B’ham
Thursday, March 4th, 2010
Just shopping for clothes here… and walking around a few parts of town that I don’t know yet. Off to the train station tomorrow… going north by northwest.
Paris – Lille
Monday, March 1st, 2010
I just realized that I haven’t yet registered the copy of MarsEdit I use on the laptop… so in four days, the 30-day test period will be over, and I only have the code in an email on my PC at home. So I will have to write blog entries online after that I guess. Well oh well. I’m not going to blog much when I’m in the UK anyway, I don’t see much reason to use the 5D at all then, and as I know the place and will concentrate on photography on music while I’m there, there won’t be all that much to write about anyway.
Here are two little pictures. The Italian noodle salad from Carrefour that I just ate (in a crappy hotel room in Lille by the way), and a frame from a clip I made last night.
Paris, and two other sets.
Sunday, February 28th, 2010
My stay in Paris is dominated by the feeling that I’d much rather work and live here than just visit this beautiful city. Maybe next spring. After a winter in Tunisia oder India or something like that, where I can avoid snow for two months. Tunisia would make more sense. I began to work on my very bad French. Really trying to get it right this time. It’s strange how much French I understand when people talk to me… but then I can’t answer them at all. Maybe a “pas aujourd’hui” or a “chambre quarante-trois”… or “l’addition s’il vous plaît!”… but nothing with a lot of sense behind it. Nothing that sounds as if I had any idea of the French language whatsoever. It sucks, and I need to end that. Tunisia would be great I think. Or maybe just the south of France… Marseille would be interesting, also for work (if my French gets good enough by then…).
So… Paris. I shot four rolls of film here so far… most with the red filter in front of the lens, to shoot as wide open as possible. The sun was shining yesterday, at least till the late afternoon. I managed to shoot a great frame at Palais de Chaillot, with the Tour Eiffel in the background, at ƒ1.4, with a blue sky in direct sunlight. Very beautiful. I hope it turns out well. Maybe going to the Jardin des Tuileries in the afternoon… to make a short video there. And maybe I’m going to the laverie down the road to wash my clothes… yeah, I should probably do that in a bit.
So… I got sick of the 5D, here is one of the four digital shots I made yesterday.
And I put the photos from Ljubljana and Venice on my Flickr stream.
The complete set: Wrocław
Friday, February 26th, 2010
I just uploaded the complete set of digital photos I made in Wrocław. Enjoy.
Very well.
Friday, February 26th, 2010
I wrote the following on a train connecting Bologna with Paris:
The main reason why I am already on this train is that I had left Ljubljana early to get to Venice, left Venice early to get to Florence, then decided not to go to Florence but to Bologna, and then had quite enough of northern Italy altogether. So… I looked for a train from Bologna to Paris. The fastest connection I could use is ten hours and thirty-four minutes long, but what the heck. I am now in the last three hours of that and it feels like I have maybe been awake for about four hours or so (actually twelve)… and on the train for two. Maybe. I do believe that my feeling for time has changed not only for now, but permanently. It feels more intense because I do so much… but it does generally feel “easier”, if you can say that about time. It didn’t change speed, somehow… but a five hour train ride feels pretty short now. Just like a five hour walk can feel pretty short since I walked from Bad Iburg to Unheimat with Marc in 2008.
There is not much on my mind actually… I just felt like writing. The people I’m sitting with, probably two sisters and the son of one of them, shared a little bottle of champagne with me, they got it for their dinner, which was served at the table we sit at. First class, this time. Oh well, this got a little out of hand. But in Paris I’ll be in a cheap hotel again, at least for Parisian standards.
In the hotel: Awesome! I love Paris!!, just as I love cheap-ass hotels!!!
Bologna sucks
Wednesday, February 24th, 2010
And why should I bother to leave the room, anyway? I’ve got a cold, and a 70% rebate on an awesome suite. It’s a shame I got to get going tomorrow!
Venice
Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010
A clear disadvantage of international buses is that they tend to get right into the city centre. It’s not really much of a problem, if the city is your destination and you want to go to the other side of town anyway… but my bus connection went through Udine… taking a whopping thirty minutes just to get into and then out of town. Of course it’s nice to see another city while I’m on my way… but on the other hand, I’d have been in Venice half an hour earlier if it hadn’t been for that damn stop. Very nice cars driving around there though. Well, that’s Italy.
The ride was okay, all in all. I mean… I hate streets and cars and sure as hell autostrade tunnels, but what the heck. The alps are beautiful, although I must say that my level of intolerance towards recreational skiing is up up up again. Doesn’t it make more sense to walk up and then after a nice meal on top of the mountain, ski down or whatever? I mean.. I’d prefer just going down normally, but if the time is short or the fun level low (I’m sure skiing can be a hell lot of fun) it might make sense to take the shortcut. I could write a lot more about the topic, but it’s boring.
So Venice is nice, and it definitely doesn’t feel like I’ve been here before (which I have, seventeen years ago). I had a full day of shooting today, and also ran through the streets (if you want to call it that) last night, which was just amazing. Also phoned up two friends, which was great. Here are a few photos from last night.
This morning it was raining.. but when the sky cleared up a bit and there was only very little rain coming down, I decided to take the chance and go for a very long (4.30h) walk… I’ve been to more or less every part of Venice now, first shooting digitally, then two rolls with the Leica. It would be so very awesome to know this city by heart. At least I can find my way back to the hotel from anywhere now, and I know the way from the hotel to the train station… so getting lost is already pretty hard now.
I met another Leica addict, he was testing his brand new M7 + 35/2, and the 35/2 is soooo much more compact than the 1.4! I think that it was the pre-asph version though, the asph version just has to be bigger. His wife was also shooting Leica, one of the compact digitals. She made a photo of the two of us while we were discussing mechanical shutters and the merits of the MP compared to the M3. I like moments like that. Those are the moments I would never feel like having to hold on to, or to somehow cover with a nice analogue frame. For me, photography is more about adding to the amount of things I see, and things I experience. Whenever I have those great moments of clarity, or see something truly amazing, I don’t feel like taking photos. Not at all.
