Дон Андре's blog/

... is among the worst movies ever made.

Soon, very soon I'm facing a tough decision! Renew my Flickr Pro membership and retain access to about 1000 photos or leave it to a slow death?

I have to admit that I'm still spending more time on Flickr than here, but I like this place because you can upload movies, music, because of having a blog and I like the networking features. I think there's also a stronger german community here.

On the other hand, Flickr has deleteme and is several times more active (though it feels as you've got to hit people with the photos you like to open to a greater audience). There's also some kind of public forum there, but okay the groups feature on ipernity is making progess they say.

Nachdem der SB-800 mit Zusatzbatterie jetzt ganz unglaublich professionell an der Kamera prangert (und fast nicht mehr runter möchte) juckt es schon wieder. Um den Professionalitätsgrad weiter zu steigern bietet sich natürlich am einfachsten an das Volumen der Kamera zu erhöhen, weil ganz klar: größere Kamera = viel besser und dazu passt natürlich ein Batteriehandgriff wie der MB-D80 den ich im Geizhals gerade eben zu einem unglaublich günstigen Preis gesehen habe.

Naja, aber viel wichtiger ist noch immer die eigene Dunkelkammer die Dona und ich uns aufbauen wollen. Beim Foto Kücher kostet ein Set so um die 600€. Das ist doch ein heftiges Stück.

 

(keine Sorge ich kauf ihn mir eh nicht... wie heisst es so schön, je weniger man fotografiert, desto mehr kauft man)

Keine Frage, oskarverdächtig wird hier niemand vermuten, evtl. sogar kurz wegen eines derartigen Vergleiches innerlich auflachen und vor allem wenn man die letzten Videos von mir gesehen hat. Ja vorzeigbar wäre das ganze eigentlich wirklich nicht, gäbe es nicht das Internet und die Möglichkeit jeden noch so kleinen oder großen Blödsinn online und der ganzen Welt zur Betrachtung anzubieten - wen es halt interessiert (oder zu interessieren hat!)

Und für all jene die es tatsächlich interessiert ähnliches zu machen (oder bereits dabei sind), habe ich ein nettes Windows Programm für die Konvertierung und Komprimierung gefunden. Es nennt sich SUPER (c) und das ist es eigentlich auch, im wesentlichen aber ein kostenloses Front-End zu dem mächtigen ffmpeg. Damit wird Videokonvertieren ganz einfach und mit ein paar Einstellungen bekommt man schon respektable Größen, die man hier auch hochladen kann.

As some of you know, I've been to a Greenpeace volunteers and activists camp over the weekend. It took place in a lovely old castle in Lower Austria, started on Friday afternoon and went on until Sunday afternoon. The place is very nice and I hope to upload some pictures soon.

The days were occupied by a large selection of presentations and workshops as well as two taster courses one regarding climbing and the other gave an insight into non-violent acting. I liked both of them very much, though I've returned with quite a muscle ache from the climbing session (it was actually more about abseiling/rappelling than climbing).

The workshops and presentations were quite interesting as well. I've learnt several new things about some of the campaigns that I'd like to share. One of them regards the Congo and activities surrounding the forests. Currently there is a lot of poaching going on, the best trees are cut down deep in the forest and carried out of the wood on roads carved into the forest destroying a lot of the "invaluable" part of it. As is often the case local people don't gain anything from the robber economy. We were shown so called treaties of shame where logging companies agreed to pay some stuff like machetes and among them probably some glass beads as well in exchange for lumbering rights. Resources worth hundreds of thousands of dollars are paid with $100 in trinkets. You can read more about this here and here.

The next interesting topic was about palm-oil and how Indonesia has risen to become one of the largest CO2 emitting countries in the world. Large parts of the rain forest there are burnt down to make room for palm plantations. The demand for palm oil has risen dramatically over the years ever since Biodiesel started using up a lot of oil harvested from rape (Raps) and other plants. Companies that formerly used these kind of oil to produce their goods find them searching for alternatives and palm oil fit the niche. To some part Palm-oil is also directly used in fuel, but it was said it is not as good as other oils. Still it seems the industry is willing to expand in that region. The whole situation feels like robbing Peter to pay Paul and my conclusion was that Biodiesel is better to be avoided altogether. You are definitely not more environmental friendly driving with something gained out of burning down rain forests and draining of the peat (Torf) grounds unlocking milliones of tonnes of CO2 in the process.

There had been also some information regarding local activities and campaigns, but I'll leave it at that.

Bernd beim Schnuppertraining

„Ein Krieger ist jemand, der sich sein ganzes Leben lang auf einen Augenblick vorbereitet."

Gerade habe ich den Satz gelesen, auf der Homepage vom langjährigen Aktionskoordinator bei Greenpeace Austria. Er hat am letzten Wochenende den Schnupperkurs in gewaltfreiem Handeln geleitet und eine sehr interessante Geschichte hinter sich: vom Diplomingenieur zum Totengräber zum Staatsfeind des "ostdeutschen Realkommunismus".

www.greenpeace.at/533.html

A tiny rest of self-respect recently kept me from fullfilling my duty as Flickr/Ipernity photographer. I was still missing the sharp facial portrait of a beardy old man in my collection and yes I've done it! I can now say that I have in my collection: The high contrast shot of some random object, sunsets and flower macros and a zoomed detail of a something, extremely shallow DOF pictures and mostly using the standard "I'm pretending not to do 1/3" compositions, some textures and objects on black as well as of course, a black and white landscape series... I've seen a million of that stuff, and I'm fed up with it all.

I want to see something different! Something that's good without all the aesthetic overload that makes crappy pictures look fine. An honest shot! I imagine maybe totally unspectacular documentary shots to just escape from the dead end that has opened up here on ipernity. Honestly, I'm missing my toilets, I need to get them here somehow.

Not that I'd only rant and diss those that I don't like I'd also like to write about things that I like and I've got 2 photos that I'd like to promote, I found them by searching through the last 10 page of my contacts recent photos. They were both uploaded by malona

The first doesn't have a title. It's what I'd call a snapshot, probably unprocessed but nevertheless caught my attention because the main object was in the shadow with a harsh almost black and white like look and placed in an ordinary green-blue landscape. It feels out of place and somewhat uncomfortable:


The second picture is taken from a series and is a good shot of an architectural detail that is very similar in framing to the other, but a cut to the very shape like shots of the album. I liked it because it was complex and plays with orientation, almost like M.C. Esher.