All the “postcard shots” of the Neckar River are taken while standing on the Neckarbrücke (bridge). When I was wandering around on the Neckar Island the other day, just for fun I snapped a photo looking back from the other direction, toward the Neckarbrücke, which is the first photo shown below:

View down the Neckar River toward the Neckarbrücke – original photo

It’s hard to see the bridge,  but it’s there off in the distance — click on the photo to enlarge it and you can more easily see the bridge.  You can start to make out the normal building reflections on the river. They aren’t as striking from this direction, though.

A couple of things about this photo struck me initially. First,  doesn’t that look like there are ducks on the river there on the left? But I knew there hadn’t been, and when you click on the photo to enlarge it, you’ll see it’s actually a branch sticking out over the water. But it really looks like ducks.

It also wasn’t nearly that dark there that day – clearly, I must have had some odd lighting problem with the camera. Here’s what it looks like with lightened up a bit:

In this version, the reflections, of the trees and the sky, really start to pop out. And it was striking just how long that reflection extends down the river.

View down the Neckar River toward the Neckarbrücke – adjusted

As you may note,  I did take out the branch in this version, it just kept bugging me that it looked like a duck, but wasn’t a duck.

However, we’re not quite done with playing with the photo today. Look at that brilliant sky reflected in river at the bottom of the photo. But a sky should be on the top of the photo, don’t you think? So, let’s get an upside down perspective on this:

View down the Neckar River toward the Neckarbrücke – upside down

What do you think? I think I like it better this way than the original orientation, actually. it’s a completely different feel; it’s a little surreal, with the reflection almost, but not quite, like a proper view of the sky, and the reflected trees at the top almost, but not quite, looking like regular trees.

At the moment I took the photo, I thought it would be interesting to have a look down the Neckar River from an alternate direction. So, it’s interesting to discover that my prefered alternate direction, even from the perspective of the other end of the Neckar River, is still the same: upside down.