Vorau on Andreas Manessinger

7142 - Vorau IV

Mon, 11 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Lots of saints, in fact 😁

7141 - Vorau III

Sun, 10 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Add a couple of saints.

7140 - Vorau II

Sat, 09 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Of course, we need to look closer. The backlight is not ideal, but with postprocessing, the result is acceptable.

7139 - Vorau I

Fri, 08 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Surprise! The virgin on a column. Must be a habit round here 😁

7138 - Pöllauberg from above

Thu, 07 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Not a great image, not the best edit imaginable, but still, I’ve invested heavily in removing haze, increasing contrast and correcting colors - depth-zone by depth-zone. I’m happy with the result, even if it’s not perfect.

It’s already the next day, we cross a mountain range for the famous monastery of Vorau. The road leads us higher than the church of Pöllauberg, and in some places I even have a view on it and a chance to stop the car.

7137 - Hartberg XXX

Wed, 06 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Seems like a former restaurant. Would have been a nice place to eat.

7136 - Hartberg XXIX

Tue, 05 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Here’s a virgin Mary on a column. Gold and a pretty sky, always nice.

7135 - Hartberg XXVIII

Mon, 04 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This is from the side of the pharmacy. It says “Pharmacy” 😁

7134 - Hartberg XXVII

Sun, 03 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Yes, I know, we’ve already had that tower, but really, it’s soo beautiful!

7133 - Hartberg XXVI

Sat, 02 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Closer now. Again the bone house. What looks like a second tower behind the bone house, that is in fact the small side chapel with the altar.

7132 - Hartberg XXV

Fri, 01 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This street is on a lower level than the main square. In the background the tower of the church with the veiled interior and the bone house that we have seen extensively.

7131 - Hartberg XXIV

Thu, 30 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

From the pictures on the windows I’d say this must be some rural discotheque, but the building is too small for that. Must be a café or something.

7130 - Hartberg XXIII

Wed, 29 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The rare case of a vertical panorama 😁

7129 - Hartberg XXII

Tue, 28 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

On the streets of Hartberg 😄

7128 - Hartberg XXI

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The building is a school. Not a particularly good picture, but I know this exact spot from an old photograph taken 90 or 100 years ago. I tried to match the perspective, regardless of having to stand in the middle of the street 😁

7127 - Hartberg XX

Sun, 26 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A small protestant church, I suppose. Can’t remember. Why protestant, you ask? Well, catholic Austia took quite some time to get tolerant enough to allow them. Many were built only in the late 19th century. Judging from the style, that’s how I’d date the church.

7126 - Hartberg XIX

Sat, 25 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

What a strange place to stow away your Jesus, isn’t it?

7125 - Hartberg XVIII

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

An image of the altar. I believe the blue on most of the wood is a reflection of blue light streaming through the window on the left. It’s hard to judge “correct” white balance here. I chose consistency with the previous image.

7124 - Hartberg XVII

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Modern on the outside, quite traditional on the inside. At least I hope it’s the same church 😁

7123 - Hartberg XVI

Wed, 22 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The entrance to another, very different church.

7122 - Hartberg XV

Tue, 21 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Bright sun, moderate contrast: why did I use DxO for that image?

Turns out, noise reduction is not the only feature of DxO. Better distortion correction is the other, and at 12 mm it gave me a slightly bigger visible area. I needed it, because the precise join of lines in the lower right corner was cut off in the original image. Sometimes sloppy framing can be fixed 😁

7121 - Hartberg XIV

Mon, 20 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Peculiar arrangement, but a red door is a red door 😄

7120 - Hartberg XIII

Sun, 19 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The entrance to the city’s park. Extreme contrast, fixed in Lightroom only. Maybe I was a bit too aggressive with the highlights, but I like blue skies. Actually, it now looks a lot like Samsung’s skies, and I hate Samsung’s skies 😁

7119 - Hartberg XII

Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

It took me an unholy amount of saturation and vibrance to get this image to look like my memory of the scene 😁

7118 - Hartberg XI

Fri, 17 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Again on the main square. Pharmacy, church, ossuary, it was all in the same place 😁

7117 - Hartberg X

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A final view from the main room into the chapel.

7116 - Hartberg IX

Wed, 15 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Looking up now. Again, this is HDR. If you take an image with any detail in the windows, everything else is pitch black.

7115 - Hartberg VIII

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Ultra-wide, HDR, in this tiny chapel I had to use all the tricks.

7114 - Hartberg VII

Mon, 13 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Again, this is mostly reconstruction. No way to get rid of the flares, hard to even out light and color. In post-processing, I concentrated on evening out the effects of the unfortunate lighting conditions.

Technicalities apart, now you see why we were eager to be there.

7113 - Hartberg VI

Sun, 12 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The quality of this image is terrible. Lighting was brutal and there was no room to maneuver. I used the ultra-wide, took two images. One was out of focus, both were extremely distorted, none had the whole building. Take it as an approximation 😄