P18: life at a beach resort

On the whole I like to do the projects in the order that they are presented in the course notes, a mixture of organization and anal retention! However, at the speed I am currently going with these projects it'll be November before I get to the beach resort project and then will not be a good time for this activity unless I spend some serious money.  Martin Parr is one of my personal photographic heroes, his ironic look at the British beach resort, "The Last Resort" was one of the inspirations that brought me to this course.  Thus I do not want to treat this project as optional, but to use it as an opportunity to capture another facet of the lives of the Munich population.

About 30 kilometers south of Munich are a series of large lakes, that become an escape for the city inhabitants during the summer months.  Ammersee is roughly an hour by public transport, so very close to the city, but at the same time another world.  Reminiscent of the Italian lakes this is a place for refined relaxation in large hotels surrounded by good quality places to eat.  Heidi and I spent a day their this week, the public holiday for Mariahimmelfahrt - the Assumption of Mary.  Whilst the goal of the day was to give the two of us a break from a punishing workload and to relax the mind a little, I popped my Fuji X100 in my bag.

We took a walk along the shoreline, eat a fabulous whilst pizza overlooking the lake and then stopped at a lakeside beer garden before heading back to the city for a Lebanese evening with Heidi's sister and partner - all in all a perfect day and superb antidote to worrying about sales plans.

The town of Herrsching is a very different beach resort to the sand and sun of the project rubric, but it has all the key ingredients. First off here is a landscape shot that shows the basic geography:

A gently curving pebbly beach forms the frontage of the town hidden behind the trees.  A yacht clubs moorings dominate the middle ground and in the back a short pier provides access to the paddle steamers that ply the lake.  There are many places to choose from and so the beach is not too busy.

I have chosen to continue in B&W, sadly losing the impact of the multi-colored sun shade in the foreground of the following two shots.  With these two photographs I wanted to explore the impact of an open versus closed horizon.  The first image conveys far more information than the second, however, the second has more visual impact for me at least.In both cases we know we are at the beach, however, the ducks give away the fact that this is a lake and not the sea.

Although now a sea shore, whales do occasionally get beached.  Here I miss the versatility a telephoto would have brought to emphasize the girth of the man on the right.  The Fuji's fixed 35mm viewpoint is an excellent compromise, but it is a compromise and sometimes I would welcome a little more reach.

The next photo contrasts with the traditional beach scene, a cycle tourer is relaxing on a park bench.  The hat and tattoos indicate he is not your normal cyclist, but the quality of the bike and gear suggested he was not a tramp either.

Recently a great many of my shots show people seated in a row shot face on and often scowling at the camera.  I have continued this theme here, but this time partially silhouetting them against the strong light of the day reflecting from the lake and facing away from the camera.  These two scenes capture the sense of being away from the city and simply enjoying the view.

As with all beach resorts, it is not the beach that provides the most interest, but the surrounding business offering refreshment.  In the first image I have placed y subjects in a box once more, the interest in the photo being the expressions on the different groups of people.

Here I have tried to capture the flow of people walking up and down the promenade.

Finally, do remember that this is a beach in Bavaria and this day was a religious holiday.  In Bavaria we celebrate such days with traditional costume and music.  This scene was no more than 5 yards from the beach.  I tried the reverse angle to show the beach, but the light was so strong behind the band sitting in the shade that it could not work.  Hence this could be anywhere in Bavaria, but believe me this was a day at a beach resort!