Sunset at Schloss Ort

For today’s photo, lets stop in Austria, in Gmunden at the Traunsee. They have there this castle/chateau there right in the middle of the lake. You don’t see it form this side, but it on a small island with a bridge going to it.

I still remember how crazy bright the sun was that sunset. I had problems doing a composition, as I could not even look towards the sun. It was a warm day in the middle of January, in the Alps.

This is a single exposure, edited in Lightroom and Photoshop.

Sunset panorama from Hallstatt

I took this photo while visiting Hallstatt last year. As it is in the middle of the Alps, the sun goes down quite early as it hides behind them. And this was taken right at that moment, when only some sunlight still lit up the peaks of the surrounding hills. It all looked really nice :)

As you can see, the sky right above Hallstatt was not that interesting. Just no golden color. But the clouds further away were stunning. So of course I went with a panorama, to get as much as I could into the shot :)

This is a three shot panorama, merged in Lightroom, finished in Photoshop.

And here are few details:

Chained mountain at the Traunsee

Ok, it’s not really chained, but it does looks so a bit. This is another photo I took during my trip to Austria, to the Traunsee lake, in January this year (yes, this is in the middle of winter in the mountains :)). It was just so nice and sunny, even if not so warm. Traunsee is one of the many lakes in Austrian alps. Maybe not the most popular, but looks great anyway.

I used two separate techniques here. Fist, this photo is a long exposure. I used the Formatt Hitech 10 stop ND filter to get the water so perfectly smooth. Secondly, this is a focus blend. This means, I took a photo where I focused on the foreground and a second photo where I focused on the mountain in the back. Blending them was really easy, as the blend is in the middle of the blurred water, so it can be down with just little masking in Photoshop. More on focus blending here.

This is a blend of two exposures, done in Photoshop.

Not a winter photo from Hallstatt

So my plan for today was to go to Hallstatt in Austria to get some nice snow covered photos. And it all looked so promising. It snowed during the week and it looked all so great on the webcam they have there. So I made all the preparations, and just to be sure I checked the video again yesterday. And what would you know, it was warm there yesterday, so most of the snow disappeared.

I decided to move the visit by few weeks, and hopefully there will be more snow a bit later. But I already wanted to share a photo from Hallstatt today, so here is one. This one I took in summer last year, while I was there.

This is a blend of 5 exposures. The light on the church tower is so strong, that it was overexposed even in a -4EV exposure. Will try it with one even darker next time. Edited in Lightroom and Photoshop.

The stars over Vienna – plotagraph

I really like these subtle plotagraphs. When you look at them, it take a moment to realize that they move. It like a small surprise every time :)

For this one, I used a photo I took two years ago in Vienna, at the Karls kirche (Charles church). It was a blend of 200+ photos for the stars, that I now animated in Plotagraph Pro.

You can check out my Plotagraph Pro review here, and a guide how to create them here.

(if you use an older web browser, you may only see a static image, if you are on a mobile, please hit the play button to see the Plotagraph in motion)