Thomas Dobler & Kenny Drew @ The Bird's Eye

An extra concert at The Bird's Eye, in Basel.

Kenny Drew at the piano, and Thomas Dobler at the vibes let the numerous public enjoy very good music in the usual familiar and luring atmosphere of The Bird's Eye.
The pictures (along with those of many other concerts at The Bird's Eye) on my photo page on Zenfolio.
Be sure to check 'em out!

Mein fuhrer, Ich bin gefähig!

Got to love the flash.
After stumbling into a love-hate relationship with it, and after having been cured from the infatuation for ultrafast lenses (no, they are not the cure for everything :-) I am finally coming to terms with this beautiful tool.
Muchas gracias to Neil van Niekerk for his amazing website rich in explanations, examples, and inspiration! So inspiring, that I spent an hour just flashing away in the basement of my house trying to discover the interplay of light and shadow, the power of bouncing light (indiscriminately, yes...) and foreseeing the combined effect of flash light and ambient light.
Too bad I now really feel the need to purchase yet some more equipment (talk about softboxes, umbrellas and light tripods!): the perspectives opened by flash seem to be amazing.
I don't know if this has cured, or if it'll ever cure my dependence on higher and higher isos (I so need a D3s... :-) but it'll keep me entertained, and most importantly, happy, for some time, and will allow me to get better pictures.
Can't wait to just go out and shoot! :-)

A couple of examples to show that I indeed learned something: first, following again Neil's suggestion, isolate your flash head. Spilling light to the subject is way too easy, and gives away flash light immediately. Neil uses black foam around the flash's head. I managed with dark cardboard. You lose some power, but you don't spill light, and you just get a more natural look.
Second: often light bounced from just behing your shoulder is better than light bounced from in front of you. It gives the subject a flattering light with a "pop". See the image for reference:

Light bounced more from the front instead has a different character. It is more equally distributed both in front and behind the subject, but is flat (and unflattering...).
It can be very useful in case you have two or more subjects one (or more) behind the other. With light bounced from behind you, the backstanding subject/s would get almost no light, and be too dark. Bouncing more frontally (and yet, bounced on one side...) you get still a nice look, and more even distribution also behind the main subject.
This image shows how does light look when bounced from up-right:

Seems like a difference big enough to me. The first image preserved a certain "tridimensionality": the shaded side is darker, but not too much, and the brighter side, despite the small hot spot (I wonder how to take that away! :-) certainly shows a flattering light.
Sample 2 instead looks even, with a more evident background too... and yet, it is less appealing, as it loses plasticity and turns into slightly bidimensional and flat.

Well, this is just the beginning of my explorations of flash light :-) I wonder if I will ever get this flash-flu as bad as this guy... :-)

Some more Switzerland (and a tad of Germany)

There's something very nice around Switzerland... colours, nature, and places that let you breathe, and feel instantly quieter.

Then, in Germany – if you believe common wisdom – people can be sadder...

Or is it? :-)

Good old fashioned afternoon of thinkers

Misteries of Switzerland...

This is what you see wandering around parks in Basel: terrible creatures hiding and feeding!

What other misteries lay in store in this small, chocolate producing country? what evil hides in the shadows, what good refrains from being seen by the eye of the unworthy? Only exploration will tell...

For now, let's enjoy the just discovered new world of Basel!

Der Regen

Basel in a ordinary rainy day.

Details and what's not, water forms on the ground, ghastly people waiting for the tram, all in the middle of June.

A newly found old friend. In a day that much did amend.

Today I found again, after much time, and after feeling I had lost him – for no apparent reason – a good, old, and beloved friend of mine.

In this windy day of Trieste, where rain is but an interlude between wind flashes and leady clouds, I am finding all of my peace.

This is my day. Just 2 days before my birthday, my 30th, this is my day. Thinking of the past, drearing the future yet perceiving it as a wondrous adventure, I’m here, sitting at a table in a library, and my thoughts they flow, but my heart rejoices in a inner peace I had been longing much too long, much to vainly.

Welcome back, my friend, welcome back again to my dearest soul, my dearest friends all.

This is a day of rebirth, in the discovery of one’s self one time again we are allowed to live once again, and be forgiven.

So for once I can quote Leonard Cohen:

“From bitter searching of the heart, quickened with passion, and with pain we rise, to play a greater part. Men shall know, commonwealth again, from bitter searching, of the heart.”.