Heading towards El Chalten on route 23: For nearly 100 km alongside Lago Viedma this road offers a fantastic panoramic view of two of the most famous mountains of the Andes: Cerro Torre and Mount Fitz Roy. Rarely there are no clouds!
Continue reading “Iconic Mountains in Patagonia”
While it is well known that the north of Chile is the place of the largest and best observatories in the world, I tried a shot just with my DSLR and a wide angle lense in the Torres del Paine National Park which is located in the south of Chile.
Continue reading “Southern Cross”
Where the Grey Glacier falls into Lago Grey mother nature constantly creates and reshapes sculptures of ice shining in all shades of blue becoming one with the blue sky and the turquoise water of the lake.
Continue reading “Ice Sculptures – Blue Art”
One may think all glaciers look the same. These four shots proof the opposite!
Continue reading “Glaciers of Patagonia – blue, white, turquoise”
King penguins are the second largest pinguins in the world. The subspecies “Aptenodytes patagonicus patagonicus” is found in the south atlantic only. They live 25 years on average, weigh 10-12 kg and get around 1 meter tall.
Continue reading “King Penguins from Tierra del Fuego”
In addition to the summer version and the winter version of the Giessen Waterfall which is located in the Swiss Kanton Basel-Landschaft, I ‘d like to share now the fall version of it!
After a good 6 km hike from the Passo Tre Croci (1’805m) I reached Lago di Sorapis on 1’923 m. Its turquoise water is stunning – like a huge turquoise pane of opal glass.
Continue reading “Colorful Mountain Lakes in the Dolomites”
Here is a new addition to my ice series: The Marmolada glacier. As all the snow melted away one can see the blank glacier ice with its typical green to blue color. The Marmolada is a mountain range in the Dolomites (Italy). Its highest peak is called Punta Penia (3’343 m), the highest mountain of the Dolomites.
Continue reading “Green Ice”
In comparison to other mountain ranges in the world the Dolomites stand out as pretty unique: The variety of structures and shapes including peaks, towers, needles, pinnacles, plaetaus, layers, gorges, lakes and many more mirror the dramatic geologic history of this area that started about 280 million years ago.
Continue reading “A mountain range that started as tropical sea: The Dolomites”
… seems this young red damselfly calling out to the photographer.
Damselflies are a great motif for photographers and “structures and shapes created by nature” at its best. But as they are pretty shy and fast moving they are diffucult to catch. So patience and a lot of time is needed to get a couple of good shots. These ones I found at the Étang de la Gruère, a moore lake in the Swiss canton Jura.
Continue reading ““Hi there!” …”On the occasion of today’s World Photography Day I’d like to share a photo that nicely shows that the frightening or ugly may appear completely different when taking a closer look. So zoom in!
This shot of a good 5mm in size spider alive and in it’s web was taken with a 1/10 sec., f/3.2 and ISO 100 by a Canon EF 100 f/2.8L Macro IS USM on a EOS 5DSR body using a tripod. To increase depth of field this shot is a blend from two shots using focus stacking.
On the occasion of today’s Swiss national holiday I once again like to publish a shot from a beautiful and iconic spot in Switzerland. This pyramid-shaped mountain, called “Niesen” ist definitely one of them. Famous painters such as Paul Klee and Alfred Hodler were inspired by this mountain which is located close to lake Thun in the Bernese Alps.
Continue reading “Swiss National Holiday”
Today I’d like to share two new shots featuring my theme “structures and shapes” particularly well. The fist picture was taken in the Beatus Cave in Switzerland, a flowstone cave located at the north side of lake Thun. The cave expands around 1’000 meters into mount Niederhorn. The shot is a 1/20 sec with f/4 and ISO 6’400.
Continue reading “Magic Mirror”
Who would have thought! This beautiful lake, a moore lake called Étang de la Gruère, is located in the Canton of Jura in Switzerland at around 1’000 meters above sea level. These shots were taken on a bright and calm Sunday morning in June, nicely adding to my collection of Swiss lakes.
Continue reading “Sweden? No, Switzerland!”In the heart of Europe one can find a quite significant accumulation of “structures and shapes”: The Alps. Today I’d like to share the outcome of two projects related to panoramic shots capturing this part of the World.
Each of the following pictures is composed of 10 shots in portait format and merged into one photo using Adobe Lightroom. For the first set I used a Canon EF 24-70 mm f/4L IS USM at 32 mm, 1/400 sec. and f/6.3 with ISO 100. For the second set I used the same lens at 53 mm, 1/500 sec. and f/5.6 with ISO 100. I did not use a tripod. The size of the raw files are 1 and 1.5 GB. I’m showing reduced versions of 32 and 35 MB.
Below the view from a mountain called Niesen (2’362 m above mean sea level) located in the Swiss region “Berner Oberland”. The panoramic view captures an angle of approx. 230 degree and features the Bernese Alps from the north. From left to right: Thun, Lake Thun, Interlaken with Lake Brienz in the back followed by the famous mountains Eiger (“North Face”), Mönch and Jungfrau.
The next photo is the view from the Monte Generoso (1’701 m above mean sea level) located in the Swiss Canton Ticino. Here the Alps are shown from the south side. This panorama has an angle of approx. 270 degree. From left to right: In the front Lake Lugano, in the back Monte Rosa and the north end of Lake Maggiore, famous mountains Jungfrau, Mönch, Eiger, followed by the Finsterarhorn, Lugano, in the very front Monte Generoso peak, northeast end of Lake Lugano, Eastern Swiss Alps with Piz Bernina unfortunately in the clouds, Monte Legnone, north end of Lake Como, Monte Grigna Settentrionale.
As part of my little series on “behind the shot” posts, I’d like to showcase today the power of “focus stacking”! Here as example an olive tree sprout. In macro photography the depth of field is usually very short. Chosing a small aperture leads to long exposure and/or high ISO both negatively impacting the sharpness of the shot. So how to solve this dilemma?
Continue reading “Behind the Shot – Focus Stacking”
White cherry blossom, yellow rape and blue sky in the Canton Basel-Landschaft in Switzerland. Springtime greetings!
The “Diamond Beach” at the glacier lagoon Jökulsarlon in the south of Iceland is the perfect spot to look for the Icelandic version of diamonds! Clear ice fresh from the glacier washed up on a black lava sand beach!
Continue reading “Diamonds from Iceland”
The Black Diamond ice cave is located at the Breidamerkurjökull in Iceland. Due to ash encapsulated in the ice the cave looks black. But when the sunlight shines right into the cave (e.g. early February at around 10 am) it lights up in golden and blue.
Continue reading “Black Diamond Ice Cave”
Iceland in winter is blue magic! Here I’m sharing shots from two glaciers in the south of Iceland. They carry blue ice! It’s blue because the compression in the glacier squeezed out any air bubbles and in this circumstance light of long wavelength like red, orange and yellow is absorbed by the ice while light of shorter wavelength such as blue or green remains.
Continue reading “Blue Magic”
The Giessen waterfall is located in the canton of Basel-Landschaft in Switzerland. This winter it froze.
Continue reading “Icy Times”
Have you ever seen Black Ice? A rare phenomenon and a quite spooky experience! Black Ice – also called congelation ice – occurs when water freezes without many air bubbles encapsulated inside. Then the ice is extremely clear so that one can see the ground of a lake for example which is usually dark making the ice look black.
Continue reading “Black Ice”