Along the Rhine, Together

I had wanted to take a cruise along the Rhine for many years.

During my time in the military, I remember hearing some of my fellow servicemen talk about doing it. I had lived in Germany, but somehow this was one experience I had never had for myself.

In 2014, I returned to Germany with my daughter.

Part of the reason for the trip was to show her the places where we had lived when she was born. There were memories there that belonged to our past.

But the Rhine cruise was different.

This was not something from my past that I was simply showing her.

It was new to me too.

As we traveled along the river, castles appeared above us on the wooded hillsides. There were several of them, each interesting in its own way.

This was one of the first photographs from that part of the journey that I decided to work on.

I did not know the name of the castle when I photographed it. I simply saw it rising above the trees and wanted the picture.

From the boat, this was as close as I could get.

My lens was already extended to 135mm, its longest focal length. So I photographed the castle from where the river allowed me to see it.

Years later, I learned that it was Sooneck Castle near Niederheimbach.

What I remember most, however, is not the name of the castle.

I remember finally taking the Rhine cruise I had heard people talk about years before.

And I remember that when I finally did it, my daughter was there with me.

Along the Rhine, Together presents Sooneck Castle from the perspective of the Rhine River, with the medieval and nineteenth-century structure rising from a densely wooded hillside near Niederheimbach.

The composition preserves the environmental context of the encounter. Rather than isolating the architecture, the photograph allows the forested slope to occupy much of the lower frame while the castle emerges above the trees and breaks vertically into the open sky.

The diagonal progression of the hillside leads from the lower left through the surrounding forest and fortifications toward the principal tower and flag above.

The generous landscape surrounding the castle was also a practical consequence of the photographer's position. Colón was photographing from a river cruise and had already reached the 135mm maximum focal length of the lens available to him.

The resulting distance becomes an important part of the image. The photograph records the castle not as an architectural study made from its grounds, but as it was actually encountered by a traveler moving along the Rhine.

Sooneck Castle stands above the Rhine near Niederheimbach in the Upper Middle Rhine Valley. Its present appearance combines surviving medieval fabric with nineteenth-century reconstruction associated with the Romantic Rhine.

When I think about this photograph now, the castle is only one part of what I remember.

I had wanted to take that Rhine cruise for years.

I had heard fellow servicemen talk about it when I was in the military, but despite having lived in Germany, I had never done it.

Then, in 2014, I returned to Germany with my daughter.

Much of that journey involved returning.

I wanted to show her where we had lived when she was born. I wanted her to see places connected to the beginning of her own life and to a period of mine that she could not remember for herself.

But the Rhine was different.

There was nothing for me to show her from memory because I had never taken the cruise either.

We were seeing it together.

The castles appeared one after another along the river. I photographed several of them. At the time, I did not need to know every castle's name or history to appreciate what I was seeing.

This one happened to be Sooneck.

What matters to me now is the journey around it.

My daughter still talks about that trip as one of the best trips she has taken.

That means something to me.

I had gone back to Germany intending, in part, to show her where part of our story had already happened.

Along the Rhine, we made another part of that story together.

Preserved as the one hundred thirty-eighth accessioned photograph in the Francisco Colón Studio Photography Wing, Along the Rhine, Together was made during a Rhine River cruise in Germany on June 21, 2014.

The photograph depicts Sooneck Castle above the Rhine near Niederheimbach in Rhineland-Palatinate.

The image belongs to a larger body of photographs made during Colón's 2014 return to Germany with his daughter. The journey combined revisiting places associated with the family's earlier life in Germany with experiences that were new to both father and daughter.

The Rhine cruise belonged to the latter.

Colón had wanted to make the journey for years after hearing fellow servicemen speak about it during his military service, but had never previously experienced it.

Photographed from the river at the maximum 135mm focal length of the lens, Sooneck Castle remains embedded within the wooded landscape in which it appeared from the boat.

Its significance within the Studio archive lies less in the history of the individual castle than in the journey during which it was encountered: a return to a familiar country that also created new memories shared between father and daughter.