Well, if I have that thing open anyway, why not do a little macro photography as well? :-)

Since the blossom looks about the same today, I’m moving in for a closeup! It’s extremely difficult to focus at this almost zero distance, because even at f/8 the depth of field is next to nothing.

This is the last photo of the somewhat mysterious old house on Mülheim’s Dickswall. It’s the only free-standing house left on the whole street and seems to be considerably older than the rest of the buildings, but I have not been able to find out more about its history or how old it is exactly – I’m only sure that it seems to have survived both wars. Normally I want to keep the City Views series in black and white, but just this once I’ve also uploaded an alternate colour version of this photo.

There’s a front yard with those pebbles in it near here, but until recently it never occured to me to take a photo of it. This is, of course, a HDR – otherwise it would have looked way too dull!

For the fully opened blossom I chose a non-flash photo, which is actually the very first photo I took today.

An almost front view of the old Herrenhaus on Mülheim’s Dickswall. There’s actually a garden on the right behind the house with a slope that goes all the way up to the wall up on the Muhrenkamp street above it. There’s an old steel door at the end of the wall which leads to a path down into a garden. When the house was recently renovated, we noticed that the path was newly paved, but sadly it’s not accessible to the public.

I might as well post the last two ones from December – made by holding a dried leaf against a lamp :-).

Today, it’s the grand opening! I shot many more photos, both with flash and long-exposure natural light. I may share the other ones later, I think there also might be some working stereo pairs in there.
[Update: here’s a link to the stereo crosseye version!]

The old house on Mülheim’s Dickswall from a reasonably unobstructed perspective, standing on the sidewalk. The building next to it with the round corner front is actually not beside it, but up on the Muhrenkamp about ten meters or more higher. Strangely, the so-called Herrenhaus itself doesn’t seem to be protected as a historic building, although many other houses in the vicinity including the whole block we ourselves live in are. The latest renovation makes it look quite good again – the house had several owners in the past including a recording studio and a ceramics art shop, but it now is in the hands of a foundation who turned it into a sort of emergency home for young girls. This at least an explanation why they chose to paint the windowframes pink of all colours, which of course you can’t see here in this black and white image. Two more photos of the house are coming, maybe I’ll show the last one also in colour.

I posted some of these before the holidays, here is another one – actually made with a dried leaf!