Beautify your home with a work of art by Klaus Leidorf
For more than 30 years now Klaus Leidorf documents mainly Bavaria from the air. Triggered by the aerial archaeology he started what later became his absolute passion, flying his Cessna 172 and taking photographs. He has developed a very unusual and unique view for exceptional aerial photographs. Those artistic aerials show great compositions of graphic shapes of the landscape or in urban surroundings, as well as sensational light moments in the mountains or on water.
Over the years Klaus Leidorf has built up a reputation in the international photographic art market. Many customers from all kind of business areas all over the world are attracted by his very unusual captured views from above. His aerials are used as wall decoration up to a very large scale, in advertising or enhancing architectural or other projects.
His photographs can also be found in numerous publications as well as books and magazines and regularly exhibitions take place.
Featured Images
#1 Haze mood
Veils of mist fill the valleys in the foothills of the Alps on this cold day at the beginning of March. Only the peaks look out. Huge lakes of cold and humid air in the lowlands create these winter fog seas.
In clear, cold and windless nights, colder and therefore heavier air floats into the valley. Condensed moisture forms a closed fog cover with no chance for the sunlight to come trough. Thus it comes to the so-called inversion weather conditions. The upper layers of air are warmer than the lower ones. This ensures a good visibility. With an average temperature of 0.2°C, March 2013 was one of the six coldest March months since the start of weather recording in 1881.
Image ID: 5D327607
#2 Evening mood
The view above the metropolis of Munich in the golden evening light against the magnificent Alpine backdrop is full of atmosphere.
Distinctively rise the 291-meter-high Olympic Tower – one of the well-known landmarks of the Bavarian capital – and in front of it the Allianz Arena, home ground of FC Bayern Munich since the 2005/06 season. The Italians refer to Munich as the “Monaco di Baviera”.
Image ID: 7D201109
#3 Farmers painting
The farmer has nothing to do with the folk art of painting on chairs, cupboards and chests. Motifs such as landscapes, portraits and decorative flower arrangements are not part of his repertoire.
With his tractor he leaves behind more random graphic patterns, which, moreover, are only visible to a few from a bird’s eye view. Unfortunately, this is an art that passes quickly, because wind, weather and vegetation have no consideration for this ephemeral painting near Biburg in the district of Kelheim.
Image ID: 5D006316
#4 Carpet of algae
Nature offers endless abstract motifs of graphic elements, patterns and structures. With these sometimes very strange views, it is not always immediately obvious what they are. On the water of the artificial reservoir near Aschheim in the rural district of Munich there is a huge carpet of algae on which ducks gorge on at lunchtime.
Image ID: 1Ds46581
#5 Striped landscape
When the rape blossoms, it is the unmistakable sign of the approaching summer. The sowing begins in the summer of the previous year. When the young rape plants have survived the winter undamaged, they blossom in May in bright, golden yellow splendour on thousands of fields visible from afar. At the end of July the rape is ripe and can be harvested. These flowering rape fields are located south of Ismaning, near Munich.
Image ID: 1Ds44558
#6 Ice with snow
The bright spots of ice on the Staudhamer lake close to Wasserburg am Inn look like snowflakes. The lake has a surface of about 24 hectares. At its deepest point, it is 9 meters deep. The lake freezes over from above, at the lake bottom it is the warmest. Therefore the fishes look for the deepest part. They then stop almost all activities. Zander, perch or carp lie quietly in the water and move hardly any more. On the contrary vendaces or trouts are still quite active even at four degrees.
Image ID: 5D366557
#7 Tree and tractor tracks
Somewhere in Lower Bavaria between Essenbach, Mitterdorf and Gänshall, this lonely tree grows in a wide field. When the last snow has thawed, man and nature blossom. Spring changes everything. When the ice saints are over, trees and bushes also turn green. It won’t be long until the brown soil will turn into a lush green corn field.
Image ID: 5SR30882
#8 Yellow wheel loader
In art, the golden ratio is perceived as aesthetic, particularly appealing and harmonious. In photography one speaks of the rule of thirds when the image is mentally cut into nine parts with two invisible horizontal and vertical lines, so that all parts have the same size. The motive, in our case the bright yellow wheel loader in a former coal dump in Wackersdorf, is located at one of the four intersections.
In art, the golden ratio is perceived as aesthetic, particularly appealing and harmonious. In photography one speaks of the rule of thirds when the image is mentally cut into nine parts with two invisible horizontal and vertical lines, so that all parts have the same size. The motif, in our case the bright yellow wheel loader in a former coal dump in Wackersdorf, is located at one of the four Intersections.
Image ID: 040701515
#9 Nature reserve
In wetlands, such as here at the Schambach stream near Treuchtlingen, a striking reed landscape with wet meadows and unique protected plant growth has developed due to the high soil moisture. There are rare orchids, pipe grasses and the cotton grass typical of moors. To prevent the nature reserve from being overgrown with reeds, mowing must be carried out regularly and by hand. This brings air and light back into the wetland.
Image ID: 1Ds00801
#10 Agricultural Festival
The Central Agricultural Festival, founded in 1811, has been held since 1949 in a four-year cycle for one week during the Oktoberfest. On a total area of around 120,000 sq m, around 650 exhibitors from the agricultural and food science, the agricultural engineering and forestry their products and services. Not only for farmers but also for city dwellers the animal shows are very popular. Cattle, small calves, sheep and goats are much-loved. In advance, sows are selected, which have their piglets just in time for the festival.
Image ID: 1Ds19565
#11 Red boat at the café
When looking over the landscape, our blue planet surprises the pilot again and again with an amazing richness of colours. They can have natural causes or be man-made. The striking signal colour of the orange parasols at a lakeside restaurant in Starnberg is clearly noticeable. The colour orange stands for optimism and joie de vivre and has an uplifting, strengthening, positive and health-promoting effect in every way.
Image ID:1Ds36437
KLAUS LEIDORF
When the aerial archaeologist Klaus Leidorf limbs into his Cessna to to take off air, then there is always good weather. During the flight he leaves focuses solely on his view and orientates himself in this way. The pilots call this visual flight.
Klaus Leidorf has already spent more than a year in the air, most frequently about Bavaria. Here, the experienced archaeologist has been commissioned by the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation in the past decades numerous prehistoric ground monuments discovered and documented from the air.
In addition, he has also more and more often the view of unusual motives directed. Aerial photographs of abstract forms, varied patterns and atmospheric colours are his trademark, which often only become apparent at second glance.
In the course of time more than one million pictures were created in this way. Pictures that amaze and astonish the viewer….and also sometimes can be puzzling.
If you want to learn more about Klaus Leidorf, please click here.
