This Is Where We Walked

For all the shut down strangers and hot rod angels rumbling through this promised land, tonight my baby and me, we're gonna ride to the sea and wash these sins off our hands.

(Bruce Springsteen)

This is where we walked, this is where we swam. 

Take a picture here, take a souvenir.

(R.E.M.)

A picture taken on 35mm film from my recent trip to Rügen. It's quite similar to this one taken with the 5D Mark II, but I'm still shooting on film from time to time so I thought I'd post this one, too. Taken with my old EOS300, and the 16-35mm lens which I use for most of my digital shots.

35mm Kodak Film, ISO 200. Exposure of 
something between 15 and 30 seconds.

Those of you who share my passion for cycling might enjoy this series of portraits on one of my favourite blogs.

Have a great week!

- Dom

Nightswimming

Gotta be at work at half past seven tomorrow. I went to bed early but couldn't sleep so I decided to upload another recent picture.

We're gonna expand the excavation site to almost double its previous size tomorrow. Everytime the driver of the excavator empties the bucket, we'll use the metal detector to search for metals such as bronze and iron. Pottery won't be detected, so what we don't see will be lost. I'm looking forward to that.

Hamburg, Germany. 

A beautiful, warm summer night.

Nightswimming, remembering that night

September's coming soon

I'm pining for the moon

And what if there were two

Side by side in orbit

Around the fairest sun?

You, I thought I knew you

You, I cannot judge

You, I thought you knew me

This one laughing quietly

Underneath my breath

Nightswimming

(Berry / Buck / Mills / Stipe)

Nightswimming is not only my favourite R.E.M. song, but one of my favourite songs of all time. Beautiful songwriting, piano playing, and singing. 

This evening, I found out that Christmas is coming early this year... November 16th, that is.

Goodnight!

- Dom

Hearthammer

Yesterday, I dug much deeper than last week into "what might have been a well"... turns out, it wasn't a well. According to the boss, it might have been a sewer pit because they were used for dumping waste too (and we did find a lot of bones and pieces of pottery in it), but we don't know for sure what we got there. Anyway, I wanted to give a little insight into the kind of stuff I'm doing all the time so here's a picture of what the situation looks like now. 

When you dig deeper, you take away a layer of soil no more than ten centimetres high (roughly four inches). We do this with a regular shovel. Next, you use a trowel to even the area. Photographs and drawings (in a scale of 1:50 for larger areas, and 1:20 for small sections such as this, respectively) are made for documentation. Last but not least, we use a dumpy level to compare elevations. And off you go, digging another ten centimetres deeper.

It's raining too much for us to work so I got another day off. Before I go on writing an essay I gotta hand in before the end of the semester break, here's a picture from last night...

Bardowick, Germany. August 2010.

With the eyes of a child

The wonder of it all

I used to search the stars at night

And I felt so safe and small

("Hearthammer" / Runrig)

Have a great day!


- Dom

What I Have Left

Title taken from this beautiful song.

Rügen, Germany. August 2010.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep

And I have promises to keep

And miles to go before I sleep

Miles to go before I sleep

(Robert Frost)

The Great Escape from Gestapo County

It's a well-known fact that I've always admired five painters - more than anyone else Turner, followed by Böcklin, Friedrich, Gauguin, and Monet in no specific order. After I'd already visited Friedrich's chalk cliffs on Rügen, I drove further into eastern Germany to the ruins of Eldena Abbey, which appeared in another of Friedrich's paintings.

Eldena Abbey. 

Germany. August 2010.

The title is a reference to the classic movie set during World War II, starring Steve McQueen and an all-star cast featuring Charles Bronson, James Coburn, James Garner, and Richard Attenborough.

Greifswald, the town close to the village in which you find the ruins of the abbey, felt a bit like Nazi Germany. The typical socialist "Plattenbau" can be seen everywhere. There were three radar speed checks on what seemed to be the high street, all within a distance of less than a mile. And the gas station where I refuelled sold the Landser, a pulp magazine whose main goal is to glorify the Wehrmacht. Last but not least, there were two skinheads waiting on another petrol pump. Not the English, 1960's kind of skinheads - the German kind of skinheads! Frightening...

Check out my previous blog post featuring more photos from Rügen.

Goodnight!


- Dom