Another one from yesterday’s photoshoot, just because I haven’t got anything else to post :-).

If I do Hexagonmas, then Balloonmas or Bubblemas or Circlemas is just inevitable :-).

I took a few more shots today, this time with a tripod so I could use a higher f-stop and a longer exposure to create a little more DOF than before without using the flash. Looks nice this way!

Or Happy Bokehmas, if you like – I just had to try something like this! :-)

And on the first day of Christmas, the cactus opened its flowery present. Happy Christmas, everyone :-).

For the second and last photo of today, a little birdspotting – this blackbird was sitting for
some time on the balcony rail, watching the new bird feeder shaking in the wind with suspicion :-).

It’s Christmas eve, 11°C and really grey and wet outside. Inside, it’s nice and warm
and the cactus flower seems to be planning for a December 25 or 26 premiere :-).

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy Newtonmas or Season’s Greetings of your choice! Here’s an updated and slightly retouched version of the tree as this year’s virtual holiday card. I’ve posted slightly longer holiday greetings over on the blog and I’ll keep posting a few photos and probably some collected galleries here over the next days, so there will be no gap here, only a little slowdown.

For the final City Views photo of this year – but not the series, which is going to continue after the holidays – it’s a view of Mülheim’s city hall tower, or Rathausturm. I’m not sure if this photo can even be taken from this perspective anymore, because the building in the front has been torn down and replaced with a bigger one. This one was taken in April 2004, when I had already upgraded to the Canon Powershot A75.

The Christmas cactus really has impeccable timing this year!