off in the car to drive into the centre of Munich.

Schloß Nymphenburg || Olympus 12 mm, f/8, 1/500 s, ISO 200

We've been having some spectacular sunrises at the moment due to Sahara sand in the air and Thursday morning was no exception. Driving down to the motorway I was greeted by the most amazing sight; a perfect disc of yellow rising behind some naked trees with a misty foreground. One of those once in a lifetime shots and I had a car full of camera gear. But also a date with some owls. It'll have to be one of those that got away...

Kanali Catching the Rays || Olympus 400 mm, 1/125 s, f/6.3, ISO 200

Finding my friend in the park wasn't difficult, the first known roost tree is just behind Nymphenburg palace by the canal (I don't think I'm giving any secrets away here), and so there I was before 8 am setting up my tripod in the park, getting out my new mega zoom and trying to find a position through the twigs and branches. The photos make it look easier than it was. Getting the right angle was not straightforward and emphasised the need to be shooting these beautiful birds now rather than in a month's time, when the trees will be shooting bright green new leaves.

Hi-Res Kanali || Olympus 400 mm, 1/125 s, f/6.3, ISO 200

This was one of the first photos I took of the bird who has affectionately been named "Kanali" due to his proximity to the canal (yeah, the Germans can be really imaginative). Remarkably, the bird was sitting still enough for me to engage one of the Olympus camera's super-powers; the high res mode. Using some technical jiggery-pokery, the camera moves the sensor by a few microns in each direction over multiple shots, creating an 80 MP shot using a 20 MP sensor. I never imagined I'd be using this magic on wildlife, but I didn't have anything to lose and am really happy with the way it turned out. If you look at the branches above the owl you can see some artefacts generated by the breeze moving the twigs between the individual shots, but I'm really pleased with how this turned out and could easily imaging this hanging on my wall.

Canada Goose || Olympus 400 mm, 1/160 s, f/6.3, ISO 200

Classical Swan || Olympus 400 mm, 1/160 s, f/13, ISO 200

Of course there aren't only owls in the park. There are more lesser spotted woodpeckers than you can shake a stick at, plenty of tits and nuthatches. An ornithologist friend who was out with us was able to point out the song of some wallcreepers and of course with all the open water there is also an abundance of ducks, geese and swans. On another day I'd have had an eye out for the swans in flight, landing on the water and taking off, but today was all about the owls. I did allow myself to be distracted for a couple of minutes to take this canadian goose resting between the frost-crested mole hills and a classical swan shot. Nothing to write home about, but nice portraits nevertheless. I particularly like the repeating patterns of the molehills with the goose - a nice bit of tessellation with a difference.

Light Through the Palace || Olympus 342 mm, f/11, 1/200 s, ISO 200

After spending an hour or so admiring Kanali we headed north to the Pagoda and the Kleiner See - the little lake. There's another owl roost east of the lake, but be warned that the park rangers don't look kindly on people walking on the grass here.

Tawny Owl || Olympus 400 mm, 1/160 s, f/6.3, ISO 200

Our third owl was in the woods north of the lake, set well back from the path with a poor line of sight. This one is very shy and we had to wait a while for him to show even this much above the lip of his hole.

Shy Owl || Olympus 400 mm, 1/100 s, f/6.3, ISO 200

When shooting birds like this, don't be afraid to fill up your memory cards. Some of the owl shots were taken with manual focus, some with auto focus. Not even the pros get 100% focus lock and so really can be a case of 'spray and pray', sorting out the very best shots afterwards on the PC. You're looking at my pick from 150 photos here, a much lower keeper rate than I'm used to from my landscape and macro photos, but this is a different game and different rules apply.

Back to Kanali || Olympus 400 mm, 1/200 s, f/6.3, ISO 200

You will need a good length lens to get decent shots though. Most of these shots are cropped at least a little bit to focus in on the birds. I was mostly shooting at the long end of the 100-400 mm - that's 200-800 mm in full format terms and I think the tripod was necessary. With more megapixels you could probably get away with a shorter lens, but it would be a compromise.

Leaving the park I was struck by the clumps of snowdrops and crocuses lining the paths and so I dropped back to my trusty 12-100 mm for a few close ups before heading hope for lunch.

Snowdrops || Olympus 54 mm, f/5.6, 1/1000 s, ISO 200

Crocus || Olympus 100 mm, f/8, 1/200 s, ISO 200

Incidentally, if you're interested in getting together to shoot some time, we've now created a Facebook group: Munich Expats Photo Group. If you on Facebook, get in touch, otherwise drop me a line using the contact information on the right here. I'm always looking for partners in crime!