After I had taken the picture of my last upload, we stayed a little longer and enjoyed our first sundowner. Although the light was almost gone, I really liked the colorful glow on the horizon with all the silhouettes of quiver trees in the distance. Since these trees alone were a bit boring composition-wise, I used the silhouette of the quiver tree right next to us as foreground subject. I tried a few different compositions and ended up with this vertical one, which I also had to focus stack because the foreground tree was so close to us. As the time for a proper exposure exceeded the 30 seconds, we decided to return to our car and made ourselves comfortable in the roof tent.
After a good night's sleep, we got up again for the sunrise, which was beautiful but a little less spectacular. We then packed up and went to the owner's office to pay the camping fee and also decided to join his Mesosaurus tour which was just about to start. Despite the fully booked campsite, we were the only participants, and so we followed him with our car onto his land and stopped at a few places where he showed us some fossils he had found. He was such a nice and friendly guy and we would have loved to stay a little longer at his camp, but Namibia is big, so we had to continue our journey south. I hope you like it!
Tags: quiver tree kokerboom Köcherbaum Mesosaurus Fossil Camp Keetmanshoop Namibia Africa sunset sundowner glow Sony ILCE-7M4 Sony A7IV Sony FE 24-105mm f/4 G OSS
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Here is finally the first picture from our summer trip last year, and in case you haven't guessed by looking at these unique trees, we traveled all the way south to Namibia. So far we'd seen mountains, glaciers, volcanoes and rainforest, but we'd both never been to a desert before, and as Namibia is considered one of the safest countries in Africa, it was an easy decision. It also has the second largest canyon in the world, some amazing sand dunes and wild animals that you usually only see at the zoo, but let's start from the beginning.
After an hour and a half flight to Frankfurt and a very rough landing, which left many passengers startled (according to the stewardess, it was apparently one of the first real flights by a young pilot), we boarded the 10-hour flight to Windhoek, the capital of Namibia. The flight and arrival went smoothly, and after exchanging some money into the local currency (apparently you can't get Namibian dollars in Austria) we were picked up by our car rental company. An hour's drive later we arrived at their office, watched a safety video about driving on gravel roads and were introduced to our car, a Toyota Hilux with a rooftop tent. We would have liked a less rushed briefing, especially because of the roof tent, but we managed everything fine. After we set off, we bought a few groceries before driving on to Marienthal, which is only 3 hours away from Windhoek and therefore ideal for spending the first night.
The next morning we drove on to Keetmanshoop and visited one of the largest conglomerations of so-called quiver trees, which are a special type of aloe plant. This so called Kokerboomwoud or quiver tree forest was amazing and we spent a few hours exploring the area, taking photos and watching birds nesting in these trees or rock dassies chilling on some rocks. We actually wanted to camp there and enjoy the sunset, but we had read many not so positive reviews about the campsite and the owner of this area. However, when we arrived we followed him to his office, paid the fee to enter the quiver tree forest and were pleasantly surprised at how friendly he was. Now that this place is becoming more and more popular, I can imagine that he also meets some very rude tourists who then write such bad reviews.
We therefore booked another, less popular campsite half an hour's drive away, which was also supposed to have many quiver trees on site. Even better, mesosaur fossils had been found in this area, which were the first evidence of the continental drift theory, as these fossils were also found in South America. When we arrived, the owner wasn't there, so we followed the sign to the campsite, which was apparently on a first come, first served basis. It was quite late, but we quickly set up the rooftop tent (which we didn't want to do in the dark) and then hurried to take some pictures in the last light of the day. We walked up the hill right next to our campsite, where we saw a few quiver trees, and enjoyed our first sundowner with a burning red horizon. After a few minutes, we noticed that it was getting dark quickly, but we had forgotten our tripods in the car, so I ran down quickly to get them such that we can continue shooting. As I was up the hill again, I walked around and found this nice arrangement of quiver trees that were beautifully side-lit by the fading red glow. Even though the possibilities for composition were limited as there were less quiver trees compared to the actual famous quiver tree forest, we got a few great images and really enjoyed our time at this location. I hope you like it too!
Tags: quiver tree kokerboom Köcherbaum Mesosaurus Fossil Camp Keetmanshoop Namibia Africa sunset glow Sony ILCE-7M4 Sony A7IV Sony FE 24-105mm f/4 G OSS
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After the image from my last upload, I was really motivated to go out with my camera, which we did the next day. As the weather forecast predicted beautiful, sunny weather, we decided to hike up our local mountain and on our way we passed some trees that were beautifully covered in frost. However, it wasn't so easy to find an appealing composition, so I walked a few steps further, where these two leaves caught my eye, not only because of their beautiful shape and their separation from the chaotic surroundings, but also because of the quite impressive hoarfrost spikes on their edges. I hope you like it too!
Tags: leaves frost bokeh winter hoarfrost Sony ILCE-7M4 Sony A7IV Sigma 100-400mm f/5-6.3 DG DN OS
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Yesterday morning the weather was pretty gloomy and a glance out of the window revealed a thick layer of fog. Since my girlfriend had some work things to do anyway, we stayed inside and I edited some images from my large backlog so that I can hopefully share some first images from our summer road trip soon. When I took a break, I looked out the window and the birch tree a hundred meters from the house immediately caught my eye. I had always thought about photographing this tree, but there are a few houses right next to it and somehow the conditions were never right. That morning, however, I noticed that the tree was beautifully covered in frost, and just as I took a break from editing, the thick morning fog had lifted, allowing the sunlight to come through and illuminate the tree, making it stand out beautifully against the background. Luckily my girlfriend let me borrow her camera as I didn't have mine with me and I have to say that I really love this images because of its beautifully cold atmosphere and its painterly look. I hope you like it too!
Tags: frost hoarfrost birch tree fog mist winter Fujifilm X-T20 Fujinon XF 70-300mm f/4.0-5.6 R LM OIS WR
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Although I still have lots of fog pictures from Val d'Orcia, I thought I'd upload a picture taken a few days later in Florence. I'd never been to Florence before and my girlfriend - who had been there a few years ago - said it is a must. As we were a bit lazy with our booking, we didn't book any attractions and therefore couldn't visit the cathedral or climb the tower as it was already fully booked a few days in advance. But at least we booked an accommodation that was close to THE viewpoint in Florence, Piazzale Michelangelo.
We therefore spent both mornings getting up there for sunrise, but were a little late on the first morning and thus missed the blue hour. The sunrise itself wasn't really spectacular either, so we thought: Let's come back for sunset, especially as we had also read that this is more of a sunset location. As it turned out, however, that wasn't the best idea. We walked around Florence all day and were a little stressed by the sheer number of tourists and knew we had to be at Piazzale Michelangelo early. So we got there an hour before sunset, but there was no chance of getting anywhere near the railings as people were waiting there in several rows, trying to take pictures with their smartphones by holding them up in the air. Some even climbed onto the base of the streetlights to take pictures above all the people. We then waited as I assumed people would leave just after sunset, but I was so wrong. The people stayed there, sat on the railing and enjoyed the view, even during and after the blue hour. So we left, grabbed some pizza on the way back to our accommodation and decided to return the next morning.
The next morning, we got up to Piazzale Michelangelo in time for the blue hour and had it all to ourselves. However, the sunrise that morning was also only averagely beautiful and so we took a few classic cathedral images that seemed to lack something. As we walked back down the stairs, I noticed the couple of palm trees next to the stairs that I had taken a smartphone image of the evening before, which I quite liked. As this was our last day, I didn’t want to miss an opportunity for one last good image and got my camera out. By chance I had the aperture wide open, which resulted in beautifully blurred leaves in the foreground (something I couldn't achieve with my smartphone and therefore hadn't thought about), which inspired me as I'd never seen an image like this before. Back on the computer I really liked the image, but I still wasn't completely satisfied until I cropped the image to a square, which resulted in a much cleaner composition. The only downside was the resolution I lost due to the tighter crop, which I then tried to restore with Topaz Photo AI, which I got myself for Christmas this year and which did a really good job here. I hope you like it! :)
Tags: Florence Florenz Firenze Tuscany Toscana Toskana Florence Cathedral Duomo di Firenze Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Flower Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore sunrise framed Sony ILCE-7M4 Sony A7IV Sony FE 24-105mm f/4 G OSS
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