Timelapse Trilogy

Time lapse is such a great medium to show a longish process really fast - perfect for impatient ones like me ;-)

Here I'm presenting you a sunrise, a sunset and something inbetween:

Almost Apocalypse

The other day, I caught this amazing sunset in the clouds:

Your private own KASTEEL

or: Three Belgian castles and one town

Last Sunday was a beautiful sunny day, one of those days where you (ok, I) would just lay on the grass, look at the sky and watch the clouds float by - something we ended up not doing.
We went on a day trip, not far from Brussels (oh yes, did I mention that I spent the weekend in Brussels?) to visit three castles, very different ones.

The first one, Kasteel van Gaasbeek, is very well taken care of, very touristy, with a guided tour through the chambers, paintings, a beautiful Versailles-inspired garden:




The second one we could enter was Kasteel van Beersel, the ruins of a castle with three towers. We climbed into all three of them to enjoy the view and our respective thoughts and let our imagination run wild about life and use in those rooms.





The Belgian town we went to was Leuven, a small but very lively university town with a rich architectural and cultural (obviously!) heritage:




Finally, and for some reason that wasn't easy to find, during the blue hour, we took a walk in the park of Kasteel Arenberg. Again, this castle was completely different. Surrounded by a public park, the castle itself resembled a huge mansion with little towers more than anything else:



Which one was my favourite? I really can't say...

Proyecto Destinotango

Last weekend, there was Museumsuferfest here in Frankfurt... lots of booths, lots of people, lots of shows (and lots of rain, incidentally). One of these shows was Proyecto Destinotango, by my friend S.'s (who dragged us here with her contagious enthusiasm) Tango teachers Karin & Luis and their musicians:

Happy Anniversary, Kaleidoscope Eyes!

It's been exactly one year today that I started my daily photoblog. 365 days, 365 photo posts and about as many comments, give or take.

I felt some pressure to choose a picture every day which is good as well as bad. Good, because I was actually forced to publish something for every day. And bad because I sometimes had the impression that the quality suffered from the quantity.

One year worth of pictures! Visitors from all over the world (ok, not quite but from five out of seven continents - thank you, guys!), yes, I've been watching you - scroll down to the bottom of the site if you want to know more. There are some countries on the list where I don't even know people. That brings me to a question: those who don't know me personally (or something to that effect) - how did you come across my blog? And I would like to ask you all to do me a favour: Please pick your favourite picture of the whole year and tell me which one it is! I would really appreciate it :-)

So on this memorable day, I am going to change the concept of my blog. From a daily photoblog, Kaleidoscope Eyes is going to turn into a weekly blog. Instead of one picture a day, I will publish a series of photos about once per week, always in a specific theme. This is starting tomorrow with some of the photos I took at the "Proyecto Destinotango" show on Sunday.

And the last "daily photo" is one of my favourite themes: sunsets.

Doggy Bag

That's probably the safest way of transport for a little dog in a big crowd - and check it out: the bag has cats printed all over that are staring at the little guy!

Up Up And Away

If this little girl had just one more balloon, I'm sure she'd take off ;-)

Dragon boat race

on river Main in Frankfurt:

1:25

I took the picture of these water lilies in Mini-a-thuer where everything is scaled 1:25. Now imagine that the flowers are, too...

Fake or real?

This is another version of the famous Sky Disc, the tasty one ;-)

Minsk

Bring me something back please, something small ... and blue.

Y. did and what it was is this crest of Minsk, the Belorussian capital, here pinned to my blouse:

Friends...

... come in all shapes, colours and ages - here 89. This wonderful lady is my latest one. Her name is Ruth, she is my parents' neighbour. I've known her for a few years and since my dad's birthday last week, we are on a du-base, we are friends.


PS: The post-processing I did here was adjusting the contrast, smoothing out the wrinkles a little and sharpening for the net.

Knights' Tournament

... taking place at the miniature version of the Wartburg:

The sky is the limit

This is the Ark Nebra building, near the place where the so called Sky Disc, "the oldest visual representation of the cosmos ever discovered to date", was found. The outer shape of the bulding symbolises the form of an ark made from gold:

Happy Birthday, Second!

"They say it's your birthday..." Have a great one, lil second :)

And as a special birthday gift for you - rain:

Miniature world

Last week, I saw all of Thuringia in one (admittedly terribly rainy) day, in Mini-a-Thuer, a theme park that exhibits 92 famous Thuringian buildings and their inhabitants:

Sharing

"Here birdies, free pizza for everyone, today only!!!"

Fly Away

"I want to get away
I want to fly away"

This fly was shot reading an information board ;-)

Geometrical Landscape

It's for a reason that they call my region The green heart of Germany:

Point Alpha

This is the miniature version of Point Alpha, the war memorial that was "NATO`s most important sentinel during the Cold War":

Lake Side

Details when I get back..

Bambi

Came across this little glass bambi one cold winter day ;-)

Pending Flower

A bunch of pendants I made these last days:

Thursday's Sun

Love the lovely sunset:

Le jardin est tout vert*

Although this is a photo I took at the palace gardens in Würzburg, I read the headline on a café's signboard in Brussels. I found it original because it says "the garden is all green" but when I read it out loud, it sounded like all the lines at all the signs during the summer: "le jardin est ouvert" (the garden is open). So, intentional or misspelling?

These feet are made for walking...*

E. made his first really independent step on the last day I was visiting in Brussels, and I took this photo just a day or two before, him sitting in his pram:

* And here the soundtrack to the picture.

Currant Impulse

They don't taste very good, they have too many seeds for such small berries and they're a pain to pluck. But they look as if they were made of pure crystal - white currants:

Hand down

A mosaic on a side wall of the Cologne Cathedral:

Orange Girl

I saw this girl when we were waiting for our tram and just had to "shoot" her. It always amazes me when someone matches everything they're wearing or carrying, even the plastic bag! I like doing that, too, but she took it to perfection:

Wildlife

.. on my kitchen table:

The Thinker

... not by Rodin but by me:

The electronic age

In cafés, you often see more or less original postcards to take away. The other day, I found a particularly interesting one and immediately knew to whom I was going to send it. So I did and I received a postcard - not an email - in response as well.