Flensburg, Germany. February 2007.
It was a cold and overcast day in Flensburg, but when my wife and me were down at the pier, the sun peaked through the clouds for a few seconds, to create a magic athmosphere. It lasted just long enough for me to take this picture.
Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel, Germany. March 2007.
Iran Air, Boeing 747SP-86, EP-IAB.
You may remember my earlier Spotter’s Story post. That day, the photo conditions were certainly far from being optimal - full backlight, lots of reflection and spray. As you saw earlier, the photos were thus lacking contrast, and the aircraft looked flat.
Now, over the past days, I have been experimenting with a HDRI-like workflow for single RAW shots. And here’s the result. More to come soon.
Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel, Germany. October 2008.
Jet Kontor, Cessna 525 Citation CJ1, D-INCS.
Jet Kontor’s Citation taxiing after landing in the beautiful afternoon sun. Jet Kontor offers executive and express flights, including transfers of donor organs. Always great to see them around!
Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel, Germany. October 2008.
Lufthansa (Berlin-Stiftung), Junkers Ju-52/3m, D-AQUI (D-CDLH).
OLT - Ostfriesische Lufttransport, Fokker 100, D-AOLG
Two aircraft from different generations parking side by side in the late afternoon sun.
I finally managed to find a WordPress theme that I like. It’s called iNove and was created by mg12. Hope you will like it, too!
Disclaimer: I am not liable for the content of external websites.
Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel, Germany. July 2007.
Lufthansa, Airbus A321-131, D-AIRX.
Lufthansa’s retro jet on short final for rwy 23.
Hamburg, Germany. May 2008.
This is an aerial view of the 819th Port of Hamburg Anniversary. I took the picture out of the Condor B757 that brought us back from our Crete vacation. The pilot circled twice over the port, offering us a most spectacular view. In this picture, you can see - among others - the cruise ship “Brilliance of the Seas”, frigates “Blas de Lezo” and “Vasco da Gama”, and the Russian clippers “Kruzenshtern” and “Sedov”.
As you may have noticed, some pictures have been resorted. Those are the shots that have recently been reworked, using my new and improved editing workflow. I changed the post date to the date when I uploaded the reworked shot, to give you a better overview on what has been updated.
These days, I am obviously more focused on reworking older shots, but I promise there will be new ones soon, too. However, I feel that the changes with my editing workflow have significantly improved the quality of the pictures, that’s why I am so keen on reworking the old ones.
I will occasionally publish some before/after mashups, to illustrate the difference the new workflow makes. And I am also working on an illustrated workflow guideline, though that may easily take a few more weeks before it is ready.
Anyway, in a nutshell, the message is: I am still alive, and so is the site. So stay tuned 
All the best
Stefan
Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel, Germany. July 2007.
Rossiya - Russian Airlines, Tupolev Tu-154M, RA-85695.
Touching down on runway 23. Arriving from St. Petersburg-Pulkovo.
Hamburg, Germany. August 2008.
Hamburg’s landmark, the ‘Michel’ church, with it’s bluely illuminated bell tower during the Hamburg Cruise Days 2008.
Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel, Germany. May 2007.
Emirates, Boeing 777-36N/ER, A6-EBY.
With a huge roar, this mighty beast came out of the woods right in front of me. In 2007, Emirates served Hamburg with 2 Triple-Sevens daily, from New York and Dubai. They were later replaced by A340s, and the New York service was completely cancelled this year. Quite sad, as there are not that many widebodies serving HAM anyway.
Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel, Germany. August 2008.
Air Berlin, Airbus A319-112, D-ABGK.
Taking off from runway 33. The crew is visible in the cockpit.
Seattle, USA. September 1995.
View from the Space Needle.
A grim sky greeted us upon arrival to the United States. Above the old Kingdome, former home of the Seattle Mariners baseball team, you can see a faint image of Mount Rainier.
First of all, apologies for the lack of recent updates. I took some time to work on my editing technique, with quite good results so far.
Thus, I decided to do a little “housekeeping”. I will check all shots I uploaded so far. Most will be reworked, and a few will probably leave the site. The process will take a couple of days. In the meantime, I will upload a few shots from earlier travels, including pictures from Mauritius, South Africa and Kazakhstan. Don’t expect too much in terms of quality, though - they were all taken with a rather mediocre 3 Mpxl compact camera.
Then, as the site has grown, I am working on proper gallery pages. The blog will stay, though, so that you can keep track of the most recent uploads.
Thanks a lot for the constant support you show by visiting this website. I am amazed that this small hobby project that is featuring no more than my own humble photos is nowadays regularly attracting over 500 individual visitors each week.
All the best
Stefan
Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel, Germany. August 2008.
Aeroflot, Airbus A320-214, VP-BRX, “V. Surikov”
Named after the Russian painter Vasily Ivanovich Surikov (1848-1916). Flying as SU126 to Moscow-Sheremetyevo.
Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel, Germany. August 2008.
Germanwings, Airbus A319-112, D-AKNI, “Hamburg Shopper”
On a hot August day, Hamburg’s own logojet is taxiing for takeoff from runway 33.
Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel, Germany. August 2008.
Lufthansa, Boeing 737-530, D-ABJI
Short final to runway 15.
Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel, Germany. August 2008.
HapagFly, Boeing 737-8K5, D-ATUD
Belly shot from under the approach path to runway 15.
Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel, Germany. August 2008.
Aer Lingus, Airbus A320-214, EI-CVC
Short final to runway 15. I went for a nose shot seconds later, but got a bit of the perimeter fence in the way. Shame on me, but I’ll include it anyway.
Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel, Germany. August 2008.
Lufthansa Regional (Contact Air), ATR-42-500, D-BTTT.
Another shot from the 31 August Ohemoor session. More to follow.
Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel, Germany. August 2008.
Air Berlin, Airbus A320-214, D-ABDM.
On 31 August, I found a perfect setup in HAM. A nice and sunny afternoon, plus landings on runway 15, which is rather unusual. Thus, at the Ohemoor, you could get really close to the action. More shots from that session will follow throughout the week. Enjoy!
Following post was inspired by a thread called That Perfect Aviation Moment on AirSpaceOnline.com. I posted this story there first, but then decided to publish it here as well, along with some more photos from that day.
1st of March 2007 was a mostly rainy day in Hamburg. My wife and me had a week off and spent the day in and around Hamburg. In the early afternoon, it stopped raining and the sun came out. As we were close to the airport, I suggested to go there and watch some arrivals. I parked the car nearby and we took a walk to the Flughafenstrasse bridge, from where you have a good view on runway 23 arrivals.
Lufthansa, Airbus A300B4-603, “Kronberg / Taunus”, D-AIAK.
Above LH A300 was one of the few widebodies arriving that afternoon. While I was mostly paying attention to the other arriving narrowbodies and CRJs, my wife walked around and took a look at what was parked at the gates. She then returned to me and said: “Look, there’s an Iran Air aircraft parked at the gate, but it doesn’t look like the usual A300.”
She was right. From where we stood, we could only see the tail, so we walked a bit closer to get a better view - and then I realized it was an 747SP.
And just when I realized that, they started to push it back from the gate. It would take off from runway 33, and there was no chance to get a good view on that from where we were standing. The only good option was the “Coffee to Fly” spotters point - but that was 3 km away from the car, which again was parked 1 km away from us. We briefly looked at each other, and then made an immediate decision: RUN!
We sprinted back to the car, me still carrying my photo gear. We crossed a street on red light and almost got hit by a bus. Reaching the car, sweating and panting, I fired up the engine, my camera bag still on my shoulder. If there were any red lights or speed limits on the way, then I did not see them.
With screeching tires, we stopped at the “Coffee to Fly” only very few minutes later. I jumped out of the car, looked to the end of the runway…
…and saw to my delight that the 747SP was beginning the takeoff run in that very second.
I had only seconds to get the camera set up, but I made it. Light was poor, backlight and lots of spray and reflection from the still wet runway. But I made the best out of the situation, and got some fairly good shots.
That was one perfect aviation moment. Funny thing is, I am far from being a hardcore spotter or aviation photographer. I go out shooting maybe once every 1-2 months, and will just shoot whatever is in the air then. But when I saw that 747SP being pushed back from the gate, I smelled blood.
Turned out that the aircraft (registration EP-IAB) had been restored to airworthy condition only a few days before, after having spent more than 2 years on the ground along with Iran Air’s other 747SPs.
I was definitely very happy with my fairly rare catch. Farewell, EP-IAB. Have a safe flight back to Tehran!
I had placed 3 new picture posts in the queue, which should have appeared automatically during last week (I was absent, thus I could not update manually).
As you can see, it did not work… but I will add new pictures tonight, when I’m back home. Thanks a lot for your patience, and please check back tomorrow.
All the best
Stefan
Sandlake Dunes, Oregon / USA. September 1995.
We reached Sandlake in foggy weather. Strolling through the endless dunes towards the Pacific Ocean, all we heard was the everlasting swell of the surf. I tried to capture the atmosphere before my friends vanished in the fog.
This picture is featured on Google Earth at:
45° 17′ 29.49″ N 123° 57′ 34.25″ W
Link to KML file
Hamburg, Germany. August 2008.
Inside the bell tower of St. Michaelis Church, during the Hamburg Cruise Days 2008. The whole port and all landmarks in Hamburg sported a blue illumination throughout the weekend. I did not enhance the colors of this picture, nor did I apply any other special editing - the picture represents the real impression of what the bell tower looked like that night.
I apologize for the apparent lack of uploads this week. I currently encounter some technical difficulties with uploading new photos, since upgrading to WordPress 2.6. I hope to have these problems sorted out very soon now.
Good news is that the short break with uploading gave me a chance to take more photos. Please expect some nice night shots from Hamburg Port soon - I was shooting in the night from Friday to Saturday, while the port sported a blue illumination, which was set up for the Hamburg Cruise Days 2008. I never saw so many people with tripods in one place ever before in my life… 
Please check back during the coming week!
All the best
Stefan
Bryce Canyon, Utah / USA. September 1995.
The Bryce Canyon Amphitheater with the famous Hoodoos. We stayed overnight near the National Park, and went back next morning at 6am, to see a gorgeous sunrise. With all the impressive landscapes we saw during our trip through the United States, it is difficult to say which one I liked best. But this one is definitely a candidate.
As you certainly noticed, I have made some changes to the site. I am quite obviously not an expert on that field, so the logo and the color design may see some more fine tuning.
Also, I have upgraded the WordPress software to the latest version, 2.6. Plus, I introduced a new picture category, Travel. This was done mainly to prepare the upload of a couple of photos from my 1995 US West Coast trip. I will upload them over the next days.
Also, there will be pictures from Crete, Mauritius and South Africa soon.
I hope you keep enjoying the site. It is my pleasure to welcome over 100 individual visitors each week already, and I hope it will become even more.
All the best
Stefan
Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel, Germany. September 2007.
KLM / Air Atlantique, Douglas DC-6A, G-APSA.
Beautiful weather, a beautiful aircraft… the 2007 Hamburg Airport Days were just… beautiful!
Tierpark Hagenbeck / Hamburg, Germany. April 2007.
It’s not hard to tell that this bear really enjoys bathing.
Published with kind permission of Tierpark Hagenbeck.
Disclaimer: I am not liable for the content of external websites.
Altes Land, Germany. April 2007.
This bee is certainly enjoying the dainties that spring has to offer in the Altes Land area, which is one of Germany’s largest growing areas for apples and other fruit. It is located south-west of Hamburg. I would recommend to visit it in spring (mid to late April, depending on the weather). The sight of thousands of apple trees being abloom is just spectacular.
Both Hamburg, Germany. April 2007.
Following a recent discussion in a photography forum tonight, I have been playing around a bit with some earlier attempts at creating HDR images.
The Town Hall picture is featured on Google Earth at:
53° 33′ 1.72″ N 9° 59′ 39.58″ E
Link to KML file
Near Hamburg, Germany. February 2008.
Gorgeous sunsets and fooling around with flashlights do go together sometimes…
Near Travemünde, Germany. May 2007.
A tree on the cliffs near Brodten, at the German Baltic Sea coast.
Tierpark Hagenbeck / Hamburg, Germany. April 2007.
He looked me straight into the eyes. Yes, this picture was taken at the zoo. But there can be no doubt that this mighty beast was fully aware of my presence at this moment.
Published with kind permission of Tierpark Hagenbeck. Whenever you are in Hamburg, make sure to pay them a visit. It is one of the most beautiful zoos I have ever visited.
Disclaimer: I am not liable for the content of external websites.
Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel, Germany. September 2007.
You do feel small in front of the mighty Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engine of the A380.
Near Rethymno, Crete / Greece. May 2008.
Archway within the Arkadi Monastery, which is famous for the Cretan revolt against the Turks in 1866.
Near Hamburg, Germany. April 2007.
Valentina and her sister are not yet ready to sail the Seven Seas. The sky gives them an impression already that times ahead may not always be easy. In Germany, we use to wish them to always have a hand’s breadth of water under their keel.
Tierpark Hagenbeck / Hamburg, Germany. April 2007.
There was a young lady of Riga,
Who smiled as she rode on a tiger.
They returned from the ride
With the lady inside
And the smile on the face of the tiger.
- Author unknown.
This tiger certainly has no lady inside. He’s just taking a rest to quench his thirst.
Published with kind permission of Tierpark Hagenbeck.
Disclaimer: I am not liable for the content of external websites.
Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel, Germany. June 2007.
Germanwings, Airbus A319-112, D-AKNI.
Germanwings’ logo jet “Hamburg Shopper” taking off from 33. Lighting conditions were not optimal, so I played around and tried some panning shots. These are shots of fast-moving objects, taken with a longer exposure time than usual (here 1/125 sec., which is still rather short for panning).
While shooting, you don’t hold still, but follow the object with the camera. The result is a blurred background, while the moving object is supposed to stay sharp. The above result is far from being perfect, but for a first attempt, I am quite happy. Hope you enjoy it!
Near Hamburg, Germany. December 2007.
It was a freezing winter’s night, but the oak tree took the cold with an eternal grace. In the background, the everlasting glow of the city completed a very memorable atmosphere.
Hamburg, Germany. June 2007.
The port never sleeps. Daylight is replaced by thousands of lamps, so that work can go on for the night shift. Every day, every night.
Taken from St. Michaelis church tower (Hamburg’s emblem, the ‘Michel’) out of the hand with an exposure time of 1/2 second.
Hamburg, Germany. September 2007.
Lufthansa, Canadair CL-600 CRJ-100LR, D-ACJH
Visitor to Hamburg Airport Days 2007.
I have added a page with links to several other photography-related sites or blogs which I visit regularly. You can find it here.
Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel, Germany. March 2007.
Cirrus Airlines, Dornier 328-110, D-CIRC.
Taking off into a dramatic sky.
Keukenhof, The Netherlands. April 2007.
A field of golden tulips at Keukenhof Gardens.
Published with kind permission of Keukenhof Gardens.
Disclaimer: I am not liable for the content of external websites.
Chania, Crete / Greece. May 2008.
The variety of boats in the port of Chania ranks from brand new to… well, not that brand new anymore.
Near Prinias, Crete / Greece. May 2008.
The Agios Panteleimon Chapel is watching over the area around Iraklion. The chapel is located within the ancient Minoan ruins of Rizinia. Seems that the fascination of a stunning view worked already 4000 years ago.
This picture is featured on Google Earth at:
35º 10′ 11.56″ N 25º 0′ 29.94″ E
Link to KML file
Near Hamburg, Germany. February 2008.
The sky over my home was on fire that evening.
Chania, Crete / Greece. May 2008.
The chair may have seen better times already. But the view on the beautiful old port of Chania is priceless.
Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel, Germany. May 2007.
Approach lights to runway 15 at Hamburg Fuhlsbüttel airport.
Near Hamburg, Germany. December 2007.
In a clear winter night, 2 days before Christmas, I went down to the pond in our yard to see if I could find some elves or gnomes. As you can see on the picture, I did not find any, but the scenery was magic nonetheless.
Stemwede-Levern, Germany. March 2007.
Built in 1922, this is now one of many museum windmills along the “Westfälische Mühlenstraße” (Westphalian Mills Route).
This picture is featured on Google Earth at:
52º 22′ 10.28″ N 8º 27′ 46.38″ E
Link to KML-file
Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel, Germany. September 2007
Lufthansa (Berlin-Stiftung), Junkers Ju-52/3m, D-AQUI (D-CDLH).
“Tante Ju” (Auntie Ju) performing spectacular maneuvers at the Hamburg Airport Days 2007. Actual registration is D-CDLH.
Welcome, Visitor!
As you may notice, this site has changed a bit. The earlier version was created with a design program. That was pretty much my only option, as I had no clue of HTML, PHP etc. However, the software offered only limited options, especially concerning user interactivity. And I had to create each picture page manually.
Self-coding was no option - it would have taken ages to learn the basics. I was then suggested to use WordPress (thanks, Mark!). It is offering a lot of features I was looking for, such as user comments, RSS feeds and more. But I was still missing a good solution to display the photos. Thumbnails + naked fullscreen was not what I had in mind.
Then, I discovered PicLens. One of the greatest things since bread came sliced, and compatible to WordPress. See the “What is PicLens?” page if you don’t know it yet.
So, here it finally is: my WordPress photo blog with PicLens. Now that I got it set up, I can finally focus on editing my photos and upload them. I have already uploaded a couple of old photos, to get things started. Keep stopping by, I will see to make at least 2-3 new uploads every week.
I hope that you will like the site, and I am looking forward to your feedback to the pictures (you can post comments on all pictures) and the site itself.
Enjoy your stay!
Cheers
Stefan
Espelkamp, Germany. October 2007.
Pearls of dew, shimmering like diamonds in the sun, are this spider’s first catch of the day.
Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel, Germany. September 2007.
Airbus Industrie, A380-841, F-WWOW.
Making a low pass over runway 05 before landing on 33. Arriving as visitor to the Hamburg Airport Days.
Keukenhof, The Netherlands. April 2007.
If you like tulips, go visit Keukenhof Gardens in spring. I have never seen so many flowers before.
Published with kind permission of Keukenhof Gardens.
Disclaimer: I am not liable for the content of external websites.
Damgarten, Germany. July 1992.
Russian Air Force, Mil Mi-8, 43 (Red).
Taken during a visit to Damgarten Air Show. Unlike other military air shows, there were no barriers here. You could sit in most aircraft, or take rides with the helicopters. I have never experienced such an open air base before, nor ever after again.
