Projekt | Σ | Systém

Some people spend their weekends carousing, others like to go fishing, and yet others may just lie around dormant and let the time pass. Some people tend to spend long hours sorting out and post-processing photographs, and finally, some people like to make games. Months upon months of preparation, and an amazing weekend full of interactive drama experience had finally arrived.

Meet Projekt Systém.


















It was a brilliant mix of thoughtful setting, captivating story, great players - or "actors", and powerful emotions, that left people who had been there with loads of things to ponder long after the game was over. I won't go into much detail here, let's just say it was the greatest LARP I ever had the chance to play, and that if you're interested in the details, I'd love to tell you over a beer or two.


























A zip with all the photos is available here.

A Peek Into the Tiny World

With only a few millimeters thick depth of focus, constant movement in the environment, heavy equipment and lack of dedicated macro lens, close-up photography is quite probably the most difficult kind I've ever tried. Still, although there are incredible things to explore down there, the biggest challenge of this shoot was simple - rather than technical issues, it was my own ignorance of tiny things. Every photographer has an inner eye that helps him or her choose the scene and compose properly, a sort of sixth sense that tells them what is worthy of being photographed, how to do it and what to expect. Well... with macro, I felt mine simply didn't work as I'm used to. This post is dedicated to my mom, a very passionate gardener.  :-)

But there's much more to macro than just plants and insects, a whole world worth exploring is in technology, minerals, as well as whatever common items with at least some noticeable detail. :-)




Mind you, this is just a random minimal-effort shoot of objects regularly around me - I imagine it's possible to take some pretty extraordinary photographs with more dedication and time spent on the shoot.

Paris Deserves Another Post

It is well known that photographer's best friend is the [Delete] key. Unless they have a Mac, that is, in which case they are screwed. ;-) But if you can't force yourself to delete enough of them, that's when you have to resort to writing multiple posts from a single shoot... still, it's very true that most of my pictures suck, as do everyone else's, so let's hope I didn't overdo it. :-)

Louvre is a magnificent place at night. Majestic and calm, inspiring and breathing history ‒ you can almost hear the walls whisper their memories. It's also a nice place for a romantic walk with a sweetheart, as ‒ unlike rest of the town ‒ it's not too crowded.

Notre Dame, despite being too famous for its own good, is still my favourite Paris landmark. There just is something about its Gothic architecture contrasting with rest of the cityscape, and the gargoyles on the roof hungrily observing the streets for easy prey, that makes it very special to me. The simple fact that such cool creatures dwell on the roof of a Christian monument is awesome. :-D In the previous post there are two similar ones - the main difference is the photo processing technique used ‒ HDR in once case and Exposure Blending in the other. But still - this one is my favourite, although it seems to be more amused and mischievous than dangerous. :-)

From all the weird and wannabe artistic shots I took, this simple "point straight up and shoot" still works best for me. :-)

This is a high contrast non-HDR version of this photo. Which one is better?

Here you can yet again see the dark interior difference between Exposure Blending and HDR. I have a HDR shot similar to the first photo here. The organ photo was a bitch to take without a tripod, because I had to zoom in a lot, especially the over-exposed bracketed one. So I overdid it and made it look like a painting. :-) And this statue is a single-exposure photo that favours play of light and shadow, made possible by the fact that there isn't any overwhelming source of light present.

Noticed the CCTV cam watching you from the middle flower? :-D

Either I wasn't exactly in the centre, or the masonship isn't completely accurate. Probably both. :-D


What's better than one TGV train? Four of them, of course. Notice that the last one is a different type, with maximum recorded speed of no less than 574.8 km/h.


This last one is just playing with perspective, most relevant to those who know where the statues are relatively to the tower. :-) I don't think I've ever seen this take on the Eiffel tower, anyway.

Thanks for watching. As always, constructive criticism is most welcome. :-)

A day on Île-de-France

When the Rock'n'Roll train arrived at Gare de l'Est Friday around noon, we only had two and a half days to get back home. Even though, fortunately, I've been to Paris before, it was so little it was intimidating. To make things even worse, we lost all of Friday to organisational issues, due to problems with the tickets and difficulties with accommodation, and as we wanted to spend most of Sunday in Strasbourg, all we had left was not much ‒ a single day.

The city was just as I remembered it ‒ French. For me, it means a feeling of disorganisation, chaotic traffic, strikes and protests, an ever-present feeling of negligence... but on the other hand great food, attractive women, a lot of glamour, art, and history, all mangled up to form a society that somehow miraculously manages not to fall apart. :-)


Although this is not the line, I like it how elevated "rail" in Paris drives on rubber wheels instead of tracks... makes it a lot more survivable than Chicago. Trust me, I had a track right under my window.


Needless to say, you can't see much in a single day. It was almost a sacrilege to leave so soon, after only seeing a few major landmarks. As I knew the city pretty well already, including the streets of Montmartre, I wasn't too worried about it, but I imagine my friends would have really loved to stay. :-)

What would a city shoot be without at least a little HDR? :-) Dunno, I haven't tried that in quite a while. Also, this time, I'm premiering a new image-processing technique called Exposure Blending. It has basically the same principle as HDR, but achieves the effect much less intrusively, or if you want, without the painting-like effect. See if you can spot those shots. :-)


Notre Dame is very classy, and unlike those posh priests in London with grand robes up their asses, no one was fretting about photography there. The bad thing about this were the myriads of random people discharging one flash after another into the domes... the good thing was that I was able to shoot photos like these without being bothered.


This is the HDR version on this shot, in the next post, I will also upload a more contrasty non-hdr sub-exposed version.

As my camera is still being serviced cause of its shutter failure, I borrowed a generation younger EOS 50D from a friend. I was very satisfied with the camera. It was a nice evolutionary step, especially from the usability/ergonomic point of view... and it never hurts to have more megapixels to crop.

This is a pretty rare photo... those of you familiar with traffic around the Arc surely know why. :-)

To sum things up, it was a wonderful, albeit somewhat costly weekend trip, and I'm looking forward to have more of those. :-) And a good trip needs a good company, so if you'd someday like to join me, leave me a note...

Stockholm at Night

The gamla stan (old town) of Stockholm is a very interesting place, especially at night. The old cobblestone streets are narrow, cold yet cosy, and deserted. A few confused backpackers like myself, some Swedes hard at work navigating to the right place to party, and... well, solitude. It was just me and my camera, and a whole lot of freedom, as I was sitting on a bench in front of the royal palace, pondering anything and everything, and smoking a fine cigar.




The moment I've entered the departure hall at Bratislava airport, a terrifying finding dawned upon me: I have forgotten the tripod packed in my room. It may have been a good thing, partly, because my experience is that lugging a tripod on board of a plane is often a huge problem with the security. Perhaps you could use it to beat someone to death and then mount your camera over their body to get the perfectly stable shot!

So yeah, in case you noticed that there is some noise and blur in the photos, this is the reason. These are certainly not praiseworthy from technical point of view, but I think they capture the scene pretty well and I like them anyway. :-)







Swedes are very kind and enjoyable fellas, and never hesitate to share a story and a drink. This is the reason why I, merely few hours after landing outside the city, managed to find a bunch of nice guys who I could spend some time with. I found them trying to get over a fence from their party place to the old town, and my paparazzi side took over for a while, so I was photographing them secretly, not to spoil the moment.


Then we talked and had a great laugh - although I was worried for a second that they would not appreciate it, they were amused, and invited me to come with them. I really enjoy meeting foreigners... there is always something special about those moments, especially the part of me that misses Erasmus in Trondheim, or even Chicago, got really sated that night. If you guys are reading this, here's one huge thanks, it was really lovely and you're welcome in Bratislava or Brno anytime. :-)



And a little toy photo to conclude. :-)

Vigelandsparken

Sunday in Oslo was all you would expect from a day of such name, the weather was completely different from the boring clouds of the day before, and our first part of the day was spent on a beautiful autumn walk around Vigelandsparken, a lovely sculpture park, part of (my very own ;-)) Frognerparken, where all the famous and, admittedly, somewhat crazy statues (made) of naked people are. :-)








Monolitten is a breathtaking creation that took no less than twenty years to design and build. I really appreciate how dozens and dozens of bodies entwine together. According to wikipedia, they are rising towards heaven and represent man’s desire to become closer with the spiritual and divine. It portrays a feeling of togetherness as the human figures embrace one another as they are carried toward salvation. Whatever, it's just a massive phallus built of naked people. ;-P

The panorama is created in hugin, a very handy and powerful open source tool I've decided to try thanks to the love it gets from Linux.com and Yenya.



What a gang. :-D


And finally, the old man who looked down on us for Eva and Zdeněk climbing on one of the statue pedestals. There are a lot more photos of them on my Facebook album for the trip, give it a click. :-)

Los Oslosos (HDR)

I haven't been to Scandinavia for a month and, well, I missed that place enough to get back there. This time it was Oslo, made easier and cheaper by the fact that all it took to persuade Zdeněk to let us stay at his place, were twelve bottles of booze. The weather on Saturday was as Scandinavian as it gets, so all I could do to prevent my shots from being dull and boring was resorting to HDR yet again...






I had little time to prepare or compose the shots, as the others were impatient and restless, and I'm not very satisfied with the results. Then again, Oslo is not a very photogenic city, definitely not as nice and cosy as Stockholm or Trondheim. Eva, however, was enchanted, so if I don't post anymore, she'd probably strangled me. :-)




It was a wonderful experience overall, I saw a lot of things I always wanted to see, got to eat a lovely dish of whale meat, relaxed a little and spent some time with my dearest. Can't wait for another trip such as this!

Stockholm in HDR

The light was mostly so good there wasn't much need for experimenting, but I still couldn't resist firing off a few bracketed shots for HDR... I like a few, you judge for yourself. I admit the feel is somewhat unrealistic, which anyone may or may not appreciate.





And, although not exactly HDR, a bird. :-)

Stay tuned for Stockholm night shots! :-)

Weekend in Stockholm

It was late at night, months ago, me and my buddies were enjoying some quality male-only time and laughing our asses off at some distant place better left unspecified, when my phone rang. I grinned at the screen as it was my dearest, and ran out to answer it... "Tee hee," she giggled, "we just had [censored amount of ;-)] tequila shots and decided that we wanted to go to Sweden!" All I managed was a general sound of amused surprise. "Seriously! RyanAir offers plane tickets for €10 including all the taxes. It's ending tomorrow, you need to decide now." Well, she needn't say more, as I'm always all for any mischief like this.

There were six of us supposed to come, but as the departure date approaches, I ended up alone. The excuses others had varied from "we have no money" to "I broke both my arms while riding a bike," and at the last minute, not having any mates, or even place to stay, not even I was decided whether to go. Then I woke up on Saturday around noon, and said hey, what kind of a fool would I be to waste a trip such as this? The plane is leaving in three hours, plenty of time to book a hostel, pack, and go for it! And just in case you care, I paid less than €70 for the entire trip, including food... fantastic.




This guy was really crazy, jumping off a molo that was almost 2 metres high in his kayak. Not the kind of stunt you see half-drunk city boys pull off when rafting on Vltava river. :-D



The weather was really wonderful, especially considering it was autumn in Scandinavia; I was used to seeing several rainbows a day in Trondheim. :-) Great to be lucky once in a while.


Not an uncommon sight. Not a surprise either, Swedish girls have been making British girls look ugly for centuries, after all. ;-)






I didn't know Sweden was an Islamic country... :-)



This street is renowned as the very fanciest boulevard in Scandinavia. Great shopping, too!

Dear children, sorting your trash greatly helps the environment!

Yeah, well, fine! I'm gonna go build my own park! With booze... And hookers! In fact, forget the park. ;-)

They must have anticipated my arrival in advance, I really didn't expect to stumble upon a statue of me and Jana!

Enough for today, stay tuned for night and hdr shots, coming (relatively) soon! ;-D

Last dose of London... (HDR)

...at least this year. Although there will be some random people shots up later. :-) Enjoy!

The Tower of the London of Steel (HDR)

And there's another batch coming your way. No blah blah today, whatever, most of you don't read my rants anyway. ;-) These are all from the Tower and around. We didn't go in, as it was crowded and expensive, and I'd been there before, but it was a nice walk nonetheless.

These photos have a bit colder colours, and look good on my display. Please let me know if I overdid it and it looks too blueish on yours. Also, I wish to register a complaint, as shooting when it's as cloudy as this is a bitch, original photos were all hazy and boring.

Spying at LSE (HDR)

For those very few hard-core enough to venture beyond LSD, there is a special treat in London. Posing as one of the world's most überbest universities, only its name suggests that there's more to LSE than they would like us to know. ;-)

The preliminary results of my espionage mission on this target were pretty confusing, as it seemed that they managed to hide this secret very well, while at the same time exhibiting rather lax security allowing me to sneak into their enormous library, or freely eat at their cantina. :-)

This post is mostly here for my dearest, to whom I've promised to take a few shots of the campus, as well as for our friends from the LSE Summer School 2008. So go ahead and shed a tear of nostalgy, or perhaps two. Miss the place?




PS: I haven't forgotten about the post I've promised about my post-processing techniques, but I just can't afford the time to write it right now. A realistic expectation is that it will be here within several weeks. :-)

Squirrels!

This one is for the kids mostly, although there is one photo here that I especially like: The squirrel with the old woman's hand. She was a real deranged hermit :-), the squirrels had some strange affinity towards her. Kulida will kindly forgive that there are only two squirrels, yet several photos. :-P All shot in St. James park.






And I'll also add the hermit for Filip. :-) And a little bird also on her hand. It was a nice and entertaining shoot overall, and I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of detail and magnification I was able to squeeze from the lens.

God Must be a Hippie

This post is long overdue, because I just couldn't get myself to process the photos. As for the post-processing, I know these look unreal. But that's not my fault! There is no HDR applied, and color is not edited at all! Seriously, I have deliberately left all the Hue, Saturation, Luminosity, Vibrance, and other similar sliders alone. The colors are exactly as shot, and much less crazy than they were in reality. On the second thought, perhaps I should have made them more vibrant. :-)

So, being unrealistic enough on their own, that is sort of their selling point, because the sky was INSANE that evening. I went out and was like "WTF? The end is at hand, Sabaton has finally met Amon Amarth in the Final Battle." Seriously, whatever deity involved must have been stoned.

I only made a few documentary shots, nothing really artistic, so don't grumble about the composition, or stuff, I was being chased around by dad who wanted me to mow the lawn and his patience was getting thin. :-) Needless to say, I was moving it so that I was always facing the sunset. It turned even better later, but I couldn't go get the camera and reshoot, because he would probably break my lens with a spade. :-D

London Revisited (HDR)

My little treasure obviously got addicted to schoolwork after getting her degree, so she decided to attend the LSE summer school in London. As I would have probably died of sorrow back here alone, I had to come visit her for at least a while. Besides, it was a great opportunity to get back to my beloved London, stay at her place for cheap, and breathe in international student's life for one more time.

I booked the flight with SkyEurope, only to have to argue with who had to be the most annoying airline employer ever, because those lousy crooks made me pay 1280,- for the privilege to check-in my case. I will think several times before I fly with them again.

As a related experience from the airport, here's a transcript of my dialogue with a security officer in Bratislava.

Him: (Making me show him my 0.5 l mineral water bottle.) "Don't you know you can't take liquids past the security checkpoint? Throw it away at once!"
Me: (Playing perplexed.) "Really? And why would that be? It's only mineral water, after all."
Him: (Annoyed.) "It could be an explosive."
Me: (Taking a sip from the bottle.) "I see. It tastes pretty damn good for an explosive, wanna try?"
Him: "I told you to throw it into the bin."
Me: (Thoughtful.) "Wait a minute... what if it really is an explosive?"
Him: "What?"
Me: "Wow, you guys are just precious. You take a suspected explosive from most of people who pass the security checkpoint, and then just put them all together into the same plastic bin right in the middle of a crowded airport? Have you got a death wish?"
Him: (Stares blankly.)
Me: (Still drinking from the bottle.) "Seriously now. It's as dangerous here as it would be in the air. If you are taking my water away because you suspect it's an explosive, I demand it to be treated as such! Why don't you call for a bomb disposal unit?"
Other officer: (Loses his face and starts laughing.)
Him: "Throw it away if you want to fly today."
Me: (Laughing as well. Having finished the bottle, I pack it back into the backpack to refill it later...) "Sorry, I don't have any water anymore. Have a god day, officer! And take care..."

We stayed at Rosebery hall, an LSE dormitory some 30 minutes from central London with most of the sights readily accessible on foot, including the LSE main campus.

As Jana had to attend classes daily and later got sick, I had a lot of time to enjoy on my own, accompanied only by my trusty camera. It's not that I don't love walking around with anyone else, but I hate to spoil shots because I am hurried, and don't want to keep them waiting... so sometimes I find solitude rather enjoyable.

When I was about to build my DSLR setup, I was a little worried that after a while I won't enjoy the shooting anymore, that I'll be bored and the camera will idly sit on a shelf, begging to be at least dusted once in a few months. Well, more than 20000 photos later (that's a little under hundred photos everyday, on average) I have to say that I'm still as satisfied as when it was new, and still learning new stuff every time I go out. :-D

The light conditions were often rather photo-unfriendly, with either harsh direct light, or heavy clouds, so I decided it was high time to start experimenting with techniques I've had in my cross-hairs for quite some time now. Multiple exposures, HDR, tone-mapping, exposure blending, relighting.

It was easier than I thought to get it "somehow", but it will be pretty difficult to get it right - the tools are rather complex and I am far from having mastered them properly. There will definitely be a post coming soon explaining how to create photos such as these.

The post-processing of photos in this post varies, you will find photos that are fairly similar to a normal exposure (with a polarizing filter) but also photos that don't look realistic anymore and even resemble paintings more.

I would really like you to comment whether you like this, or if there is anything here that is too "avantgarde" for you, or you think the post-processing was screwed up. I went pretty far sometimes, so I don't really expect someone to like them all. Just please, pretty please, more feedback this time.







And this is just from the first day... there will be more coming. Sadly, it takes ages to process them in this fashion. :-) Overall, I have to say I'm pleased with the results.

Bratislava under Siege

In early 19th century that frog-eating midget Napoleon thought it was a great idea to lay siege to Bratislava and bombard it and destroy a lot of valuable cultural heritage and whatsnot... well, some people obviously feel that is a reason for celebration and reenactment, and as little Filip wanted to go and see some of that, so went I and my camera. Sadly, we didn't get to see most of the program, so I only have a bunch of random shots. On the positive side, I feel like I've really improved my flash technique. :-)

Walrus on the Lawn

Although not technically a member of the odobenidae, I believe that this speciman has much in common with the marine mammal. Thus, although Janka likes to call him Blesk (Flash), I usually call him Mrož (Walrus). There's just something about his personality and phonic demonstration that makes me sure he should have been born somewhere in the Arctics with giant tusks. :-D

Perhaps his most favourite source of nutrition are tennis balls, which he pops effortlessly and devours with great passion. ;-) Well, maybe I'm exaggerating a wee bit.

When confronted with a stray tennis ball, Walrus darts after it furiously and although sometimes he gets disoriented, usually he manages to prevail.

Lately we've been having some quality time together no less than three times a day, so in case the next time I see you I act like a marine mammal, you know that Walrus has won the battle of wits against me as well. Then again, I might offer more resistance than a drooled-over tennis ball.

Notice the strong difference between shadow and direct sunlight on the photos. Sometimes it can be a real pain to compensate for this. :-(

Also, as some of you may have noticed, it is most unjust that I blog about Walrus sooner than I do about Freya. I plead guilty and declare that this will have to be corrected sometime soon.

PS: You have to admit... the similarity is just uncanny. :-D

War on Photography

I've been planning to blog about this topic for ages, and now the mighty security guru Bruce Schneier did that for me in a Guardian newspaper essay:

What is it with photographers these days? Are they really all terrorists, or does everyone just think they are?

Since 9/11, there has been an increasing war on photography. Photographers have been harrassed, questioned, detained, arrested or worse, and declared to be unwelcome. We've been repeatedly told to watch out for photographers, especially suspicious ones. Clearly any terrorist is going to first photograph his target, so vigilance is required.

Just look at this bastard. I'm pretty sure he wouldn't hesitate to kill a kitten. :-P

Except that it's nonsense. The 9/11 terrorists didn't photograph anything. Nor did the London transport bombers, the Madrid subway bombers, or the liquid bombers arrested in 2006. Timothy McVeigh didn't photograph the Oklahoma City Federal Building. The Unabomber didn't photograph anything; neither did shoe-bomber Richard Reid. Photographs aren't being found amongst the papers of Palestinian suicide bombers. The IRA wasn't known for its photography. Even those manufactured terrorist plots that the US government likes to talk about -- the Ft. Dix terrorists, the JFK airport bombers, the Miami 7, the Lackawanna 6 -- no photography.

Given that real terrorists, and even wannabe terrorists, don't seem to photograph anything, why is it such pervasive conventional wisdom that terrorists photograph their targets? Why are our fears so great that we have no choice but to be suspicious of any photographer?

Because it's a movie-plot threat.

A movie-plot threat is a specific threat, vivid in our minds like the plot of a movie. You remember them from the months after the 9/11 attacks: anthrax spread from crop dusters, a contaminated milk supply, terrorist scuba divers armed with almanacs. Our imaginations run wild with detailed and specific threats, from the news, and from actual movies and television shows. These movie plots resonate in our minds and in the minds of others we talk to. And many of us get scared.

Terrorists taking pictures is a quintessential detail in any good movie. Of course it makes sense that terrorists will take pictures of their targets. They have to do reconnaissance, don't they? We need 45 minutes of television action before the actual terrorist attack -- 90 minutes if it's a movie -- and a photography scene is just perfect. It's our movie-plot terrorists that are photographers, even if the real-world ones are not.

The old town of Bratislava clearly promotes terrorism without any qualms...

The problem with movie-plot security is it only works if we guess the plot correctly. If we spend a zillion dollars defending Wimbledon and terrorists blow up a different sporting event, that's money wasted. If we post guards all over the Underground and terrorists bomb a crowded shopping area, that's also a waste. If we teach everyone to be alert for photographers, and terrorists don't take photographs, we've wasted money and effort, and taught people to fear something they shouldn't.

And even if terrorists did photograph their targets, the math doesn't make sense. Billions of photographs are taken by honest people every year, 50 billion by amateurs alone in the US And the national monuments you imagine terrorists taking photographs of are the same ones tourists like to take pictures of. If you see someone taking one of those photographs, the odds are infinitesimal that he's a terrorist.

Of course, it's far easier to explain the problem than it is to fix it. Because we're a species of storytellers, we find movie-plot threats uniquely compelling. A single vivid scenario will do more to convince people that photographers might be terrorists than all the data I can muster to demonstrate that they're not.

Fear aside, there aren't many legal restrictions on what you can photograph from a public place that's already in public view. If you're harassed, it's almost certainly a law enforcement official, public or private, acting way beyond his authority. There's nothing in any post-9/11 law that restricts your right to photograph.

This is worth fighting. Search "photographer rights" on Google and download one of the several wallet documents that can help you if you get harassed; I found one for the UK, US, and Australia. Don't cede your right to photograph in public. Don't propagate the terrorist photographer story. Remind them that prohibiting photography was something we used to ridicule about the USSR. Eventually sanity will be restored, but it may take a while.

---

Yeah. I soo can't wait. :-) But I can't really blame those poor people, my 77 mm diameter lens could easily fire even a large RPG. So beware, for next time you find yourself on the wrong end of my viewfinder, it may be more than just a bird that flies out! :-D

As related information from nycphotorights.com, which has some pretty interesting posts as well, if you can chew through all the excessive exclamation marks and immature posting, (the admin must be like 15, not more ;-)), there is one about Fox reporter doing a story on photographer harassment on the Union station in Washington D.C.

While he is interviewing the Amtrak spokesman, who says that photography is perfectly alright in the Amtrak part of the station, they both get assaulted by a security guard who makes a big speech about how photography is illegal and not allowed at the station.

Priceless. You just can't make this stuff up, it's way too unbelievable. :-D I wonder if anyone gets fired for this... See the video here.

Brno at night

I've posted a photo topic everyday since Monday, and today will be no different. (Although tomorrow probably will, I can't afford to spoil you like this. :-P I'm just emptying my photo buffer.)

This was one fine evening out with Jana, though she probably wouldn't agree -- although I was planning to explain everything to her, and make her as involved as possible, it turned out that I had a lot on my plate as it were. Perhaps because it was my first time out with a tripod, I kept tweaking it all the time, while trying to find optimal manual settings for each shot, including the white balance and other pleasantries, so I paid too much attention to all that stuff which likely bored her to death. :-/ Not to mention the timed triggers and repeating some shots multiple times. Sadly, I am a mere man, and real multitasking is something I have yet to learn.



Petrov is as fine as churches in minor cities get, I like it much more than St. Martin's Dome in Bratislava. At least some fine architecture came out of the dark ages, when secularity meant heresy and heresy, in turn, meant that you could expect the Spanish Inquisition... if only it wasn't entirely unexpectable. :-P



It's a true landmark in Brno, and some of the alleys around it are pretty nice, especially at night. Not quite as nice as the ones in old town of Bratislava, though.


Eerie. :-) And this one is pretty rare, as this tower is only cleanly visible from a little spot and is usually lighted during the night -- not this night for some reason.





I really do like this city. :-)

Shooting my friends...

...would be pretty gory, so instead this post is about capturing the light they reflect. :-)

Most of you have probably already seen these, but they never made a blogpost, and as it's the exam period, I have way too much time on my hands, so now's the time. :-D

These photos are from three rather nice sessions -- the Bryndza session, SlavCon, and Grill session. Many thanks to Kubo for organizing the two, they were most enjoyable.

I took a lot of photos those days, so they each made a separate gallery:

• Bryndza
• Slavcon
• Grill

And here comes a handful of rather random picks, that link to the galleries as well...











Stay tuned for Brno night shots, coming tomorrow. :-)

Stormshooting

Just a few snapshots from my balcony one fine day...





It was a magical moment indeed.

Fireworks... yeee!

Long time, no photos! Well, I didn't have too many excuses to go out and shoot recently. However, Ignis Brunensis changed that, so I borrowed a tripod and tried to give it my best shot. As I never photographed fireworks before, and lacked a remote trigger, I am not entirely satisfied, but hey, they are not entirely bad and at least I have learned some lessons for next time.






As for the last one - I have ruined many pictures because of blur, like this one. I was pretty far from the scene and had to use long focal length. The tripod was fairly small and unstable for my huge lens, and whenever I pressed the shutter the camera started to shake. All of the shutter times were over a second long, too - there's no way image stabilization can compensate for that.

Some other photos from the night are here.

More beasties from Vienna

Quite a few weeks ago we spent a lovely Sunday in Vienna with the kids, and one of the main Sehenswürdigkeiten on the program was Haus des Meeres, an equivalent of the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, mentioned in a post few months ago. These photos are slightly worse than the ones from over there, as the light conditions were much, much less photography-friendly. Still, I was not as idiotic as some people who were using direct flash to photograph bats. At that moment I felt slightly sorry for not bringing my external flash, as I really felt like discharging a formidable blast at 100 % of power right into their Ungesicht.

The range of animals they have over there is quite impressive, especially considering that their premises are nothing more than a house of average size in downtown Vienna.
And turtles. Oh, turtles. I love turtles. Turtle, also known as korytnačka, želva, skilpadde, tortue, Schildkröte, tortuga, skjaldbaka, черепаха, kurakura, χελώνα, bruņurupucis, سُلْحَفاه, maakilpikonna, or かめ, is one of my favourite animals. There is just something magnificent and adorable about them. The aesthetics and functionality of their design is amazing, as well as how all the pieces fit together, how efficient it is, and how much agility they still retain underwater while being majestic. :-)


And now... for something completely different!! :-) Crazy monkeys. Screeching and screaming and constantly moving around and grabbing our hair for the sheer fun of it.

And that's about it. But wait, I have a jellyfish, too!

Damn. I still love turtles. :-D

Leftovers from Chicago

As I haven't been shooting much recently and my last photo-post was a long time ago, I dug out some of the older street shots from one of the first days with my brand new camera.

These kids were playing improvised drums in front of the Art gallery. They were surprisingly good, although not best of friends all the time. :-)

Moving on towards the Millenium Park and the Bean, I spent most of the time shooting people who were taking pictures themselves. Nothing spectacular, but it was interesting at times...

I especially appreciate the geometry on the last one. While on this shoot, I met a pro photographer who earns his living by shooting movie crews in Hollywood. He had the very same camera and lens as me, so we chatted for a while and among other things he said it truly was an excellent choice to hone one's skills. Made me happy. :-)

A note, all the photos seen today were digitally manipulated. Mostly contrast/brightness and color level tools were used, as the originals were rather misty and boring for my taste. The weather sucked that day. I was pleasantly surprised about how easily a major improvement could be made. And as a cherry, a mighty schoolbus on the way back...

Spying on the poikilotherms

This post is overdue for a month or so, but finally here, as promised.

One of Chicago's major attractions is the Shedd Aquarium, reportedly the largest indoor aquarium in the world, with more than 8000 exotic animals, several special exhibits, and, of course, Guinness. ;-)
Perhaps the most famous guy everywhere is a fat lizard who goes by the title dragon king of Komodo, has charming eyes, and skin so soft and smooth it makes gravel look like silk.
The lizards were my favourite exhibit, I like the lazy, cold blooded creatures. They are almost as cool as frogs, and pose well for portraits.
Baby beluga, probably the most famous if his kind, born right here at Shedd. Needless to say, he is a great face for marketing, and his posters are all over the town.
More lizards. Am I the only one who finds his majesty's eyes creepy? Stare that down, Juliecorn!
The fish were a royal pain to photograph. Dark room, lot of movement, glass to focus through... never before had I so many pictures that were of unacceptable quality. Worse yet, it's very difficult to judge on the small LCD display, which makes me wish I had waited for Nikon 300D. ;-) However, I was extremely pleased the performance, especially how well the noise was managed even at high sensitivity.
Here, it's pretty clear that the glass is not as transparent as it should be, but still - it could have been much worse, so overall I was happy. Thanks to Satyam and Larisa for joining me, it was a nice trip. One last panorama shot as we were coming back home. Hooray for the light smog!

Let it snow...

Snow is most certainly the photographer's good friend. Especially when it's fresh and forming pretty patterns, it's a great pleasure to just observe it wandering through the woods. Which is, by itself, quite a powerful experience, especially after having lived in the jungle of concrete, that is Chicago, for quite some time.
It was a lovely walk and one of the nicer family moments, and the dog was crazy and excited as well. The raspberry plant above obviously didn't get rid of its leaves in time.
One of the weaker points of my 70-20omm lens is the macro capabilities. With Canon 500D close-up lens it improves moderately, but the depth of field becomes extremely shallow. In
the following photo I tried to increase it by setting the aperture f number to 20, but even so, at 200mm focal length and close distance, the acceptable depth of field was only around one milimeter! Not only is this a problem when composing the picture, it is also extremely difficult to hold the camera so still that it doesn't move while you focus and take the shot. Other than that, I really like this photo.
At times, the snowy forest was offering really spectacular things to see.
I was also trying to shoot extreme macro, and this is about as close as I was able to get, pretty good for a non-macro lens, I would say, but the quality suffers:
And that's it for today, unless you want to see little Filip posing... oh, what a heart-breaker, who could resist? :-)

Cityscape climbing

Very likely the most disappointing thing about photography in a big, flat city, is the lack of good views for landscape shots. Even though you can sometimes get to a high building, only very rarely are you able to open a window enough to get a good, clear shot of what you want. Even windows in high floors of dorms have metal grates on them, because people in the wrong places are "worried about our safety".

There was a person, though, who, following a suggestion by one of his friends, decided that too significant concerns for our safety can be twisted and abused for actions unintended by the building administration. After gearing up with warm clothes, a backpack with a bottle of Gatorade and equipment, and of course the trusty black camera with its short lens mounted, he got past the maintenance workers to the designated place.

Campus floor belonging to musicians was the perfect place with deserted corridors, and two ways to get to the roof. With all the astonishing grace of a well-fed hippo, he sneaked outside through a fire escape window. The rusty iron bars, weary with age, moaned under his majestic weight, but seemed sturdy enough to be trusted. The wind was strong, as expected, and air blown from the lakeside much fresher, than that of the street level.

He wasn't sure whether he was allowed to be there at all, and slightly worried that in the country of such freedom, presence of a man on the roof could be easily considered a terrorist attack, but pushed forward nonetheless. After passing several windows with office workers who couldn't care less, and a room with several girls who noticed him and squealed, he finally got to his vantage point.

Fear of heights was never one of his problems. Quite a few times he has been hiking in an alpine terrain where a gruesome fate hundreds of meters below was just a slip away. Though in reality this was much safer, being able to see right through the thin bars didn't really add to the overall feeling of comfort. Just for comparison, the street down there is around 16 regular floors below the white roof.

Maybe it was the open space all around, after living in a downtown area for a few months, the height with the wind, the possibility of violating quite a few regulations, mischievous and slightly dangerous nature of his little adventure, the interesting view, someone greedy and powerful inside his brain having bought stock in adrenaline production, or very probably the combination of these elements, he felt very excited and alive.

Chicago is called the Windy City for a good reason - the city is situated on a plain by the lake, so there is nothing except the buildings to brake the air currents. Perhaps also for this reason, his fingers were really uncomfortably freezing. Cold and wind are much more pronounced when one's unprotected fingers are holding a cold metal object for a long time. At the end of the shoot it got rather difficult to use the control buttons. Oh, and he found it rather curious to see two flags, so close to each other, indicate wind blowing from two opposite directions.

Suburbs to the south-west of the Loop are home of many people, and spread as far as the eye can see. From here they don't look too glossy, it is somewhat better when you actually get there. Imagine a typical outdoor city scene from an American movie, and you have a perfect idea. It is also said about Chicago, that there are only two seasons - winter and a construction season. Looking at those cranes, I keep wondering when, and if, the winter is going to come.

Hooray, I can finally present a clear picture of the two main landmarks, from almost the same angle as I see them, when I look out of my window. This view is undoubtedly the best Roosevelt housing can provide, and can easily hold its own against million dollar apartments you see in the movies, especially at night with all the pretty lights on. But back to the story. :-)

The clouds looked rather promising, so he decided to wait for the sunset. It wasn't very comfortable, but certainly worth it. Leaning over the railing to get a good angle and unobscured shot probably wasn't the safest thing to do, but with his attention to the camera, it was doable. He decided to stop experimenting with picture settings, and set the picture style to landscape. Whole time he was shooting on manual settings, though, because he wasn't satisfied with how camera handled the light metering automatically. He would look at the advanced settings later, but this was not the right time.

This one is my personal favourite. I can imagine that the strongly tilted horison may be too avantgarde for some people, so I've also uploaded an earlier shot with significantly different, high contrast image setting, and one more conventional, with a plane passing.

In the end, drained but happy, he climbed back down to the window, where the office workers were still busy beating their personal high-score in Solitaire, and with legendary stealth only comparable to a medieval knight in full plate armour, he stomped back into the corridor. Grateful to the camera for motivating him to spend an afternoon in such a satisfying way, and eager to browse the photos on a larger screen, he rushed to his room.

This is the last picture taken in the shoot, and probably my most favourite one. I just like the colours, lights, and especially the train. :-) It only keeps me wishing for more dynamic range, because it was impossible to make the highlights in the top right corner lower, without sacrificing light in the darker parts of the photo.

The skating ring

Trying to figure out how to spend a free Friday, I went to check out the freshly set-up open air ice-skating ring at the Millennium park. Needless to say, my heavy artillery couldn't be left behind. I have shot a lot of pictures, some of which will be presented later, under a more appropriate topic.
Quite a few people were enjoying themselves over there, but not enough for the ring to be crowded. Unfortunately, it was slowly getting dark, and I had to maintain decent shutter speeds, the only thing left to do was to increase the sensor sensitivity - therefore some of the shots are a little grainy. Of course, ladies showed up, too. These two were my favourite:
Millennium park is the area with probably the most photos in Chicago, and some cameras that can be seen there make mine look like a harmless toy. :-) Of course, paying five grand for a body is quite outside of my league for the years to come. As an upside, people didn't get upset when staring into my dark tube with diameter of 77 mm.
People of all skills could be found over there, ranging from ones fully focused on maintaining upright position, to ones zooming through the ring with skills I haven't seen live before.
Oh, and this girl reminded me of my dear Bobor for some reason. It's not that look so much alike, but the general posture and feel was just very close. :-)
That's it for tonight, coming up under the "photo" label are city shots and photos of other photographs. Thanks for clicking your way here, and stay tuned! :-)

I love my camera! :-D (A shout of pure, childish joy.)

--
PS: This is how it looks when the noise gets as bad as possible, at ISO boosted to 3200, with all noise reduction turned off, and after dark. (Much darker than it would seem from the photo, simply winter light at five in the afternoon, plus some lousy city lights.) Still, I am amazed that it is possible to get a shot at 1/125 of a second, even though the quality suffers dearly. Reducing the noise would even improve it a lot.

Good jazz and picture-taking...

...at the same time? What more could a guy wish for? (I will leave the few inappropriate suggestions to myself. :-P)

Few places in the world have better jazz clubs, than Chicago. Around a week ago, we've decided to give one of them a try. It wasn't the first one and definitely not the last one, but it was the most enjoyable so far. The musicians were very skilled and played nice jazz with a distinct Hispanic flavour.
The food was good, but pitifully, they were out of Guinness, and as no other substance can take you so close to understanding the very fabric of the Multiverse, we were simply out of luck. :-P

My thanks for organising this event belong to Brian, (on the photo below,) the mastermind who came up with the idea, and arranged it flawlessly for all of us. Also to him belong the thanks for keeping me company on the walk home, so that I wasn't the only one to prefer the lakeside over a bus.
Although it doesn't seem so, the light in the restaurant was rather low, so in order to maintain high enough shutter speed, compromises with high ISO had to be made. These photos can thus serve as an idea of real-life sensitivity and noise on various high ISO settings on Canon EOS 40D. I was shooting wide open most of the time, and some photos may lack sharpness, because it's rather difficult to hold a lens with such focal lengths in low light perfectly still. As, for obvious reasons, I can't supply the sound, my focus will be instead on photography. :-)
It's the only band I know that have a bass player for their front-man. He is extraordinarily skilled, has no noticeable difficulties playing complicated riffs and singing at the same time, and makes a very enjoyable show.
These two guys at the percussions worked together smoothly, and the overall feeling of the music was very relaxed and pleasant. Shame on me for forgetting their name, because I would gladly come and listen to them again.
The trumpet player was the most difficult to photograph, because I just couldn't get the right angle... also, he was only playing once in a while, so this is the best and least obstructed shot I could get.
There goes another one, and that's it for tonight - because of the frecking fire-drill, last night I've only slept for under three hours, so I really need to get to bed. (Don't get me started.)

PS: I hope especially Pigi finds these more appealing, than the portrait practice.
Oh, and here's a quick snapshot of a crazy fountain outside, on the way back:

Portrait test run

It's been ten days since the last time my dearest readers had a chance to bask in the fresh glow of my amazing posts, and as this weekend is mostly free, save compulsory events such as Nightwish concert, I have decided to spam around a little. ;-)

Precisely two weeks ago, with one of the people I know here, a Tibetan student of international law, we have decided to try and shoot a few outdoor portraits. My longer lens seems to be very nicely up to this job, although I am still a far cry from achieving perfection with it. On the lighter note, I learn something new every time I take it out for a shoot.
The bokeh of this lens is worth dying for. Wonderful, dreamy, unmatched by anything except better prime lenses. (Bokeh is basically what the out-of-focus area looks like, it helps you isolate the subject from the background.)
Even wide open, at impressive f/2.8, the sharpness is quite decent. Along with image stabilisation, it helps to avoid ruined shots in less-than-perfect light on the long end of the lens. Body with this lens is rather heavy, and at 320 mm equiv. focal length it takes some time getting used to, in order to avoid blurring your shots. A tripod would go a long way to help.
Sharpness, exposure, and other setting of the images vary, because I've been experimenting with them on purpose. Which of the photos you think looks the best in technical terms?

While running after Tsatan with the long lens, I managed to pull of a coupe of snapshots that I kinda like. :-)
It is said that the longer the distance from the subject, the more flattering the photo looks. This is especially true for people who are conscious about the size of their noses. ;-)
Before you get to the park, a nice friendly warning like this strikes you. Something tells me that this wouldn't be the right place for our favourite wine-sessions. :-)
I didn't particularly like the weather on that day. The light was too soft, and some of the photos seem to lack on crisp colours. Oh well. There is obviously more to professional portraits than click and shoot. I'm making this a rather important task on my photography to-do list. I might even get a wise book or two on this topic, because this is the kind of photography I am rather fond of.

In case anyone back home is interested, I would be delighted to take them out for a portrait shoot such as this one. It can never hurt to have a few more decent pictures of yourself, without them looking completely unnatural with studio lights and plenty of make-up.

Handheld hunting in the darkness

, (My dearest Obu is advised not to read this one. ;-))

Photography. Greek for the words "light" and "write". Thus, it comes as a little surprise, that it gets rather tough at night, since there generally is so little light to "write". This becomes especially difficult if you do not have a tripod, and have to shoot those atrociously long shutter times hand-held. Still being at the honeymoon stage, I took my Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 for a walk. It did not particularly surprise me, that the cannon made it possible to shoot decent pictures at night as well.
At 17 mm focal length, it is possible to take a photo at shutter speed of 1/8 sec, and have it come out nice and sharp. Also note, that although this picture is shot at a rather high sensitivity of ISO 800, the noise is very well managed, barely noticeable. When it gets darker, picture with the same settings will have worse noise, especially on the sky. (Note the following photo.) This can be somewhat improved by post-processing.
The Bean. Famous and often visited, it was a real pain to get this shot off without people standing all around the place. :-) Sometimes the picture itself doesn't look blurred, but merely soft. Alas, there is no recipe for sharp pictures with long shutter times, other than tedious trial-and-error, or a tripod. This shot would have been much nicer if it was sharper:
Also, shutter speed often affects how the picture looks in the end. This is especially true if there is something moving in the scene, which is often the case with water. To achieve a pleasant, flowing effect, you have to keep the shutter open for quite some time. The problem occurs when there is a stage such as this, and there is nothing to support your camera against. It took me around fifteen tries to get this photo, and it still isn't quite sharp. Oh well, not even holding your breath can help to keep perfectly still for two seconds.
On the other hand, sometimes you might want to snap the shutter real fast to freeze action. If you do so at night with ordinary settings, all you get is a black picture. The only way to go around this is to open your aperture wide, and boost the sensitivity as much as possible. The trade-off will be unpleasant noise, but sometimes that's better than nothing. I was surprised that it was possible at all to shoot at night at 1/100 sec. The noise in the sky is manageable.
The exposure can be set to abnormal lengths to achieve impressions otherwise impossible. I'm sure everyone has seen those nice urban pictures of car trails. Well, basically all it takes is a good spot and a something convenient to stabilise your camera. I didn't have neither, so mine are kind of lame. However, I will be definitely be exploring this kind of photography further. :)

Who needs a star filter, anyway? :-)

I am quite satisfied with overall low-light performance, although I can't wait to get a tripod, anyway. This is the kind of photography, where the approximately ten times larger sensor of an APS-C DSLR over a compact really shines. Thanks for viewing, and I'll let you off with a few more shots.

The people of Chicago love their young. ;-)
I only wish this one was sharper. :-/

Photographing kids

Yesterday at the ZOO, I was also able to shoot a few children as well. Those little folks make for quite cute pictures, whether it's their playing and action, observing something, or just generally doing whatever they do. Some of these shots are not very sharp, but I like them anyway. Unfortunately, with kids, all you get is snapshots. There is no time to set stuff up properly, and think much about the picture, so luck matters, too. Kids are at their best when they don't know about the observer, and are occupied somehow.



Or these two guys playing wildly at the drinking water fountain:

This type of photos has a wonderful acceptance rate, too. These are five of seven kids photos I shot yesterday, and all are of at least decent quality. This may be luck, but I feel like it's just easier to capture this kind of photos.

Honeymoon with Canon

For the time being, me and my Canon are an inseparable couple. We are fond of each other very much. I go out with her regularly, touch her body everywhere, and by now know fairly well where her controls are. No need to worry, though, I didn't get married. However, after several months of deciding and choosing, I finally ordered a digital SLR camera.
Canon EOS 40D won me in the end. I like the brand, and this camera is advanced enough to satisfy a much more experienced photographer, than myself. Although, on paper, some of its specs pale in comparison to the new Nikon D300 powerhouse, I don't want to wait for four months to get it, and pay half more for features I don't really need. Along with it, I've bought a bunch of accessories and two lenses, a great value standard zoom Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8, a lens with a scary name suffix: Di II LD Aspherical IF SP AF. The other lens I've bought is the ridiculously expensive and in all aspects brilliant Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM. I hope that this one will survive for many, many years to come and serve on several bodies.
The body is large and ergonomic enough to feel comfortable in my not so small, (and reportedly silky smooth, ;-)) hands, although using the rather bulky long lens would be more comfortable with a battery grip attached. Some people say that it's difficult for them to shoot this way for a longer time period, but I have been able to shoot for four hours straight without feeling any strain. Image stabilization handled most of the shakes rather nicely. There are still some holes in this setup, especially macro shooting. Minimum focusing distance of this lens is 1.4 m, which means I can't shoot any more detail than this Grant Park resident:
I am going to try out Canon 500D, which should solve this problem. So far, I was out shooting for several hours and appreciated the sharpness and detail this lens can provide, even wide open at 200 mm. The crop factor of my APS-C sensor is 1.6x, which turns 200 mm into a 320 mm equivalent, long enough to shoot people without being too intrusive.
For wildlife, I would like to have a longer lens, preferably reaching somewhere around 500 mm focal length. Nonetheless, with enough luck, it is possible even to shoot birds with a nice amount of detail. This one was just sitting on the beach, yawning at me. :-)

Or this squirrel, obviously too occupied with its nut to care about a clumsy giant approaching.
Yesterday, for the first time in years, I went to the ZOO. As I've complained before, my dear Canon makes me do things I wouldn't have done before... while I was going there, a pretty nice panorama presented itself, and I didn't hesitate to change the lens for this shot.
Anyway, speaking of squirrels, one of the first I've seen over at the ZOO was incredibly cheeky and daring!
Shooting animals over at the ZOO was a pain. Mostly because they were in cages, or behind glass. Cages are just ugly, and glass was often stained and dirty, as well as difficult to focus through properly. Nonetheless, I was able to shoot a few decent ones. Here's a thought, how about I start collecting photos of animals with their tongues out? :-)



Oh, and I couldn't believe how cutely a polar bear can smile. :-)
I greatly appreciated the maximum aperture of the long zoom. Not only it makes a wonderful creamy bokeh, it is also very handy to "see through," (although more appropriate expression would be see around,) cage bars, in certain circumstances. This cat is in a cage similar to the one with squirrel inside it, above. In this picture, you can see the bars in the foreground merely as very soft blurs.
The flamingos were so glad to see me that they started kissing. :-)

(This one is quite soft, because I had to crop it a lot.)

Just a few more random shots, and I'll stop. Promise. :-) But this lady definitely deserves some attention. Charming, isn't she?

Well, what can I say. The body is quite complex, and some of the shots above could have been better, were I an experienced photographer. But for the first two days out with a SLR, I am satisfied. :-) Hooray! Finally, I can shoot whatever I want, whenever I want!

Evolution of a photographer, pt. 1

(Based on a case study of subject #99212.)

Stage 1:
It all starts with subject's deep, secret desire to freeze the moment and capture the light. Subject is jealously eyeing equipment of randomly encountered specimen who reached stage four or further, and thinking that maybe, one day, he could make it and get a decent camera. More and more frequently the subject visits photography related websites, learns basic stuff, for example how shutter speed and aperture affects the overall feel and style of the resulting image. Every time subject feels like purchasing a camera, it is usually enough to take a look at the price tag and decide that it would be a crime not to spend such a huge heap of gold on beer. Also, he hardly doubts that what you photograph is more important than how you photograph it.

Here is where most people stop. Some will buy a $300 point-and-shoot camera and decide that their needs are satisfied. Why bother with buttons and settings, when the smart device can do it all for me? And why would I lug around 10 kg worth of SLR and lens, anyway, if I can take the picture with my Phanasoonik Nano Tiny Pro™ 12 mpix, with 320x digital zoom? Most digital SLRs don't give me more megapixels anyway.

(Here is where most people end.)

Stage 2:
The subject has realised that there is more to a nice camera than megapixels, and more to a nice photo than shoot-everything-without-thinking. He struggles against confusion by terms such as bokeh, sensitivity, tonal range, white balance, chromatic aberration, vignetting, barrel distortion, noise, exposure metering, histogram, and many more. The difference between a compact point-and-shoot EVF camera and a SLR is no longer so blurred to him, and he knows that first is hardly an option for serious photography. Sites like photo.net or dpreview.com slowly make their way into subject's "often visited" list. He reads photography forums and tutorials silently, and as his knowledge grows, so does his urge to utilise his new findings by taking real pictures.

Still, he thinks that body of the camera is what matters. Lens are just a waste of money to him, and he would only trade his kit lens for ones with bigger zoom. The more 'X' of zoom, the more ganXta. He doesn't have a clue how someone can suffer using prime lenses with no zoom whatsoever. That must be, like, the most ridiculous thing ever.

Stage 3:
The many terms of photography finally start to make sense. When our subject sees a photo posted on the Internet, he tries to guess what settings and what equipment were used to take it. In time, his guesses get more and more educated, and he realises that too much ganXta and good pictures just don't go hand in hand. 18x zoom lens is no longer his wet dream, and he realises that "x of zoom" is just a meaningless value. It's focal length that matters. He now knows that choice of lenses matters even more than choice of the body, and can understand why someone would spend several times more for lenses, than for the camera itself. The subject no longer insists on using the same lens for all purposes, and knows how primes can be much better than zooms sometimes.

Most importantly, he realises that equipment is not what's making the pictures awesome. The photographer is. Lousy pictures can be taken with the most expensive equipment, and breathtaking pictures can come out of a simple camera. Still, good gear makes it all much easier, and bring some previously impossible challenges close enough to reach.

On daily basis, subject is imagining capturing what he sees. He thinks about what settings would he use, which perspective would he choose, and what point would be the best for capturing the scene. Often, he regrets how awesome shots he misses. People who accompany him frequently shake their heads in disbelief of his exclamations, such as "This would make for such a wonderful photo, look at the light! Fantastic!" or "Oh my. Such a pity I don't have a camera on me."

Subject has difficulties communicating with other people about this matter. No one understands his blabbering, and no one seems to care. Subject realises the necessity to communicate with similarly afflicted individuals of third or higher stage. Whenever possible, subjects approaches other specimens, in order to indulge in obsessive conversation that bores the hell out of any directly uninvolved observers.

It is necessary to use a handkerchief when browsing photography equipment, unless keyboard and display in use are droolproof. Subject. Wants. DSLR. Now.

(To be continued...)