Last year in September, I went to Photopia "Festival of Imaging" in Hamburg. I wasn't overwhelmed by the products presented, but yeah, I do not really need any more gear. The visit wasn't for nothing, though, because the Khrome booth and surroundings were great and I got to meet a lot of awesome people.

This was especially true when I went on the photowalk with Jason Kummerfeldt a.k.a. grainydays, who I share my internet pseydonym with (or whatever that's called nowadays). We even had a little chat about how he found the name and how I found the name and that he never even visited the .com version of his name, because the web is dead and everything is on social media now. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Jason later posted a video on YouTube which has me in it at ~12:40, right before I sneakily took 2 pictures of him chatting.

Jason and some guy chatting

Jason and some guy chatting

I also enjoyed talking to Karin Majoka (who brought a d-word camera) and Laetitia Heisler, who creates the most spectacular double exposures. Because of all the talking, and because HP5 pushed by 2 stops just does not work in sunsets, I only took 2 more pictures:

Jason and the crowd

What happened to the road?! 🤔

Hiking in Brittany also was the shootout of the 28mms. The Leica, which was usually loaded with Wolfen NP100 BW film, had the Elmarit 28 ASPH mounted, and the Minolta, loaded with Portra 400, sported its magnificient Rokkor lens. And I can tell you, the Minolta is not worse than the Leica, while being cheaper and coming with a camera attached! Total bargain if you ask me.

This is what it looked like:

One of these is the Leica, and one is the Minolta, but I'm not sure which one is which 🤔

You've probably seen the color shots by the Minolta in the last post, so now it's time for the Wolfen/Leica shots.

I really liked the view of this old lighthouse, especially when a historic sailboat was passing by.

The same bay as in the last post, but this time shot in landscape and bw.

Brittany is rock land, does not matter if color or bw ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

Soft flowers + hard rock = soft rock??!?

Spectacular clouds and sailboats and a view.

I really liked that lighthouse.

Yes I did.

Last summer, my family decided to go to Brittany, France 🇫🇷, because we thought it wouldn't bee "too hot". With a maximum temperature of 21℃ over a period of 16 days, we were not disappointed in this regard. We could have done it without that much rain, though.

The manoir

We rented a flat in the Manoir des petites Bretonnes, which was beautiful. But due to the weather, we were seldomly able to sit outside and enjoy the beautiful garden.

Here we could have a cidre with our neighbors while talking about what to do with the children in the rainy weather of the next day.

This is the house we stayed in. It was surrounded by hydrangeas. If you look closely, you can see the raindrops falling.

Another perspective from the garden, which was huge, but very wet on 80% of the days. Did I mention it was raining a lot? 🤪

Bad weather hikes

We tried to be good Germans, bought new raincoats for the kids and went on a lot of adventorous hikes over rocks and beaches.

On rainy days, the smaller beaches were deserted. Nobody was in the water except some very few brave swimmers, and the ususal surfers and kiters.

The more popular beaches were mostly deserted, too. This beach was crowded when the sun came out.

Good weather hikes

On rare occasions, despite the weather report predicting a rainy day, we could see the blue of the sky for some moments. And boy, Brittany was beautiful then!

Small bay we found on one of the hiking sessions.

Brittany is great for all kinds of watersports. Like sitting in the rain.

There's rocks in Brittany. Who would have known? 🤔

Rocky rocks indeed. 🪨

I'm running out of words to describe rocks.

Medium weather hikes

On some days, the weather would change quickly. You never knew what's next 🤷‍♂️.

One day we went on a hike along the coast, and there were small stone houses and hydrangeas everywhere.

Visiting an old abbey

The abbey was mostly ruins, but included a lot of… you guessed it, hydrangeas.

They were everywhere.

All images above were taken with the Minolta TC-1 compact camera on Kodak Gold 200 and Portra 400. The TC-1 split the work with the Leica M6, which was usually loaded with B&W film. But that is for another post.

Last spring, my wife and me took the chance to spend a child free long weekend in Utrecht, the Netherlands. We had a blast, doing some sightseeing (like visiting the Rietveld Schröder House) or relaxing in the oldest outdoor pool of the Netherlands.

The place near Sinte Marie was special. There were university people with their books and other people with their joints, none of them bothered about the others, all enjoying the sun and having a good time.

Inside the church

We met this guy on the street, looking sharp, and he was very attracted by my camera (probably b/c it was not a phone). So I snapped a picture of him. Unfortunately, I only had my 35mm lens with me.

The area around Oudegracht is beautiful. Touristy, but beautiful. There are lots of cafes and bars located directly to the river, where you can have a good meal and a drink and watch the boats passing by.

Oudegracht seens from water. See the girl reading in the corner of the bridge? You see a lot of those secret little places once you go by boad.

Paddling around

The mosk, located near Lombok.

Hello? Has it really been 4243 days? I think when I last posted, Google News was still alive and growing. The iPhone 4s was the best phone you could get (in 2 colors) and almost nobody knew what a Bitcoin is, or what AI could do. Weddings have been celebrated, children have been born and my life is not the same as it was 11 years ago.

And yet I have picked up photography again, after a decade long hiatus. Several times, I was very close to finally deleting this blog, but the name (still happy with it) and the free Heroku plan have kept it running. Last time I was close to shutting this down was when Heroku cancelled the free plan, which made me move to fly.io, and I'm pretty happy there nowadays.

Right side: Me, when I did my last post. Left side: Me, today.

As I'm not a big fan of Instagram, I might post a little over here in the next time. We'll see.

Taken during my stay on Elba, in October.

Taken during my stay on Elba, in October.