Oberdrum, Osttirol, Austria is a small village or Dorf of around 500 inhabitants a few kilometers outside Leinz, a busy town in the Osttirol. Though a significant tourist centre this area is remote (a three hour delightful bus journey from Innsbruck through Italian Sudtirol) and is relatively quiet compared with much of the Alps. The scenery of the Dolomites with towereing peaks is dramatic and invites exploration. These photos were taken in the golden hour on a December evening.
On this central street there’s a light dusting of snow highlighted by the street lights. But what drew my attention were the Christmas decorations on the house to the left. Lights often appear welcoming on a cold night. Also see the traces of aeroplane vapor highlighted by the setting sun.
Taken from a sinilar position as the above photo, the street light illuminates the scene though old agricultural gear is just visible. The deep blue sky indicates golden hour and houses down the road are still visible.
From a different angle I was drawn here to the outines of the mountains contrast with the streetlight and just still visible road.
The reflected light on the mountains here is much more pronounced and against the dark foreground creats an errily dramatic scene. I really like the texture of the mountain light overshadowing the houses beneath. There is snow there but still only light despite being December, which creates a texture mixing the white and rock and trees underneath.
Nearer to Lienz here the local cemetrey is illuminated by candles and lights. reflected in the snow. There were a few poeple there (an indistinct image can be seen lower left) and we were there to light candles on the grave of a relative of my wife’s.
A radiant abstract figuration with bokeh of the cemetery lights
Here we see the strong contrast between the lights of the house against the mountain white contrasting in turn with the rich blue sky. The house light enables us to see something of the foreground field speckeled with snow.
I like the depth in this photo standing back from the detail, there’s a garden in the foreground, trees breaking a clear view of the streets but lights illuminating the road overshadowed by the mountains. The roads create diagonals dividing the photo into segments. The road running left-right leads to Lienz. Again the mountains have a strong presence creating a diagonals in the upper half of the photo. The lighted buildings centre the photo creating I hope a sense of warmth against the cold night.
This photo isn’t really golden hour but night time. This was at the edge of the villiage at the end of my early evening stroll. It’s the only photo here in monchrome because I was trying to create a profilmic abmiance with the car lights against the dark – only the road fencing is illuminated.