This may seem like another “so-what” image, and in a certain way it is. Actually it is not a real image – meaning an image that I’m proud of – at all. It’s a memory, and to be precise, it’s a future memory.

This is of course the morning view from my study in Carinthia again. It’s not particularly interesting, just a morning, and during the last 17 months (so long have we been in Villach … so long), I have shown you many versions of this view, some of them maybe even good.

This is all going to fade away. Nothing will remain but a sweet memory.

See the red and white ribbons? They are all over the place, marking the outlines of furture buildings. So far they are nothing but a nuisance, making a lot of noise when the wind rushes in, but I suppose it’s only a matter of weeks until the bulldozers come.

It fills me with a certain nostalgia to know that this place will never again be what I have learned to love. But then: that’s life

The Song of the Day is “Sweet Memory” from the 2008 Melody Gardot debut album “Worrisome Heart”. See a live video on YouTube.

One of the nice things in winter, don’t laugh, it’s that the days are so short. Even a lazy sloth as I can see a sunrise.

Here we are with Sunday’s images. It’s late, I won’t make a second post with today’s, I’ll try to catch up tomorrow.

This weekend we made the second attempt at Michael’s migration from Salzburg to Vienna, and this time we succeeded. Weather was with us. You may remember, the first attempt two weeks ago was thwarted by heavy snowfall.

Again I fetched the car, a Fiat Ducato Mark 3, on Saturday, left it over night in Villach, and at 7am I was already on the highway north, towards Salzburg. I had to cross the mountains, that’s where I made two short stops, not necessarily in the best places, just where it was possible, took some images in bitter cold, and then drove on.

I really wish I could have stopped wherever I wanted. I saw some absolutely breathtaking vistas, the snowy castle of Werfen in front of the most majestic snow-capped mountains, some winter dreams of magnificent beauty, but alas most of the time I was speeding along at 130 kmph with no chance to stop.

You have to take my word and the few images I was able to capture. I wildly enjoyed driving across the mountain range of the Alps, seeing all that beauty and even being able to snap a few pictures.

The actual migration took us till the evening, and there’s still a lot to do in Michael’s new apartment. Tomorrow night we’ll re-assemble his furniture, but most of the grunt work is done. Now, when I think of it, maybe I won’t be able to catch up tomorrow

The Song of the Day is the hauntingly beautiful “Alone With The Moon” from the 1998 Tiger Lillies album “The Brothel to the Cemetery”. Hear it on YouTube.

It’s not very long since the last post. I had risen extraordinarily early, spent hours writing my post and hearing the Leningrad Cowboys. All the while the sky grew lighter.

I changed back to the Sigma 28/1.8 to capture the sky gradient. It’s not a particularly good composition or such, it’s just a sky at the time when clear skies are most beautiful.

Later, when I went to work, I used the Nikon 70-300 again. This bicycle is a good old fried, the last time we had it, was in “831 – Just One Of Those Things“, and that was already the second time, but a good actor can be employed more than once

The Song of the Day is “Blues Before Sunrise” from the 1997 John Lee Hooker album “Don’t Look Back”. Hear it on YouTube.

OK, this is the last post for today, promised

Yesterday I went to bed very early, exhausted from editing all those Vajont pictures, with only the first post written and no end in sight.

This morning I woke up early, in fact it was still night, but I was awake, and so I sat down in my study, and while I worked on the images for “995 – Dies iræ!“, I had the camera on the tripod, the Nikon 70-300 VR mounted, mirror lock-up dialed in and a cable release attached, and in that way I casually took photos every once in a while. This is one of them, again with liberal amounts of processing applied

The Song of the Day is “One Of These Mornings” from the 2002 Moby album “18″. Hear the song on YouTube.

Yesterday was not my most productive day. When I got out in the afternoon, it was not much more than driving to the lake for some swimming, and to a restaurant because I was hungry.

Anyway. I still had a bracketed image of the sunrise, thus I was not too worried. The view is, as so often, from my study, and processing-wise this image was rather complicated. I used two differently mapped images from Photomatix, lots of adjustments in Photoshop, some Snap Art and a little blur to top. Oh well, I like it

The Song of the Day is still Gershwin. I didn’t want to use the title “Summertime”, maybe we get a little more high summer this year, but the lines are of course from “Summertime“. The version, that we hear today, is not even sung, and it’s one of the more unusual recordings of this song. It’s from the 1968 Ten Years After live album “Undead”. There is even a video, albeit of very bad quality, on YouTube, but in fact it’s so bad, I’d really urge you to go to Deezer for the album.

One more week, one more sunrise in Vienna. This was Friday morning. I didn’t shoot much more that day, it was a travel day as usual, although I saw a breathtaking sunset when arriving in Carinthia, confined to the train and helpless as usual

Regarding “Urban Dreams”, I think this is definitely a SoFoBoMo candidate. I may use this or last week’s image, probably even both.

The Song of the Day is “The Sun” by the young Austrian singer Anja Plaschg, aka Soap & Skin, to be heard on her March 2009 debut album “Lovetune for Vacuum”. Hear it on YouTube.

I’ve promised you a sunrise, well, that’s a sunrise

This V shape is the lowest piece of horizon that I see from my living room window, and twice a year, most probably for one day only, the sun rises exactly there.

It was purely by accident. The sky began to be colored nicely. I took the 70-300, pulled all the way to 300mm, and took some shots of the three trees on the roof garden at the other side of the block. I have done this more than once, but none of the images has ever been particularly good. Neither have these, but as it grew brighter, I watched the spot every once in a while. The next couple of shots was better, having a nicely textured sky, and then …

… and then the sun came out. I made three exposures in short sequence, the whole thing lasted not even a minute. This is the best of the three, with the sun just in the right position.

Today is a public holiday in Austria. I was on a trip out in the country, I made some 70 images, but I haven’t been very inspired, and I actually enjoyed snapping away, relaxed, well knowing that the Image of the Day was already taken, processed and uploaded.

None of the country images could be SoFoBoMo stuff anyway, and after my morning image, everything else would only have been a bonus, thus I leave it at that.

The Song of the Day is the Harold Arlen song “When the Sun Comes Out“. I love the Ella Fitzgerald version from the “Songbook” series, I adore Barbra Streisand’s artistry, but today it is the voice and the soul of Judy Garland. See her on YouTube.

EDIT: Oops! I just found out that I have used this title and this song in Judy Garland’s version already once in 384 – When The Sun Comes Out. Well, tastes rarely change

You can’t imagine how incredibly relaxing this feels, especially after yesterday’s tour de force: a day with just two images!

This year’s SoFoBoMo project, “Urban Dreams“, is, well, urban, and that means that my weekends in Carinthia are actually days off. In a way at least. I was quite busy non-photographically on Saturday, I didn’t manage to shoot great varieties of images, but I have no problem with that.

The sunrise image is, like so often, a look from my study. It was 5:55am. Boy, is this sun already high! On the other hand, in only six weeks is summer solstice. Time is fleeting

The other image, this forest way, was taken in the afternoon. I have used the Nikon 24/2.8 for both images. It’s not more than a “good enough” lens, but it is small and light. That’s a nice contrast to the Nikon 70-300 VR that I’ve hauled around most of the week before.

The Song of the Day is “That’s The Way It Is” by Ella Fitzgerald and the Ink Spots. I have it on another of these 10 CD boxes for 10€. 10 CDs of old Ella Fitzgerald recordings, and there is no overlap with anything else that I have

The only source that I could find on Amazon is a four CD compilation called “The Golden Age of the Ink Spots”. Deezer has the song on another album, but that seems to be unavailable on CD.

Oh those lazy Sunday mornings! I’ve slept the night on the balcony and woke up on 6:30am, just in time to take a series of images of a beautiful sunrise through the window of my study, a view that you have seen so often now, a view that still always changes.

Well, this time it was particularly precious, because that was pretty much the last sun for today. It does not rain yet, but the forecast for the whole week speaks of clouds, rain and snow lines. Yikes!

I have no idea what I will do the next days. Maybe I’ll do some macro shots. Pretty good idea, given that I have my macro flash equipment here in Carinthia

The Song of the Day is “Sunday Mornings”, originally from Mary Coughlan’s 1987 album “Under The Influence”, but because that album currently seems to be pretty unavailable, I link to her “Platinum Collection”. Sorry, no lyrics, but Deezer has the whole collection for you to hear.

Weather forecasting is still not an exact thing, even when it’s only for two days, but by and large the margins of error diminish. The promised rain has finally got us today.

The sunrise was OK, even quite beautiful, I might say, but from then on the weather went rapidly down the drain. In the afternoon I was shortly out to fetch some things, and from the car I made this image.

The hump on the hill are the ruins of castle Landskron, the one that featured prominently in “905 – From Out Of Nowhere“. Yes, yes, I know, one should not take photographs while driving

The Song of the Day is “Still Raining, Still Dreaming” from the 1968 Jimi Hendrix album “Electric Ladyland”. Hear it on YouTube.