Myriad moments melting into a single image

A myriad of magical moments melting into a single image

Formed by glaciers, blanketed with grapevines – it's part of Eppan's landscape. Now the special hills are in the limelight.

THE MOTIF – I.E., THE HILL – IS IMPORTANT, BUT IT'S THE LIGHTING THAT DOES THE TRICK.

Erwin Flor, photographer

Night descends. The solitary hiker has already donned his black outfit and is observing the mountain's silhouette in the fading twilight. The perfect moment to begin his work. He grabs two flashlights and marches forth… No, Erwin Flor isn't a thief casing the sleepy Eppan countryside. He collects moments. With a job as a cameraman for films, Flor devotes his leisure time to photography. And for his latest project, he is pulling a lot of night-shifts.

"Let there be light" at the Galgenbühel in St. Pauls.

The hill as a motif The gently rolling hills dominating his homeland are his motif. But the loveliness of these hills is sometimes overlooked. "They imbue the landscape with a certain character," Flor gushes. A flat landscape would be monotonous. "It's quite obvious that glaciers shaped the landscape," Alfred Donà chimes in. The retired teacher had encouraged Flor to finally photograph this natural treasure at his doorstep. They are both residents of St. Pauls. The site: A particularly striking example near the ruins of the Altenburg Castle: The Galgenbühel – named after its former use (as a place of execution). Today, the hill is covered with rows and rows of grapevines. A nut tree spreads its branches on the summit. That was where it all started – during the daytime.

The light creates the atmosphere Erwin Flor has come here again and again to explore the vicinity in preparation for making the perfect picture. "For every landscape, there's a perfect time with the best light. That's what I have to find out." That's why the hobby photographer is usually underway at dawn or dusk. "Shadows imbue an image with depth. Without shadows, the picture is flat," he explains. And flatness is boring. He's taken pictures near the Putzer Gschleier, Tschigatt, and Warth Castle in St. Pauls, near the Kreithof in St. Michael, or in Missian. The Würm Ice Age (the last time the Alps underwent full-scale glaciation) left behind these moraine hills. Depending upon the given site, limestone, gravel, clay, granite, dolomite, or also sandstone form the basis and influence the character of the wine grown there.

Alone in the night While enjoying a glass of wine, Flor and Donà talk about the resultant night photos, focusing on the illuminated hill. The illumination is not achieved through the use of lots of spotlights. Instead, the athletic photograph uses just two flashlights. So while the high-tech camera is set up at a certain site and then programmed, Flor scouts out the entire vine-covered landscape and shines a light on every row of grapevines. So it can take up to an hour and a half before he's checked out the whole two hectares 450 meters above sea-level. "I dress in black so that I'm not visible in the photographs," he explains. He makes an effort to capture every row in a sequence of shots.

Your friend, technology In the course of a single outing, he might make 500 shots. Each is a magical moment, and all of them are merged to produce a single photo. Th is technique is referred to as "live composite." Th e camera's soft ware takes the basic image and then saves only those portions of subsequent photos that are brighter. "Th at is a more-effi cient use of the camera's memory, and the fact that the fi rst image was taken in the twilight is preserved," explains Flor. Th e resultant photo is composed of multiple layers and resembles a painting. Th e thing about photographing in the darkness that fascinates Flor is that "you can't achieve this using any ordinary cell phone or normal camera."

A high-tech camera, two fl ashlights, and a black-cloaked man: Together, they result in fascinating images of a lovely grapevine-covered hilly landscape in Eppan.

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