Good news! I was just notified that the second juried photography contest I entered—the 10th Annual Fine Art Photography Awards—also decided to feature my photos. That’s two for two!
To celebrate, I’m sneaking in another photo from the Dolomites here.
You can see my ”Landscape Nominee” winning photographs at the link in the first comment below, all selected from the Dolomites series I posted on Glass previously.
8/8 Fairytale Forests
7/8 Fairytale Forests
The stone at the bottom marks a border between villages, states, or countries. This could simply be a village marker (in the middle of the woods), though it could also be a very old marker for Bavaria, when the Palatinate region belonged to the Kingdom of Bavaria (pre-the establishment of Germany as a country). The French-German border has also moved several times, certainly crossing this spot.
6/8 Fairytale Forests
(I’ve decided to post the last three today. ‘Cause it’s spring.)
5/8 Fairytale Forests
Has anyone seen the white rabbit? 🐇
4/8 Fairytale Forests
3/8 Fairytale Forests
The Shimmy.
2/8 Fairytale Forests
I continue to buck the urban trend (which I just realized is this month’s theme, duh), with another photograph from Germany’s lovely woodlands.
1/8 Fairytale Forests
Okay, I'm breaking my post-Dolomites hesitation with a very different, old series that I took with my iPhone, before I had my DSLR (so don't expect too much). I've just reprocessed these so they're (believe it or not) *less* colorful than I made them the first time around.
I shot this series on a birthday hike with a good friend here in Germany (his birthday). The whole hike I was lagging behind the group, agog at the colors I was seeing in the forest that day. I'd hiked there before, but on this day there was something special about the light and atmosphere.
I do think there's something about Germany's forests that really is fairy tale-like. And surprisingly, we ended up taking a route later in the hike that brought us through the "Dörrenbacher Gebrüder Grimm Märchenweg," or Thorn Brook (I think) Brother's Grimm Fairy Tale Trail. Along it were various carved and built characters and scenes from the stories. From there, we ended up at some vineyards holding a little wine festival (so we stopped and had some refreshments), then walked into a village where we encountered an outdoor art exhibit. There I met my first local German artist, who happens to live within walking distance across the vineyards from us, and with whom I've become friends.
A lovely day, all in all.
(I've been waiting to announce this! Some of you have seen this photo before, but...)
🎉 Great news! In December I entered my first juried competition, an international exhibit titled Wonder, organized by the Center for Fine Art Photography in Colorado. I'm delighted that this photo was selected for the show.
The sole juror for the exhibit is the Senior Curator and Interim Director of the California Museum of Photography. With only 60 works chosen from an international call for entries, I am honored to be included. 😃
See the whole exhibit at:
https://c4fap.org/wonder-exhibition
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Looking otherworldly, these wetland grasses reflect on the waters of Alpsee bei Schwangau, in Bavaria, Germany. Look closely at the bottom or right, and you'll see the standing grasses create colorful wavy lines on the water's dark gray surface.
35/35 Asher
Why Asher? Look in the lower right hand corner.
This is the last photo I took on this day at Drei Zinnen Nature Park. It had gotten so close to dark and my tripod was packed in the car, so I struggled to get this photo to work without being completely grainy or blurry. (Yes, I've lightened this in post-processing.) Phone, tablet or monitor size is about all this will look alright on. I guess I'll just have to go back and hope for another chance at an evening cloud ocean, on this spot. Twist my arm! 😁
This concludes my series on the Dolomites, in South Tyrol, northeast Italy. Do I have more? Yes, of course, but I think this has gone on long enough. Thanks for indulging me!
34/ Cloud Ocean Blue
This feels to me like cloud-waves were lapping and breaking against the mountains. For a hint of scale, I think that is a large stand of juniper on the silhouetted hillside.
Dolomites, South Tirol, Italy
33/ Cloud Ocean Pink
Well, I’m in the homestretch of this series. These last few photographs—from here out—are during the final moments of daylight, as we were finishing our hike out of Drei Zinnen Nature Park. First the clouds dropped and began to envelope the mountains; eventually we were walking in limited visibility; and finally, when we reached our car, this was the view.
Dolomites, South Tirol, Italy
(I’m delighted to have gotten a Highlight, thanks Glass peeps!)
32/ Hunters Perch, Stiergarten
On this day, we took a gondola up, up, up to a mountain ridge above the tree line, then hiked our way across—going down and up again repeatedly—stopping at two huts for refreshment (a meal at the first, dessert at the second). Finally, we started making our way downwards and back across. It was a gorgeous hike, we came across so many interesting and picturesque scenes, beautiful vistas of the mountains on the other side of the valley, a babbling spring edged with ice, an area with many trees freshly felled by loggers, even a small moor preserve with an elevated boardwalk and signs, in what seem to be in the middle of nowhere!
After many hours, we eventually came to a densely forested area, then a steep gravel and dirt logging road that made constant switchbacks. At first we tried to cut through them, but after about four of those experiences, I declared the pathless footing too risky in the dim forest. It took much longer than we anticipated, the sun disappeared behind the high mountains, and we started to fret that we wouldn’t get back to our car before it got dark. (We had headlamps packed, but still.) Finally we broke out of the heavy woods, and were under the gondola line, with a bead on our car in the parking lot a ways below. It was the only car left, but there was still some daylight for the last 45 minutes, and we were happy.
Dolomites, South Tyrol, Italy
31/ Conifer, Clouds
Same valley where numbers 28, 18, 17 and 3 were taken.
Dolomites, South Tyrol, Italy
30/ Golden Threads
As we hiked into and back out of a mountain path, my eye kept being drawn to this slope, with it’s yellow lines and patches. It was a heavily clouded day, and my early photographs were dull. I watched for the sun to peek through, so I could properly catch the gold-against-brown coloring. It wasn’t until I examined this photo later that I realized it had reddish/pink ground cover, too.
Dolomites, South Tyrol, Italy.
29/ Dreischusterspitze
That literally translates into "three-cobbler peak." What that's supposed to mean, I have no idea. Maybe you'll need three pairs of shoes to climb it?
In any case, it's formidable. I don't think anyone's easily walking up this one.
Dolomites, South Tyrol, Italy
28/ Chapel Monument
(Bonus photo today!)
As we walked out of Drei Zinnen, we ended up in the clouds. The last hour was a mostly eerie silence, and billows of mists moved up the slope around us. With visibility quite limited, a surreal landscape dropping off to the left, and only the crunch of footsteps, it felt more like walking through a dream than any experience I remember.
This chapel doubles as a monument to Paul Grohmann, "a pioneer in exploring technically challenging mountains, [who] is thought to have made more first ascents of Eastern Alps summits than anyone else. Among these are the four highest summits in the Dolomites. In 1862, Grohman, Friedrich Simony, and Edmund von Mojsvár founded the Austrian Alpine Club. This was the second mountaineering club in the world, following the founding of the British Alpine Club in 1857. In 1875, he published a detailed map of the Dolomites (Karte der Dolomit-Alpen) and, in 1877, the travel book Wanderungen in den Dolomiten, which significantly stimulated mountain tourism in the area." — Wikipedia
Dolomites, South Tyrol, Italy
27/ Bacherntal Obscured
I’m guessing, but I think Bacherntal means, “valley behind the brook.” Which is exactly what it is, although the brook is more like a small river, and it’s now dry. But I digress. This is further up the valley from Fischleintal, which is shown in several of the other photos in this series. Every time we were walking in the two connected valleys, the clouds were doing interesting things. A photographer’s delight!
26/ Stone Wings
It was hard to come up with a title for this one. On the right, the rock reminded me of the wingtips of a bird. On the bottom, the stripes of a tabby cat. On the upper left ... ??? I couldn't complete the animal comparison. But those textures, colors, and the leaching minerals: big like.
Dolomites, South Tyrol, Italy
P.S. Today's photography task: RTFM for my camera.
25/ How Green is They Valley
Another non-drone but kinda-aerial shot of the valley around Sexten (Sesto). As we hiked on a mountain above, I kept eyeing (and photographing) this small green area, hoping the clouds would clear just long enough for light to hit it, and let me capture something interesting. Lo and behold, it eventually did. Persistence pays off.
Dolomites, South Tyrol, Italy
24/ Below Drei Zinnen
If you've been following along, you may recall that back on photo #21, I was struggling to find an image of Drei Zinnen I was happy with. This is the best one, and as you can see it's from the valley below. In fact, as far as I understand, this is the *only* place you can see Drei Zinnen from the valley, and from here the third spire (to the left) is hidden.
23/ Rienztal from Drei Zinnen II
If you look back at #5, you'll see this is the extended top part of the same scene. I might've stitched the two photos together, but our computers usually have horizontal screens, and even phones have their vertical limits. I didn't want this image to get too small to enjoy.
OTOH, for a larger in-person print, perhaps I should consider the work of combining them. Hmmm...
(I've hesitated to post this photo because of the overlapping areas. I have this general feeling that images should be independently fresh, to keep the viewer engaged. Repetition, to me at least, is often a creativity and interest killer.)
22/ Tears of Rust
This is the highest mountain of Toblach/Dobbiaco and Prags/Braies, and of the whole Pragser Dolomiten/ Dolomiti di Braies group.
Hohe Gaisl/Croda Rossa d'Ampezzo, 3146m, also called the "Red Gaisl" 🏔️
(Description graciously provided by Michael Steinwandter on Mastodon.)
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So, I agonized over whether to leave the bright spot in the lower right. I'm wary of anything that could lead the eye out of a photograph. Ultimately, I decided to leave it, since the shape of the diagonal lines hopefully bounce the eye back into the photo. What do you think, good decision or is the bright corner distracting?
Dolomites, South Tyrol, Italy.
21/ Dreizinnenhütte
Looking more like an arid desert landscape in this photo (Western US, or perhaps Spaghetti Western, most famously shot in Spain or southern Italy), it’s kind of hard to believe these are actually part of the northeastern Italian Alps. Like so many photos in this series, this again is part of the surreal Drei Zinnen Nature Park.
Drei Zinnen is a formation of three enormous spires/battlements of rock, behind and to the left of where I’m standing. They are truly monumental. Why have I not posted a photo of them yet? Well, I really didn’t get a good one that I like, the sun was moving behind them the entire time we were there. I have to decide if I think any are good enough for this series. An excuse to go back! (Like I need one, I’d be happy if we moved there!)
Anyway, the buildings mostly make up a lodge and restaurant, for hikers to stay or eat at. There is also a small chapel. We were there off-season so the Hütte was closed.
If you’re able to zoom in to the upper left of the buildings, you’ll see a large rock face with a row of openings at the bottom. Those were more World War I lookouts, leading into the kilometers of tunnels weaving through the region.
Dolomites, South Tyrol, Italy.
20/ Boulder of the Pale Mountains
Before they were called the Dolomites, the ridges in this region were simply called the Pale Mountains, after the nearly white rock so prevalent in this photograph.
The Dolomites are a UNESCO World Heritage Site, located in South Tyrol, northeast Italy. This mountain range is not only famous for its exceptional beauty. It is a unique geological formation, remarkable for the ancient, pale dolomite limestone from which much of the mountains are composed.
First described in a 1791 publication by naturalist Diedonnè-Silvain-Guy-Tancrede de Gvalet de Dolomieu, dolomite's composition was nearly non-reactive to acids, a great geological mystery. Unraveling its history took 88 years, and was informed by the work of Charles Darwin, among numerous other naturalists and scientists.
Pangaea, Earth's single supercontinent of 260 million years ago, is the original source of these mountains. Then an arid desert, gradually the land fell and was submerged in the ocean. Tropical oceanic atolls, archipelagos, and lagoons formed, friendly to life just above and below the water. Remnants of this life eventually became debris settling in the lagoons, and slowly became rock.
Over millennia, immense volcanic eruptions tore the region, tectonic plates moved and were uplifted, and the rock became the Dolomites as we know them today. The mountains are replete with fossils, evidence of their long history.
When the first treatise fully describing the region's origins was published in 1879, by geologist Edmund Mojsisovics von Mojsvar, it was deemed radical. Ultimately, it was revolutionary.
19/ Striations and Stains
Not much I can say about this except LOOK AT THAT MINERAL SEEPAGE!
I paint with soft (dry) pastels. One reason it's my favorite medium is because there is only pigment and just enough binder to hold the pigment together. The colors stay true (provided they're not fugitive colors*) if properly protected, whereas oil paint yellows over time, and acrylics dry darker than they look when wet.
There are artificial pigments and some derived from insects, but a lot of pigments are made from minerals. I look at rocks like these and imagine, in another day and age, gathering good samples to grind and mix into artist's colors.
*Fugitive colors fade, darken, lighten, or shift over time ... which is why Caucasian skin that was once white-pink in old paintings sometimes now looks blue.
And that's your art lesson for today.
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Dolomites, South Tyrol, Italy
18/ Fischleintal Path
This lovely trail was so serene to walk down. Stretches of it bordered a wide, dry riverbed, nearly white from the dolomite rock. Other parts, like this, meandered among conifers and large junipers. Three sides were bordered by mountains.
(I've decided to take down the other #18 I posted earlier today. Once posted, it simply didn't sit well with me in the presence of the other photos in this series.)
17/ Fischleintal, Blau und Gold
We took two long strolls up this valley, to—and past—the Talschlusshütte (aka Rifugio Fondovalle), a small hotel and restaurant, with delicious food and desserts. (The whipped mascarpone layered between puff pastry wafers, with wild berries, was to die for). I took many photos in this picturesque valley, and if we’d kept hiking up one of the mountains at its end, we would’ve ended up at Drei Zinnen.
16/ Veins in the Pastures
(or: Be Like the Leaf)
Not actually an aerial photo, but shot from high up. These little farm shacks are everywhere, EVERYWHERE, in the Dolomites. (For this one, I need a valley category. 😁)
South Tyrol, Italy.
15/ Dolomiti Spires in Fog
The last hour as we were hiking out of Drei Zinnen, fog started rolling in. At first the sun was just a bit obscured. Then we rounded a bend, and started seeing it creeping in front of huge masses of mountain. A little further, and this view appeared.
14/ Stained
Small detail of a big mountain, mostly above the treeline. See the doorway? It is one outlet of kilometers of tunnels, bored during World War I as defensive lookouts.
Dolomites, South Tyrol, Italy.
13/ Surreal Passport
While this isn't the most organized composition, every time I look at this photo (which naturally I took, but still) my mind is twisted a little bit, trying to figure out just what is going on out there. How does that black ridge on the left come out of the erosion debris field like that? And the rock is such a different color than the light grey in the foreground. I really really REALLY wanted to walk down this path and look more, but we were heading in the opposite direction, behind me.
The spires on the left are all part of a segment called Passportenkofel, hence the title.
Drei Zinnen Naturpark (aka Tre Cime di Lavaredo, aka The Three Peaks of Lavaredo Nature Park), in the Sexten Dolomites of northeastern Italy.
12/ Autumn Fireweed
This is (kinda) less monumental and lots more whimsy. I believe the wispy plant in the foreground is Chamaenerion Angustifolium—also known as Fireweed, Rosebay willowherb, and Saint Anthony's laurel.
Dolomites, South Tyrol, Italy
11/ Dolomiten Convergence
[Edited: This is Zwölferkofel, from a different angle, and much further away from the previous shot of the same mountain—the one with the cloud streaming off it.] This was the view from a traffic circle at the edge of a small village. Nearly every time we went around it I was aiming my camera out the window, trying to get a good shot. On this day we went around the circle more than once.
Dolomites, South Tyrol, Italy.
P.S. I’ve updated my bio with an artist’s statement of sorts, including the intention of my work.
10/ Silver Fence
A hazy sun, but still the fence was at just the right angle to catch its light.
Dolomites, South Tyrol, Italy.
9/ We Took the Path Less Traveled
No, not the obvious one at the bottom. We took the much more difficult path at the upper left part of the big slope, right under the craggy spires. It took us (at least) twice as long to get to the same destination, and there were moments where we had to scramble over and down bigger rocks. After doing that repeatedly, I realized my ankles and knees weren’t quite strong enough to make me feel secure, and I could imagine myself tumbling down the slope and ending up a broken heap of bones. Gotta fix that for next time. (We met another couple roughly half our age near one end, and she was so unsure of her footing that they abandoned the upper path at the next cross-slope turnoff. So there’s that.)
8/ Zwei bei Drei
Two memorials by Drei Zinnen Nature Park, in the Dolomites, Italy.
7/ Stardust in Autumn
The Dolomites are famous, in part, for the region's wildflowers. October was way past that opportunity, and yet there were still glimpses of spring and summer beauty in the way some plants were dying, or going to seed.
I think this photograph warrants zooming in, especially on the delicate seed-thingy resting on the more hidden blossom.
6/ Broken Cliff, Dolomites
While driving through a narrow valley in South Tyrol (Italy), I got my husband to pull over so I could jump out and shoot this amazing cliff.
I’ve been thinking perhaps I need to get a GPS device for my camera, so I can pinpoint where I’ve shot some of these more obscure locations.
5/ Rienztal (Rienz Valley) from Drei Zinnen
So folks, I've been thinking about how to best go about improving my photography, using the notion of "deliberate practice." This is the most succinct article I found, that summarizes numerous helpful approaches for (not just) landscape photographers:
https://www.dustydoddridge.com/blog/2023/12/16/deliberate-practice-making-art-in-landscape-photography
Also, this is a pretty thorough overview of the whole approach behind deliberate practice (short of buying the book "Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise”):
https://fs.blog/deliberate-practice-guide/
I'm already doing some of these, but have decided to proactively pursue more, so I'm getting organized to start pushing past my comfort zone on a regular basis.
Maybe something for you to consider, too?
4/ Green Stripe
Or is String Bean a better title?
Anyway, while on this trip I learned that the word "Ski" is pronounced "She" in the Alps, and in German in general. Makes sense, because that's the sound skiing makes. German is the dominant languages in this region of Italy.
Dolomites, South Tyrol, Italy; taken from higher up with my longest lens. I'm calling that aerial enough.
3/ Zwölferkofel (12 Peak)
Due north of a village called Sexten, this peak is one of several surrounding it, named after points on the clock. If you zoom in you’ll see there is a tiny cross at the top, always the sign of a rock climbing or mountaineering destination. My husband has climbed this peak.
Dolomites, Südtirol (South Tyrol), Italy
2/ Schwabenalpenkopf in Russet
That golden brown tone in some areas of the region made me all shivery with delight.
Drei Zinnen Nature Park, in the South Tyrol Alps, Northeast Italy.
1/ Dolomites Blue and Gold
Hi everyone, sorry I've been away (more about that below).
This year, I'll focus on posting series. This first collection will be of the Dolomites in South Tyrol, in Northeast Italy. This image was at my favorite spot, Drei Zinnen, a surreal landscape that absolutely blew my socks off, with wonders from start to finish, over a several hour hike.
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How've you all been? My absence was unintentional. I had a big (non-photography) project in September, traveled most of October (with little to no Internet), was out of the habit and busy in November, then came the holidays and traveling again. I'm back and have missed seeing your lovely work!
I have ambitious plans for this year, including starting to sell limited edition prints, and entering competitions. I will push my skills further, and practice a more mindful approach to what, and how, I choose to photograph. I've also been working on a few paintings. Ars Longa, Vita Brevis ... and never a dull moment!
I hope you're all well.
Stephan Henning recently posted a photo of a beautiful Turmfalke (a Kestrel, but the literal translation is Tower Falcon), which made me think of this shot from last autumn. Why? If you examine this closely, you'll see a tower in the dip in the mountain. It's called Martinsturm.
BTW, the sky really was these colors. They're ever so *slightly* more saturated here, but what I mostly did was bring out the foreground and mountain, which were in near silhouette in the original state.
See first comment for related photos.
First off, I love love love thistle. As I looked closer, there were several snails adorning its leaves. Apparently they think the thorny thistle is a thumptuous meal.
How fortunate that this particular snail was on the same focal plane as the large blossom at top!
Rough and Crumble
That's how I feel, after a terrible week with utterly tragic news.
I hope this photograph comes through sharp enough (I made it extra-large, for your big screens), because even though this is not a recognizable landscape, I’m pleased with the textures and tones I was able to capture. I'm exploring monochrome landscapes, to see what I can do with them.
View of 46.57825° N, 8.30256° E from Grimsel Hospiz, Switzerland (46.57126° N, 8.33112° E).
Waiting.
Vineyards around our village at the cusp of Spring. (If you're into this month's theme, there is actually a bird in this shot, LOL.)
I'm seriously thinking about using this for my first photo+painting endeavor. I've spent the day learning about soft proofing with the correct ICC profile, and making adjustments to "match" what I'm seeing in Lightroom. (Checking that "simulate paper" box when soft proofing in Photoshop is really unnerving.)
Printing alone is dang expensive. I'm going to order a photo print mounted on either aluminum or wood, thinking 75x50cm. Chewing on whether to pay an extra 30€ for a (spectacular) high-definition print. There's a whole lotta detail in those vineyards...
See this post for previous discussion about painting on photos: https://glass.photo/breitensteinart/1XBqMhYiNEt9nCbXOdsYtN
