12 prompts and one journey.

I learned a lot from my mediocre performance of last year. Where I got, and how it felt to get where I got. Between physics occasions, I’m travelling with significantly less equipment compared with last year, with only my 50mm and 105mm prime lenses, and a 2x teleconverter for the 105, which proved extremely useful. Thanks Struan.

Nevertheless, I think I’ve spent the day in pursuit of something quietly meaningful. Not quite as a generic sightseer – this is my 3rd visit, so I am still a tourist – but someone who is here to be in the moment.

As was last year, no post-processing of any kind was allowed for the competition. The copies shown here are only through mild colour regrading and mostly resemble the competition submissions.

This is a purely visual competition and none of the text notes represent a fantasy that they help with judging. They do form a nice recount of the day though. Alternative shots for prompts will be updated some other day.

0. Your Starting Number

No time limit on this, so a few high-kicks before yesterday’s Munich-Riemer parkrun did it.

01. Rund

Round? Round? Round!

I’m a physicist, as I often say, because I like circles and spherical cows. I readily notice circles all around me, centres of flowers, Mini Cooper headlamps, and traffic light with an off-axis pedestrian symbol were all options.

I ultimately made the shot when I was in a tram taking its terminus loop around Schottentor.

I had to walk back to the previous station and redo it a few times to nail the exposure. The submitted one is.

02. Geschmackssache

I take this to mean matters of taste. Near the tram station I got the frame by chance.

03. auf Draht

I interpreted “Unter Strom” last year literally and it was one of my bigger regrets. Today this one still has literal components — on a wire; I show a wire — but the object itself is highly complex and energetic. Thanks to University of Vienna Department of Mathematics.

04. Es war einmal …

Once upon a time, inviting almost fairy-tale qualities. I was on my way to Prater and paid respect to the old “2km to Vienna” milestone.

Competition context aside, this is one of my all time cultural / urban photographs. That will be a theme for today.

05. Ecken und Kanten

Corners and edges. My old pal the Prater Ferris wheel. One of the world’s most iconic “round” structures, is all corners and edges inside.

06. Wirklich Zusammen

Really, truly together.

I journeyed to answer this prompt at Hundertwasserhaus. I explored several levels of togetherness, how his building fits in the otherwise plain cityscape, how plant life fits in his designs, etc.

The one I settled on was a window where the boundary of architecture styles just appear to cut through. From inside, another city life. Truly together with the visions of the bygone artist.

07. Im Wandel

Mid-transition.

I had seen this tree earlier today and wanted to use it to answer Prompt 4, “well this leaf once upon a time was green”. The tram took me right back to it.

08. Auszeit

Time out.

I was on my way to the NHM. The rest of the prompts were all planned to be answered within in fact. But I chanced upon a farmers’ parade along the Austrian capitol circle and I let my baseline event photography competence do its thing.

09. Tierisch Lustig

Funny, animal-ly.

Still at the museums quarter. I was thinking I quickly go to NHM and find a specimen to get the “animal” in the “funny”. But I stopped at the sound of a great street musician.

10. Zwischenräume

The space in between. I never thought I got to practise some LUX staple out here, carrying reduced equipment and alone. There were buckets of soap water!

In this shot in front of the NHM, a bubble has just broken into two (a space in between) and I like the colours under my polariser.

11. Schräg

This might be the weakest answer, but it’s very askew, oblique, weird or unconventional.

Birefringence. Need I say more? (I finally entered NHM).

12. unerreichbar

Out of reach.

The moon has been of that status to the humans for 50 years. The event sponsor Nikon was pretty close once this year though.

Giant, otherworldly balls scattered along north Otago’s Moeraki Beach, the Boulders look as though they were handcrafted and placed by design. These massive concretions are a geological marvel. Formed originally within ancient sea-floor mud through the slow, steady crystallisation of calcite over millions of years.

(An express section of the NZ 2026 Photo Journal)

A note on these: the images are mine and sit outside this site’s CC-BY-NC terms.

What’s here is capped at 3 MP, which is plenty for a screen and no use at all on a wall. If you’d like a print, or a licence to hang one, say hello.

(more…)

… of various levels of sophistication. Thanks to other tourists on the evenings of 5 and 6 June 2026 for letting me stay longer than average on the axis of symmetry.

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Photographie © 2026 FWPhys · LUX. Partagée à des fins non commerciales. Les illuminations nocturnes de la Tour Eiffel sont une œuvre protégée (© SETE).

Photograph © 2026 FWPhys · LUX. Shared for non-commercial purposes. The Eiffel Tower’s nighttime illuminations are a protected work (© SETE).