Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is a state located in the northeastern part of Germany, known for its stunning natural landscapes, picturesque towns, and rich cultural heritage. This region is a paradise for photography enthusiasts, offering a plethora of breathtaking locations to capture stunning images. From the rugged coastline of the Baltic Sea to the serene lakes and forests of the Mecklenburg Lake District, there are endless opportunities to capture the beauty of nature. The charming towns and cities of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, such as Rostock, Schwerin, and Wismar, are also great places to explore and photograph, with their historic architecture, colorful facades, and bustling markets.
A photo I took back in August during a four day trip to the island of Rügen. I had been there two years ago and knew well what I wanted to photograph. One place on my list was Sellin and the famous sea bridge. Often photographed it's hard to take a unique picture here. But that doesn't matter. It's just a great place to watch and photograph sunrise and I had some nice display of light that morning.
Using my 10-stop Lee ND filter I was able to expose for more than two minutes, which created a more dreamy look.
hope you like it!
cheers
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It was a perfect windstill evening to shoot this very attractive castle in Schwerin. Unfortunately part of the building was being restored and under scaffolding, but I still thought it was worth the photo.
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... with me this piecful sunrise in Sellin on Rügen. Even if it was not spectacular it was beautiful, especially with some of the beach chairs left open so we could just sit down, lean back and listen to the calmness around us while watching the dawn.
I also was hopping around through the chairs searching for comps and this is one of the few where I got quite a nice distribution of them through the frame while also leaving space for the viewer to get into the picture. The sky was also harmonizing well here. What do you think?
I did DRI here but I think the blend is not noticable. Some slight color enhancements and contrast for the finishing touches!
Photoshop Tip masking:
For a photo like this when blending multiple exposures it is very nice to have at least for some objects in the frame a clean selection. For example the main beach chair which extends into the sky. There I wanted a clean selection which let me apply masks in the sky or the foregound while leavin the other alone. What can you do? Go to your channels pallete and click through the separate channels. often you find one channel which already has a good contrast around the edges (here between sky and chair) . Duplicate this channel, call it selection or something and go to "Image->Image Processing" (I'm not sure how this is called in the english version :-( ) Select blending mode overlay or soft light and the contrast will increased even more.. now got to "Image->Adjustments->Levels" and increase it so you get white on the one part and your object bekomes black. You might need some brush work to clean things up, also use dodge and burn but in the end you should get a quite good selection channel. Ctrl+click will select the while pixels and SHIFT+CTRL+i will invert it. Then you can go to your initial mask in the layers pallete and while having one part selected cleanly work there while preserving the other part.
cheers
Captured during a snow storm in the dunes
Prerow, Fischland-Darß-Zingst
In Explore on 25 February 2019
Thank you so much for all your kind comments. I am truly overwhelmed.
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I know I know it's getting boring but I have so many shots from Rügen. But I promise soon it's over :-)
This was from our sunset shoot at kap arkona ... I told the story with the other pic I posted 2 weeks ago.. pure chance and a lot of luck brought us to this rocky shore. It was 15 minutes of chasing comps and wading through the muck .... and not to forget being bitten by moskitos. Here I liked how the stones seem to lead into the picture. You can find your way to the horizon, jumping from stone to stone, but be aware they are a bit slippery sometimes.
Photoshop tip midtone Contouring -> done in the end to add the last bit of needed contrast -> this was inspired by a lesson held by vincent versace at the photoshop convention last year
Most of you might know, that a highpass filter with a high radius (e.g. around 50px) can be used to increase local contrast when you set the layer blending mode to overlay or soft light. Copy the original layer, apply a highpass with 50px radius and switch to overlay or soft light. That's way to harsh so reduce the oppacity to around 30-40 percent. starting to look good... But we will keep the effect to the midtones (hence the name midtone contouring ) so double click on the highpass layer to get to the layer styles. In the blending options you will find two slider bars at the bottom going from black to white with handles to control the blending. We will move the handles of the upper bar, the left one to around 40-60 and the right on to around 190-210. Then ALT+click on each handle and drag the mouse while holding down the button, this will split the handles and let you get a soft blend. So what did you do? You just told the layer to only have effect on the midtones. Apply a mask and selectively apply this layer to help lead the viewers eye through your picture with increased local contrasts in specific parts of the image.
cheers
PS: I'm also on facebook -> www.facebook.com/pages/Michael-Breitung-Photography/36788...
Schiedwetter in Stralsund.
Please don't use this image on websites, blogs or other media without my explicit permission. © All rights reserved
Weiches Morgenlicht am Strand von Zingst Soft morning light at the beach in Zingst, Germany
Pastel colours during the golden hour by the sea
Zingst, Fischland-Darß-Zingst, Germany
Thanks a lot for your visits, comments and faves.
Kurhaus in Binz auf Rügen
Schwerin is best known for its magnificent castle. Behind the castle, close to the castle gardens is this artwork of concrete arches that goes by the name "Kreuzgang im Bauhausstil". I think it is a fascinating photo object, and apparently this was built in 2009 as the entrace to the gardening exhibit "Bundesgartenschau im Schlosspark Schwerin".
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Please don't use this image on websites, blogs or other media without my explicit permission. © All rights reserved
I photographed these tyical Baltic Sea beach chairs near Sellin on Rügen. They fascinate me, they have such a classic, old fashioned look, like stepping into a movie scene from the 1930's. It is a typical German thing. there is even a slight difference in style between the Baltic chairs and the North Sea chairs. Their German name translates to 'beach basket' and apparently no day on the beach is complete without renting one of these for the day. I was lucky enough to photograph these during a wonderful sunrise.
A beautiful moring in Sellin on Rügen in late August. I could even confince my girlfrind to get up 4:30 in the morning to watch twilight and sunset and despite all the tiredness she liked it :-) In the evening and during day it's impossible to get a picture of this scene without hundreds of people walking by, but that early we were the only people there. For me dawn is the best time of day. Sunsets are also great but during dawn it's much more calm, there are less or no other people and you feel as if nature puts on it's show just for you alone.
This is a 2 exposure blended shot... I was to lazy to pull out my filters and for such a well defined horizon line it's usually quite easy to blend two shots.
Hope you like it!
PS: thanks for all the comments on my recent pictures! I'm always interested to hear your thoughts and don't be shy to criticize..I'm always keen to learn ;-)
cheers
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Samsung csc
Copyright by Giuseppe Milo milo.photography
Rostock, Warnemünde 2020.09 Ostsee-Berlin-Dresden-246
Early morning and looking across the water towards the city of Stralsund, from Altefähr on Rügen. It was nice that this family of swans decided to swim through my view.
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Some of you might have seen my last two shots from Rügen.... Those were from the same day like this one but during dawn. They were the typical planned shots, where you go scouting the day before, pic some nice place for the shoot and come back the next day with enough time for the light to show....
This one is the complete opposite. Not planned at all, nearly missed the light and the place was picked by pure chance... that's also why this is one of my favourites from my Rügen trip. We went to Kap Arkona with still more than one hour till sunset.. I'd thought we'd have enough time to do some scouting and would find some nice subjets to shoot. After all when you look for shots of Kap arkona you always get the same scene with some old ruin standing in the water, which looks quite nice.. So I thought well we'd give it a try.
I thought we'd arrive there drive right to the coast and just walk down the cliff path... but what we didn't know was, it's not allowed for cars to drive to the front where you just needed to walk down.. no during day there are busses running from the parking lot which is more than 2kilometers away.. but in the evening you just have to walk. Not to far you might think but with the magic hour light starting it feels like an eternity. When the sun came down under the clouds and such great rays where showing I got a little disheartened and even wanted to go back to the car and just let this sunset be... but we walked on and finally arrived at the top of the cliffs just to see, that the place I had intended to shoot, the ruin, was in complete shade... hmm damn it. So I gave up and we thought at least we'd explore the place a bit so without rush we walke a bit north. Where we were now standing in the trees there was nearly no light showing at all.. just thousands of mosquitos ;-)
Then coming out of some trees I couldn't believe the sky I was seein with the crimson sun a big disk above the horizon.. now I got excited for just 100 meters farther there was another way down the cliff to the coast so I gave it a run. Well the sun was gone when I was down but the light was even better and now comes the best part, you see it in the photo. That great rock-pool. I saw it, walked through the muck, put up my tripod and snapped the shots.. No thinking at all, I instantly knew how it should look and this is how it came out.
Hope you like it, because me and my tripod had to walk through slippery muck to get it. My hybrid shoos are still smelling a bit...
PS: I'll start with some photoshop tips here .. Every shot one tip. Some might know them but for some it might be something new. So here's a great tip for your workflow
Photoshop-Tip : When you are painting in masks or do other painting or erasing you often don't know which oppacity is the right one. So most of the time you select a low one and do repeated strokes to build up the oppacity. That's no bad way to do it .. But here's my approach ->
When not knowing what oppacity to paint with use 50 percent do your stroke and then hit SHIFT+CTRL+F and you'll get the fade slider. Then you use this slider to get the oppacity you want. A great way to speed up your workflow. I use it all the time when painting in my layer masks to reveal or hide some effects.
cheers
in explore on December 13 2018 (#18)
Zingst, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany
Thank you everybody for your kind visits, comments and awards. I appreciate them all.
Prerow Nothafen, Fischland-Darß-Zingst
Thanks for taking the time to view, comment or fave my image.
Almost 4 weeks after the first one, I was back in Sellin, with my own camera repaired again. The sunrises there are just amazing.
Peaceful morning on the pier right outside our hotel in Bansin. I was hoping for some more clouds, but still pleased with the result.
Sunrise at the pier in Sellin, Rügen, Germany.
[#13 on explore 02/08/20]
Seebrücke Sellin auf Rügen
Zingst, Fischland-Darß-Zingst, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
Many thanks for your visits, comments and favs.
A windy sunset in Ahrenshoop
Fischland-Darß-Zingst, Germany
Thanks for your visit and comments, this is highly appreciated.
Sunrise at the Chalk Cliffs on the island Rügen. I was using my Big Stopper here to greate a mystic look for this photo. The clouds and the soft light in the foreground are the result of a 103s exposure with the sun peeking through the clouds from time to time. In a second shorter exposure I got the sunstar a bit better and blended both.
Hope you like it.
cheers
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Most people, including myself, come to photograph the majestic castle in this city. But on a second visit it was nice to get this blue hour of the town itself with the cathedral.
[#183 on explore 7/8/22]
Thanks to all Phoide contributors to Mecklenburg-Vorpommern!
Most notably Heike Rosenbaum, Klaus Kehrls, Frank Voigtländer, Adelheid Smitt, Sven Deigl Nürnberg, Michael and Christian Seifert.