Deliriously ironic ... photographs as satire, commentary, surrealism and story telling

http://bumbutz.ro

http://bumbutz.ro/v2/photos/1/025.jpg

http://www.paulmichaelhughes.com/pages/people/p15.html

http://www.rebekkagudleifs.com/people.php?photo=people0105.jpg#people0104.jpg

http://www.zonezero.com/exposiciones/fotografos/herrera/index.html

Listening to ....

a few different things.

Claude Challe's CDs are just potent mood magic. Try Buddha Bar 1 and 2 to get started.

Also the soundtracks of Wong Kar Wai's "In the mood for love" and "2046".

But it's Ishtar from Alabina that has me hooked. You'll see why once you watch this video. Don't blame me if you wanna jump her bones right after. She's so utterly sensual in this video ...

http://www.a-star.fr/promo/ishtar_alabina_sawah.html

Cameras

Sometime back lucked out for 10 bucks at a pawn shop with a genuine all mechanical Chinon CM-4s with a Rikenon 70-150mm (with Macro) lens. Works like a dream. Tested it out with three rolls and all shots came out good (despite being hand held even down to really slow shutter speeds). Only stops down to F4, so am hoping to pick up a really wide lens one of these days and see what it delivers.

Next thing I knew I'd gotten the bug. Picked up a Miranda D (1960) from Bolton from a Polish estate dealer. It's in good working condition. Have to test it with a roll sometime soon. Probably will have to do daylight only as it doesn't have a built in meter. However it qualifies as a genuine historical artefact :) So this set me back like 200 bucks though (but that's including a Tamron for the Nikon and a Sigma lens for a Konica as well.

Also picked up two Lomo LC-As both this time mail ordered via the net from Ukraine. One landed with a broken rewinder, but otherwise both seem in good working condition. Again need to be tested with rolls really soon, like when I finally get some time. This one set me back two c's as well.

Had also earlier picked up the medium format Mamiya 645 1000S with the 120 and 220 backs. This was about 800 bucks with a 500 mm zoom lens, and a 80mm prime. Although I'd bought it with the intention of turning a profit by selling it on ebay, now I'm kinda wondering why not hang on to it and shoot some nifty portraits while I'm at it. It's not like it will devalue anytime soon or anything.

In case anybody is wondering I'd signed up for a film photography course but that got cancelled due to lack of students. So invested the money in equipment by picking up a Nikon N70 for like 100bucks. And of course reading up on cameras got me hooked, one thing led to the other, and before I knew it I'd blown another couple of grand on the above plus some lenses for them all. Welcome to my world of hell for leather going for broke. Now I have to find a way to pay off all that credit card debt *sigh*

All this is additon to the beginner stuff I already have including the N70, the Canon EOS 300 both film, and the Fuji Finepix F30 plus the Nikon D40X.

So even if I'm not like a real photographer as yet, the motivation is definitely there now

Check this space sometime not soon. Hopefully there's a payoff in all of this :)

Take three ...

Did Spidey, first show in Imax too. And to top it ended up with two more free tickets they gave us to make up for having to evacuate us around 11:30 due to mechanical difficulties (movie was supposed to start at 11:00AM) but fixed it five minutes later. We'd waited around for the next show and so managed to catch this without having to use up the replacement tickets. Had to play hooky from work but boy the movie was worth it. Intense, Intense, Intense just about understates it :)

Guess what I'll be using the other two free tickets for? Pirates? Shrek? Right on!

Got a little caption for this too ... if I could just find it :)

One more?

Here's an indecent proposal

bits and pieces of poems

that got stuck inside me over the years;

When you first came,
quiet as the rain that never fell;
In the sunlight that never shone
I whispered words I had never known
and now, shall never forget.


Western wind, when wilt thou blow
The small rain down can rain?
Christ, if my love were in my arms
And I in my bed again!


When will we dance again
In yesterday's moonlight?

Backpacking

Being singled does mean I can now travel as a backpacker, and so that's how I did Frisco last year, Drakensberg, London and Miami the years before. I mean beyond the obvious guided tours, cost savings, peoplewatching opportunities and fantastic locales there's other more subtler reasons to backpack :) For one I still remember doing the Drakensberg day hiking trips and coming back in the evening to a large T Bone steak, washed down with Castle Laager at a roughhewn wooden dining table, open to the side all the way to the stars, with lightning flashing in plain sight a few miles away ... all for roughly about $5 American. Aieee, that place was beyond romantic ... If I coulda stayed there for another month I'd have gladly done so except that the lodge it was literally in the middle of nowhere and you could not anything for miles around ... good if you're being hunted by the mob but bad if you like to hit the club scene every now and then or murder a plate of pad thai or get midnight cravings for sashimi or even just want to go rent the latest emir kusturica or ...

And where in London could you do a pint for a pound other than in a backpackers bar. I mean it all qualifies as cost savings don't it? The only regret I have ... not having my camera on these trips. So summer's almost here and I'll be doing a few cities on the longer weekends and hopefully they'll all be at backpackers this time with the Finepix and maybe even the Nikon DSLR tagging along. I mean there are lockers to put stuff like that away at night ...

And here check out the this wonderfully presented guide to London for backpackers

Of course there is this other way to check out this quirky wonderfully eccentric city out by just clicking over to london daily instead :)