When I have been young, between 5 and 12 years I have been at least once a month with my parents on a Sunday at the Blue Lake in Ratingen, Germany. It was a place that has been always mysteries a lake, at that time with crystal clear cold blue water, surrounded by rocks and forrest. A silent but beautiful place of nature and a great escape from the heat, noise and stress of the close by cities as Düsseldorf, Ratingen, Mettmann, Neuss, Mülheim or Essen… We rented at the lake some simple boats to relax and cruise on the lake. To reach the pier with the rental boats you passed a nice Restaurant / Cafe that invited their guest to enjoy food, or coffee and cake with a natural view to the wonderful lake.
I have to say thank you tom my parents for these wonderful childhood memories. “Thanks a lot, Inge and Peter!”
This week-end I took my family to this magic place and wanted to show them where their dad has spend many happy hours with his parents.
Well, the place got still some magic but I would name it today, 45 years later, the charm of a lost place. The cafe / restaurant is closed and looks as if the people just run off after a nuclear attack and the wonderful view is covered by high gras and other plants that conquered back their original terrain. The place for the rental boats still exists but I would not dare to try one without taking into account that I might get a cold bath. And finally, the wonderful clear blue water has turned into a muddy green color.
Please have a close look yourself, I captured my surprising findings with the 7Artisans 12mm f2.8 lens on my Fujifilm X-PRO3 Black. This wonderful compact manual 12mm lens from 7Artisans combines high resolution and high IQ with for this focal length low image distortions. This lens is my first choice for landscape images. To emphasize the look and feel of this lost place I used the Fujifilm in body simulation Classic Neg. with its reduced colors but enhanced image depth.
Unbelievable!🥺 Have you ever been to the Diepentalsperre nearby Leichlingen? There were also a nice cafe / restaurant and rental boats. Only 25 years ago it was a very nice place to relax and make a walk around the Talsperre. Now it’s also a lost place. Everything is closed. Many trees 🌳 around the Talsperre had to be felled. 😢
Hi Claudia,
I have never been at the Diepentalsperre. What I can say, there are more and more places that have been a great place to be during the week-end with the family and friends and accelerated by the Covid lockdowns has been abandoned and turned into lost places. I hope after all these crises the world will become better again and we recover those places for our families and kids. At the moment I am hunting for those lost places and want to document them as a part of our history for the generations that will come after us.
Greetings,
Malte