Full dress rehearsal-Munich

Seen in Munich last week. The HB team out preparing for Oktoberfest. Wonderful.

At the Staedtische Museum-Munich

Munich has more than its fair share of great museums,art galleries and palaces not to mention wonderful shops, restaurants, beer halls and breweries. One of my favourite museums is the Staedtische Gallery in the Lensbachhaus. The main attraction of the museum is the collection of impressionist paintings by the German Blue Rider Group and in particular the works of Wassily Kandinsky. There are also works by Andy Warhol including those damn soup cans and of particular interest to me photographs by Stephen Shore and Walker Evans.

The last time I visited the gallery it was in the rather cramped and dingy Lensbachaus just 20 mins walk from the Marienplatz -the centre of Munich. On my latest visit last week I found it still in the same location in at first glance the same building with its almost Tuscan facade and wonderful garden but the old house has been totally transformed by British architects Foster and Partners by the addition of a beautiful gallery building added to the old house. Now it is airy and thoroughly modern although some of the old rooms have been retained and preserved. It is an amazing change.

I could only spare 90 mins in the gallery but whilst there I spotted this extremely colourful patron looking at the impressionist works in the Blue Rider Group room.
The photo was taken with my Leica Q. The image is so sharp that I can almost but not quite read the name of the artist on the label below the painting on the original file.

Surfing -in Munich

Surfing in the centre of Munich? Sounds improbable as the nearest surf beach is on the French Atlantic coast some 1500kms distant but it's for real. I saw it for myself last week. They surf the Eisbach, a very fast flowing tributary of the River Isar, at a point just beyond a road bridge at an entrance to the Englischer Garten, the main park in Munich.
It's not a wave as in the ocean - it's a water "bank" produced by an underwater step in the channel. Apparently surfers have been surfing the "break" since the 1970s although it was not legal until 2010. Now they surf it all the year round and also at night.
Last wednesday morning they were lining up to surf it and being good Germans they were  forming orderly lines on both banks and as it is strictly one surfer at a time.
The surfers have to jump straight onto the wave and when they fall off or jump off they have to swim strongly for the bank downstream as the current is both strong and very fast flowing.

On the road

The Rolling Road is on the road in an exciting and unusual location so the blog will take a break for a few weeks. Stay tuned and I'll see you soon.

Granny Phoebe

Well Phoebe's not really a granny but she's certainly more than old enough to be one and sitting on her favourite rocking chair taking a cat nap she certainly looks like one.
I like the late afternoon light on this photo taken recently with the wonderful Leica X Vario.