And finally I would like to show you a panorama photo I made on a watchtower on top of one of the mountains.
This photo was made using 24 photos and contains the entire surroundings (it goes a little more than 360 degrees round).
Warning, the image is rather large.

http://www.judobreaker.com/images/Panorama_germany_small.jpg

– Rocks – Rocks	– Volcano crater edge – Volcano crater edge	– Stalactite in the making – Stalactite in the making
– Cave entrances – Cave entrances

The photos in this post were made in Eifelpark Gondor, which is near Bitburg.
This is a park similar to the park in Daun we went a few days earlier except that it has a wider assortment of birds and some very fun attractions.
I do not have a lot of interesting photos of the attractions, but I do have some very nice photos of the birds however.

You will notice that the photos I made of the eagle are a very high contrast, this because these birds were behind a fence.
The only way I could make photos of them was through the fence which made rather stupid photos. However, when I put them against a dark backdrop (shadows in their cage) and used a high aperture value I could almost filter the fence out of the picture. By further increasing the contrast in Photoshop afterwards I was able to get these results.

– Falcon – Falcon	– Falcon – Falcon	– Snowy owl – Snowy owl
– Golden eagle – Golden eagle	– Eagle – Eagle	– Eagle – Eagle
– Eagle – Eagle	– Golden eagle – Golden eagle	– Golden eagle – Golden eagle
– Bear – Bear	– Bear scratching it’s nose – Bear scratching it’s nose	– Bear – Bear

These photos were made in the city Cochem. This is a rather old city (dating back to 1051) with quite a lot of older buildings such as the monastery and the castle.
Besides that Cochem also has the most beautiful view on the river Moselle there is.
All this together makes Cochem a very nice city and a very good photo location.

We’ve been to several of the key points in Cochem such as the castle and the lookout point at which you have the best view of the Moselle.

– Castle of Cochem – Castle of Cochem	– Moselle, Cochem, Germany – Moselle, Cochem, Germany	– Ruins in Cochem – Ruins in Cochem
– Cochem, Germany – Cochem, Germany	– Cochem, Germany – Cochem, Germany	– Moselle, Cochem, Germany – Moselle, Cochem, Germany
– Moselle, Cochem, Germany – Moselle, Cochem, Germany	– Moselle, Cochem, Germany – Moselle, Cochem, Germany	– Cochem train station – Cochem train station
– Statue in Cochem – Statue in Cochem	– Castle of Cochem – Castle of Cochem	– Castle of Cochem – Castle of Cochem

Of the monkey valley I do not have a lot of good photos as there were a lot of trees and not very much light. This resulted in a bad quality on most of my photos, though I did manage to make a very cute one.

The safari went a lot better as there were more open spaces. There were loads of different animals like lamas, goats, donkeys, deers and wild boars.
The wild boars were especially fun as they had tons of piglets running around which is a very fun sight.

The falkner show was not extremely special though it did give me some nice photos of an eagle owl.

– Baby monkey eating – Baby monkey eating	– Goat – Goat	– Goat – Goat
– Deer herd – Deer herd	– Wild boar – Wild boar	– Wild boar piglets – Wild boar piglets
– Wild boar piglets – Wild boar piglets	– Eagle-owl – Eagle-owl	– Eagle-owl taking flight – Eagle-owl taking flight
– Eagle-owl in flight – Eagle-owl in flight	– Eagle-owl – Eagle-owl	– Falconer – Falconer

As I told you in my previous post I went to Germany for the holidays. I went there with a bunch of friends.
We had loads of fun doing all kinds of things. We’ve ‘hiked’ through nature, we’ve done ‘safaris’ in wild-parks, we’ve visited towns and cities and we got lost in the woods in the middle of the night.
Now I’m not going to bore you with all of the stories (although that last one was rather funny) but I will show you some of the pictures I made during some of these trips.

The lodging we lived in during our vacation was located in the Vulkaneifel, a very beautiful, inactive volcano area in Germany.
Volcano soil is very fertile so everything grows well which results in a lot of vegetation. The dead volcano craters are usually filled with water. These volcano lakes are really beautiful as the water is very blue and there’s usually a lot of trees and other vegetation around them which makes for nice pictures.
Also, apart from the craters, there are quite a lot of mountains on which you have a brilliant view.

These pictures were all made around a group of 3 of these volcano lakes.

– Vulkaneifel, Germany – Vulkaneifel, Germany	– Vulkaneifel, Germany – Vulkaneifel, Germany	– Weinfelder Maar, Vulkaneifel, Germany – Weinfelder Maar, Vulkaneifel, Germany
– Weinfelder Maar, Vulkaneifel, Germany – Weinfelder Maar, Vulkaneifel, Germany	– Vulkaneifel, Germany – Vulkaneifel, Germany	– Vulkaneifel, Germany – Vulkaneifel, Germany
– Vulkaneifel, Germany – Vulkaneifel, Germany	– Gemündener Maar, Vulkaneifel, Germany – Gemündener Maar, Vulkaneifel, Germany	– Gemündener Maar, Vulkaneifel, Germany – Gemündener Maar, Vulkaneifel, Germany
– Vulkaneifel, Germany – Vulkaneifel, Germany	– Vulkaneifel, Germany – Vulkaneifel, Germany

This first post will contain just a few random photo’s of things we did or saw in Germany, the other posts will be a little more specific.

– Beehive – Beehive	– Kite flying – Kite flying	– Kite flying – Kite flying
– Kite flying – Kite flying	– Kite flying – Kite flying	– German flag – German flag
– Dog – Dog

In the summer of 2008 I went on holiday to Germany with a few friends of mine.
I can’t remember exactly the name of the town we where in but I know it was in the vicinity of Mannheim.
We’ve been there about 7 days in which we’ve done a lot of sightseeing though nature and some of the nearby cities.
I have to say that you can’t find that much nature here in Holland, it was very cool to walk through and of course, take photo’s of.

Because these photos were made quite some time ago my techniques were somewhat different from my techniques nowadays (you could say I really liked to point and click and I had a little less feeling for composition).
Nevertheless a lot of the photos are quite nice and easily fixed with a little cropping.

I am not going to post all of the photos in one bunch, I think it’s nicer to split them up in a few posts because some of them are made in a specific city. It’s better to keep those together.

– Germany – Germany	– Germany – Germany	– Germany – Germany
– Cricket – Cricket	– Cricket – Cricket	– Town by night – Town by night
– Little goat – Little goat	– Fight for leadership – Fight for leadership	– King of the trunk – King of the trunk
– Germany – Germany	– Germany – Germany	– Germany – Germany

Besides being a normal participant I was also the official photographer, which was a lot of fun to do.
Here are a few of the photos I like best.

– Who says only kids can swing? – Who says only kids can swing?	– Summercamp – Summercamp	– Summercamp – Summercamp
– Summercamp – Lake – Summercamp – Lake	– Summercamp – Summercamp	– Summercamp – Summercamp
– Summercamp – Summercamp	– Summercamp – Summercamp