Michael Hart Fine Art
Austrian Church
Austrian Church
One of the momentous assignments during my 45+ years as a commercial photographer was a 7-1/2 week odyssey traveling through 7 European countries. I was photographing designer outlet centers for London-based McArthur Glen, Europe’s premiere developer of such centers. One of these centers is Designer Outlet Center Parndorf, a short drive east of Vienna.
At the end of the shoot day on the Saturday, August 28th that I was there, the shops closed at 6. It was still very light, so I took off in my car to explore a little bit. I headed east towards the Hungarian border, and had not gotten far when I saw fields and fields of wind turbines, which were still a bit of a novelty over here. I explored in that direction, and did indeed get some nice images for the stock files.
But soon I found myself in a small town near The Neusiedl See, or sea. Possible Neusiedl am See, but in all honesty I am not exactly sure. It was way before GPS capable cameras, and whatever notes I MAY have made are lost to the four winds. But the evening light on this church steeple drew me to a little street that ran alongside, and I jumped out and captured about a dozen or so images. And the color ones do indeed look glorious, the deep blue sky contrasted with the golden light bathing the steeple. But, again, the black and white brings things down to the simple composition that just works so well. Besides, we’re in the black and white gallery, right????