Impressions from Aschaffenburg

Today, Zuleikha had a visitor. And since I wasn’t in the mood to chase always moving kids with one of my cameras, I decided to go and do something alone. So I took the car, and went to Aschaffenburg.

If you go early enough and right into the center of the city, drive down into the subterranean parking lot, and emerge from there again, this is what you’ll see:

That is Schloss Johannisburg right behind the market place, and right in front of the river Main. Interesting and impressive building, that – I went around it more than once, but didn’t want to wait for an official guided tour through it. From the shadowy side of it, I looked over the river Main and thought what a nice place this is:

After that, I started walking the city a bit. The art museum wants an entrance fee but forbids to take photos, so I thought ok, keep your art for yourself. I went into the pedestrian zone instead:

Looks like cheap Korean food. But I went on, and found a music store. I can hardly resist to enter a music store when I see one, so I did, and saw this, at approximately twice the price of our car, new:

On I went through the pedestrian zone, and into a park with some strict rules. This one is by the way picture No. 2000 taken with my E-PL1. Oh, and all of today were taken with that camera, and with Mitchie’s 20mm Panasonic lens:

And while most other cities poison the doves, Aschaffenburg actually cares for them:

She had her lunch break there, like she told a friend:

In front of some American store, I saw a “Look but don’t touch” sign on this bicycle:

And back at the castle, one of the gardeners was doing his work:

Later I heard a group of street musicians, and went after them. But they were gone too fast, except one, who tried to earn some coins on this single pub guest (I had to take that very same photo with the woman’s camera afterwards):

On some wall, a fresco:

And in a corner, an ancient Volvo car (and behind that, in orange an also ancient Laverda motorcycle):

Then, kind of an abstract hug:

And a building which claims to be the oldest one around:

Around another corner, a totally new and expensive car:

At the end of that dead-end road, a building with what looks like a view. Like the one from the castle I bet:

I went back into the direction of the town itself, and into the biggest church around. No, I’m not that religious, but these buildings are often very interesting, and most of them are open. Plus, if they’re catholic churches, they sometimes have awesome pieces of art inside. Like this one. It’s not important what is shown here, or who made it, but think of the comparison: as photographers, we decide about what to leave away from a given scene. Then we guess or measure the exposure, consider about the needed depth of field, shutter time and maybe a few other things like composition, and snap away. Done. Compare that to all the work and dedication, the love and/or blood, sweat, and tears which must have been given to create something like this:

Isn’t that breath-taking?

Some churches almost know how to even light the stuff inside very effectively. Well for my taste, this was lit a bit too warm (maybe I should recommend them Kirk Tuck’s latest book about LED lighting, which would even be very environment-friendly?), but on the other hand, that colour temperature of the light was almost the same like the one of the candle beneath, so this was placed and lit by someone with an eye for it:

In that place and light, even the Easter decoration looked nice:

And this last piece of art was in a shadowy corner, and lit very unevenly and chiaroscuro-style. Impossible to get it completely in one photo without throwing some additional photons into the darkest corners at least, so I concentrated on a small part of it again:

After that, I left and took a photo of an Italian food shop, and an Argentinian restaurant almost next to each other:

Buffalo mozzarella cheese? Buffaloes in Italy? Hm. And who dares to milk a buffalo?

Aaah, here they are served as a hot main dish. Maybe they milk them before, and sell that milk to those Italians?

Thanks for viewing and reading.