Saturday began with rain. Much rain.
Again there were floods in parts of Austria, and the air cooled down by about 15 degrees Celsius. High mountain roads above 1500 meters were impassable without snow chains, in other words, it was a rather unusual high summer weekend.
In the afternoon the eastern part of Carinthia seemed to be sunny, so we took the car, drove down to Saualpe, a north-south mountain chain in eastern Carinthia, and explored the country roads.
Carinthia is not densely populated, but certainly denser than all that gorgeous nature would demand. In this certain part though, there are only some small villages far and between.
It’s really a wonderful landscape up there on the mountain, but of course it has a reason that not many people live there. You are far away from every supermarket, not to speak of a real city, and what looks so wonderful in summer, is quite a problem in winter. Winters up there are long, and to live there probably means to be snowed in a couple of times a year.
There are plenty of churches up on the mountain, one in every village, sometimes for not more than maybe ten houses, some solitary, and one of the churches, Sankt Leonhard, is even off the road in the middle of a forest. That’s the one with the walls in the Image of the Day.
The images were taken with three prime lenses, 24, 35, 70, and two zooms, 11-16 and 70-300. This was lens changing day 🙂
All images were treated with a combination of Topaz Adjust and Alien Skin Snap Art. For the high-contrast images with lots of sky, I have normally taken two differently developed versions from the same RAW, combined with a mask. I love these effects on landscapes.
It’s probably Kitsch, but it triggers something in me. Those images look like a certain kind of illustrations that I liked in my books when I was a child, a kind of illustrations that completely came out of fashion in the 1970s.
The Song of the Day is “In A Country Churchyard” from the 1977 Chris De Burgh album “At the End of a Perfect Day”. Hear it on YouTube.
There are 3 comments
Anita Jesse (2009-07-25)
I love all these. The first three and the last especially do feel like book illustrations and the sort of illustrations that make me want to read the book.
I certainly understand the position of those who find this type of processing heavy, but it pleases me. Perhaps it is striking some chord of familiarity that I can't identify.
Bob Towery (2009-08-01)
Absolutely superb lighting, great compositions as well. Have only been to Austria once, loved it. These make me realize I really need to return!
Thomas (2009-07-20)
The country churchyard is my favorite. Clear lines, simple composition and great colors. The postprocessing in the landscape photos is not really my cup of tea, a bit too heavy for my taste. But for the main photo it really works!
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