A Wish For Something More

Las Vegas, Nevada. June 2009.

The hotel is gone, the sign remains.

Now the sun is fading

and the rain is coming down

I'm looking at your face

but you're looking at the ground

I see diamonds in your dreams

I see pearls around your neck

I see everything that's beautiful

(Amy MacDonald)

Take a look at this beautifully filmed video... I love this perfect capture of the changing light and shadows.

Goodnight!


- Dom

If You're Going To San Francisco

San Francisco, California. June 2009.

I've taken the rest of the week off. My shoulder hurts from weeks and weeks of digging and I've got a bit of a cold. So I'm gonna relax for a couple days and return to work next week.

When I checked the list of blogs I'm following this morning, the following time lapse film made my day. I visited San Francisco last year but I couldn't take the pictures I had visualized in my head, such as a long exposure of the Golden Gate Bridge half-covered in fog in the early morning. The weather was simply too good. I guess I'll have to come back...

Have a nice day!

- Dom

The Ghost Of Tom Joad

Nevada. June 2009.

 

Wherever there's somebody fightin'
For a place to stand

A decent job or a helpin' hand

Wherever somebody's strugglin' to be free

Look in their eyes, mom, you'll see me

(Bruce Springsteen - The Ghost Of Tom Joad)

We don't need no education

We don't need no thought control

No dark sarcasm in the classroom

Teachers, leave them kids alone

(Roger Waters - Another Brick In The Wall)

Bad Moon Rising

I see the bad moon arising

I see trouble on the way

I see earthquakes and lighting

I see bad times today

Don't go around tonight

Well, it's bound to take your life

There's a bad moon on the rise

(John Fogerty / C.C.R.)

In my opinion, Creedence Clearwater Revival was one of the best bands of all time. 

Hamburg, Germany. May 2010.

It's been raining all day long and there's no end in sight, so I guess I won't take any new pictures today; instead I'll drink some Scrumpy Jack and watch a movie or read a book or something. 

I only got three weeks left working at the excavation before the new semester starts. I've signed up for a few things already - among them some block courses, so there'll be periods of intensive study but also a few lazy weeks. 

Except for Thursday, and probably Monday too, I'll have only one course per day. Last year I had way too many, which resulted in me collecting a total of 48 credit points. Add those from the first semester and I've got 81 - you only need 180 over the span of six semesters. I'm gonna be honest, at times I was close to a burnout because of all the essays and exams, but it was well worth it because it will be easy collecting the remaining 99 points over the next four semesters. I don't regret moving to Germany if studying is so easy over here.

So I'm sure that from now on I'll have more time to take pictures and ride my bike and go to the gym...

Have a nice weekend!

- Dom

Dancing In The Dark

Message keeps getting clearer

Radio's on and I'm moving 'round the place

I check my look in the mirror

I wanna change my clothes, my hair, my face

Man I ain't getting nowhere

I'm just living in a dump like this

There's something happening somewhere

I just know that there is

You can't start a fire

You can't start a fire without a spark

This gun's for hire

Even if we're just dancing in the dark

(Bruce Springsteen)

...because today is Boss Day!

Lüneburg, Germany. September 2010.

I've taken a couple pictures of this wonderful mural by artist Herakut before. However, I was never satisfied with the results. I like this photograph though. There was a beautiful full moon up last night, so I just had to go out and take pictures.

Have a great day!

- Dom

I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

I have climbed the highest mountain

I have run through the fields

Only to be with you

I have run, I have crawled

I have scaled these city walls

Only to be with you

But I still haven't found

what I'm looking for

(U2)

Bardowick, Germany. September 2010.

A building I've photographed before. The first shot was rather dark; this time I've decided to take a long exposure at a high ISO.

Apart from the moon, the North Star was clearly visible too. I would've loved to stay up all night and take many more pictures if I didn't have to go to work in seven hours, which is why I'm going to bed in a little while.

Bullet The Blue Sky

Maschen marshalling yard, Germany. 

July 2010 archive photograph.

I need to finish my essay about a Viking Age settlement which is due next week. I started from scratch again because I wasn't happy with anything I'd written so far. However, I've got a writer's block. And it seems as if the right moment to begin writing just hasn't come around yet...

 

With no time on my hands to take new photographs or go clay pigeon shooting as I had planned for this weekend, I want to share some interesting links I've come across over the past one or two weeks.

Archaeology:

An interesting article about the Skeleton of a man laid to rest more than 10,000 years ago, which was found in an undersea cave in Mexico.

Cycling:

A really great short film about cycling in San Francisco. On one of the five days of my visit to this exciting city, I rented a bike myself and soon found out that I'm definitely not a hill climbing specialist.

Diving:

A beautifully filmed video by surf photographer Mickey Smith. Even more than the stunning images, I love what Smith says towards the end of the video about true success: It's when you can hand-on-heart say, "I love what I'm doing even though I may never be a rich man". 

Photography:

Here's a brilliant photographer from Iceland that I'd never come across before I discovered him earlier this week. Iceland is among the places I want to visit within the next five years and his gorgeous photographs show all the reasons why I want to go there. Another photographer's pictures  of the Great Lakes region in the United States have been a great inspiration recently, too.

Science:

Check out this fantastic series of photographs taken in the Cave of Crystals in Mexico. Apparently, scientists can only stay inside the cave for twenty minutes because of the intense heat.

Have a nice weekend!

- Dom

There Is A Light That Never Goes Out

Good evening!

Blog post title taken from the song of the same name by The Smiths.

Tomorrow morning before sunrise, I'll try to chase the zodiacal light. However, I'm not sure if I'm gonna see much, or anything at all, on account of all the light pollution. You've seen it in my two latest pictures taken in Hamburg. I live an hour south of the city, yet I can still see a glow on the northern sky.

We're not going to dig tomorrow, so the ninth week at the excavation has come to an early end this afternoon. Here's a picture showing one half of the excavation site. 

Due to the heavy rainfalls over the past couple weeks, we've covered part of the site. We ran out of tarp though. Unfortunately, David McAllister, the prime minister of the state of Lower Saxony, which we're in, doesn't seem to care much about archaeology, so we need to pinch and scrape.

You're not gonna see the other half of the site - it's far too messy to look nice in a photograph. The reason for this is, we're cutting deep into the earth to draw cross sections. Fortunately, I'm no longer the only student working here. For a couple weeks it had been only the supervisor and me, but now we got some more hard-working lads helping us. 

The most recent findings include a hip bone, wood charcoal, and lots of medieval pottery. A while ago we found some musket balls. According to a story I've heard a while back, the French army once marched through the area and conquered nearby Lüneburg, so I'd guess they're from back then. Such is archaeology: Sometimes you don't know anything for sure!

I've done some work on my road bike; it's in better shape now - I had a bad fall earlier this summer. Maybe I'm gonna go out for a ride tomorrow...

Have a nice weekend!

- Dom

Thunder Road

Here's what I always imagined Springsteen's "Thunder Road" to look like. Actually, it's what I believe must've been a section of U.S. Route 89 approximately 50 miles out of Page, Arizona. Too bad I didn't write down in my notebook every road I've taken on my trip for future travels. I did look at the satellite images on Google Maps though, and Route 89 seems to be the closest match to the road in this picture. 
I'm also proud to say that painter Bruce Tatman turned this photograph into a painting... it's not yet featured on his website, but check out the site anyways, he's really talented.

Thunder Road,

for the lost lovers and all the fixed games

Thunder Road, 

for the tires rushing by in the rain

Thunder Road,

Billy and me we'd always say

Thunder Road,

we were gonna take it all and throw it all away

(Bruce Springsteen - "The Promise")

Hamburg. Germany.
September 2010.

20 seconds at F/10 and ISO 800.

The origin of the light pollution is the container harbour on the opposite bank of the River Elbe. The Port of Hamburg is the 2nd-largest in Europe and 11-largest world wide.

Have a great week!

- Dom

This Is A Hymn

This is the light that shines 

This is the leaving of another love

This is the howling at the moon

These are the arms you fell into

I am a fire and I must burn today

This is an echo

This is the glory

This is the pounding of a midnight heart

(A.A. Bondy)

Hamburg. September 2010.

The container harbour on the opposite bank of the River Elbe is the source of this immense amount of light pollution. They're working twenty-four hours and seven days a week over there. The building in the left has been featured in this previous picture, too.

It's the beginning of another week of hard work and I should be sleeping right now as I type this. However, I just had to get this picture out there. On Sunday, I drove over to Hamburg to meet up with a friend I went to school with in London; after graduation, Paul moved to China, where he worked for a German company for two years, and now he's back in Europe and came around to visit. It's a surprise though that more than half of us have left our posh London suburbs to study or work in another country.

Goodnight!

- Dom

Hotel California

Opel Manta in the Mojave Desert.

California. June 2009.

The Opel Manta was as close as German automobile manufacturers ever came to inventing a competitor to the American muscle cars of the 1960's and 1970's.

Today is my day off. I can't enjoy it though, because I need to continue writing an essay which is due next week, even though I got more than a month left till the start of the new semester. 

Check out yesterday's post on this blog for more previously unreleased photos from the American West. 
Recently, one of my best friends, Sergio, who's gonna be back in Europe next month after half a year in Peru, brought up once again our plans of a great American road trip. That means, all the way from the east coast to the west coast... if not the very same route, it's at least the direction taken by the settlers of bygone centuries. 
Serge is one of only two guys I went to school with who's not only got the passion for long road trips, but the endurance too. If time and money allow it, I'm also planning to visit the gorgeous islands off the west coast of Scotland, and Scandinavia, next year. I haven't spent much this year and I'm making a decent amount of money at the moment so it could be possible to go to both places in 2011.

I hope you have a great day.


- Dom

Runaway American Dream

Baby this town rips the bones from your back

It's a death trap, it's a suicide rap

We gotta get out while we're young

'Cause tramps like us

Baby we were born to run

In the day we sweat it out in the streets

of a runaway American dream

At night we ride through mansions of glory

in suicide machines

I wanna die with you Wendy on the streets tonight

in an everlasting kiss

The highway's jammed with broken heroes

on a last chance power drive

Everybody's out on the run tonight

There's no place left to hide

Someday girl, I don't know when, we're gonna get

to that place where we really wanna go

And we'll walk in the sun

But till then tramps like us

Baby we were born to run

All lyrics: Bruce Springsteen, "Born To Run".

Previously unreleased pictures from my road trip through the American West in June 2009. The 1st picture was taken in a small town on Route 66, the 2nd and 3rd within a 100-mile radius around Winslow, Arizona. There's not many roads out there so you're likely to come across the same sights should you choose to spend your holidays out there.

Have a great day!

- Dom 

Oh My Sweet Carolina

"Oh My Sweet Carolina"... such a beautiful song. My friend Katie first introduced me to Ryan Adams' music a while ago. At the moment, she's drawing up a design for a tattoo symbolizing my love of nature. I'm gonna get that done some time after the excavation.

Yesterday, I visited a place I'd been to once before in autumn 2009. It's an abandoned engine shed of the German national railway company. The demolition work, which had already begun last year, must've come to a halt. By the time I got there, clouds covered the sky and soon after I took this shot, it began to drizzle. Click here for last year's photographs.

Engine Shed. Hamburg, Germany.

September 2010.

Have a nice day y'all!

- Dom

Comfortably Numb

The Erasmus Bridge in Rotterdam and windmills in Kinderdijk, respectively. September 2009. 
Two places I want to visit again.

The seventh week of digging is now over. Last night, I had me some Kilkenny and Bulmers and downed a few glasses of whiskey at the Irish Pub to celebrate how tough we are. We'll get two students helping us from next week on, so we should be able to get things done at an even faster pace. I'm gonna work some four or five more weeks until the start of the new semester.

Weather permitting, there'll be new photographs coming this weekend.

When I was a child

I caught a fleeting glimpse

Out of the corner of my eye

I turned to look but it was gone

I cannot put my finger on it now

The child is grown

The dream is gone

(David Gilmour / Roger Waters)

The classical Pink Floyd track, "Comfortably Numb"... from my point of view, it's one of the three greatest songs by a British band ever, along with "Baba O'Riley" by The Who and of course "Bittersweet Symphony" by The Verve.

Have a nice weekend!


- Dom

She's The One

"She's The One", one of my favourite tracks from Born To Run, which was recorded 35 years ago.

The official photograph from a wedding a few months ago... I'd wanted to post this some time ago but forgot to do so. Portrait photoshoots aren't my favourite thing in the world, but the bride is the sister of a buddy from university, so I was honoured that they asked me and I'm quite happy with the results. The couple is absolutely lovely and the wedding was beautiful, too.