0805 - the early bird gets the worm

setup: canon eos 400d with efs 18-55mm | 55mm | f5.6 | ISO400 | 1/50 | lightroom 4

while i was processing the planned image of today's posting sitting on a deck chair in the yard my remaining kitty nila spotted an eurasian blackbird. whereas i hadn't been completely satisfied with the light conditions of this shot, i came naturally to desist from the pic - you will see a better version in the near future.

so nila and i observed the in my view cute, in her view delicious little bird that had caught a fat worm for his infants. by the way i shot some pictures of the blackbird, only the maximum focal distance of my kit lens hampered a better result. the blackbird was remaining calmly while i approximated because he was constantly assessing the situation.

moreover he was in a favourable position and he had already caught his worm.

cu, trshptr

btw: the picture above is far away from being a masterpiece, but it is not so bad after all and above all today it was important for me to share nila's and my experience with you. and: yesterday the third lens for my nex arrived - the sigma 30 f2.8. tiny little black piece of japanese engineering.

1104 - moonless night

setup: canon eos 400d with efs 18-55mm | 25mm | f8.0 | ISO100 | 15s | aperture priority | multiple triggered with android application dslrcontroller | raw files cropped, aligned and processed in lightroom 4

urban abandoned places at night have a great appeal with me. see that i had to cater anything for dinner this evening, an urban self-shot was obvious.

while i was driving around the town i was on the look-out for a moody place where i could capture a frozen long-time exposed, depressed shot of a small being in the middle of impressive architecture. really no easy statement of task in the middle of nowhere but i'm not going to lower my sights until i hit the wall. satisfaction implies stagnation.

in my opinion except a little light scattering in the lower middle the picture turned out very well. it shows the educational center of markdorf that was built in 1972. i love the architecture of the 70s with its straight lines, strict symmetry, the plain facades and the primary structures made of metal. it is simple and timeless. and if you put an outlined, shadowed person in the center of attention and illumination, your composition becomes clearer and more consistent. a picture turns into a story.

cu, trshptr

0604 II - no time for text but for pics

 

setup: canon eos 400d with efs 18-55mm | 22mm / 18mm | f3.5 | ISO100 | 1/800 / 1/1250 | aperture priority | raw files cropped, aligned and processed in lightroom 4

exceptionally and because of my very short text in the afternoon´s post today two pic postings are published. enjoy the partial coloured basketball action shots of marv, my brother-in-law, and me. in my opinion the pictures have turned out very well.

cu tomorrow, trshptr

2603 - sensitized nila

setup: canon eos 400d with efs 18-55mm | 27mm | f4.0 | ISO100 | 1/100 | aperture priority | raw file cropped, aligned and processed in rawtherapee; jpg healed in gimp

after a rushing weekend today was a slow day. the winter isn´t able to struggle against the spring - our two kitties begin to enjoy the upcoming warmth, too. whereas our first cat zizou, which means white cat in french and was the nickname of zinedine zidane, runs away from home as far and as fast as she can every morning, nila, the second one, most of the time sticks around.

unfortunately zizou´s character has varied heavily since she is allowed to leave the flat after our movement from hamburg to lake constance. currently she is not willing to accept any other kitty in her surroundings. this issue is really sad because the circumstances - nila suffers and as a result she developed a cystitis - prompt us to think about giving zizou away to tina´s grandma. :(

nevertheless we are very happy with both of them. sometimes everything is like we used to do. more usually nila is very sensitized in anticipation of a stupid mobbing by zizou. in the pic above you are able to count her whiskers. i processed the image in a kind of cold style with minor saturation because this feature mirrors the still heavy cold that can be felt when sun is setting down.

cu, trshptr

2003 - courtyard with bakehouse

setup: canon eos 400d with efs 18-55mm | 27mm | f9.0 | ISO100 | 1/100 | aperture priority | jpg file cropped, aligned and processed in gimp 2.6

After a great long night - had slept from 11pm to 7am - the shiny morning sun bid me welcome back to life. it is always a better start of the day if outside is at least a tiny little more brightness than in your unlighted sleeping room. so understandably todays breakfast especially hit the spot.

completely satisfied i entered our courtyard, as usual the camera stored in my bag waiting for daily surprises. tina and i live in a more than 300 years old timber-framed house which was the home for many nuns in the 18th and 19th century. the building is an absolute eye candy - the former workmen used beams that are anything but straight, unique bricks and natural tiles. we were lucky that the sanitation was completely modernized before our moving in, the building itself had already been restored in the 1990´s.

it´s a kind of magic to spend time in that wonderful piece of history. you´ll participate in my experiences during the following year(s) - i´ve got many ideas how photographies of details or whole parts of this house can revive this blog. hopefully living beeings will play their role, too.

by reason of the dwarfs only suitable ceiling height photos of our flat won´t come up before my equipment supports high iso capturing. but that doesn´t mean that our environment couldn´t be a part of my day by day blog shooting yet: right on your doorstep there follows a huge courtyard with an enormous lime in its middle. at the northern end you can find a small single family living house that in former times had been used by the nuns as a bakehouse and in front of it a tiny small pigsty that acts as a storage shed today. our groudskeeper seems to like the colour orange - me too.

regardless i decided to develop this photography in a cold and hard style without much colour because the summer is still far away and the temperatures don´t yet allow to put the winter coat away. furthermore in my opinion this kind of image processing perfectly shows the compromise between the sensitivity and the resistivity of buildings like that - they really don´t have a new look but come back in 10 years and they will appear like today.

don´t be afraid again: it will not be my focus to process my images, their natural characters are most important for me. so welcome to our nearest neighbourhood. have a peep, but be discreet.

cu, trshptr