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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 -
Heidelberg Castle
the Heidelberg Castle is world-famous and famous for the romantic feelings it triggers. Anyone who comes to the city in spring or early summer enjoys a mild warmth and a light wind that flows through the Neckar Valley.
In autumn, the winds that hits the photographer is icy cold and the facial masks that you have recently at hand are a welcome support in taking pictures. The warm colors of the following photographs deceive one of them.
Fog in the valley of river Neckar at Heidelberg (sunrise over Old Bridge). © Julian Köpke The warmth of the Neckar gives rise to considerable early mist during a cold night, which stretches over the trees to the south and west. The mists also reach the Heidelberg Castle, which subsequently appears a little more romantic and ruined.
The Heidelberg Castle in the morning mist © Julian Köpke 
The Heidelberg Castle in the morning mist © Julian Köpke -
Dahlia, my love
Dahlia, my love. Flowers that make us forget the burden of a moment. Photographed each of them alone and as a pair. I tested HighKey shots instead of HDR, in the background different white tones.
The result did not leave me alone. Afterwards I wanted to try my hand at photographing a hen’s egg to study shades of different white (basically grey and yellow) tones. Unfortunately this did not happen today due to an emergency examination.
Red Dahlia II (single shot) © Julian Köpke 
Two Dahlias in a white vase © Julian Köpke More flowers to be seen in my Flickr-Album Flowers.
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Porphyry
In our vicinity there is a quarry that shone over to us in the afternoon with its warm colors. Loading the car with the heavy photo equipment, I drove there to try a few shots. The grounds were not as welcoming a I had imagined. Concrete paths and many closed gates that hindered a free study of light conditions. A remarkable amount of people on the road, often with dogs.
The quarry named Referenz was used to mine for quartz porphyry, a red stone similar to granite, either used for road construction or e.g. statues. One rock formation was outstanding, with trees on it and a warm and yellow surface.
Quarry Leferenz in Dossenheim (mined for quarz porphyry) © Julian Köpke On a mountain north of river Neckar through Heidelberg that was used spiritually by different subsequent cultures, there is a ruin of the monastery St. Stephan, with an arch that has probably bee reconstructed. It was already pretty dark when I got there. For the following shot it took me 2 minutes exposure time and 2 more minutes for noise reduction. You don’t see it.
Arch of a door of Stephan's monastery Heidelberg. © Julian Köpke The Heidelberg Castle is always a great sight. It was almost too late to find a balance between the decreasing daylight and the electrical illumination. Nevertheless, with a single 90s shot at ISO 400and f/8, the basis for this image, which is a kind of negative, was achieved. The dark Heidelberg Castle dominates the scene.
Heidelberg Castle and castle gardens © Julian Köpke There is also a version in Black ad White and a color version of this photo.
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Reflection II
Most of what we do see with our eyes is a reflection. Any light from a bouquet of flowers is just reflection. Looking through a bottle shows beside reflection some refraction. The only exception, where we don’t see reflected light is e.g. offered by an open fire or a light bulb. The sight of a star also shows direct light, which is usually subject to refraction due to the atmosphere.
Our eyes seem to absorb the light when we see. In fact, they can also reflect the incident light. We know this phenomenon from cat images that we have mistakenly photographed with a flash light.
Sitting in front of me my right eye is on the viewers left side and the left eye is on its right side. The instrument uses a red and a green laser at a harmless energy dose.
Fundus of right eye seen in red and green laser light © Julian Köpke 
Fundus of left eye seen in red and green laser light © Julian Köpke With different wave lengths of a laser an ophthalmologist is able to see different structures of the fundus and uses this property for diagnostic purposes. Looking at the green color only that stems from the green laser, the result is a monochrome image that shows vessels of the surface of the retina and smalls nerves joining the papilla.
Fundus of right eye seen in green laser light © Julian Köpke 
Fundus of left eye seen in green laser light © Julian Köpke Looking at the red channel displaying the reflections of the red laser light, monochrome images show deep vessels behind the retina.
Fundus of right eye seen in red laser light © Julian Köpke 
Fundus of left eye seen in red laser light © Julian Köpke Beside the medical point of view there is an aesthetic one, too. Dr. Gösele, to whom I owe these beautiful pictures, confirmed to me the impression of an astronomical night shot, which other viewers also feel. With a courageous crop you get there:
At a certain crop the fundus of a human eye seen in laser light resembles and emission nebula with a star in its center. © Julian Köpke This is how the central part of my sensor looks like when creating photographs or X-rays. My wife immediately urged me not to fall into a narcissistic trap ….
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Reflection
The word „reflection“ has a double meaning. It describes the mental process of thinking and the physical process of mirroring. In the German language the same sounding word is written in two different ways. Reflection meaning thinking in German language is written with an x (Reflexion).
The image in a mirror or a reflection of a water surface makes us thinking. That’s a pleasant quality. So I got attracted by some leaves on a water surface of a fountain in the well preserved older part of Weinheim.
These leaves showed a beauty of color and a sense of rest. They seem to float motionless and at the same time flow slowly with the water. This is an image of time.
Autumn leaves © Julian Köpke 
Autumn leaves © Julian Köpke 
Autumn leaves © Julian Köpke -
Chestnuts X-ray mammography photo
I hav been looking forward to the mammography of these chestnuts a whole week. It was almost too late to find some specimen that had not yet been trampled or eaten. Once again it was helping hands that made this picture possible for me.
It was difficult to get an attractive composition. Indeed some skills have to be developed to place the chestnuts – because they really hurt. The sensor was too small to x-ray the whole composition at once. The solution was a mosaic with two tiles.
The result is convincing to me. The viewer may feel the thorns looking at the image.
Chestnut X-ray mammography photo © Julian Köpke -
Loaf of bread
Our universe has to some extent a structure like a foam. How to image this ? Computer simulations did already some successful representations.
Doing X-rays on a freshly baked loaf of bread I got some features of a foam. My loaf was bigger than my X-ray sensor, so I had to stitch two tiles. Photoshop did a really good job to merge the X-rays.
The image looks more like a interstellar object than a loaf of bread.
Loaf of bread mosaic X-ray photo © Julian Köpke -
Stages of a print
„Print early – print often“: important advice given by Charles Cramer. With my battery of my Nikon empty we strolled along a cornfield. A broken corn cob in a mature field suddenly caught my attention. The characteristic envelopes were partially peeled off. Red threads, which children use for playing as hair, hung tangled down. So I took my iPhone to get this image done.
Cornfield Ruit © Julian Köpke Beside the original with rogue disturbing lights I did some dodging and burning to enhance the print. This first step is the most important before getting into any other filtering process:
Cornfield with "rogue lights" © Julian Köpke 
Cornfield with compensated "rouge lights" © Julian Köpke
