Heidelberg Red Castle

Sony A900, 135mm, f/8, 30s

Despite battles and wars and destruction surrounding the history of Heidelberg Castle since it was first built in the thirteenth century, a lot of romance is connected to it: in the seventeenth century the newly-wed Prince Frederic V welcomed his young wife, English princess Elizabeth Stuart, to Heidelberg with splendid colors and fireworks. Since that day the Heidelberg Castle is illuminated four times a year, which draws a multitude of tourists (and photographers) to the show every summer.

The gardens around it also witnessed the last meeting between Goethe, on the occasion of his 75th birthday, and his life-long lover, Marianne, who left these words reflecting on the event:

"On the terrace a high vaulted arch

was once your coming and going

the code pulled from the beloved hand

I found her not, she is no longer to be seen"

This is also where +Lina Mosashvili and I spent our first day together more than three years ago, few weeks after I took this image.

I was standing on the other side of the river, but I still wanted to fill the frame with the castle and have a nice black framing around it. I shot at 135mm to close up on the ruins but still keep the purple smoke in the frame. By closing to f/8 to have good sharpness from the lens, the camera gave me 30 seconds of exposure which nicely blurred the smoke. Later I cloned out every distracting element, like the tip of the bridge that was obstructing the lower right part of the image.