One of the nice things in winter, don’t laugh, it’s that the days are so short. Even a lazy sloth as I can see a sunrise.

Here we are with Sunday’s images. It’s late, I won’t make a second post with today’s, I’ll try to catch up tomorrow.

This weekend we made the second attempt at Michael’s migration from Salzburg to Vienna, and this time we succeeded. Weather was with us. You may remember, the first attempt two weeks ago was thwarted by heavy snowfall.

Again I fetched the car, a Fiat Ducato Mark 3, on Saturday, left it over night in Villach, and at 7am I was already on the highway north, towards Salzburg. I had to cross the mountains, that’s where I made two short stops, not necessarily in the best places, just where it was possible, took some images in bitter cold, and then drove on.

I really wish I could have stopped wherever I wanted. I saw some absolutely breathtaking vistas, the snowy castle of Werfen in front of the most majestic snow-capped mountains, some winter dreams of magnificent beauty, but alas most of the time I was speeding along at 130 kmph with no chance to stop.

You have to take my word and the few images I was able to capture. I wildly enjoyed driving across the mountain range of the Alps, seeing all that beauty and even being able to snap a few pictures.

The actual migration took us till the evening, and there’s still a lot to do in Michael’s new apartment. Tomorrow night we’ll re-assemble his furniture, but most of the grunt work is done. Now, when I think of it, maybe I won’t be able to catch up tomorrow

The Song of the Day is the hauntingly beautiful “Alone With The Moon” from the 1998 Tiger Lillies album “The Brothel to the Cemetery”. Hear it on YouTube.

Alien Skin Snap Art painting effects in B&W??? What the Duck did I think?

Well, surprisingly this is the only variant of that image that would even remotely work.

It’s an image taken from the balcony of our apartment in Villach. Although the day was beautiful and it would have been the last chance to go swimming, I could not afford the time. If you’ve been here yesterday, you may see quite some changes to the sidebar. I have converted most of my categories to tags, there is a tag cloud, the blogroll is back again, and these are only the changes that are visible.

The Song of the Day is “Foot Of The Mountain” from Paul Weller’s 1994 live album “Live Wood”. See a video on YouTube.

It’s Friday morning and this is a picture from Monday. I’m still struggling to catch up. Like I said, I missed the train on Sunday and took Monday off.

This image was taken from the window of my study in Villach, Carinthia. The rest of the day turned out sunny and beautiful, but in the mornings we see fog now.

Like every year this time of the year, the song of the Day is once more “The Morning Fog” from Kate Bush’s 1985 album “Hounds of Love”. Hear it on YouTube.

I made not a single image today. It does not feel good, believe me, I tell you.

Today, like the last few days, I spent most of my time working on my new web site. The plan is to keep the blog on Blogger (I really can’t complain in the least about them), but to migrate the images from SmugMug to my own site.

Why? Because I have been patient now for more than half a year, have endured the outages, have heard the excuses. I am fed up with them. I have no idea if I can make it better, i.e. create something that at least for me feels better, without making it feel much worse for you, but I have to try. Paul Lester would say “It’s a guy thing”

This image is from yesterday. Yesterday the weather was much better anyway.

The Song of the Day is “The Land Of Plenty” from Leonard Cohen’s 2001 album “Ten New Songs”, co-written by Sharon Robinson. Hear it on YouTube.

There are some image titles that I use once a year. “Summertime” is one of them (I kinda missed it this year) and another one is of course “Summer’s Almost Gone”.

I took this images yesterday on my way to the lake. The water level is unusually high for this season, but it is still warm enough to enjoy ten minutes of swimming. This is late sun falling between the trees of a rural orchard.

The Song of the Day is again “Summer’s Almost Gone” from the 1968 Doors album “Waiting for the Sun”. We had it last year and the year before. Actually it was interesting for me to compare the pictures, but in a way they all seem to carry the concept over.

Hear the song on YouTube.

Sorry for the irregular posting intervals. At the moment I am pondering a major overhaul of this blog, and most of my time goes into reading web reviews of web hosting services, comparing hosting plans, etc.

Anyway. Yesterday was supposed to be a mostly rainy day and it actually turned out to be not. There were high clouds towering on all horizons, but most of the day it was warm and sunny in central Carinthia. I was even swimming.

The Song of the Day is “Under A Stormy Sky” from Daniel Lanois’ first album, the 1989 release “Acadie”.

To my great surprise YouTube has multiple videos, for instance a live performance, another that’s part of a documentary, where Daniel explains what this song is about, and finally another documentary about the Canadian “Mariposa” festival, where he performs the song in a manner very similar to the album version. Pretty nice coverage

Sometimes very simple things are enough to produce an image that pleases me. In this case it is a storehouse of a local hardware shop, seen through a bunch of yellow flowers.

I took the image on my way to the lake. Most of today was sunny and I decided to go swimming. At this time of the year you never know. Every time could be the last time. Due to the excessive rain before we left to Poland and in the last two days, the level of the lake has risen by at least 30 cm (one foot) in less than two weeks. The lake is now full and begins to spill over. The forecast announced more rain until Sunday, thus we’ll probably see floods.

The Song of the Day is “Simple Things” from The Crash’s 2001 album “Wildlife”. Hear it on YouTube.

Btw: I said I would catch up and I just did. For the first time in a week this is again an image posted the day it was made

It’s not very long since the last post. I had risen extraordinarily early, spent hours writing my post and hearing the Leningrad Cowboys. All the while the sky grew lighter.

I changed back to the Sigma 28/1.8 to capture the sky gradient. It’s not a particularly good composition or such, it’s just a sky at the time when clear skies are most beautiful.

Later, when I went to work, I used the Nikon 70-300 again. This bicycle is a good old fried, the last time we had it, was in “831 – Just One Of Those Things“, and that was already the second time, but a good actor can be employed more than once

The Song of the Day is “Blues Before Sunrise” from the 1997 John Lee Hooker album “Don’t Look Back”. Hear it on YouTube.

At first I was not sure about these images, but the longer I see them, the more I like them. Today was just this: a beautiful and hot summer day. Hopefully there are more to come, but even if not, it will have been a great summer.

Searching for a Song of the Day I began with my newest CDs, and the title “Those Were The Days” stuck.

Recently, when I wrote “1019 – Both Sides Now” and searched for a video, I found out that this Joni Mitchell tune had been interpreted by countless people, among them Dolly Parton and Doris Day. This caused me to buy CDs of both of them, and today’s Song of the Day is the title track of Dolly Parton’s 2005 album of cover versions.

I also found a video on YouTube, and there disaster struck: Have you ever heard “Those Were The Days” by the Leningrad Cowboys and the Russian Red Army Choir? Live in Helsinki 1993?? The Total Balalaika Show???

Oh my, speak of definite versions

It caused me to immediately order the CD (get the double CD from Amazon.de!!) and the DVD. The DVD contains only half of the concert, but the problem is, you really have to see them. Unfortunately “Those Were The Days” is not on the DVD, but of course YouTube has it

And while you’re there, don’t forget to see some of the other songs from this concert. Basically you find the whole concert among the “Related Videos”.

Next week I’ll make an experiment. I will use only one lens (OK, I do that all the time), and it will be one unruly monster of a lens, the Sigma 150/2.8 Macro, a lens that has found an almost permanent residence on a shelf in Villach

You see, I’m back to longer focal lengths, and in the meantime I use the Nikon 70-300 VR. It’s fun to be where I was in SoFoBoMo.

I always use this lens at a minimum of 1/200s. With VR I could go further down, especially when I am at the short end, but at the long end, at an equivalent of 450mm, 1/200s is a speed where I can be sure that I am able to hold every image.

Of course you need a lot of light to do that, but summer is the season of light, if I can’t do it now, I can’t do it at all.

The Sigma 150/2.8 is a different thing. It has no VR, at 895g it is heavier than the 70-300, but I really look forward to use it wide open.

Long lenses make photographing really easy, because they eliminate all the context. It’s more a matter of getting used to the frame, of seeing in terms of long lenses, but once you are over that, it becomes pure bliss.

If that sounds strange, try it at one time. If you don’t own a long lens, consider buying a stabilized 70-300. Ted Byrne has the Canon version on his 40D and he is excited about its performance, I can say the same about the Nikon 70-300 VR, you really can’t go wrong, and especially when you use it on a crop factor camera, it is a bargain entrance to long reach.

The Song of the Day is “The Chain” from Fleetwood Mac’s mega-seller “Rumours”. I have the remastered album with an extra CD of rough versions. That’s what I’ve linked to, but if you’re not a real fan, the normal CD for half the money will suffice. Isn’t it amazing how inventive this industry is, when it comes to selling ever the same things once more? See a video, live in 1979, on YouTube.