Eight Minutes Old

This is one black and white shot that came out better than expected. Actually, I didn’t remember I took it. I was taking a rest from the tourist hordes that crowd the square in front the “Notre Dame de Paris” on the Île de la Cité in Paris. The nice thing in Paris is that you can find a calm, green spot almost everywhere. There are so many small parks, if you need to rest your legs you always find an empty bench. The same happened here: right behind the Notre Dame, at the river Seine, lies this small park, called “Le square Jean XXIII”. The thing in the middle is, as I found out by now, a statue of the Virgin Mary (seems to follow me everywhere) with some fountains around (”la fontaine de la vierge”).

While I was sitting there tourists walked over the place in all directions. But suddenly, due to some random fluctuation, all were gone. The place was empty but for this couple standing in the sun, embracing and kissing each other. So I snapped a quick picture, believing that they were too far away for my 24mm lens to show much details. I didn’t want to disturb them. Think it looks nice in black and white. Luckily I use film photography, the contrast was pretty high due to the intense sunlight. The  higher dynamic range of film gave me some freedom in tweaking the curves after scanning.

Tags: Against the Sun, black and white, Canon EOS 50E, EF 24mm f/2.8, Film Photography, France, Fuji Neopan Acros 100, Ile de la cite, Paris, park, Sculpture, Seine, Sky, Virgin Mary

The German government decided for a 500 billion Euro package as bailout for German banks. That’s a ridiculously high sum. It’s more than one fifth of the German gross domestic product. But then, with the current world population of 6.7 billion, it’s only 75 euro per person.

Sami asks in his blog (German only): “What would you do with the money?” I think it’s an interesting question, as no person will ever be able to use all this money. It will make you the riches person in the world, way above the current billionaire number one, Warren Buffet, with an estimated 62 billion $. So you probably want to do something beneficial for humankind.

If I got 500 billion, the first thing I would do is to take it to a bank (one of those without financial problems, I there are such). I’d put in into a savings account with, lets say, an interest rate of 3 percent.
The next thing I’d do is having lunch. For that I’d go to a nearby restaurant and spend the 16.85 Euro in my wallet. After an hour or so I go back to the bank and withdraw what the interest has produced: 1.7 million Euro.
That should be enough money to organize my further steps: finding out how to use the wealth. I’d travel the world to talk to experts and to find out where the biggest needs are. But overall, I would spend the money on two different projects:

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I was strolling around the Champ de Mars in Paris, trying to get a decent shot of a reflection of the Eiffel Tower in some puddle there. (I like reflections in black and white photography.) Most Puddles were too small and this one only allowed for the top of the “Tour Eiffel” to show up behind the trees. I turned and started to walk away disappointed, when in the corner of my eyes a jogger showed up. I swirled around, trying to catch his reflection beside the Eiffel Tower tip, but looking at the picture now I think I was too slow.

Tags: black and white, Canon EOS 50E, Eiffel Tower, France, Paris, Photography, Reflection

It’s 11.11., the carnival in cologne starts again. The people become strange, silly, obtrusive and drunk. Time to put on my No-Fool-Button.

Tags: Buttons, Carnival, Cologne, Fool

The new Carnival of the Godless (#104) is up on the Homosecular Gaytheist blog. But it seems as if a godless cat called Chimbley captured the carnival*. I don’t mind, the cat included one of my posts in her renamed carnival of the Chimbley. Thanks a lot!

But she also suggests that I adopt a cat. You wish. Attention Bloggers, the felines try to take over the blogosphere!

* Always avoid alliterations!

Tags: Atheism, Blog Parade, Blog Specific, God, Religion

In one of my early posts (Trajectories) I’ve already mentioned that I like the lines drawn into the sky by the condensation tails of planes. In this image, the sun was right behind a cloud, illuminating it in this spectacular manner. Two streaks left by airplanes were crossing each other near the corner of one of the skyscrapers, giving the scene some dynamic aspect.

The picture was shot on black and white film using a dark red filter, which enhanced the contrast between the sky and the bright clouds. I was in La Defence, a district of Paris in France, on a bright and sunny day and had the chance to take some more pictures like this one.

Tags: Airplanes, black and white, Canon EOS 50E, Clouds, Condensation Trails, EF 50mm f/1.8 II, Filter, France, Fuji Neopan Acros 100, Paris, Photography, Sky

Another “Blog-Parade”. This time the topic is photography, so I have to participate as this is at least partially a photo blog. The event is hosted by Connys Weblog. These are the questions and my answers:

1. What camera do you use?
   Most of the time I use one of my my Canon EOS 50 bodys. The analogue ones of cause. I also have an old, very manual Ricoh KR-10 with some lenses and a tiny Minox 35. I don’t own a digital camera (and don’t want one).
2. How did you start photography?
   It just happened. Mostly because of curiousity for the technology and chemestry of classical black-and-white-photography.
3. What are your favorite subject matters?
   These are mostly urban scenes, citiscapes and some architecture. I also like landscapes, especially long time exposures of the sea. But there is no sea nearby.
4. Do you edit your photos digitally?
   I develop the films and then scan the negatives. Digital editing focusses on dust removal and some editing of the curves. Essentially what could be done in the darkroom, too. I do not manipulate my pictures.
5. Do you print your images at home or do you order prints (online or in a shop)?
   I order them online. It was hard to find a quality that I was able to accept on the one and pay on the other hand. I settled with FC-Prints.com (They sit in Bonn so turn-around times are fast).
6. Have you done something special with your pictures? For example: Did you use your photos as a gift, poster or photo book?
   No, I don’t think so. Most of this consumer stuff from big labs is of bad quality, especially when done in black and white only.

Tags: ri, Blog Parade, Blog Specific, Photoblogs, Photography, Questions

Ok, obviously I’m double-evil. Not only I’m an atheist, I also enjoy role-playing games.

At the GenCon charity auction, role-players raised 17,000 $. The money was intended for the Christian Children’s Fund. Guess what the organization did? They turned it down because part of the money came from selling Dungeons and Dragons stuff! I thought the times when role players were thought to be all evil, satanic monsters are over by now. Christians are so used to not differentiate between reality and fantasy, that they obviously assume nobody can.

Looking at the Christian Children’s Fund website reveals that for 80 cent per day a child could be sponsored. The 17,000 $ amount thus could have helped 6 children for 10 years, or 60 children for one year. Sorry kids, you will have to starve to dead but that’s better than being fed by the sales of a fantasy role playing game.

Tags: Auction, Charity, Christians, D&D, Dungeons and Dragons, Reality, Religion, Roleplayinggame, RPG

I’ve found it: This is the face-on photo of the right one of the two “Touristscopes” visible in the previously posted image. This model is much more roundish, so I call this guy Chubby.

Tags: black and white, Brittany, Cap Frehel, France

During the weekend I got two (identical) comments by someone who calls himself Ancelmo Graceli Luiz. OpenOffice gives me a word count of 9985 words. The text is written in a language I don’t know, probably Portuguese as he says he is from Brazil, but the google translator thinks it’s Italian. I can’t make any sense out of the text, but understand that it is somehow related to proving god’s existence with astronomy. It’s a pity I can not read one sentence of it, so I have no chance debunking or criticizing it, not even could I laugh about it. Maybe the problem is that automatic translations are still working badly, but probably the text is full of no-translatable nonsense, too.

Luckily I have comment moderation enabled, so I did not publish two identical 10,000 word-”comments”. It should be obvious that comments this long can not be called comment. Furthermore, they were assigned to a post about photographic exhibitions. Doesn’t make sense … but that is common with these guys.

If you google him you can find out that he makes these comments on a regular basis, he even got one into Bad Astronomy.

If you, Ancelmo Graceli Luiz, want to communicate with me, please use  english  and don’t write thousands of words. If this happens again, I will mark the “comment” as spam.

Tags: 'Intelligent Design', 'Proof', Astronomy, Christians, Comments, God, Religion