Time to go home again, unfortunately :( But my trip home wasn’t straightforward – I made a detour for sentimental reasons, to refresh memories from my childhood by visiting the Île d’Oléron.

I don’t think it’s made for this, but it fits perfectly =)

The only piece of highway I drove on the 1500 km of route back home.

Closing in on the atlantic coast.

This is what happens when you give decisive power to navigation software and forget to exclude ferries…

I was lucky though, 5 minutes after I arrived at the ferry it started it’s way across the Garonne.

Finally crossing the Viaduc d’Oléron.

La Brée-les-Bains.

For years we played volleyball tournaments there in the summer. It’s a difficult memory, but somehow it feels sad that this tradition apparently has deteriorated gravely. Though, I even met someone there whom I knew from back then.

Same place, about a decade ago…

Saint-Denis-d’Oléron.

Once upon a time, this place was like a second home to me. Now I felt strangely out of place.

Same place, viewed from opposite directions and a time difference of 15 to 20 years. The lower one is actually a scan from an old film negative.

There used to be a camping site where this marina is located now.

Enjoying the beach for a little while.

Unfortunate vignetting by the polarization filter, even though it’s an extra slim one.

Tourism…

Remains of german occupation, slowly dropping into the sea as the coastline erodes.

Phare de Chassiron.

The initial plan was to stay the night there, enjoy the perseid meteor shower in it’s strongest night. Unfortunately the wind from the sea was so strong that it rocked the tripod, making star shots quite impossible and it also carried with it dense clouds just shortly after the sun vanished.

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Taking cover from the strong (and cool) winds.

Nightfall at the beach.

I missed the ocean, and already I miss it again!

But I left there with the fall of night and drove until I found a small town near Cognac to spend the night.

Next morning, starting early when everything was still blue. Last day.

Still a thousand kilometers ahead.

Sunrise.

And there I was: 12 hours later, back in Germany, back in the rain. That’s it. But it seems there might be more travel on the horizon this year, though not as a vacation.

Planned as another rest day. It wasn’t.

La Mongie. I haven’t done a 100 km tour in years. So my bright (spontaneous) idea was to do one just the day after I was on the Col du Tourmalet. And of course, go up there again, from the other side. Boy did the last bunch of kilometers hurt…

A welcome photo break. My road bike’s transmission isn’t exactly cut out for mountain climbing, requiring a lot of force rather than allowing high cadence. So in the end I needed a few micro breaks of 30 to 45 seconds every once in a while a few kilometers short of the summit, simply because I lacked the power to go on pedaling. Switching the transmission would likely mean switching most of the drivetrain – which could be quite costly. Therefore I’d rather live with the pain ^^

French ski resorts are mostly a great example of horrible architecture…

And there I was: 65 km and and about 2200 meters total ascension, only 35 km to go to return to Argelès-Gazost.

You can’t go too fast anyhow, there might be sheep on the road. Or cattle. Or tourists.

Back home. Not much power left, but happy ^^

Photo backup. I always made a triple backup. A good decision, as I was tired enough to delete my primary photo drive by mistake the day after I returned to Heidelberg…

Blue hour, closing the 10th day.

11th day, the weather coincided with my need for rest.

My last day in Argelès-Gazost. Bye.

Two months ago, this was my plan to refresh my french skills. Still haven’t made it past page 50 :/ But in the end, my french hadn’t degraded as badly as I feared.

It was hard. But once again I made it up there. Must have been somewhere around the 10th time since 1996.

There’s hardly any biker not taking this shot. The really weird ones are the people going up there by car taking the same shot.

14 years ago, I did the same. Guess I’m out of that age.

Just for the record.

Ok, this one is totally weird. But kind of funny.

Back home.

Reading.

Resting.

Another day of rest… Lots of birds in this entry.

Time to read.

Shy one.

Not so shy.

Grand spectacle au Donjon des Aigles à Beaucens.

Many of the following shot are cropped. These birds were so close they sometimes would fill the frame, but they are also so extremely fast that getting them on the frame is the real problem. My respect for nature photographers documenting these birds in the wild grew enormously that day.

Duck and cover! Condor approaching.

A native vulture.

Good morning, sunshine!

And good night. But wait, first what was in between…

Breakfast. In France, even I have breakfast.

Just for curiosity, the same view at a similar lighting – 11 years ago, summer of 1999:

I took this one with my family’s very first digital camera, a Philips ESP80. Has about the quality of a 3 year old cellphone camera, but back then it introduced me to photography.

Side of the road…

Somewhere along the way I lost my bike computer. Without touching it, it simply fell out of it’s socket. The search was unsuccessful, since I noticed it some kilometers later. But, the company was nice enough to replace it a few days ago. Nice gesture!

For the following shot I climbed up on the side of the stream…

Going up Hautacam again, this time in the car…

…to get there just in time for sunset, with loads of lenses and the tripod.

So much for sunset, now it’s time for nightfall.

Setting up the camera.

Stars coming out…

…lights going on…

…cars driving by.

The milky way. Well, parts of it. These were shot with the 35 F2.0 wide open, at ISO 6400 and a shutter speed of 15 to 30 seconds.

By the way, some of these streaks are planes, some might be satellites. But the one or other might already be a member of the Perseids, only a few days before their maximum.

This one is from the D200 with the Sigma 12-24. Even at the small size you can see the rather low image quality.

Actually my plan had been to do some really long star trails this time, with the valley lights below. But weather prevented that – fog crept over the mountain tops from that direction.

Another day, another rainy morning. But fortunately, only the morning was that wet. Since the last day’s images weren’t too many and to great, here’s the next one already…

The sun is coming through.

Anyhow, the descision was made against cycling, in favor of hiking.

The road leading up to the Col de Tourmalet. The first time in 20 years that I went up there by car. From there leads a road/trail up to to the Pic du Midi de Bigorre, at 2877 meters above sea.

A vulture, one of many circling above.

Rocks.

Tourists.

First, flat part of the road.

Shot not with the 105mm, but with the 70-200 extended to 340 with the 1.7 converter.

The target.

Thistles were about the only flowers blooming at that time of the year.

Wait, WTF!? Lamas!?

Sheep, cattle and horses are nothing special there, but Lamas I have never seen before in the region.

Getting closer.

Note the nicely folded rock structures.

Just above the clouds.

Reminded me a little bit of Mont Ventoux. Actually this was the first time I really experienced the reduction of Oxygen in the air (you know, barometric formula…) – not that I haven’t been at these altitudes before, but usually it was while skiing, and there you don’t ascend to that altitude but get comfortably carried up by a lift. This time it made the way up for me (unfit as I was) a lot harder ^^

Last action for my S3 safety boots. They lost their sole that day, due to materiel aging – they had been going since 2002. Going to miss them.

Nearly there.

There.

Brèche du Roland.

Descending.

Hello!

Posing. It’s a shame that they are all spray-painted… at least if they would be full colored ^^

Somehow, the clouds most times move up the Tourmalet from the east side.

West side.

East side.

First venture into night shooting there. More to come.

Summer. Lots of it.

But finally some rain, and a tiny bit of cool air.

Chasing goslings.

Fourth game.

Rain.

Rain & sun.

Rain, sun & I.

Playing with fire.

Stars. Test shots.

Ugly plastic + sunset & blue skies = a little less ugly.

First try bombed. Back to black. This time it went much better.

First steps to become an environmental physicist… it’s just mud. As you might have noticed I don’t post new entries as often as usual any more. That’s because of all the mud, well, more likely because of what is behind it: I finally started to work on my diploma thesis.

I’m hardly any good with compliments, but since many people told me lately how much they enjoy my pictures, both in the comments of the blog as well as in person, I’d like to say this… Thank you! =)

Dirty business.

First game. Goal.

Fish. Watching this while I ate didn’t make it better.

Work.

The last shot with the D70.

Cleaning the old D70’s sensor before it appears on eBay.

I also cleaned the newer bodies – even though the D700 even has a built-in cleaning mechanism it does collect significantly more dirt than any other camera body I had before. Good thing I’m comfortable cleaning the sensor myself. The best one so far was the D5000 – it’s cleaning mechanism was so good I never had to clean the sensor myself during the 10 months I had the camera.

Working on some ads.

Morning guest.

Second game. No Goal.

SAS Marathon in Heidelberg – this time not as work, but as a personal photographer and cheering fan of Tina ^^ Different shots at Christoph’s blog.

Racing up the Schlangenweg, my sportive part of the day.

Running 21 km after having organized the Biblis demonstration the day before.

Go Tina, go! ^^

Descending back to the city.

It’s nice to be at an event like this for once without having to shoot.

Till next year.

Birdwatching with the 70-200 + 1.7 TC

Testing something new.