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Valle Verzasca
The valley of the Verzasca is famous for its clear water, which makes its way through rocks and takes on a characteristic green colour. Correspondingly, many people are attracted to it. Actually, you’re here for hiking. The Postbus stops at manyplaces and spits out large groups of hikers.
The first day I wanted to try out different locations to see what to expect.
The bridge, named Ponte dei salti, with the two arches is from Roman times and is good for many selfies. With a long-term exposure one can see the arcuate construction with its reflection in the water. And the many visitors who flock on the bridge are miraculously invisible.
Arcuate reflection of Ponte dei salti, Lavertezzo © Julian Köpke Swirling water can be found everywhere, in a natural way picturesque photographs are created.
Verzasca water play © Julian Köpke To my surprise, the sun was seen and felt in the valley for along time. It got really hot. Only in the evening, when the rocks gave off their heat, did it become less agitated.
Light and shadow in Verzasca Valley © Julian Köpke -
Train ride
Lockdown drives us crazy. Official measures increasingly breathe the spirit of decay. The Age of Enlightenment is over. It is no longer a reasonable reflection that counts or thoughts, that are discussed. Politics behaves more like a war management. The first victim of a war is the truth. That’s more and more disturbing.
This morning I stepped over an enigma. A structure in the roof of our Main Station in Heidelberg. As an image, there are many ways this structure could be thought of: a top-down bowl, a flying saucer – or a light dome. As it was still dark about 6 o’clock the windows appeared in a dark blue, like the adjacent ceiling.
Other perspectives show a content that could be seen as a china plate. I couldn’t stop to photograph this dome.
Longtime exposures made from a train window have a look and feel of their own. Perspective loses its sense. A moment loses its meaning. But these images are inspiring.
How to photograph the feeling of eternity ? Can there really be a feeling of eternity or are we subjected to a deception when we perceive it ? Does time fusion help although a finite process ? The following image was captured with the Slow Shutter app on my cell phone with 8 seconds.
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Time fusion tulips
Longtime exposures hold a special appeal for me. Again and again I try do do it. I found the idea for this picture in a book about modern photography. The photographer took a picture of flowers in a vase with a specially built camera for many days until the first petals fell. The passing of time, which often cannot be experienced directly by us, can thus be illustrated by a photograph. Due to the new corona virus we had plenty of time at home to make flower photographs.
With my macro lens I can only realize the aperture value f/32, which means that even at ISO 50 the exposure time dose not rise above 15s possible when the lightbox is turned on. As an approximation to a true long-time exposure, I started a series of 23 HDR images at irregular intervals over the course of 4 days, just as it became apparent that my tulips would rise wide.
Time fusion tulips in a vase © Julian Köpke Each HDR image was created from6 shots at f/32 and ISO 50 with exposure times of 0.5s, 1s, 2s, 4s, 8s and 15s. The biggest difficulty was to block off a part of our living room before Christmas so that the exposures could always be done in the same way. Furthermore, the camera was not allowed to be changed by switching it on and off, changing the exposure times or removing the memory card.
I processed the layer stack of 23 TIF images in two ways. First straightforward as a smart object and then change the stacking mode in Photoshop as an average. Or fade out the layers after the start shot using black layer masks and gradually paint in interesting parts of the later images with a soft brush to create an overall impression. This approach was more promising to me than averaging the layer stack, which in my eyes expresses the flow of time too weakly.
Just to do the math: each image of my camera has 151 million pixels with a file size between 125 and 180 MByte in RAW format and 866 MByte after a RAW conversion to a TIF file. The total size of the project is something above 300 GB. 138 RAW files sum up to nearly 21 Billion Pixels. The final image has 159 million pixels due to some added background at the top of the result.
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Autumn leaves
We are the end of a year with unexpected restrictions and new dangers. A walk with friends out in the forest with their dog with a lot of distance between them feels uncomfortable. Time puts its stamp on you wether you want it or not. The feeling of an unstoppable acceleration is spreading.
There is a well where the dog finds some fresh water. Behind the well broken stones and an old tree.
Strolling through autumn forest © Julian Köpke There are less and less leaves on the trees, so that the forest becomes more and more monotous. A few trees and bushes still have yellow, green and even some red leaves. These splashes of colors are are transformed by deliberate camera movement into areas of color and luminous islands that cheer up.
Strolling through autumn forest © Julian Köpke 
Strolling through autumn forest © Julian Köpke 
Strolling through autumn forest © Julian Köpke 
Strolling through autumn forest © Julian Köpke -
Old Bridge Heidelberg
The Old Bridge in Heidelberg has the same attraction to visitors as the Charles Bridge in Prague or th Bridge to the Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome. Not everyone that the connective building between the two white towers houses an apartment. You come to the bridge early in the morning, you’re almost alone. This lonelyness is especially emphasized by a single walker.
Old Bridge Heidelberg overcast © Julian Köpke The morning calm is reinforced by the fog. Even the car traffic is not so loud as usual. Maybe the noise will decrease even more with electric cars. That would do us good. The view form the bridge downstream shows ships tied up on the shore. Only a few rowers are on the river with trainers whose voices hardly penetrate.
White Fleet berthed on River Neckar in Heidelberg © Julian Köpke 
Old tub on River Neckar © Julian Köpke The castle exercises the rule over the city. The strong contrast of the castle ruins over the roofs off the Old Town on the river bank is attenuated by the morning mist.
Heidelberg Castle, Old Town and River Neckar © Julian Köpke -
Painted waves at Kampen, Sylt
Looking at waves captivates us just as much as looking at an open fire. Digital photography provides us with very short shutter speeds or exposure times static, better: frozen images of the ups and downs of water movements.
There are no creative limits when trying to extend exposure times (or shutter speeds) instead of further shortening them, at most technical ones. Longer exposure times merge several moments of water movement and thus paradoxically have a dynamic effect, meaning a look and feel of a movement.
There is no right or wrong exposure time. There is a special impression for each exposure time in the fusion image of several moments.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating. By experimenting with a neutral density filter of 10 EV I managed to get at a not too long exposure time of 1/4s to 1/3s making waves look like painted. With only economical digital post-processing worth seeing images were created.
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Island in the sun
Always changing weather conditions is normal on Sylt, the northern most island of Germany. Heat, winds and rain alternate continuously. Just arrived I had to go straight to the beach, where clouds and sun welcomed me at the same time.
On the beach of Westerland © Julian Köpke The on average better weather awaits one in the north, the so-called elbow, a peninsula near List. A lot of unused beach chairs with low numbers are standing there.
Beach at so-called ellbow near List, Sylt © Julian Köpke Some 40 km south one finds the south tip of Sylt with its characteristic lighthouse. Many lighthouses can be found on this island, which is surrounded by sandbanks and often changing flow conditions of the water at low or high tide.
Lighthouse at south end of Sylt (Hörnum) © Julian Köpke A beach walk is accompanied by many birds, seagulls mostly, but also cormorants or sandpipers. Sometimes you flush them out unvoluntarily and they fly wildly confused.
Seagulls at Hörnum (Sylt) © Julian Köpke Cyclists become tiny like ants against the seemingly overpowering clouds. Without mountains one loses any scale.
Clouds hanging over the dike at Rantum polder © Julian Köpke Experimenting with longtime exposure my first results of waves at the beaches are not yet convincing. Three seconds turn out to be a vivid interval of the time fusion on my sensor.
Time fusion waves Dikjen Deel (3s), Sylt © Julian Köpke -
Leaving in a rush
I didn’t what would happen this rainy day. But the waves and surf on the mole was so beautiful, that I forgot the time.
All of a sudden I got an text without possibility to answer or to ask back. Transfer tomorrow cancelled. Nothing special in the world, but my friend was in need to reach Lucerne tomorrow.
Heavy winds at Heligoland force us to leave earlier. © Julian Köpke Back in my hotel I got everything organized: a ferry boat at 6pm, a train to Hamburg tonight, 2 single rooms for Monald and me in a nice hotel at the harbor. And a gorgeous day for photographers extra in Hamburg. I could keep cool blood all the time. My allergic reactions to pollen had left me in Heligoland once more immediately. It’s been worth the break with a lot of travelling, having a good friend with me.
Two short days and much recreation. We will have a lot of fun with the next waves to come this evening.
Welkoam iip lunn - Pier Heligoland © Julian Köpke 
Pier Helgoland © Julian Köpke -
Expanding universe
With these pictures, I attempt to take the water in a fountain the scale by using macro technique. Additionally, through different exposure speed the structure of the photographed water was changing at the same time, which made me think of the early phases of the expanding universe.
By pure coincidence, there is a help for the scale, because a little blue tit passed by the fountain. The exposure was too long to get an unblurred image of the bird. With the size of the bird in mind, you can estimate the size of the fountain.
Blue tit at my fountain reveals the scale of my fountain universe © Julian Köpke 
Reflections in a fountain: birth of a universe emerging from a black hole © Julian Köpke Blurry images look soft, the water more like a wad of cotton wool, the colors more like watercolors. The shorter the exposure speed was, the more the surface of the water appeared and the reflections from inside got more clear and distinct. Increasing structure reminded me of the early phases of our universe.
At the end of this process I found a crystal, the water surface and the reflected color from inside structurizing it. I couldn’t stop admiring the structures that appeared to my eye when photographing the fountain.
The increasing darkness during sunset interrupted my joy of discovery. Only the observation of the stars would still be able to mean an increase.
Reflections in a fountain: Crystal structure © Julian Köpke
