During recent travels I had good opportunities to shoot portraits of my wife and oldest daughter.  Our youngest doesn't usually sit still long enough.  Here is one of the best shots of my wife, taken at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport.  You can't even tell she's jetlagged.  Here she is at an outdoor cafe in Salzburg having a good laugh. During our weekend in Heidelberg, Kirstin and I walked the Philosopher's Way.  I loved the way the lighting worked out on that shot.  The Philosopher's Way is a beautiful series of trails that take you way up above the city.  Here is another shot of K on our walk. You can tell on this one she's getting a bit impatient with the old man.  I managed to get her to smile on this shot.  At a different time in Heidelberg I caught her with this blue eye staring her down.  All of these were shot with natural light.

Kazu has spent the past few weeks in Germany.  This past weekend Kazu sampled the many gastronomic delights of Heidelberg.  Kazu learned that she has a real weakness for pils. Here is Kazu with a beer mustache. Kazu couldn't get enough. Then there was the chocolate. So many chocolate bars and so little time. Kazu felt most at home with the cocoa. As if that wasn't enough cause for indigestion, Kazu had to check out the curry and the spices. Well, it was a great trip and Kazu is now on her way to Michigan.   Hope she has great travels.

I was fortunate to be able to spend last weekend with our oldest daughter in Heidelberg, Germany.  We went hiking in the hills outside Heidelberg.  They call this region of Germany the Odenwald.  The lighting was perfect in the woods.  I captured lots of pictures of the trees of the Odenwald..  My next post will show the adventures of Kazu in Heidelberg.

Trees 1
Trees 2
Trees 3
Trees 4
Trees 5
Trees 6

Here are some more images from our recent trip to Germany. This image is of the entry gate to Dachau Concentration Camp. Arbeit macht frei means work will make you free. This image is of the memorial to victims of the Holocaust at Dachau. This next image is from the old town area of Tuebingen.  I loved the shape of the trees and the late day light. This hard working fellow also resides in the old town area of Tuebingen. This last image is of the ceiling in the cathedral at the University of Salzburg. I think all the faces looking down are really interesting...almost haunting.

Priscilla, Anna and I got back yesterday from visiting our oldest daughter in Germany, where she is studying abroad this semester. I took hundreds of images, so forcing myself down to 5 for this post was tough, but here they are. This image is of Anna sleeping off jet lag. Peter, Kirstin's host father for the first 10 weeks of her time in Germany took us to a castle.  We had to wait for the tour to begin. Later we walked the old town in Tuebingen. I captured an image of people at an outdoor cafe. Note the woman sitting at a table all alone. What do you think her story is? I had a chance to walk the Aldstadt (Old Town) of Tuebingen during the early evening hours. That's when I captured this woman hanging out the wash. One of our daytrips included a stop at the Dachau Concentration Camp. The most powerful image I saw was of the wash basins in the barracks. Words cannot describe the feeling of that place, especially the barracks. You can almost feel the presence of the spirits of the victims. The sense I get from this image is almost ghost like. How you're seeing it here is how it looked. That front wash basin almost looks to me as if it's separated from the rest of the picture.  I can't describe how that came about.

Our oldest daughter is studying abroad in Germany this semester.  She's been sending us pictures shot on her Nikon Coolpix 4600 (4 mgp) camera.  She gave me permission to post select images here.  So, technically speaking this is her first post on Photographica. Here is the city she's staying in. Here is an ancient building near there. This is inside a church steeple in Freiburg. Here is a snow-covered tree in the Black Forest.

Let's give her a good Photographica welcome.

I've been busy traveling lately.  Two weekends ago Priscilla and I did a NYC getaway weekend. This is one of those "what's wrong with this picture" kind of shots. On this one I just liked the various images in view at once. Then this week I traveled on business to Heidelberg Germany. These are some shots from Heidelberg Castle. Both the NYC and Heidelberg pictures were taken on my wife's Nikon Coolpix 5600.

My best friend Louis and I take a trip every year somewhere in the world.  A few years ago it was Ocktober fest in  Munich, Germany.   It was an amazing time, we saw the Glockenspeil, some great architecture and definitely some interesting historical sights like the Hofbrauhaus.  But we were there for Ocktoberfest.  The first sign were getting close was this crazy Horse ... around the corner from that was the Lowenbrau House located at the heart of the festival.  You'd never believe it but this is 9 o'clock AM and over 15K people are drinking!!!!  So, in all honesty se decided to go on a binge.  Well, that certainly deserves a
CHEERS! don't you think.
Next it was on a train going to Prague home of the famous Charles Bridge and great architecture street 1, street 2, square.   There were some absolutely beautiful colors , windows, statues,  flowers, trees and cars?
On the journey we met a friend Barb who took us through acorridor and up this incredibly long stairwell  to see an awesome  Church.   After that hike we went for a drink overlooking the squarefrom before.  We jumped a train to Amsterdam and as soon as we got there it was straight to a coffee shop where all memories where lost.

Thank god I have a camera.  

The Dancefloor

(hope it wasn't too long)

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