The Four Seasons

This is not a blog post about Vivaldi's seminal work. 

Some years ago when living in my previous apartment, I photographed the same view from my kitchen window during the four seasons, Spring, Summer, Autumn and winter.

At the end of the year, I combined them into one image using my image editing programme. It was purely a personal project and the people I showed seemed to like it.

My 1st attempt. View from the kitchen window

After a two year break from thinking about it, I decided to do another. This time with an historical angle.

I am lucky to be living in a beautiful area that has several castles, forests and ruins all within a short distance from my apartment. This was important because I couldn't guarantee that the weather would be the same as I wanted when arriving there. 

My partner and I visited several places over a period of weeks before deciding on a view halfway between my place and the town of Balsthal. There is a parking spot which affords a spectacular view of the ruins of Castle Neu Falkenstein.

My rules for the four seasons project are pretty much the same as for when I am documenting progress on building sites. I wrote about it here.

We picked a good vantage point and my partner , Sue, took pictures of where I was standing and which fence post I would be standing beside as an "aide de memoire" for later.

 

My location. Google Streetview image

 

  

 My viewpoint. Picture by Sue.

 

The exact fence post!😀

I took the first picture this year (2020) in February. We had a light sprinking of snow and I didn't know if there would be another* 

 

February 2020

After choosing a viewpoint, it is also of course important to use the same camera and lens setup for every picture. I settled on my Fujifilm XE-2s coupled with the 18-55 zoom, always set at 55mm. The focus point chosen was always the middle one and I had the "level indicator" always visible in the viewfinder in order to keep the camera level. Doing all this helps the final editing to go a lot smoother.

Guidelines showing the center of the image

The following images were taken using the methods and equipment desribed above in April, July and October.

April. Spring

 July. Summer

October. Autumn

After the final picture was taken, it was a simple job to create a new document in Affinity Photo with a layer for each season. I then divided the image into four and erased any bits that didn't belong. This is the final result.

I am rather pleased with the end result and am currnetly looking for my next location(s).

This is a simple and very pleasurable photo project that gets you out of the house and exploring new (or familiar) places. It is interesting to view the changes over the course of a year. Of course, your final image doesn't have to be in the style that I did. You could display them separately or have all four in a frame.

Whatever you do, have fun and be safe.

Tom

 

 *There hasn't been yet.(November 2020)

Google Earth sometimes gets it wrong...

I recently came across information regarding ruins of a 14th century castle about ten minutres drive from where I live.

Google Earth also informed me that there were indeed ruins to be found in this Area.

Further searches informed me that the ruins of Witwald were in a hazardous state and that there would be no responsibility for any injuries suffered.

I decided to venture forth on a Saturday morning with fellow Brit and hobby photographer, Stephan. We began our search at 10:30 in the morning and, using info from the Swiss castles website, we set off through the forest to try and locate them.

Stephan has lived in the area for fifteen years but had never heard of these ruins so we had to largely guess where they might be.


We walked and walked and we walked. It was mostly uphill and the forest was quite dense. We had to stop several times just to catch our breath. The picture I had saved was used to try and identify the ruins under a rocky outcrop and a few times, we thought that we had found them but it always turned out to be a false alarm.


I didn't want to go home empty handed so I took some HDR images in the forest. 

Finally after three hours of walking and finding nothing but trees, we decided to head back home.


When we reached our starting point, I saw a Land-rover coming towards us with "Forestry service" emblazoned on it's side. Stephan flagged the driver down and asked him if he knew where the ruins were. 


The driver parked his car and talked a while to Stephan. 


"They're one hundred meters over there" he said pointing into the bush over our shoulders.


We couldn't believe it. Barely visible through the foliage, were the ruins. We had spent three hours walking with rucksacks, water and camera gear in a totally different direction. Google Earth had placed the ruins in a totally different area.


On this screenshot, you can see where Google Earth has placed the ruins (Ruine Witwald) and where they actually are (blue rectangle)

Five minutes later, after another uphill climb, we were at the entrance to the ruins. Exhausted, tired and gasping for breath.

After we caught our breath (even Stephan's dog Leila was exhausted), I set up my tripod and camera to take some HDR's. Ten minutes later we were finished and making our way home.


Here are two of the images from the ruins.

The entrance to the ruins.

HDR was used to bring out the background details

On another note. I took the above video using the very small Sony Bloggie camera. It shoots three different HD video formats and still images as well at 5 Megapixels. I'm going to carry it around with me more and post videos from time to time. Feedback would be appreciated.