Nothing ages faster than science fiction, and when I saw this image, when I tried variants and ended up with this toned B&W, it immediately reminded me of 1950s science fiction movies.
Speaking of sci-fi, I’m still reading Orson Scott Card, and while “Ender’s Game” did not overly impress me, “Speaker For The Dead” brought up some real clever questions, and now I am in the middle of “Xenocide”. Seems like I will read the next one as well.
The Song of the Day is “A Better Future” from David Bowie’s 2002 album “Heathen”. Hear it on YouTube.
OK, after Sunday’s sunny splendor, Vienna felt like a shock. I arrived late Sunday night in light snowfall, and in the morning most of it had been washed away by rain.
Mind you, the emphasis is on “most”. Even today, Tuesday morning, when I look out of the window, the snow is not completely gone. The slush will stay with us. How do you like that, Mr Cedric Canard? 
Nevertheless, treating the day like a lemon, I was able to squeeze something out for you. We had those mannequins a few times, notably in “829 – Dedicated Follower Of Fashion“, “948 – Hit The Road To Dreamland” (as one of the additional images) and “1006 – The Great Song Of Indifference“. Here I had just to wait a little, until the approaching cars provided the right light.
The Song of the Day, well, this was an obvious one. We already had the song some time ago, though not the exact title. “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35” from one of Bob Dylan’s early masterpieces, the 1966 double album “Blonde on Blonde”. Hear it on YouTube.
Vienna. An image taken at 5:08pm. And there is hope: It’s less than a week, and then the days will begin to get longer again. Slowly at least 
So far it is just getting colder. I took this image of a mannequin outside a shop in Vienna’s 7th district. I have completely re-lit the image, and actually I am pretty pleased with the result. Click on the thumbnail and compare the JPEG from the camera with my version.
This was just one possible way to go. It’s always like that and this is the nice thing with digital post-production: you have a chance to completely change the image after the capture. I could have achieved a very similar result with flash, but that would have meant off-camera flash, probably a remote trigger, things that I have (flashes, not triggers), but that I found tedious to haul around.
It’s not that much easier this way, maybe much to the contrary. I suppose it is easier to learn lighting such a scene with flashes, than it is to learn how to achieve it in Photoshop (and you still need a decent exposure to begin with), but I like pondering about images, studying them, and when I’ve made up my mind, creating the image according to my vision. And all this happens in the comfort of my warm apartment. Probably that’s the real progress
The Song of the Day is “Sophisticated Lady” (this time really a Duke Ellington composition ), sung by Ella Fitzgerald in her 1958 “Birthday Concert” in Rome, Italy. That’s a great record. I mean, I like her, even in her most commercial studio albums, but Ella live on stage, that was a very different thing. Just hear for yourself on YouTube.
Well, some days it’s less, some days it’s more. Today it’s more
Actually these are images of yesterday, all taken in the morning while I went to work. These are not even all images, I could have gone on, but I just had to stop. This is supposed to be a daily blog after all, and I am already a day behind.
The lone balcony is here not for its qualities as an image, no, it’s here, because it fascinates me. It’s kind of a functionless architecture, an architecture that was normal a hundred years ago: you know, these balconies that were pretty useless, much too narrow, more decoration than anything else. In the meantime we have learned to appreciate balconies as an extension to our apartments.
Normal balconies are big enough for at least a table and two chairs, and then there must still be enough space to walk by. Not so here. A lone yellow chair, that’s it. And then it’s a north side too. I’m pretty sure though, the landlord charges a premium for it anyway.
The first two bicycle pictures are really the same bike, one time lit by the headlights of a car, thus the different colors …
… time passes …
… Oh dear! I must have been tired. It’s morning now and I have not even looked at yesterday’s images. Not much time to chatter now, but that may be a good thing anyway
The mannequin of the Image of the Day is in the window of some shop, I believe a hairdresser. I had to remove the lens hood and press the lens flat to the window, without any chance to compose. There was no other way to get rid of the reflections, especially as the insode was much darker than the outside. It is a relatively tight crop, but I still like it.
And that leaves the last image. “The Hunter Just Returned“.
The Song of the Day is “Too Much Of Anything” from the 1971 album “Who’s Next” by The Who. Hear it on YouTube.
Yesterday I commented on “Inertia” by Paul Lester, and out of a whim I announced the idea of trying to follow side-projects, a kind of thematic or stylistic pursuits, that would have a more project-like feel, but that would not completely occupy my time.
Well, connecting to yesterday’s mirror image, I went out and looked especially for mirrors and reflections. That’s the starting point of the first such side-project, but I guess it need not be restricted to mirrors only.
The idea is more along the lines of “unusual or puzzling views”, but the whole thing is so new, I won’t even take that as a working title. Who knows, maybe I’ll kill the project off in two days 
I got several images that I could have taken, this street scene is just one of them. Actually I selected it more because I really like what I could make of this low-contrast and noisy reflection in the dark rear window of a van.
Really, if there is one thing that those Snap Art filters are great at, then it must be their ability to make every image usable, regardless of technical quality.
The Image of the Day was taken on the sidewalk in front of the same shop where I took the image of the mannequin, that ended up near the end of this year’s SoFoBoMo book “Urban Dreams II“.
Again I have not used Snap Art in this image, but I have used the “Skin Even” filter in Topaz Clean. Basically that’s a skin beautifier, that works great on females and most of the time not so great on males. Here I’ve used it with a mask and lowered opacity. And this reminds me that the trial periods for these filters will be over in a few days, and that I will have to part with some money. So far the shopping list contains Alien Skin Snap Art, Topaz Adjust and Topaz Clean.
The Song of the Day is “The Great Song Of Indifference” by Bob Geldof. I have it on a collection called “Loudmouth: Best Of Bob Geldof & The Boomtown Rats”. YouTube has a video.
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.
