Blog
A blog about photography and travel.
Along the Rhine
Exploring the Rhine and it’s tributaries
In the latter half of November I preceded a work trip with a few days in the Rhineland-Palatinate where the Mosel and Neckar rivers join the Rhine, together with my brother Stefan.
The landscape was dominated by the rivers, beautifully lined with small towns, hill-top castles and forests in their still-colorful late autumn foliage. My favorite spot was Heidelberg, an age-old seat of learning on the banks of the Neckar which completely escaped the ravages of WWII.
In amongst all this natural beauty you also find the heartland of German industry. The BASF complex, on the banks of the Rhine in Ludwighshafen, is the largest integrated chemical plant in the world, covering 10 square kilometers. Next time I will bring a drone to take an aerial view of it.
We stayed in Koblenz for one night and Mannheim for two nights, both fairly unremarkable cities.
Photos were taken on Fujifilm XT5 and XE4 cameras using the XF16-55, XF50-140 and XF23f1.4 lenses.
Easter in Munich
A very long Easter weekend in Munich
Easter is a good time for Icelanders to travel abroad. It’s a 5-day weekend and spring has started to arrive in Europe while in Iceland it’s almost winter still. So for Easter I usually go somewhere abroad. This time it was to Munich, where I stayed for a full week.
Munich city center was restored after WWII to a degree I’ve not seen elsewhere in Germany. Take for example the Residenz palace: unlike Versailles where you visit a handful of rooms, the Residenz not only has a number of breathtaking galleries but you can also walk through the complete palace, where everything has been restored. You can literally spend hours there.
Munich is a city of attractive public spaces, with beautiful historical buildings, an excellent public transport system, the Olympic Park, the Englischer Garten, and so on. An obviously affluent city, very German, with a stark reminder to the past in the Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site just outside the city.
A short train ride from Munich you find Ulm, Augsburg and Nurnberg, and the foothills Alps are not far to the south. I did not visit all these places so there’s room to go again.
I was happy with the photography overall but, as usual, street photography in Germany was difficult.
Netherlands and Germany
Last work trip before summer vacation
In early June, I travelled to the Netherlands for one final work trip before the summer vacation. I was there for two weeks and for the weekend I decided to go to the Ruhr area, which I’d not visited before.
The Ruhr’s claim to history was being the center of coal mining and steel production in Europe. That’s mostly gone now, but the Ruhr has evolved into the most densely populated area in Europe. A bit of a monstrous urban conglomeration that’s not that interesting to visit. Something to do with the area being built around coal mines and factories instead of city centers, and, of course, having been destroyed in the war.
Working in Germany
Germany in the depths of Covid
At the end of February I travelled on business with two colleagues to Germany through the Netherlands - my only business trip during Covid. Things have been relaxed in Iceland compared to other places so it was a bit of an experience to be in Europe where everything is closed. Quite a depressing atmosphere to be honest and a good reminder of how privileged we have been in our country.
We took a flight from Keflavík to Schiphol and from there we drove to Dinklage, a small town in the state of Lower Saxony. The town itself is not interesting but there is a nice woodland area and an old monastery on its outskirts which is well worth a visit. We also managed a day trip to nearby Bremen and a short stop in Amersfoort on the way back to Schiphol.
I brought along my trusty Fujifilm XT2 and the XF16-55 and XF23f1.4 lenses. If you need one lens for a Fuji X camera I can recommend the XF16-55. Good image quality, covers the most useful focal range and is built like a tank. I don’t agree that the XF18-55 kit lens is good enough, the XF16-55 is far superior in my opinion.
It was nice to get out of the country for a bit and I did get some good snaps here and there, my favorites being from a walk through the woods in the fog.
