In English, the expression is that March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb, or vice versa. I would say Germany at the beginning of March came in more like a snow leopard. On March 9th Chris and I left Tübingen by train. It had been cold and gray in Tübingen that morning. On arrival in Berlin, we emerged from the Berlin train station to find a very cold and snowy afternoon.

The snow and frosty weather continued the next day, too, as we rode a double-decker city bus to get from the hotel to the museum on our second day there. As the bus stopped on the street near one of the most famous landmarks in Berlin, I snapped a quick photo:

Red among the gray – (As shot)

There’s something about this photo I like. Yes, OK, so it’s not the perfect postcard shot of the Brandenburg Gate. However, I loved how the red tail lights pierce through the gloom, providing almost the only spots of color you can see up ahead. That’s not a trick that I did with the image on the computer: what you see is what we saw. I think the cars’ lights seem even brighter than normal since their red glow contrasted so much with the gloom.

Of course, the columns of the gate do seem to have a slight bit of color to them, so the overall effect isn’t quite black and white. So, I was tempted to play a bit with that idea; in the following version I have removed all the colors except for the red. See what you think.

Red among the gray – near black & white