My Latest Trip to Europe

It’s been quite some time since I’ve updated this site, so I figured it was time for a redesign. I had pretty high hopes for Photosomnia back when I created it, but unfortunately it’s taken a backseat to my daily photoblog over at www.shuttermaki.com. Hopefully this will help breathe some new life into it, and motivate me to update it a little more often. To be honest, this site has taught me that while I still love the art of photography more than ever, my desire to write about it isn’t as great as I had hoped.

Now, on to the pictures. I recently took a trip to Europe spending about a week in Austria, a few days in Prague, and then ended up hiking around the Swiss Alps for a few days. This was quite the trip, and as you can imagine I have a ton of pictures to share. Normally when I go on a trip I’d just post the dozen or so images on my photoblog, but considering I have over 100 I needed to find a more efficient way to get these out for everyone that wants to see them.

All of these were shot on my Leica M6, the vast majority with my Zeiss 35mm f/2 Biogon, and a handful with my Leica 90mm f/4 Elmar C. I brought 3 different kinds of film on the trip with me, Kodak Ektar 100, Kodak Portra 400VC and Ilford HP5+. I’ll take you through my trip in chronological order as best I can remember, so without further ado here are some shots taken at the JFK and Zurich airports at the very start of my vacation. These were shot on HP5+ at ISO 400.

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I always shoot the first frame on a roll as a ‘throw away’ shot, just in case I haven’t wound it far enough to get past the burn, but I rather liked this shot for some reason.

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I always love the unique lighting and symmetry that you can only find in airports.

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This guy was in the midst of keeling over, presumably due to a heart attack.

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I had to wait a good 5 minutes for this shot. Of course there are dozens of people checking their flight info every second, except when I have my camera out.

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This particular baggage claim area seemed to be closed down. It was completely empty, so it looked a bit strange all lit up.

At this point I had arrived in Zurich, Switzerland, and had boarded a train to the city. Zurich airport is a good distance outside of the city itself, so the train station in the airport has trains departing roughly every 15 minutes that take you there. The Zurich train station is one of the largest stations I have been to so far, and while perhaps not the prettiest, it’s certainly one of the cleanest and most efficient.

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Every platform had a nice Swiss clock every hundred feet or so, and the trains were never so much as a second late.

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I was sort of in a rush to catch my next train, but since one of my main reasons for travel is photography I can always rationalize making time for some pictures.

It was about 8 or 9 in the morning at this point, so I headed out to my first destination, Innsbruck, Austria. I had seen some pretty cool pictures of this place online, it’s essentially an extremely picturesque Austrian city in a valley sandwiched between two mountain ranges. Apparently it’s a pretty popular ski resort town in the winter, and after spending some time there it’s easy to see why.

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After seeing these train/trolleys all throughout my stay in Austria I had grown accustomed to them, but this was my first time seeing one.  It was like a cross between a bus, subway and trolley, and it drove on tracks on the street.

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One thing I can tell you about Austrians, is they like their bicycles. Every city I went to was full of cyclists.

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I noticed after a while that there was a route that most of the cyclists seemed to be following on this particular stretch of road, so I was able to stand here and wait for one of them to come along and whiz right by me.

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The next day turned out to be beautiful, so I decided to shoot a roll of Portra.

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The architecture in a lot of these newer Austrian cities was fascinating. For the most part, they all have distinct ‘old towns’ and ‘new towns’, each with their respectively awesome architectures.

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Again, with the bikes.

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This is the picturesque city center in the Old Town of Innsbruck. Seeing pictures taken of this view was one of the main reasons why I decided to visit this beautiful town, and I can assure you it was even more impressive in person.

Next I had entertained the idea of stopping by Salzburg, but I decided to head straight out to Vienna, thinking I’d check it out on my way back if I had time. I have to say, Vienna was one of the nicest, cleanest, friendliest cities I have ever been to. If I was ever going to move to Europe, Vienna is where I’d want to live.

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I call this one “The Getaway”.

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Vienna had one of the most convenient and accessible public transit systems I had ever seen. Everywhere you look there were buses, subways, trams and trains, taking you any and everywhere you’d want to go.

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While wandering around the streets I had come upon the waterfront, where I found a bustling curbside market.

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These little newsstands were everywhere, they reminded me of something you’d see back in New York or Philadelphia.

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But perhaps even more prevalent were these fast food stands, offering kebabs, brats, fries and pizza for a few Euro each.

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This is the Austrian Parliament building on the Ringstraße.

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It is yet another example of the incredible architecture in Vienna, which is extremely varied in style ranging from Gothic to Baroque, Roman, Greek and modern.

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Speaking of architecture, I happened upon this strange building called the Hundertwasserhaus.

What trip to Vienna would be complete without a visit to the famous Vienna Opera House? During the months of July and August the Opera takes a break from performances and offers group tours, so I took this opportunity to check out this amazing venue.

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Definitely be sure to check out the full-res version of this panoramic view of the performance hall by clicking on the image.

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I really lucked out with the timing on this trip, as I arrived right in the middle of the annual outdoor Vienna Film Festival. The night I went they were playing independent animated movies on a gigantic 5+ story tall projector screen, with a food court set up with a full selection of world cuisine. At first I of course had a beer and bratwurst, and by this point I was really starting to become enamored with the locally brewed Ottakringer beer.

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By nightfall this place was absolutely packed with movie-goers, but for now this man seemed to be enjoying the peace and quiet.

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The festival had gone on all day, then they started playing the movies when the sun went down. Unfortunately it was a bit too dark for pictures.

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St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna was an incredible sight to behold. It’s not every day you see something like this, but I’ll let the pictures do the talking here.

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As amazing as the exterior of this Cathedral was, it’s the interior that really caught most of my attention.

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Only having a 35mm lens with me, I had to take a couple pictures and stitch them together to get this ultra-wide viewpoint of the interior. This and the next 3 images are downsized, so if you click on them it’ll open a larger image in your browser.

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Be sure to check out the full-size version of this one.

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There were so many intricate details everywhere I looked, it’s hard to believe this entire structure, from the tallest spire to the smallest sculpture was handmade hundreds of years before there was even electricity.

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While we’re on the subject of incredible Gothic cathedrals, there is another, slightly smaller cathedral I found in Vienna known as the Votive Church. This one however was built in 1879 and is classified as Neo-Gothic, although it could be argued that it’s nearly as impressive than the much more famous St. Stephen’s Cathedral above.

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Unfortunately they were renovating most of the exterior, so this overexposed shot of the rear of the church is all you’re going to get out of me. If you want to see some better pictures of the front, check out this Google Image Search.

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After spending a few days in Vienna, I decided to head up to Prague. I was really excited to check out this fabled city, so I ticked off a day on my Rail Pass and started making my way to the Wien Meidling train station.

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Along the way I checked out the Belvedere Palace, which while beautiful, was a little smaller than I had anticipated.

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The Wien Meidling train station was one of the smaller stations in Vienna, but the only one with train to Prague (despite what the ÖBB website says).

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(Click on the image for the high-res version)

The first thing I had noticed while traveling through the Czech Republic was that everything looked abandoned and bombed-out. I’m a little too young to remember the cold war, but somehow this country reminded me of what I imagine it must have felt like. Communism ended here in November of 1989, but much of the country still has a very distinct ‘communist feel’ to it, if such a thing exists. Nevertheless, it was a very unique place, like nothing I had ever seen before.

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My first impression of Prague was one of amazement, particularly at the train station. Praha Hlvani was one of the coolest stations I have been in.

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I had to wait a bit for everyone to clear out to get this shot, but I think it was worth it. At this point in my trip I had done enough waiting around in train stations and whatnot to have picked up a pack of cigarettes to help pass the time. Now don’t get the wrong idea, I don’t smoke, but everyone else in Europe does. I was here to immerse myself into different cultures, so ‘when in Rome’, right?

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Check out the larger version of this pano by clicking on it.

As I left the train station, I started to get an idea of what this city was like. Cobblestone streets, Gothic spires and wrought-iron lanterns really set the mood. My first order of business was to just get lost in the twisting alleyways of the Old Town and Jewish Quarter, which was an experience in itself.

I didn’t get too many pictures at this point, due to the sheer number of tourists in this beautiful city. I had never seen anything like it. The entire Old Town district was absolutely packed with people. After a while I happened upon a cheap room, so I dropped my bag off and went out for dinner. The meal I ended up having was one of the most memorable things I have ever eaten. It was an entire pig’s knee on a mini spit, with a myriad of sides, garnishes and sauces. I washed this down with a Pilsner Urquell and then a Becherovka and tonic for a truly Czech experience.

That night I went out for a little stroll, but decided to head to bed early so I could get up before all the other tourists to see if I could get the city to myself for some pictures. This proved to be pretty successful, although for some reason I wasn’t feeling that inspired. I had hyped up Prague to be this amazing city in my mind, and with all the crowds, tourists and a few run-ins with some less-than-courteous locals I had a somewhat sour taste in my mouth. Nevertheless I tried to capture the wonderful atmosphere of the city at dawn while it was completely empty. Empty, of course, except for a couple skeevy prostitutes and some funny drunk kids from Belgium I met that were trying to catch Pigeons.

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Seeing the Charles Bridge completely empty was almost surreal, compared to the day before when I could barely make it across due to all the tourists.

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One thing I noticed that the Europeans do very differently than Americans, is they will not cross the road unless there is a walk signal on the lights. I presume this is due to European traffic laws being much different than ours, namely the fact that over there, cars have the right of way, not pedestrians.

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Apparently this pigeon had the same idea as me, trying to beat the crowds.

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Now I’ve never been much of a morning person, so sunrises are few and far between for me. Not to mention they’re much more likely to be seen at the end of a long night as opposed to the beginning of a new day. Being able to capture pictures like this certainly is some pretty good motivation though. Normally I’d try to catch the sunset, but sunsets in Prague are completely different due to the aforementioned tourist infestation.

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I heard a story regarding the man who designed this astronomical clock while I was over in Prague. Apparently the officials who contracted him to build it ripped out his eyes after he was done, so he would be unable to build a duplicate in other cities. The man, obviously depressed at not only being permanently blinded, but also due to the fact that he can no longer practice his craft, threw himself into the inner-workings of the clock rendering it useless. If true, this is a pretty amazing story.

After Prague I decided to head back to Austria, to a city called Linz which was situated perfectly to give me relatively quick access to the cities of Melk and Hallstatt. I only spent about 12 hours in Linz, but from what I saw it looked like a very nice city. In 2009 Linz was voted as the Cultural Capital of all of Europe, so apparently it is. When I make it back to Austria someday I’m definitely going to stop by and really check this place out.

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These kids were just sitting on the steps with a pile of empty pint-sized bottles in front of them. Keep in mind it was roughly 10 AM at this point.

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At the top of the steps was this really cool modern sculpture. I had entertained the idea of sliding down it, but figured there was a pretty good chance I would have regretted that decision pretty fast.

At this point I hopped on the train to Melk for a day trip to see the world-renowned Melk Abbey. It’s basically a gigantic monastery that sits perched atop a hill, overshadowing a town not much bigger than the Abbey itself. First I’ll give you a virtual tour of the exterior of the Abbey, then I’ll take you inside where you really get an idea of how amazing this place really is.

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Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get an aerial view of this gigantic structure to give you an idea of how big it really is, but a bit of Googling should take care of that. Inside this architectural masterpiece were some of the most beautiful, ornate rooms I have ever seen. From the entrance I walked down this long hallway called “The Emperor’s Gallery”.

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This hallway led to the Marble Hall. There wasn’t much in the Marble Hall, but it was quite remarkable regardless.

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Next up was the reason why I was here, the library. This is listed as one of the top 10 libraries in the entire world, and it’s not hard to see why.

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Everything about this library was incredible. The attention to detail was crazy, everything seemed to be covered in gold, and I can only imagine how old and rare all these books are.

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I almost didn’t want to leave the library, thinking that it was essentially the reason why I was even here in the first place. Boy was I in for a surprise.

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I descended the spiral staircase not knowing what I would find at the bottom..

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Somehow, the Melk Abbey was able to outdo itself once again with the most amazing church I have ever seen.

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Once again, the attention to detail was simply astonishing.

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After touring the Monastary there was a garden off to the side which I decided to check out.

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It was the perfect place to relax and enjoy this warm, beautiful day.

After strolling around the gardens for a while for a while I decided to head back into town. The town of Melk itself was a rather small town, and despite the obvious draw of the Abbey, remained relatively free of tourists. This was certainly welcome after my time in Prague, so I spent some time walking around photographing this quaint little stop on my tour through Austria.

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The town has a small, lively center full of cafés and stores, and has many bike and walking paths along the Danube River, where it’s situated.

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Even though the town had an old, authentic feel to it, just like the rest of Austria there was an eclectic mix of new, modern architecture thrown in.

After Melk I had decided to make my way down to Hallstatt. The Hallstatt train station is actually located on the other side of the lake from the town itself, so upon arrival you have to take a ferry to complete your journey. Unfortunately, the ferry stops running around 7 or so, which meant I wasn’t going to make it that night. I had planned on arriving in nearby Obertraun, spending the night, and then taking a bus or ferry there in the morning.

Well, I arrived in Obertraun just after sunset, and was in the process of finding accommodations when I noticed a sign saying Hallstatt was a mere 5 kilometers away. I had just spent the last 4 or 5 hours on a train, so was eager to stretch my legs and go for a nice, scenic walk along the lake. Unfortunately it was a bit overcast and the sun had already set, so I just left my camera in my bag and soaked in the scenery while making the hour-long trek into town.

Once I got there I spent the next 2 hours trying to find a room. All the hotels were booked so I grabbed a bed at the local hostel for a mere 14 Euros. I then went into town for some dinner and a few drinks, and ended up chatting with a few of the locals at the brat stand. The next morning the weather was absolutely perfect so I got up early, loaded my camera with some Ektar and hit the town.

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This is probably the ‘obligatory’ Hallstatt picture, the one found on all the postcards and pamphlets, so I of course had to take one myself.

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Navigating through this picturesque hillside town involved going up and down lots and lots of stairs, but afforded me the opportunity to capture some nice aerial shots of the town and surrounding lake and mountains.

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The early morning light filtering through the mountains was certainly a beautiful sight.

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I normally save my ‘street’ style photography for city shooting, but I couldn’t help myself here.

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I had assumed real estate in this town was rather pricey, but seeing this shiny new Ferrari parked in one of the driveways gave me a little bit of perspective.

After shooting that roll of Ektar, I loaded up some high speed black and white to take in the bone house, but I had to wait around for about a half an hour till it opened, so I shot some of it around town in the meantime.

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By this time the bone house had finally opened for the day.

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Hundreds of years ago the residents of the town of Hallstatt had thought up a way to deal with the problem of not having enough space for a large cemetery. After they had been buried for 10 or 20 years, they would exhume the bodies, clean and bleach the skull and bones, and then decorate them and place them in the bone house. They haven’t placed any new bones in there in roughly 50 years, so nowadays it’s more of a tourist attraction than anything.

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Each person’s name was written on his forehead, it was sort of creepy to be honest.

At this point I was deciding whether or not I should spend the day in Hallstatt or start heading out to Switzerland, which is where I would be finishing off my trip. To get to where I was staying in Switzerland from Hallstatt was going to take quite some time, so I had planned on just getting as close as I could that day, getting a room for the night where ever I wound up, and then completing the journey the next morning.

I figured if I left around noon I could make it as far as Bern in Switzerland, and then just take the short train ride and gondola up to Gimmelwald when I woke up, so that was my decision.

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Caught this nice couple just checking out the scenery on the boat ride out to Obertraun as I was leaving Hallstatt.

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This pano is downsized, be sure to check out the larger version by clicking on it.

Now, unfortunately due to a series of train delays and a quick stopover for a meal, I ended up not getting as far as I would have liked. At around 11 PM I made it out to Bregenz in Austria, which is right on the border with Switzerland, but unfortunately there was a festival in town that day so all the hotel rooms were booked. I took the last train of the night headed to a town called Feldkirch in hopes of finding a room there. For some reason the train stopped halfway through its route however, leaving me in a tiny little residential town called Götzis.

With not a hotel in sight and a torrential downpour / thuderstorm outside I had begun mentally preparing myself for an inevitably miserable night’s sleep at the train station. By some stroke of luck however, there was one last unscheduled train that had decided to stop at the station roughly 45 minutes later. I didn’t know where that train was going, nor did I care. Anywhere would be better than where I was. It turns out the train was going to Feldkirch, so I ended up getting a room in an extremely seedy hotel there, all the while wondering if I would have been better off sleeping on a bench back at the station. Everything turned out just fine though, and the next morning I made it to Switzerland in one piece.

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When I arrived in Switzerland it was cloudy and overcast. I had a few shots of Portra left in my camera from Hallstatt, so I finished that off and then tossed my red filter on and started shooting some HP5.

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There were these little sheds scattered all around the mountainside, with streams and waterfalls every couple hundred meters.

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The town I was staying in is called Gimmelwald, which is roughly 4500 feet above sea level. This meant I was way above most of the clouds.

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They had these tripod-like contraptions set up along certain stretches of the mountainside, which were used to prevent avalanches.

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This was the trail that led from Gimmelwald to Mürren, which I walked each day to go to the grocery store for food and supplies. Although I went on plenty of hikes during my stay in the Alps that spanned much greater elevations, this hike was particularly bad because it was just one steady incline the entire way. A lot of the bigger hikes would go up and down, and would level off at some points so you had a chance to catch your breath and recuperate. There was a gondola that went between the towns but cost 4 Euro each way, so I probably saved about $40 by walking.

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At this point I decided to head back to the Hostel and have a few drinks with some of the other travelers I had met earlier in the day. When I woke up the next day it was overcast again, but the next few days were supposed to be beautiful so most of it was spent indoors planning out the hikes I was going to be going on (and of course drinking some more).

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I headed out of the Mountain Hostel where I was staying at around 6 in the morning, and made my way down through the Lauterbrunnen Valley up to Wengen, where I would eventually find my way up to Männlichen. Männlichen was a mountain that sits right in between the two valleys in the region, which are both in the shadows of three gigantic Alps, the Eiger, Mönch and the Jungfrau. The view from atop this mountain was incredible to say the least.

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From there I started the hike down to Kleine Scheidegg, which was just one breathtaking view after another.

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There were also a bunch of gigantic cows just grazing all over the mountain.

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This is a shot of the other valley, the Grindelwald Valley. I never ended up making it down there, which I would have liked given some better weather, but there’s always next time.

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There were a few houses dotting the landscape, I can’t imagine what it would be like living in one of them.

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There were some huge clouds rolling into the Grindelwald Valley, which made for some pretty intense scenery.

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But the weather changes so fast, as soon as they had arrived they were gone. This is a great shot of the Eiger too, can you imagine people climb that steep, almost vertical north face?

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At this point I had made it down to Kleine Scheidegg, which sits at the base of the Eiger, Mönch and the Jungfrau. This ‘town’ basically just consists of a hotel, restaurant and a train station. Apparently it’s a popular jumping-off point for a lot of serious mountain climbers.

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I decided to hike from here down to Wengen. There were a number of trails, some more scenic than others, so I chose the trail that straddles the base of the 3 mountains.

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This turned out to be a great idea, as it presented me with the greatest view of the mountains yet.

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This is another one of those downsized panos, you don’t wanna miss the high-res version of this one.

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This trail involved a bit of wilderness as well.

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The weather on the Lauterbrunnen side of the mountains started off beautiful, perfect for some landscape photography of the mountains. Check out the full-res version of this and the next pic too.

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Some clouds started to roll in as my hike went on, but I have to admit, they were looking pretty cool.

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After a few more pics I decided to take the train back from the Wengenalp station back to Wengen. The rest of the hike was basically through a forest, and didn’t offer much in the way of scenery.

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When I got back to the Hostel I planned on just taking my boots off, having some drinks and lying down for a bit, due to the exhausting nature of all the hiking I had spent my day doing. After about 15 minutes of relaxation, I realized that I was in the Swiss Alps, and every second spent sitting on my ass doing nothing would be regretted, so I was back out the door on another, slightly lower-key hike.

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It was getting late by this point, so I didn’t venture too far from where I was staying. Luckily there are tons of hiking trails that start right outside my hostel’s doorstep, one of the main reasons I decided to set up camp in the small town of Gimmelwald. I ended up hiking through Mürren and made my way up to Allmendhubel. I attempted to take the funicular back down, but ended up getting slightly lost due to not bringing a map of all the different hiking trails.

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I did end up finding the funicular, but I was already most of the way back down the mountain.

At this point my trip was about done, I had one day left but had to be on my plane home by 3:30 pm, so there wasn’t much time for anything besides getting to the airport which was a good 4 hours away. I was definitely sad to have to go so soon, this vacation was way too short, but I was also excited to get home and go through all my pictures. At the time I’m writing this I have been home for 3 weeks now and am just about to finish up developing and scanning my last 2 rolls of film. Then of course I will have to start developing and scanning the 6 rolls of HP5 I shot in New York City the other day, which will hopefully be another blog post for another day.

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Posted in Amateur Photographers, Street Photography, Travel | Leave a comment

Return to Iron Horse

Since my last Iron Horse post I have made two more trips, shooting mostly black and white film with a little digital thrown in. These trips were much more successful than the first, as I’m sure my results will show. It was a little disappointing however to find that they had removed all the buses from the repair yard. Despite this, some great new pictures were had in exploring parts of this complex that I had skipped the first time around.

I only used 2 lenses for these trips, my Canon 24mm 2.8 and Sigma 50mm 1.4 primes, which I would interchange between my Eos-1 and my 5D. First I will display a few of my digital shots from my first return trip, all of which were shot with the 50.

The first two were shot in what seemed to be the employee break room, which according to the calendar in the second image hasn’t been used since 1986. The next two were shot in a wrecked passenger train found in the woods. It looked to me like there had been a pretty rough train accident, and they just decided to gut the train and haul the shell off to sit here and rot in the woods. Like I mentioned earlier I shot mostly film this time around, so here are the rest of the images from the first trip. All of these are taken on either HP5+ pushed to 1600, or Neopan 1600.

We had found an entire section of the building used to store decades of meticulous documentation, some of which dated back over half a century. There were stacks upon stacks of filing cabinets and boxes literally overflowing with everything from payroll info, work orders, written estimates, blueprints, even disciplinary slips written up against the workers. Most of it has suffered from heavy water damage however, from decades of being exposed to the elements through leaky ceilings and smashed-out windows. For some reason there was also a corner of the building which contained a bunch of ordinary home furniture, including a bureau, some couches and a few cast-iron bed frames. We even happened upon a rusted-out cab to what appeared to be a 50′s-era pickup truck.

My next trip was even more productive than the last, with roughly the same ratio of digital to film shots taken. I had entertained the idea of leaving the digital at home, but sometimes there are just shots that I feel need some color, and I’d rather take the chance of coming over-prepared than regret leaving equipment at home once I got there. Case-in-point: I have brought my Canon 70-200 f/4 L IS with me every time I have been to Iron Horse, however I have never once taken it out of the bag. You can bet I’ll be bringing it with me next time I go too. So without further ado, here is a small selection of the digital shots I took during my latest Iron Horse outing.

Lastly, I have my film shots from this trip. I took only 2 rolls this time out, but it seems I am getting pickier with the shots I am taking, as a much larger percentage of them were keepers than my previous film shoots. Recently I have been finding this a lot actually, and I attribute it to the realization of how much time, money and effort it actually takes to buy, shoot, develop, scan and then process all the film I shoot. While this may turn some people off, and is probably the reason why most people shoot digital over film, it is actually the reason why I love film so much. No matter how much I tell myself that I can spend the same amount of concentration and patience when composing my digital shots, I always seem to get better compositions when shooting film. Also you really can’t beat the properties of film when shooting things like this, the dynamic range, contrast, grain and detail simply cannot be reproduced in Photoshop.

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Sakura Zensen

Well, the cherry blossoms are currently blooming, and I figured, what better time to photograph them? They are only in full bloom for a couple weeks, and I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, they are quite beautiful. I tried a couple different techniques here, the first of which was using my Sigma 50mm with a very shallow depth of field, so most of these shots were taken between f/1.4 and 2.8. My 5D was also used for all of these. I had contemplated using film, but I didn’t, so here are the first of the digital shots with the Sigma.

The next gallery contains a few images using first my 24mm f/2.8 prime, and then my 70-200 f/4 L. I purchased the 24mm about a few weeks ago to replace my Sigma 12-24mm. The Sigma was an awesome lens, it just didn’t really fit my needs. I don’t typically use a lot of wide-angle stuff in my photography, and like to travel light, so the large and very heavy Sigma got left home most of the time, collecting dust on my shelf. It was also extremely wide at 12mm, to the point where composition really takes a back seat to subject matter. Luckily I was able to find a good home for it with artist Saturnin, whose website can be found at www.saturnin.com. The 24mm f/2.8 prime lens is much smaller, extremely light, 2 stops faster, and even a little sharper, so I now take it with me everywhere I go.

After taking these vibrant, full-color images, I decided to switch it up and go for some black and whites. The first two images were taken in full color with the images from above, but were edited in Photoshop to mimic a deep red, or even infrared filter on black and white film. To do this, I used the Channel Mixer adjustment tool, clicked the Monochrome box on the bottom to desaturate the image, and then tweaked the individual RGB channels. To darken the sky so much, I lowered the Blue channel by 100%, and compensated by bumping up the Green and Red channels by 50% each. The red channel was at 100% originally, so that brought it up to 150%. This effectively blacked out the once-blue sky, and turned the light pink cherry blossoms completely white.

The rest of the images were taken with a Red 25 filter on my Sigma 50mm, still using the 5D. This resulted in the digital images being completely red, but after desaturating them and giving them a quick levels and contrast adjustment, I was left with what you see here. To be honest I could have probably gotten the same look by just doing the Channel Mixer setting above, with the values left at defaults with Red at 100%, but I like doing as much of my photography as possible in-camera. 95% of the pictures I post on my site only receive a quick levels, white balance and/or contrast adjustment.

If I get a chance to shoot some more of the cherry blossoms before the flowers all fall off next week I will update this post, so stay tuned.

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My First Time At Iron Horse

There is an old abandoned train repair facility in my hometown of Billerica, Massachusetts originally used by B&M railroads. It closed down some years ago, and now functions primarily as an MBTA graveyard for old buses and train parts. Last fall a friend of mine recommended I go check it out, as it was fairly easy to get into, and was very photogenic. The day before I went I had just received a rather large order from www.keh.com, comprised of several old FD mount lenses, an old Canon A-1, and my current favorite, the Eos-1 EF mount film body. This actually turned out to be an issue because along with my Rebel XT, I now had 3 cameras to shoot with this day. The Canon A-1 was loaded up with Reala 100 color film using my 28mm 2.8, which I later realized I wasn’t a huge fan of, the Eos-1 with Neopan 1600 and my Canon 50mm 1.8, and the Rebel XT was using my Sigma 17-70 zoom lens. Since this was my first time using film since my old Minolta XG-1 days, most of my film shots were also taken with the digital. Turns out this wasn’t really necessary, as I was very happy with how they came out.

Now I took these right before Thanksgiving of 2008, and at this time of year in New England it starts to get very cold. If I remember correctly it was in the 30s this day, and was quite windy. This wouldn’t have been so bad as we were inside most of the time, but in order to get there we had to park at an apartment complex about a mile away and walk along the train tracks that led into the place. It wasn’t so bad coming in, but we left as it was getting dark, at which point the temps had dropped to below freezing.

The first gallery is from the digital camera. All but the last of these were taken outside, where they keep all the decommissioned MBTA buses. According to my friend most of these were all pretty new to the facility, and this was apparent due to the relative lack of graffiti covering them. The last bus you see has been there for a while, and had some amazing artwork on its side.

Next up are my film shots. Most of these are from my Neopan roll, save for the last two which were taken with the Reala. I didn’t like most of my Reala shots from this day, and I’m attributing that to a combination of the 28mm focal length which I have never been a huge fan of, and I also felt that the colors from the film weren’t very complimentary to the location. If I could reshoot these, I would use a wider focal length, and some black and white film. I am very happy with my Neopan shots though, and love the grain and contrast that this film consistently provides. Even though it is 1600 speed film, I routinely use it in full sunlight because I love the look it gives me.

It was mostly empty inside the huge building, with a couple of small rooms along the side. One of these rooms contained the aptly-named “beer-fridge”, due to some graffiti on its door which has since been covered by another, less photogenic tag. This room was very nicely lit by a rather large skylight, and the paint was literally falling off the walls. This seems to have been an employee break room back in the day, but now that the floor is covered in moss and chunks of lead paint (and oddly enough a few used condoms), the last thing I would want to do in here is eat my lunch.

This was one of my first urbexing adventures, and while it was a great learning experience I feel like I only scratched the surface of the great photographic potential of this location. I plan on making a return trip to Iron Horse soon, now that the weather is finally getting nice again. I plan on shooting solely with my Eos-1 this time, although I may bring my 5D along just in case.

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Underground Adventures.. Part 2

This post will conclude the two-part “Underground Adventures” series, and will be dealing with four different types of film, most of which I was rather unhappy with. If you missed my last post, please go back and read it before continuing any further. The films I will be discussing today are Ilford XP2, Natura 1600, Fuji Press 800 and Superia 1600.

Out of the three color films I shot this day, I was generally unimpressed by all of them. The only one that showed any promise in this particular setting was the Natura 1600, which I had ordered from Japan. If you are interested in trying this film out, and don’t mind paying upwards of $10 a roll after shipping, it can be found here, at JapanExposures.com. This film seemed to have less grain than the Superia 1600, and better colors (in my opinion) than both of the other color films. The only problem with this film that I encountered was that it automatically rewound itself after 12 exposures, on a 24 exposure roll. After development, sure enough there were 12 unexposed frames. I still don’t know if it got stuck and tricked my camera into thinking it was at the end of the reel or what, but this was a little disappointing. The first two pictures from the following gallery are from the Natura.

The other two color films, the Press 800 and Superia 1600 weren’t terrible of course, but didn’t really leave me with any flattering images. Granted this was one of the first times I had shot high speed color film, but in retrospect I would have rather gone with my 5D for the color stuff, or just stuck with all black and white films. The rest of the images in the gallery were taken with the Press 800; the first two with the 12-24, the third one with the Sigma 50, and the last one with the 70-200 f/4L. None of the shots from the roll of Superia were keepers.

This next roll was one of my favorites from the night. I am constantly impressed with Ilford XP2 every time I use it. For the longest time I had always figured that if I was going to shoot black and white film, that I was going to shoot real black and white film, and leave the C-41 process stuff to all the lazy photographers. Well after being convinced by a friend that I should try it at least once, I was blown away. I love everything about this film, from the incredible sharpness, dynamic range, lack of grain, and yes, the convenience of dropping it off at a one-hour photo for development. It’s definitely not a replacement for “real” black and white films, but its uniqueness has certainly earned itself a permanent spot in my photo bag. All of the images from the XP2 were shot with the Sigma 50, except for the last one which was shot with the 12-24.

This concludes my “Underground Adventures” posts for now, and as usual if you have any questions feel free to leave them in the comments section below and I will be more than happy to answer them.

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Underground Adventures.. Part 1

Today I would like to talk a little about a recent photo outing me and a friend of mine took into Boston. I shot only film this day, and went through about 7 rolls before the day was out. The specific films I will be discussing in this post are Ilford HP5+, Neopan 400, and Neopan 1600. I was using my Eos-1 film body for this, with my three favorite lenses at the time, my Canon 70-200 f/4 L IS, Sigma 50mm 1.4, and my recently purchased Sigma 12-24mm wide-angle lens. I brought along some red filters with me, for use with the Canon zoom and Sigma 50, but didn’t get around to using them at all because of the already scarce light found within the subway where we did most of our shooting.

First lets talk about the HP5+. I shot this at 1600, and developed it in Ilfotec HC at 1+15 dilution for 7 1/2 minutes. This was the recommended time for push-processing it at iso 1600, as found on the Massive Dev Chart which I go by almost religiously. I have found that HP5+ pushed to 1600 yields exceptionally fine grain for the speed, and have actually never even shot it at its rated speed because of this. If I am going to shoot 400 speed black and white film, I will usually end up going with Neopan 400, XP2 or 400TX.

I shot the HP5 on my trip on the orange line, where we got off at the Chinatown station. This was one of the last rolls I shot that night, and the 1600 speed came in real handy when we headed above ground. The first 4 shots in this gallery were taken with my Sigma 50mm 1.4, and the last 4 were taken with the Canon 70-200.

Next up is the Neopan 400, which I had shot earlier in the day. I loaded this up on the way to Copley station, and after a few pictures we decided to head up to the surface for some food. We took a rather lengthy stroll over to Faneuil Hall in the sub-freezing weather, and by the time we got there we certainly needed a few stiff drinks as well.

If I remember correctly, the first and last pictures were taken with the Sigma 50, the second was with the 12-24, and the third picture was the 70-200. That is possibly the only thing I find myself complaining about when using film, not having exif data to review when going over your shots. As an interesting side-note, the last picture in this set is one of my top-10 favorite pictures I have ever taken.

The final gallery in this article was shot on Neopan 1600, and was taken on my underground journey from Government Center to North Station. These were only 2 stops apart, but we spent a lot of time in each of the stations, as they were both very photogenic. The Government Center station actually had a roped-off area with a bunch of off-duty trains, so we took the opportunity to sneak back there and grab some cool shots. The first 3 and last 2 images were taken with the 50mm, and the other 3 were taken with the 12-24 and the 70-200 (I’ll leave it up to you to guess which ones).

Overall this was a very fun day, and I got a lot of keepers. We escaped unhassled for the most part, however I did get yelled at by one of the conductors for leaning too far over the yellow line while he was pulling into the station, which I still blame completely on my lens. Looking through the camera at 12mm definitely distorts your perspective, I thought he was at least 20-30 feet away when I had pulled back, only to realize he was about 5 feet away from clipping the camera out of my hands! After a brief exchange, and a few curt hand gestures we were both on our way though, so no harm done. Stay tuned for Part 2 of my ‘Underground Adventures’, where we will go over my XP2, and various high speed color film rolls, including a roll of Natura 1600 I had shipped in from Japan.

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My Best Friend’s Wedding

Last August, I had the distinct pleasure of being a groomsman in a very old friend of mine’s wedding. Being an avid photographer, I couldn’t let a chance like this pass me up, so I brought my camera bag along with me. Since I was in the wedding, I wasn’t able to photograph much during the actual ceremony, and left most of the posed pictures of family members to the paid photographers. I posted 20 of my favorite pictures from the day, most of which were candid shots taken at the reception.

For equipment, I had my trusty old Canon Rebel XT, and used only my Canon 50mm 1.8 and 70-200 f/4 L IS lenses. I had an old Minolta flash, but while it was incredibly bright, it offered nothing in the way of metering, so most of the pictures taken using the flash were exposed manually using trial and error. These would not be my preferred pieces of equipment for wedding photography, but at the time I was just starting out with digital photography, and didn’t have much in my own personal collection to choose from. Nevertheless, the only major problems I came across were AF hunting in the low light due to not having an adequate AF assist beam, and the aforementioned metering.

Please feel free to leave any questions and comments in the comments section below, and I will be happy to address them.

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