Posts in Category: Wetzlar
Ice bells on willow wands, variation.
Mousam River at Roger’s Pond, Kennebunk Maine
Sometimes ice bells (see my previous post) overlap to form extended structures…natural ice sculptures in the abstract mode. They can get quite complex, as you see here in this image from the Mousam River at Roger’s Pond in Kennebunk Maine. They have a beauty all their own.
Sony RX10iii at 600mm equivalent field of view. Program Mode. F4 @ 1/250th @ ISO 200. Processed in Polarr on my Android tablet.
Old Wetzlar
I am home from my 12 day swing through England, Germany, and Holland, and, while the trip was wonderful, I am happy to be home. These are two of the medieval homes from the old walled city of Wetzlar, Germany. I had only a few hours to explore on this working trip, but I always try to get out into the old city to capture some of its atmosphere. You might notice that these homes were built after the first depletion of the tall forests of the region. Older homes have corner timbers running the full height of the building. This one was built in layers, using shorter timbers…and you can see that the different floors have tilted different ways over the years. This structure gives many of the homes of Old Wetzlar their unique character.
Samsung Smart Camera WB250F in Rich Tone (HDR) mode. Processed on the Google Nexus 7 in PicSay Pro and Photo Edit.
The Dom
The unfinished cathedral of Wetzlar, the Dom, dominates the old city. It is a mix of Romanesque 1200s style and later Gothic from the middle ages. It is a building clearly not quite at home with itself but it has its own unique charm.
This image from the square on the up hill side of the Dom, has been perspective corrected in Photo Editor on the Nexus 7 and final processed on PicSay Pro. Samsung Smart Camera WB250F in Rich Tone (HDR) mode.
Wetzlar
I have loved the old city of Wetzlar since my first visit over ten years ago. I know it is not a major tourist attraction in Germany, where old walled cities are common, unless of course you are a canoeist floating the river Lahn or a Goethe fan. The unfinished cathedral (the Dom) was started in the 1200s and most of the construction done in the middle ages. Goethe lived and worked there when Wetzlar was the site of the Imperial Court of the Holy Roman Empire. His first works are based on his time in Wetzlar.
This is my fist trip back after a gap of several years and l made the most of the few hours I had morning and evening. This is a shot looking up one of many sets of stairs in the steep old town toward the one finished steeple of the Dom. I love the old stone and the angles.
Samsung Smart Camera WB250F in Rich Tone mode (HDR). Processed in PicSay Pro on the Nexus 7.
8/27/2010: The Dom and the Bridge
It got later and later on my rainy evening walk through old town Wetzlar, but the evening light lasts a long time in Germany. I was headed back to the hotel when I made a last stop for this classic shot of the Dom above the stone bridge over the Lahn. Once more a shot I have taken many times, but never in this light, and never with HDR in mind. The drama of the cloud cap, the last light, the moisture in the air softening color and prespective, and elegant arches of the bridge set in rustic stone, the pastel gables of the old houses, and above it all the tower of the Dom (and that anachronistic blue polyester tarping). Quite a shot, even without the fairy light of the fountain on the trees at the right. 
Two radically different exposures allowed me to capture the light of the foreground and the gray of the sky, and Photomatix Lite put them together for a pretty remarkable effect (if I do say so myself).
A little help from my usual Lightroom routines (Blackpoint, Clarity, Vibrance, and Sharpen), and some perspective and distortion correction, and there it is.
Canon SX20 IS.
From Germany and England 2010.
8/19/2010
Mill Canal, River Lahn: Wetzlar Germany
I love to walk the old town of Wetzlar, and I never fail to find something new to photograph, or to discover a new light on an old favorite scene, but my only opportunity this trip was between 8 and 9PM at the tag end of day of heavy rain. I took my umbrella, and used it, as I explored what the fading light had to say about the ancient town. This is the mill canal along the old town side of the River Lahn were it separates, for the most part, Old Wetzlar and New. I love this jumble of houses, of many different ages (and that is using ages in its historical sense), along the canal, and the light gave me a good excuse to try an HDR shot where nothing else would have worked. The long exposure required for the late evening foreground would have burned the sky white, and an exposure for the clouds would have left the foreground close to black. I took two exposures separated by 3.5 stops, –2EV and +1.5EV, and combined them using the Detail Enhancement/Tone Mapping mode in Photomatix. The result is actually pretty close to a naked eye view. Presented as an photograph, it might strikes the eye as painterly, since we know, from daily experience of recoded images, that a camera could not have caught that range.
The image is not perfect. I was working, as usual, without a tripod, and trying to balance an umbrella as well…but I still like the effect. You would have to walk along the canal in Wetzlar, on a rainy evening with your umbrella up, to know how well it captures the atmosphere of the place.
In addition to the treatment in Photomatix, I adjusted color balance in Lighroom, slid the Blackpoint right, added Clarity and Vibrance, and used the Sharpen narrow edges preset. I also used the distortion controls, both for lens and vertical perspective, to restore a natural look.
Corrected distortion is actually another reason why the experienced eye sees this image as painterly…we have come to expect, to totally accept, wide angle and vertical distortion in photographs…when it is not there, or when it is corrected as in this image, we miss it!
From Germany and England 2010.