Last October I got all excited when I managed to get a seat in the Winter Magic workshop organized by the Zoom-In photo institute from Bad Tölz, about 50 km south of Munich. What got me excited was the fact that I had tried to register before without success as those courses are really sought after, and that it was to be led by Bruno Frangi, a nature and landscape photographer I had not met before but whose art had not failed to impress me – just visit his website and see for yourself!
Now, the plan was to take the gondola lift up to the Herzogstand close to the beautiful Walchensee lake, and do some serious landscape photography up there, at an altitude of about 1600 meters. The best news, as usual in the Alps, is that there is a cozy mountain-hut-like hotel where we were to stay overnight. The possibility to sleep up there meant that we would get a chance for a sunset and a sunrise on top of the mountain. Wow!
So much for the plan, which was to be executed last weekend, January 31. When I arrived at the parking lot of the gondola lift Saturday morning, 8:30 am (yikes, again got up before 7 am. Maybe I’ll turn into a real nature photographer someday), I was still positively looking forward to go up as the lake itself (and basically the entire way from Munich) was in fog. Not the really thick can’t see where I’m driving kind, but good enough to dim the lights and kill all shadows. Now, I still hoped for sunshine up there, as I had seen in the news the day before that the sun was shining brightly for the skiing competition in near Garmisch-Partenkirchen.
My hope was shattered when the joyful gondola operator ensured me that there was “only clouds” up there and that this wouldn’t change for the day or the next day. He seemed to enjoy imagining this bunch of photographers sitting on top of his mountain with nothing else to photograph than white snow in white fog.
How wrong I was. And surprised. Surprised by the fact that our workshop leader, Bruno, was getting all fidgety about the possibility to have frost up there, and he insisted that the group moved quickly, and brought the equipment into the gondola to go up and not “miss it”! Miss fog? Sorry? It was already all dull and dark down here, how can that be better? It will only be colder, I thought.
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So I learned about the beauty of hoar frost, and the unlikeliness to encounter it when you try to plan it. We were really lucky to get a full morning of frost photography, see for yourself if that is boring!? But it came even better, stay tuned…
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