Despite the fact that its been almost two months since my last blog post I have actually had the opportunity to shoot quite a bit during that time frame. I spent almost three weeks in Europe traveling between Italy, Austria and the Czech Republic as part of the international management class in my MBA program. I am going to start a series of updates with a few pictures from my 3 day stay in Linz, Austria and then share the pictures from Italy and the Czech Republic in separate posts.
Before sharing the pictures from the trip there are a few things I should mention about them:
- I learned once again the value of a tripod on a trip like this. I was indoors a lot more than expected in very low lighting conditions. Without a tripod this meant I had to crank up the ISO to its maximum setting on my camera (ISO 3200+) and use the largest aperture of the lens available (f2.8). You might notice a distinct grain in all of the indoor photographs and a lack of sharpness due to hand holding the camera in these conditions at slow shutter speeds. A lightweight tripod setup is a must for long trips like this and its now on my list of things to buy for use whenever I travel.
- The weather in Europe during my entire time there was overcast and either raining or snowing in Austria and the Czech Republic. I did encounter a couple days of sunshine in Rome but that was it for the three weeks I was there. Unfortunately the overcast skies and overall bad weather didn’t really allow for the scenes to display all of the color and textures that they would normally have in better conditions.
I have learned that photography is all about adjusting to the conditions at hand: bad weather, camera issues, models that don’t show up, etc. Unfortunately, I don’t feel my adjustments to the conditions in Europe brought forth the best examples of how far I feel I have developed in my photography. There certainly are a few keepers out of the nearly 600 photographs from the trip but it feels like I left too many potentially great images there. Having said that, I hope you enjoy the images that are here – these represent what I feel are the best of the rest.
The Monastery Of St. Florian which is displayed in the photographs below was built between 1686 and 1751 and is the largest Monastery in Upper Austria. It is the shrine of St. Florian, patron saint against fire and flood (and patron of firefighters). The photograph below is from within the abbey church and highlights the altar – the detail in the art and sculptures were amazing.
This was also taken in the abbey church and highlights the massive organ on the balcony which is still one of the largest in central Europe.
This is the Marble Hall at St. Florian and even with 30 of my classmates in the hall there was plenty of space in this magnificent room.
The 2nd place we visited while in Linz was the Mauthausen Concentration Camp. This part of our trip in Austria was optional and as someone who is interested in the history of WWII I was compelled to visit. My experience at the camp is something I will never forget. There are varied estimates as to how many prisoners lost their lives but they run between 100,000 and 300,000 people. I was especially moved by the personal memorials placed by family members in several parts of the camp along with countries placing large memorials on the grounds commemorating the lives of the citizens they lost there. I was first hesitant to post the pictures from the camp but after thinking about it I feel it is important to learn from a very disturbing period in the history of humanity. Instead of commenting on each photograph I will end this blog post and leave you to your own thoughts from the photographs. My heartfelt condolences to all of the families who lost loved ones here.
