Impressions: Cam Eyes

Resurrected from a NSA backup file thought to be lost: a camera high noon shooting in Lake Plansee in Tyrol, Austria.

Impressions: Buoyancy Perversion

(In Lake Blindsee, TI/A)

Okay, this a posed shot ... the idea was in my head for quite some time already while I worked on the various certifake parodies. Lake Blindsee then turned out to be a really good spot for realizing my idea. And Axel Eisel knew immediately what to do when I carefully glided on the trunk. Just this moment a group of beginners came by. Luckily, or in a twisted turn of irony, the beginners were so distracted by their own buoyancy attempts that they did not notice me ... except the instructor.

Impressions: The Catalog Picture

(In Lake Murner See, BY/D)

A snapshot taken by Jörg Lucinski ... which could be straight out of a Dräger catalog for full face masks. This is one of those shots that you cannot pose. At least not with me.

Impressions: Full Face Mask Nirvana

(In Nirvana, that is, in BY/D)

Seeing this Jörg Lucinsky simply had to shoot. I'm not going to say anything more about this picture.

Impressions: Dive Vader

In Lake Steinberger See, BY/D)

Peter von der Sitt appearently had to document my first visit with the Schwandorfer Sporttaucher for the club chronicles. So I stopped and posed when stepping into the filthy floods of Steinberger See to allow the chronicler to document this moment. At this time I just had started diving with a full face mask. Thus, there's the special backup reg for the Dräger PND missing. And my half mask was still clipped to the BCD (...one never knows for sure).

Impressions: Happurger Baggersee 2014

The first dive for this new year 2014 was in a small quarry pond, Happurger Baggersee. And we could finally find and photograph one of the crabs rumor had for a long time already. Another pleasant experience was to dive into a swarm of small fish and enjoy all the glittering and sparkling of my dive lights getting reflected on the small bodies.

Out dive took 70 minutes, water temperature was 4°C: the perfect environmental conditions for wearing my trusty Dräger full face mask. By the way, it was my 85th dive with this fine mask. Fog-free view, comfortable breathing without biting into a mouth piece, warm head ... what else do you want?

Happurger Baggersee (BY/D), 70 mins at 4°C.

PS: Many thanks to Jörg Lucinski for the photos.

Impression: Dive Vader and his Light Sabres

Poking the Pike Lightly (BY/D)

Axel again showed his clear eye and shot this funny photo in Friedberger See (a former dredging lake). It was a cloudy, overcast, dull, and cold day. In return, we were the only divers below the wakeboard complex ... and we saw fish, a lot of fish.

Much whiting, and that of course draws a bunch of pikes. There were almost fed up, hanging around motionless, barely taking any notice of us divers. The land of plenty for them, it seems.

Here, I've discovered a tiny pike, just from this year. It tries to not move at all, lurking at the rim of some sea plants, waiting for prey. And it probably hopes that Dive Vader won't grill him with his laser swords...

Impressions: TheDiveO 50+ FFM Dives

New pictures of me diving the Dräger Panorama Nova Dive full face mask ... I've now dived the Dräger in 50+ dives in open water, without even the slightest problem. I'm glad, I've purchased this full face mask, as it is a professional and rock-solid mask.

Impressions: The Triptych

(In Lake Steinberger See, BY/D)

The three shots combined in this triptych were taken by Peter von der Sitt and Marco Sattler from Sporttaucher Schwandorf during our New Year's Eve dive gathering at Steinberger See (BY/D). I then took some time to play around with the famous Gimp image tool in order to learn some new photo editing tricks. For instance, making silhouettes to separate image parts from the backdrop, blurring and adjusting the colors of the background, seamless blending, as well as some more small tricks.

Okay, psychologists (even those working in kitchens) may now analyze as they feel an urgent need. Yet the simple truth is: having extensensively come into contact with the museum landscape in Cologne (and they have a giant amount of middle age sacral art for sure) this is just a natural type of picture composition after all...