Saturday, January 28, 2012

Silver lining....

Even in the gloomiest of weathers, there is still opportunity to find that spontaneous "Lichtblick" (glimmer of light).
"Escape Path" Nex 5N + Minolta AF 50/1.7

Friday, January 27, 2012

Olympic Center Munich

No business


BMW Tower

1972 to 2012, still modern
Ornamental people?
Some days ago I happened to be at the Olympic Center in Munich. The fleeting moments of sunshine allowed taking some pictures. The kit lens excels at this task because it is light, variable and small enough to fit into the jacket pocket to hide from snow or drizzle. The last picture shows the interior aesthetics of the Olympic hall. But aside from the playing together of form and color, I couldn't help but notice how the young women with the task of distributing infoflyers were also placed as ornaments.

FDn 100/2.8 is here, but the weather still is poor....

Silent guests

The right picture for this kind of weather..
Yesterday my FDn 100/2.8 as well as the adapter arrived. Had to wrestle a little till I understood the procedure of the FD mount. Am I getting old? I like this lens even indoors, but of course would prefer to shoot some pictures in the sun. Unfortunately, a blanket of grisly fog has settled and the forecast for the weekend is just more of the same....

Sunday, January 15, 2012

A look at the moon.....

Seeing the moons surface always reminds me of Apollo 13 and about that longgone euphoria of interspatial travel. This was an absolutely dilettante attempt just for the sake of it: Handheld with manual focussed 210 zoom, spot exposure. Makes me long for an adapter to that telescope of my stepdad.......

Point of view: Architecture photography needs summer daylight or winter night

Berlin Industrial Heritage            

Power Plant
The sky
                                                                          
Nighttime is the right time

Suffering through the mixed, mostly bad weather of winter time just as many other amateur photographers, I have used some vacation days to experiment with nighttime photography. This helps getting over the problem that by the time you usually return from work, night has already settled and that the sky tends to be an indiscriminate grey on many of those autumn and winter days. When the motive is architecture, that also helps with the mandatory tripod/long exposures.

Apple-free Zone....

Warning: If you are an enthusiastic Apple-owner, do not read further.

Yesterday I glanced through several photobooks with which my sister, living abroad, helps my mom keeping up-to-date. The newest two have, as last page, "Made on a Mac". Now I am sure this has been added automatically by the software which she used.

But honestly, how far can this Apple-mania go?

I accept that currently Apple products are so "in" that first-grade pupils without  an Iphone qualify for psychological counselling. But in my experience, most Apple products were not only overpriced but also failed soon after warranty expired. Examples:
The G5 of my sister-in-law started forgetting it had a DVD drive after 3 years. Reinstalling the OS helped for some months, then it happened again. She sold it and bought an I-Book. Needless to say, it haid this ominous bug and failed after 2.5 years. SInce the recall action of Apple had not (yet) extended to include her serial number, Apple refused to repair it for free. I advised my father-in-law to write a letter to Apple and after some back'n-forth they finally did repair it. In the meantime, needing the computer for professional use, she already bought a new I-Book. That has already failed, too. Another desktop Mac of an aquaintance refuse to recognize any USB stick, even the one bought from the Apple store. Solution? She bought a new Mac. I too already have seen a shattered screen of an I-phone.
As contrast, a colleague broke his ribs in a bike accident. I recovered Fujitsu Siemens laptop whose case was shattered at several places and the entire back side with the connectors was bent in 4-5 mm. Just inspite powered it up and it booted and worked just fine.

I have to confess, in my personal opinion Steve Jobs was as negative a person as Bill Gates still is. It sort of upturns my stomach, remembering the 80s with activism against apartheit, LiveAid concert and the like, to witness that after Jobs died people worldwide put flowers into the Apple shop windows as if he were some sort of guru.

To me, this seems as if our society has lost connection what is really important and mindless idolising of anyone exceeding the average, whether in good, bad or irrelevant aspects, is the norm.

Enough rambled, the content of this pages has been prepared entirely WITHOUT the use of any Apple product.