Daan Bachmann

Boat trip — 2026

Weiße Flotte Heidelberg: a Neckar cruise in pictures

One trip with the Weiße Flotte from Heidelberg up the Neckar, with my little camera on deck. The boat sets the pace and the viewpoint; all that’s left to me is the framing, between the old town, locks and castles. The colours are soft, with a little grain like on film.

Up the Neckar with the Weiße Flotte

At the end of August 2026 I took the Weiße Flotte from Heidelberg up the Neckar as far as Neckarsteinach, the town of four castles. The route is short, yet it’s still a little journey: first the old town with the Old Bridge, then two locks and finally the narrow Neckar valley with its wooded slopes.

The first lock is just beyond the old town, at the Karlstor. The barrage there dates from 1929, designed by Paul Bonatz and clad in sandstone from the Neckar valley – like so much along the river, from the Old Bridge to the castle.

Photographing from a moving boat

You take photographs differently from a boat. The course determines your position; each subject passes by in a matter of seconds, and then it’s gone. There’s little room for planning, but all the more for observing.

I often leave a bit of the boat in the picture: the orange railing, a flag, the bow with its ropes. That way you can see where you’re looking from, and the pictures get a foreground. With the zoom, on the other hand, towers and castles move right up against the slopes behind them, and the layers squeeze together like on an old picture postcard.

And sometimes an image needs almost nothing at all – a bird perched on a lamppost against an empty sky, or steel set against sandstone. Then all that matters are lines and planes.

Small camera, colours like film

All I had with me was my compact camera, a Sony RX100 VII. It fits in any jacket pocket, and its zoom reaches 200mm, enough for cormorants on the riverbank. With fast shutter speeds everything stays sharp, despite the moving boat and the engine.

I developed the series with the same recipe as my photos from Cadzand: soft colours, blue-green shadows, a little less clarity and a touch of grain. That takes the digital harshness out of the pictures, and summer on the Neckar looks a little as if it had been shot on old film.

Location
Neckar valley
Year
2026
Genre
Boat trip
Rope and bollard at the bow of the boat above the water

Photographer in Heidelberg

I photograph weddings, couples, families, babies, medical practices, property and theatre, in Heidelberg and the Rhine-Neckar region. Warm, close and observational rather than posed: with me, people can simply be themselves. Most of the time I work with the light that’s there and with a telephoto lens from a bit of a distance, so people soon forget the camera. And the little things at the edges have their place too.

As a wedding photographer, I follow you through the day reportage-style, from getting ready through the ceremony to the celebration. So far that’s taken me to Heidelberg Town Hall after a stroll through the old town, to the Chapel in Südstadt, to Schloss Neuhaus near Sinsheim and to a barbecue hut in the Taunus, for my best friend’s wedding.

I like photographing families best outdoors in Heidelberg, or at your home if that suits better, while you play rather than sit still. And couples on a walk through the old town, along the Neckar or in the woods. Babies I visit at home, from newborn to first birthday.

For medical practices, I take photos for their website that show what it actually looks like there, as I did for the Born & Winter paediatric cardiology practice in Heidelberg. With property, I’m all about bright rooms and straight lines, for example in a detached house in Pfaffengrund. And for the Wildfang theatre company in Eppelheim, I photographed scenes and group shots two days before opening night, using only the stage lighting.

Then there are my personal series, shot with the small camera in film-like colours, sometimes in black and white too: a trip up the Neckar with the Weiße Flotte and a few August days by the North Sea in Cadzand.

Services

Packages, prices and how it works: Wedding photographer in Heidelberg · Family photographer in Heidelberg · Couple shoots in Heidelberg · Baby photos in Heidelberg

Equipment

What I shoot and edit with: Photo hardware · Photo software

Contact

Got a project in mind? Just drop me a line and I’ll get back to you :)

hi@daanbachmann.de

Enquire about your wedding date · Enquire about family photos · Enquire about a baby shoot · Enquire about a couple shoot · Enquire about practice or property photos

You’ll get the quote and invoice from stark.marketing GmbH, Hans-Bunte-Straße 8, 69123 Heidelberg.