Falling off and John A's pictures

My friend John A visited today. I'd given him a camera for his birthday a couple months ago, and today we viewed his pictures on my 30-inch screen. This was quite a revelation for him, he told me, seeing them on such a big and sharp monitor not only showed what great quality his pocketcamera really delivers (I still get impressed by the little Canons especially), but also showed that he'd achieved what he'd been intending when he took the pictures.
Also we sometimes saw things he had not noticed when he took the picture, and which you needed a big screen (or print) to really notice, for example on a very good picture (see below, the picture with the train), three people very far off, but perfectly placed under a bridge. A really nice detail.

John and I talked about how different people react to jokes, some not getting them sometimes, or even getting offended. John said he talked to people about how he'd once been hurt in a bicycle accident, and recently he fell off a mountain (the guy is fifteen years older than me, but has more energy it seems) and dislocated a shoulder. So now, he tells people, he is done with highly active activities where there's a danger of falling off. "Like bicycling or mountaineering. And sex is right out!"
Believe it or not, it seems many don't get it or laugh.

Here's some of his recent pictures. I think he has a great eye for composition*, what do you think? (I'm trying to get him to start a page on Flickr or Picasa or something.)






* I did not have to crop a millimeter of any of them to fine-tune the compositions, that's not something you see often.


Below is a detail from the train picture mentioned (and shown) above:

Theories on how you get babies Updated

To protect the identity of the person who sent me this gravely offensive joke, I won't give his name, but he's a doctor in Lebanon.

One afternoon a little girl returned from school, and announced that her friend had told her where babies come from.
Amused, her mother replied: "Really, sweetie, why don't you tell me all about it?"
The little girl explained, "Well ... OK... the Mummy and Daddy take off all of their clothes, and the daddy's thingy sort of stands up, and then mummy puts it in her mouth, and then it sort of explodes, and that's how you get babies."
Her mom shook her head and said, "Oh, darling, that's sweet, but that's not how you get babies... That's how you get jewelery!"

--------
Update:
Little Susie goes home from school and tells her mum that the boys keep asking her to do cartwheels, and is it because she's very good at them?

Mum said: "YOU should say NO - they only want to look at your undies".

Susie said: "I know they do, that's why I hide them in my backpack"!

Polychrome!

Woa.



... By the way, it's sometimes a matter of seeing what a picture might become. Below is the top picture as it looks straight off the camera.

Blur on the 20mm (updated)

Just trying out some artiness with background blur on that 20mm lens I'm all about this week.
Normally you don't use a smallish sensor camera for good background blur (the GF1 as a Micro Four Thirds camera is in-between DSLR cameras and compacts with regards to this), but with a fast lens, you can get some if you try.

This lens has a pretty nice "bokeh", which is a fancy (japanese) word for the qualities of out-of-focus blur in photos. Some lenses (particularly zooms) gives it hard edges which is normally less aesthetic than smooth, soft blur.

Chris S said:

While the bokeh does look ok here it certainly doesn't get into the kind of creamy niceness you can get with a 70-200/2.8. It's hard to get anything at small focal lengths in the best of lenses. What aperture were these shot at? f/1.7? An improvement over a P&S I guess.

You're right, for really soft background, one needs a bigger format and preferably longer focal lengths.

Again, the MFT format is in-between in this aspect too. (Yes, this was F:1.7.)

"Were ya on yer belly for that grass shot"

Nope, that's one of the good things about live screen cams over DSLRs.

(Especially if the screen is hinged.) (Which it isn't on the GF1, sadly, maybe my only real misgiving about it.)

Yes, many new DSLRs have live screens too, but sadly their autofocus is *very* slow in this mode. So far Panasonic is the only company to have out cameras with live-screen autofocus which is pretty speedy.

Knaked Knitting (updated)

The Naked Knitting calendar is out. A cancer support project done by friends and friends of friends.
I haven't found any sample pictures online, I'm inquiring about that. You don't sell so much of what people can't see!

Update: a response with a few samples.

Update 2:

Laurie said:

I was indeed the photographer. Have a look at their blog,

We we're featured on the local TV show and they have a YouTube clip.

Born To Die In Berlin

I thought this was a Nina Hagen original, but now I see it's actually a Ramones song. Their original version is here.
But I feel Nina's version is far superior. She not only added valuably to the lyrics, she gave the song an actual melody.

Admittedly, you will have to search long to find more bleak lyrics than these...
But fucking hell, what a great song when Nina sings it! (I hope you can open and play this file, I don't recall if it's one of the rights-protected files or not.) Update: there's some indication not everybody can play it. Try this file instead.

Junkies, whores and pimps
Devils around my bed
There is no choice and no difference
And no one seems to notice

Sometimes I feel like screaming
Sometimes I feel like I just can't win
Sometimes I feel like I was born
To die in your arm in Berlin

Intoxicated by the orchids
Abandoned in the garden
Demanding morphine for communion
Because my soul was burning

Sometimes I feel like screaming
Sometimes I feel like I just cant win
Sometimes I feel like I was born
To die in your arm in Berlin

Stranded in the sweet windings
Breathing the pale moon silver
Tasting the last drops of life
From a sweet transvestite's lips

Sometimes I feel like screaming
Sometimes I feel like I just can't win
Sometimes I feel like I was born
To die in your arm in Berlin
-

Panasonic GF1 Field Report (updated)

Panasonic GF1 Field Report, camera review.

It's a good review, and I agree with almost everything he says, with a possible exception: that 1600 ISO is fully usable. Like a commenter here pointed out, you do get a noticable decline in image quality going from 800 to 1600. Rather less detail. Though it can be improved somewhat by slagging through the RAW files procedure, it is not for big prints. Bigger cameras like the Nikon D90 or Canon T1i have much better low light quality. It pretty much follows sensor size, and like I have said, this one is in-between DSLR cameras and compact cameras in that respect. But I do hope next generation of Micro Four Thirds cameras improve this yet another step, that would be kewl.

Oh, by the way, I had not even thought of trying out the video quality until reading this review. He is right, it's excellent. And it could not be easier to use, and both focus and exposure are automatic in real time, very very good.
... It should be said that unlike with the (more expensive) GH1, you are stuck with the built-in microphone, and while the sound quality from that is pretty good, this does limit the camera to amateur use for video. Sound quality has always been a main bottleneck for video quality, you do need an external mic.

Long days on the bitch

The title line, by the way, is a reference to my ole pal Claus. Back in the eighties his English was not so sharp, so during a course/spa stay in Florida he would pleasantly inform people that he intended to "go lie on the bitch".

The prospect of a long day at the beach makes me panic. There is no harder work I can think of than taking myself off to somewhere pleasant, where I am forced to stay for hours and 'have fun'.
-- Phillip Lopate

Funny thing, innit, how that divides people. Me, I'm with Phil. I wonder what type of person loves vacations, and which doesn't.

Big screen scream

[Thanks to Jim.]

Broad satellite broadband

Back just after the millennium, there were at least two attempts at making a low-cost wide-availability satellite broadband network. They said it would be here in about 2004, with prices comparable to ordinary broadband. Did all of that just die away?

The Captain's parrot

[Thanks to Tom.]

A magician worked on a cruise ship. The audience was different each week, so the magician did the same tricks over and over again.

One problem: The captain's parrot saw the shows each week and began to understand how the magician did every trick.

Once he understood, he started shouting in the middle of the show: "Look, it's not the same hat!"

"Look, he's hiding the flowers under the table."

"Hey, why are all the cards the ace of spades?"

The magician was furious but couldn't do anything. It was, after all, the captain's parrot. Then the ship sank.

The magician found himself on a piece of wood in the middle of the sea with, as fate would have it, the parrot.

They stared at each other with hatred but did not utter a word. This went on for a day and then another and then another.

Finally on the fourth day, the parrot could not hold back: "OK, I give up. Where's the friggin' ship?"

=====

Funny thing is, my dad told this joke 40 years ago, in a variation. In that version, the parrot always yelled "he's got it up his sleeve, he's got it up his sleeve!" And in the final line it said: "OK, I give up. You lost your shirt. So where's the ship?

Valley tree, October (updated twice)

Here's a couple pictures I took today. (I have more to post later, I think.) I was out in the Valley getting the town's best burger, and walked home. I'd put the compactish GF1 camera in my bag, and good thing too, with all the autumn colors I'd have kicked myself if I hadn't brought a camera.


Panasonic GF1 with 20mm F:1.7. (The combo weighs less than a pound.)
This came out more powerful than I'd dared hope for.
Part of it is that (due to the sky) I used auto-bracketing, and selected a lighter version than the otherwise perfectly serviceable auto setting had chosen. More light in the picture, see.

Update:
Here's another pic from today. I liked the funny juxtaposition of this grey environment and those brightly colored bits.



Update:
TC [Girl] said:
I really like the contrasts of the brick wall vs. the colors, like you mention (and thanks for including that. That helps a great deal to interpret/confirm what you are trying to show in the picture...for amateurs like myself. :-) The pic looks like a B/W pic...with just those few bits colored in.

Thanks, dear.

It is funny, once I get into "picture mode" I see pictures everywhere. I was just walking home, a bit bushed, so I kept putting the camera in my closed pocket on my thigh (The GF1 with this lens is just small enough for a large pocket), and then I had to take it out again several times on the way. The grey picture was very close to home, well after I'd decided I was burned out creatively for the day.