Waking to see rain was never what we wanted, but you just have to go with what you get… and what we started with was a hearty “Austrian farm” breakfast of yoghurt, meats, cheese, bread, butter, jam, orange juie and lots of coffee. Huge thanks to our hosts Keith and Manu for this each day – just the start you need.
So we headed out for a gorge, on the premise that it’d offer some both shelter and some great views – we got the latter, alas no shelter… a little wet! So onwards with a few pit stops to get some dramatic sky shots to a large church commune high in the hills.
A beautiful building – offering shelter and a chance to spend time with each of the delegates, showing them how to get the exposure right and a few ideas on composition. It was pretty dark, so they were all on tripods taking longer exposures and shooting for HDR.
Into the restaurant where we all seemed to get the schnitzel and wheat beers, though some had this Austrian wine concoction which tasted like pear juice…. Slurm or something like that!
After lunch, we headed for a lovely lake where we got a wonderfully dramatic sky and green water – made for some pretty amazing shots from everyone. The little jetty was the perfect foreground – I made sure everyone got a go with that.
After 2 pit stops there it was time to head back for some birthday drinks and a lovely 3 course meal of Pumpkin soup, weizsswurst and pretzel with potato salad, followed by a lovely cake baked freshly by Manu that day.
As it was a birthday we headed into Ellmau to sample some of the local hopitality and wheat beers – before retiring for the evening.
