A collection of photographs document my travels from Madrid to Hamburg and onward by train, bus and boat to an East Frisian island. Come join me to see what catches my eye on this long European journey.
These photographs were all taken at the end of December and I have only just got round to writing this post. I had taken quite a few rolls of film over the holiday season and scanned all of them in early January. However, I had a bit of a creative pause in January and February due to a very cold and miserable Munich, with little time for “good lighting” and creative photography. Now that we are well into Spring, I have a few other rolls I want to post and some ideas for some new mini-projects.
About the shots
The initial idea was to document my Madrid - Hamburg flight as I remember having some great landscapes to look when I did the same route a few years ago. Unlucky for me, there was cloud cover the entire way. Not one to give up I decided to extend the post and document my trip, which would take me from Madrid up to Hamburg and onwards via public transport to the East Frisian island of Langeoog.
The films used for this post were the humble Fuji Superia 400 and Kodak Gold 400, always surprise me for nice colour rendition for being a normal consumer grade film. All shots taken with my Leica M2 camera and 35mm Voigtlander F1.4 lens and my Leica Summicron 50mm f2 lens.
That’s what I call eating while waiting - doesn’t get more Spanish than this!
Terminal 4, Madrid’s newest Terminal building. I have always liked the design of the Terminal space, although unfortunately it is more form over function as the airport is not the best designed for the traveller in mind.
But from a photographer’s perspective, I always enjoy taking different shots of the wavy ceiling.
One of my favourite shots of this post - this scene and the colours caught my eye as I was in an elevator, luckily I had my Leica around my neck!
Same-same, but different!
I always like looking out for different reflections and images contained within images. Pity there was no one visible in the mirror image though.
Time to head off.
The airplane flew right past us and I barely had time to lift up my camera. By the way this was the only good shot from the entire flight, what a pity so much cloud!
Rules are meant to be broken it seems.
Hamburg train station, heading to Bremen to then get on a bus towards Bensersiel ferry.
I have always liked double decker trains.
2 hour bus trip to Bensersiel.
A typical German East Frisia scene.
Next stop - boat trip!
There was some really nice and bright lighting. Look at the wind farms on the far end of the photo, they are on the mainland.
I like how contrasty Kodak Gold comes out, reminds me of old holiday snaps.
Beer and sausage time.
One of the island boats heading back to the mainland.
The lighting was really nice and I wanted to see how the sun rays bouncing off the water would look like.
Welcome to the island of Langeoog.
Train #2 of my trip - granted this one only goes for about 2km.
This caught my eye on the walk home, I quite like how the perspective of this shot came out.
I can never resist some nice lighting!
I am pretty sure they don’t sell Kodak film anymore!
Tourist shot of the water tower and Lale Anderson statue.
See you next time, folks!
Overall observations
Despite the lack of photos from the airplane trip, I am glad I managed to get a decent set that documented my travels. I like the idea of documenting trips and being thoughtful about capturing interesting scenes you find along the way. Using consumer grade films like I did this time allow you to take many more snapshot type photographs and not worry too much about finding that perfect shot, which usually leads to better photographs in the end!
I hope you enjoyed this short post and there is plenty more to come soon.
Thanks for stopping by,
Neil
