I’ve just nuked my laptop. Really. I did.
After two installations of Windows 7, performed on two different desktop computers, one from scratch in Carinthia (you remember the hard drive failure?) and one upgrade in Vienna, I had become reckless: I decided to do it on my Laptop, a Sony VGN-Z21MN, as well.
The laptop had come preinstalled with Windows Vista Business 32 bit, and I wanted to run Windows 7 64 bit (I really intend to use all of my 4 GB RAM). I didn’t want to ever go back to Vista, thus I decided to make no recovery disc. Reckless. Did I say “reckless”?
While installing, Windows 7 did not give me any option to keep the recovery partition, so I simply opted for the possible, wiping everything that was there, installing Windows 7 from scratch.
I couldn’t have been more wrong. Windows 7 installed, and then it rebooted into … a black screen. Oops! Uhhh … this Sony has two graphics cards, an Intel chipset on the motherboard and a separate NVidia graphics adapter, some 9300 or so. Switching (via a hardware switch) to the Intel graphics adapter at least gave me back my display, but then I got a crash a little later.
Well, the new installation did not work. It says something about an unexpected crash and that it needs to reboot, and upon reboot it just gets to the same point again. The Visa installation is gone, Windows 7 can’t install, the Windows XP DVD, that came with my laptop, does not even boot. My laptop is a brick. A brick, that has cost me 1400€.
No reason to panic. I will find some solution. Probably. Wish me well. I need it.
The Song of the Day is “The Cost Of Freedom” from the 1993 Marla Glen album “This Is”. Hear it on YouTube.
This is the third blog post for today, this time the images were really made today.
You will notice that none of today’s images uses the painting effects of Alien Skin’s plugin Snap Art, but on the other hand, all were processed with the help of Topaz Adjust, and one of them, the tractor from behind, also with Topaz Clean.
It’s not that I grew tired of the painting effects, and I could probably have used them well on the forest ground, but sometimes … well, maybe I did grow tired of them 
I had to fetch some things from two shops in Villach, and afterward I drove to our parcel of land at the lake. Actually that’s where those Mock Strawberries grow. After swimming I took a series of those leaves and berries images and thought that would be it, but on my way back, I drove behind a tractor.
At first it only annoyed me, because I could not overtake, but then I noticed the dog. Uhhh … I had the camera on the passenger seat and, yes, I shouldn’t have used it while driving. On the other hand, how could I have resisted?
But it’s not only that one shouldn’t do that, it’s also that the dirty windshield took away contrast, thus I overtook as soon as possible, and after some hundred meters I parked the car and waited for the tractor. I was lucky, it had not taken a side road, and so I got some more images.
Really, is that cool and is that dog cute? Obviously the driver did not mind being photographed, and neither did the dog.
For a short time I considered playing the game once more: overtaking, waiting, making more images, because that way I probably would have got an image with a less cluttered background, but I was already in a hurry and decided to go with what I’d got.
The Song of the Day is once more “Reasons For Waiting” from the 1969 Jethro Tull album “Stand Up”. Hear it on YouTube.
Well, that’s not really suburbia, at least has not been for 150 years now
This is in Vienna’s 8th district, very near from where I work, very near to the heart of the city.
Are these dreams? Does any of these images qualify? Actually I don’t know. I am struggling with “Urban Dreams“, my SoFoBoMo book. No, it’s worse, I am struggling with the very basics: How do I get a sequence out of a bunch of images?
I have played around with grouping in Adobe Bridge and with manual “Lighttable” sort in IMatch, my image database, but that will only take you so far. 
I guess my problem is not grouping. After all, when I have found groups, what am I supposed to do? Sequence inside of the groups and then string the groups together?
Apart from the obvious problem, that the applied categories are not sharp, have overlaps, it sounds rather boring to me, a little bit like pointing with fingers, and it gives up on possible dramatic effects, on implied stories. It’s not what I’m going to do. But then, what else?
At the moment I have 85 images processed and published since May 4, the day that I began shooting with the project “Urban Dreams” in mind. Some more sleep unprocessed and I could pull them out if I need more of a certain kind. I will make some more in the remaining 12 days, today included, although three of those days will be spent in Carinthia, thus we’re down to 9. If I happen to come up with good candidates, I really plan to make changes until the last possible moment. That makes for at least about 100 images.
My next step will be to simply begin a book. I will use the measurements that Blurbs specifies for their 8×10 inch landscape book. This is not very big, in fact it’s rather small, but I just held a book with polaroids by Manual Alvarez Bravo in my hands, and I found it to be very comfortable to hold.
I will begin by selecting safe candidates that must go into the book. Then I will try to surround them with what feels good, makes sense, tells a story, juxtaposes them, whatever. Finally I’ll try to bring those strings into a sequence. We’ll see how far I get with that
If you wonder, today’s title is a line from the Sex Pistols song “Satellite“. I really like the version from their 1996 reunion tour “Filthy Lucre”, but your taste may be different. YouTube has a video of the original.
I’m back to Vienna and back with some candidates for “Urban Dreams“, my SoFoBoMo book.
I have some more from yesterday, but I guess I’d rather post this now than falling behind again on the first day of the week
All these images were made with the Nikon 70-300 VR in the afternoon. In the morning I have shot as well, some 30 images, with a remarkably low yield of one single image, but in the afternoon all was well 
Today’s mannequin image and 829 – Dedicated Follower Of Fashion were both shot in front of the same shop in Siebensterngasse.
The two bicycle images are actually the same bicycle. I liked this kind of lurking behind the corner. It feels very childish to me and in a very positive way. 
I have grown up in an old house in Klagenfurt, a big, old house with shabby, yellow walls, and warm, yellow walls baking in the sun, in my mind that has always been associated with comfort and childhood.
And then there is the Image of the Day. This is totally a product of this long lens. The perspective compression has created a room that does not exist in reality.
OK, I’ll have to stop now. It’s Tuesday morning, the sun is bright and already high in the sky, the birds are chirping outside, some rain has fallen in the night, but now it looks like a wonderful day. Let’s see what I can get.
The Song of the Day is Johnny Mercer’s “Hit The Road To Dreamland” from the 2006 Dr. John album “Mercernary”. YouTube has it for you.
We had five centimeters of liquid snow in the morning, then falling temperatures and ice in the evening. Seems like it’s going on, and I suppose I like the cold version better
I write this in the morning, and as I’m looking out of the window, I see it’s snowing again. Guess what you’ll see tomorrow
Unfortunately I am beginning to experience computer crashes again. I think the culprit may be my oldest hard drive, the one with my music collection. I have deactivated it for the moment and have to do without music. No problem, I have it all in Carinthia and at work, nothing is lost.
It’s bad timing though. I have planned to buy a 2TB disk as soon as it is available, but that seems to take some more weeks. Some shops here in Vienna list the new Western Digital 2TB “Green” disk as available from next week. We’ll see. Normally that only means “not now” and it may take some more weeks.
Anyway. I’ll wait, then change the 1TB image disk for the new 2TB, the 1TB becomes the music and spare disk, and the old 500GB disk gets replaced. At least that’s the plan. Now let’s hope that the crashes stop, or else the plan would need reconsideration
Music-wise I’d like to stay with Vivaldi’s “Winter”, but this time we look at the complete opposite to yesterday’s Nigel Kennedy: Herbert von Karajan and Anne Sophie Mutter. No, it’s not fashionable, no, it’s not on period instruments, but, boy does this recording sing! In a way it’s the technical culmination of the pre-”period instrument” age, and it’s certainly perfect. Hear “Winter” again on YouTube.
It’s almost a rule: I don’t make good images when I am on a trip. I always feel the urge to document the places where I’ve been, and that’s for a reason: of many past trips years ago I can only remember the places where I’ve taken pictures. Today we were in Friuli, Italy’s north-east province. It’s just a little more than an hour by car from home to Udine, Friuli’s capital. 
This particular image, the reflection of clouds in the water of a storage lake, was taken while still at home, and from there it only went down. It was a nice trip, but photographically I was completely uninspired. The dog barked at me when, in order to take a photo, I parked the car a meter from its fence. I kinda liked the tiny guy with the big ears. Of course the 20/1.8 was the wrong lens, because he wouldn’t let me get as near as I wanted, but then again, the wide angle emphasizes its size and that’s OK.
The image is further a good example of what you can do to the images from a modern DSLR. This was harsh light, I didn’t use a flash (the tiny guy was frightened anyway), and the dog was mostly in deep shadow. After heavy Photoshop treatment the image is still good enough for a print.
The Song of the Day is “Every Dog Has Its Day” from Willy DeVille’s 1990 album “Victory Mixture“. Tell me you American guys: what’s wrong with Willy DeVille? You get all his records here in Europe, but in the US you have to import him?? Sorry, no sound sample, no lyrics.
Today’s image is technically quite the same as yesterday’s. Small wonder, I processed them in the same session on the train. Again the image was shot with the Lensbaby, and this time I have used two images from a series of eight. In the morning I saw this dog waiting in front of a bakery. He was so cute and at the same time seemed so helpless, I simply had to take some images. Finally none of them was particularly good, thus I combined two of them with different areas of relative sharpness, and then I did the edge finding game again, once more with two layers, one of them for rough contours, one for texture.
The Song of the Day is “How Come My Dog Don’t Bark When You Come Around” from Dr. John’s 1992 album “Goin’ Back to New Orleans“. Hear it sung live on YouTube. Nice performance.
The Good Thing: I go to sleep now. The Bad Thing: I have to get up in less than three hours. Oh my!
It’s spring. Well, at least today was. I felt a strong compulsion to show you images of the blossoming brush that I photographed this noon, but then, on my way home, I saw this cute guy waiting in front of a supermarket. He was neither shy nor uneasy, an ideal model, so I knelt down on the sidewalk and took some shots.
Funnily enough, as I stood up, a young woman approached me, asking “Can you do that again?”. She wanted to take a picture of me taking a picture of the dog. I willingly complied. Unfortunately about then my phone rang. Actually I’d have been very interested in the picture she took, but in the following phone talk I lost her.
This was taken with the Sigma 30/1.4 wide open.
Sorry, no Story of the Day today.
