928 - Pictures Of Home

2009-04-29



The bad weather goes on and on. I was lucky. Yesterday when I had to go to Klagenfurt, my hometown, and when I had to wait on the streets for more than an hour, it did just not rain. As soon as I was back in the car, it began to pour down.

Klagenfurt is actually a nice town. It has about 93000 inhabitants, and in the 25 years that I have not lived there, it has changed radically. There are many more restaurants, cafés and bars now, the patios and thoroughfares are opened to the public, and the general impression is that of a place where people live. Amazing.

Btw, the correct term for those thoroughfares is “Durchhaus”. I was tempted to use it in the paragraph above, and as always, I wanted to look up an english term.

While searching on LEO, the best online dictionary for German/English, German/French, German/Italian and German/Spanish (they even have German/Chinese, but I can’t possibly judge that), I stumbled upon a link to the professional translator’s forum ProZ, and one advise was to not translate the word, but instead explain it. I was already determined to use one of the two quoted explanations

"… a house between two streets, with one or more courtyards connected by a thoroughfare, basically a shortcut between the streets, going right through the house."
when to my surprise I found out that the supplied link pointed back to one of my own blog posts, “33 - Hanging Gardens”, written way back in November 2006 🙂

Regardless of weather, photographing in Klagenfurt was a nice experience. I met a group of street musicians who played very, very well and had no problems with me taking pictures, and in the course of that hour, I constantly changed between the Nikon 70-300 VR, the Nikon 35/1.8 and the Nikon 10.5/2.8 fisheye.

The Image of the Day was obviously made with the fish, and then treated with Fisheye-Hemi™, the same goes for the small place with the people.

The metal sculpture is actually a drinking fountain, taken at 70mm, and somehow I found that the metal looks much better in a conventional B&W process.

The other two images were taken with the Nikon 35/1.8. The square with the water droplets is another fountain, basically a sheet of glass, and on one side water comes down like from a shower head, only that the nozzles are lined up in a distance of about 5cm from the glass. I have used speed priority (S) mode and 1/8000s at f1.8 to capture the droplets.

The Song of the Day is “Pictures Of Home” from the 1972 Deep Purple album “Machine Head”. Deezer has the album, and YouTube has - among many many others - a 1999 live version from The Royal Albert Hall, together with the London Symphony Orchestra.

There are 4 comments

Colin Griffiths   (2009-04-29)

Here in Leicester we would call it an alleyway. I like the parked bike and the cycling sign in the first picture.

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Glen Goffin   (2009-04-29)

Thanks for sharing these ... it is like I get to go on vacation even while sitting here at home 🙂 Beautiful photography as always.

PS - don't people mind if other people are walking through their house? 🙂

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Andreas   (2009-04-30)

Nope. If it has happened for 400 years, why would they mind :-?

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Ted   (2009-04-30)

How odd. is this thing called a Durchhaus. As I looked at in your marvelous image of the durchhaus they seemed entirely normal. Then I read your description and went through my mental inventory. "Hmmm, self..." I said to myself, "Where have you seen these archways cutting directly through houses that allowed for public thoroughfares?"

At first I thought of alleyways cut between row homes. Those we have a lot of here in Lancaster. But they are private ways open only two the two houses which meet above them on the upper floors. "Curious," I thought to myself, "surely you have seen these thing or you would have marveled at them in Andreas's post. But where have I seen them?"

And I had no answer in my memory inventory. Perhaps as I grew up in PHiladelphia? When I worked in Baltimore, DC, New York or Boston? Maybe it is a big city thing here? This is gnawing at me now Andreas. Yes, private passageways like these which enter into courts or rear yards... they are not unusual in older buildings. But ... but... wait. We do have air-walks between buildings that form arches over narrow streets... and even larger ones. However it's those narrow streets which flow under those airwalks... perhaps... those are why this idea seems so normal? Or at least not... foreign?

Durchhaus... a wonderful word. I shall memorize it and try to find an image for which it will make the perfect caption. Although, I cannot imagine finding one with more mystery, or wonder-filled presence thatn you have here. This is one of your traffic-stopping images Andreas. Luvvvit!

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