OCOLOY 2025: January
13 March 2025
February somehow was quite a hectic month. I hadn't as much time for photography as I wished and I had no time to write any blog posts. Specifically not about the first month of my OCOLOY (one camera, one lens, one year) project. However, I want to make up for it. Today, with a blog post about January and (hopefully) in a few days one about February.
These won't be very long articles. More like a gallery showcasing my ten favourite photos from each month. Since I don't restrict myself to a specific genre this will be a mixture of all sorts of photos.
Hopefully, you'll enjoy it.
During a late evening stroll in my neighbourhood, I wandered on that path. The calmness of the night and the scenery combined with lights guiding the way fascinated me and still do.
The days are short in January, and living quite a bit away from the equator, the positions on the horizon where the sun rises and sets vary heavily throughout the year. When I saw the light and the shadows it cast, I searched for a halfway decent position and took a few shots. It was only weeks later that I realised that these specific lighting conditions may only appear during a few days every year. It's certainly something I want to keep in mind more in the future.
More or less a classic shot at the city wall of Ulm. Nothing special, not much to say. I like the strong leading lines on the ground, the pattern of the bricks and the lightness of the trees at this time of year.
Walking through an area where I'm not that often my photography interest was piqued by the archway framing these uniform apartment buildings nicely. It was a good reminder to stroll through streets I only rarely walkthrough.
On a cold winter day, I did a quick stroll in my neighbourhood. On my way, there is this football field where apparently quite recently a car turned around. I think that the tracks make for a nice foreground element or leading lines to the goal.
Since it gets dark quite soon in winter I have the chance to play around more with artificial lights in the city. And while the architecture of the entrance is already attractive, the lights on the railing add an additional interesting subject completing the entire ensemble.
Another evening scene, but a different underground car park (however, just a few hundred metres away). The pedestrian entry has a glass front even below ground which makes it possible to take some shots from above. The four vending machines alone are very interestingly placed and have a great vibrant colour. Additionally, the person sitting there with another electronic device fits perfectly.
I arrived at this train station at late sunset and was immediately drawn to the colour on the opposite platform. The dark blue sky, the warm reddish light of the street lamp and the more yellowish colour of the lamp in the waiting shelter go very well together. Additionally, neither of the artificial light sources is too bright to ruin the scene.
A bit of nature for a change. On a calm afternoon, I had some time to wander around some trees. Just equipped with the Ricoh GR IIIx I gathered more pictures that I liked than I would have imagined (due to the focal length restriction of 40mm (full-frame equivalent)). The number of trees in this picture, each of the same kind and roughly of quite similar statue. But on closer inspection, each is very unique and different to all others.
At the end of January, I experimented a bit with (handheld) long-exposure photography. Something I didn't do often before and I had a lot of fun doing so. I was also surprised by how well the image stabilisation of the GR works to allow me to take sharp pictures at very low shutter speeds. This one is my favourite of the evening. The colours and brightness of the tram are a perfect contrast to the person waiting on the platform.
That's it for last January. As I've already written in an earlier post, I decided to go through the first month of my OCOLOY project without a side challenge. But starting with February I decided to spice things up and add an additional constraint. You'll see what it was as soon as I publish the corresponding blog post.