The photographs on this page were all taken between 10:30 PM and midnight on July 12, 1997. Click on any of the low-resolution, reduced-size pictures below to see a full-size image of the picture (about 100Kbytes each).

These pictures are the copyright property of Edgar L. Dohmann and presented here for your viewing pleasure only. Please see the information at the bottom of this page for our copyright notice and for technical information on these photographs.

Altstadt Dresden am der Elbe

From left to right, the 3 towers visible on the left side of the photograph are the Royal Palace, the Standehaus, and the Hofkirche Cathedral. The Augustusbrüke bridge which crosses the Elbe is in the center of the photo. Beyond the bridge, the roof of the Semper Opera House is visible to the left and the Japanese Palace is visible on the right. In the lower right corner, the steamer paddleboat Meissen is travelling upriver.

Equestrian Statue

This statue of King John of Saxony was erected in 1889 as a monument to King John who is renowned for his translation of Dante's Divine Comedy. The building behind the statue is the Zwinger, Dresden's famous art gallery.

Crown Gate

The main entrance to the Zwinger art gallery is through this Crown Gate (Kronentor). This gilded symbol of authority is one of the major landmarks of Dresden. The crown at the top of the gate rests on the backs of 4 Polish eagles.

The Zwinger was the first historical structure to be reconstructed after WWII.

Hofkirche Cathedral

This Cathedral was originally built in 1737 and was almost totally destroyed in the 1945 air raids. Reconstruction started in 1979 and was nearly complete when this photo was taken in 1997. Scaffolding is still in place around the church tower and can be seen on the left side of the photo.

A unique feature of the Cathedral is the presence of the 78 statues of saints on the balustrades, each about 10 feet tall. The tower of the Royal Palace is visible on the right behind the Cathedral.

Semper Oper Haus

The first opera house designed and built by architect Gottfried Semper burned down in 1869. Construction on this second opera house by Semper was started in 1871 and completed in 1878. It was destroyed in the 1945 air raids and reconstruction was started in 1977. The completely rebuilt Semper Opera House was reopened in 1985.

Procession of Dukes

This 102-meter mural on the outer wall of the Stable Courtyard of the Royal Palace was painted in 1870-76 by the artist Wilhelm Walter. The work was originally in scratched stucco but was covered with 25,000 Meissen porcelain tiles in 1906 to prevent damage. It survived the air raids of 1945 and depicts the 1000-year history of the house of Wettin.

About these photos:

These photographs wera all taken between 10:30 PM and midnight on July 12, 1997 by Edgar L. Dohmann. The camera was a 1975 model Pentax K1000. The Cathedral and Mural photos were taken with a Pentax 28 mm f3.5/52 mm wide angle lens. The others were taken with a Pentax 40-80 mm f2.8/49 mm zoom lens. A Vivitar 285 flash was used on all of the photographs except the Elbe River scene which was merely a time-delay exposure. The film was Kodak Royal Gold.

The original 4x6" glossy prints were scanned into Photoshop 4.0 with a Microtek IISP scanner at 300 dpi resolution and saved as jpeg files for the high resolution images which are linked from these reduced-size lower resolution images.

The high resolution images are presented exactly as they were photographed and scanned. No image enhancement whatsoever has been applied to these photographs. These images look as much like the original photographs as is possible for a scanned image.

Please note that these photographs are all the copyright property of Edgar L. Dohmann and are presented here for your viewing pleasure only. Please contact me at edohmann@ortech-engr.com if you wish to use, print, publish, or distribute these photographs in any manner or if you wish to purchase or license any of these photographs.

An 8x10 glossy print of the Cathedral photograph won a "Most Original" award at the 1997 Brazoria, Texas County Fair Photography Contest.

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(December 8, 1997)