In little more than an hour I have to leave for the train. It’s Friday, yesterday was a public holiday in Austria (well, Catholicism is not ONLY about old men and young boys, you know) and I used the time to get a little outside of town. Here’s one of the few usable images. Processing went along a little of its own, and when I saw what I got out of Photoshop while experimenting, I liked and kept it.
The Song of the Day is “Down The Road” from Marcia Ball’s 2005 album “Live! Down The Road”. Finally we begin to see more of her on YouTube. Here is the song, audio could be less muffled and there is indeed a version with better video and clear sound available, only it is not the same song 
Weather is changing rapidly at the moment. I used a short period of sunshine, to go swimming and make some images. This is another experiment with the new plugins: Topaz Adjust and Snap Art. It is clear now that I will buy both. I still have to look into the other Topaz plugins, Clean and Simplify may be useful in some situations.
I always use these effects in separate layers, combine different effects from the same or different filters, and use varying opacities, sometimes dependent on tonal value (Blend-If sliders) and masks. You see, I’m pretty much afraid of using canned effects and producing generic looks
The Song of the Day is again “It’s A Green Dream” from Paolo Conte’s 2000 album “Razmataz”. This time I have a video for you. Love this song!
Yesterday it rained most of the time. I used a short pause in the afternoon to make some forest images.
I’d have more but, you know, it’s forest
I used a very expensive B&W polarizer, and as always it turned out to be a lot of work in Photoshop to get it looking like I wanted it to. I think it was worth the effort though.
I am pretty proud of the second image as well. It’s the 35/1.8 at f6.3 and 1/15s, handheld, and it is tack sharp.
I used this song once, almost a year ago, but when it makes sense, why not make use of the powerful force of repetition 
The Song of the Day is one again “All The World Is Green” from Tom Waits’ 2002 album “Blood Money“. See him perform live on YouTube. The video is the same as last year, only the link had stopped working, “due to terms of use violation”. Let’s hope they get tired of stupidly removing videos that sell their products. Well, at least this one has the complete interview with Letterman
Remember “706 – Carry That Weight II“? In a comment Ted asked me to not only show the bikes but also the riders.
Well, last morning, immediately after I had left the tram, I saw these two guys passing by, newspapers in their baskets, I remembered Ted, tried my luck and even got sort of a decent shot. Gosh, that’s not easy. You can’t plan anything …
… or maybe you can. Of course I know some spots now where lurking for some minutes would almost certainly produce a result
Only meters on I found this ribbon on the radio antenna of a parking car. Must have been to a wedding, although at weddings the ribbons are normally some variant of white.
All images today were made with the Nikon 85/1.8, a lens that has been severely underused yet. The riders were shot at f8, this from minimum focusing distance (which is about a poor 80 cm) at f4, the others wide open at f1.8.
There are three reasons why this lens did not get enough attention so far. One is that I bought the Nikon 70-300 VR only two weeks later, and of course the 300 mm were more spectacular.
The second reason is, that this lens shows strong purple fringing (like many old Nikon designs seem to) when used wide open and in extreme contrasts.
The third reason is, that in terms of focal length this lens is not very far from the Sigma 70/2.8 Macro, but the Sigma is the by far better and much more versatile lens.
So, why on earth do I use the Nikon 85/1.8 at all?? Well, I like variety, and used for what it’s good at, this lens can produce remarkable results.
The Song of the Day is “Red Ribbon” from Mary Coughlan’s 1990 album “Uncertain Pleasures“. Amazon has no sound samples, but I found the whole song on Deezer, an online music service that I did not know before. They let me hear the whole song, and in contrast to Pandora or Rhapsody they let me hear it although I am not a citizen of the United States.
It’s a French service and their music search is currently more than a little flaky. So far I have not registered with them, because I can’t currently see what the benefit would be and their terms of use are displayed in French. Anyway, I could hear the song, that’s what counts and I hope you can hear it too.
Actually, I wanted to post something else for a change, but I was so tired and bicycles come so easily
The Song of the Day is “Flametop Green” from Daniel Lanois’ 2005 album “Belladonna“. There is no video and there is no need to look for lyrics.
I’m late again. The apartment in Villach is far from ready, there is … hmm .. half a kitchen now, part of the book shelves, parts here, parts there, a lot of work and I have not much time to spare for photography. These are the images for Friday. I had taken a day off, intending to take an early train.
These images were shot while still in Vienna. There is a big club/bar in Neubaugasse, “Stylez”, that is all red and orange with some black, and as I stood there, I experimented with focusing near, using various foregrounds and angles on the bar.
The Song of the Day is not exactly a song, it’s a serenade by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, called “Posthorn Serenade”. I have it on disc 7 of volume 3 of Mozart’s “Complete Works“, a 170 CD box, digitally recorded, partly by second tier orchestras, but nevertheless quite OK. In any case it’s a fine reference, and even more so for the price of €99 that I’ve paid. Amazon sells it quite expensively, so I’d try an alternative source from their marketplace, where you get it new for $117 at the moment.
It’s funny, at the time of writing, this image is #3 in the list of my most popular images on SmugMug, my image hosting provider and photo community. It’s an image that I took Sunday night when I arrived in Vienna. I think there is nothing particularly wrong with this image, in fact I liked it enough to make it Image of the Day, but of the images of the last days it is certainly not a favorite of mine. I see it as a filler, and it’s success is probably a sign of a certain randomness. Some images get picked up by the crowd, some don’t. Actually, the longer I think about this image, the more I feel the urge to crop from the right
The Song of the Day is “Midnight Riders” from the 2007 Patti Smith album of cover versions “Twelve“. You may like her version or not, but if not, there is always the original by the Allman Brothers Band.
Oh my, for two weeks I had nothing but fisheye images. It was time for a change, and what a change it is. You can’t imagine how incredibly relaxing it is, to be back to the Sigma 70/2.8. I took this image while sitting outside of a bar, drinking a good glass of “Starobrno“, a really fantastic Czech beer – and I was feeling fine
The Song of the Day is “On The Street Where You Live” from “My Fair Lady”, interpreted by Mel Tormé on “Mel Tormé Swings Shubert Alley“. See him perform live many years later on YouTube.
I saw this in the morning at the door to a second hand shop in Josefstädter Straße. What drew me in, was the pattern of gold and warm, dark green. Is it coincidence that I read the essay “Melancholy Objects” from Susan Sontag’s “On Photography” right now?
The Song of the Day is “Somebody Changed The Lock” from the 1972 Dr. John album “Dr. John’s Gumbo“.
