Tonight the house has an extremely still atmosphere to it. Hubby left home with his Harley at the unholy hour of quarter past three in the morning. He went to Sicily with a group of his biking friends. Last I heard from him was that he was having lunch on Mt Etna. Hope everyone is fine!
And Tim Burton has returned to his rightful master in Malta. He sure kept us on our toes. “Us” includes all of the members of this household: Hubby, Simba & me! Man, if I only had a quarter of Tim’s energy, I’d be just fine!
The good news is, that Simba and Tim actually became friends after about four days.
A last few shots before he left us yesterday afternoon – in a pose I didn’t get to see too often (while Simba’s is all too familiar LOL!):
Simba has been a very clingy big cat ever since I came home from work today. Evidently, he’s missing the action with Tim!
…haha! Don’t know which Tim Burton you expected, but this little devil is named after him. My son’s kitten is our house guest this week, while Daniel is rocking with friends in Prague. Tim is cute in an extremely unnerving kind of way.
You really don’t know whether you should laugh or curse… Always on the go, always exploring exactly the places he definitely should keep out of. And on top of it he’s making Simba’s life pretty miserable. Simba doesn’t know what hit him; and the more nervous he becomes, the more he keeps flicking his tail… which in turn just serves to tickle Tim into attack mode. I haven’t succeeded yet to take photos of the two together – because when they are within reach of each other, the action is usually rather fast-moving!
Thankfully in a few days’ time the spook will be over; I hope both cats will be still alive by then – and my sanity (or what’s left of it) intact.
Yesterday was Day 1 of Kevin Casha’s “Fast Track to Photography” course. Woke up at my customary time of 5 am to very sunny, very windy weather. Trying to think positive, I found there’s actually an advantage to waking up too early: it gives me time to get going and let the Solpadeine take effect!
A theoretic lesson of almost 3 hours about aperture, shutter speeds and ISO preceded the photo-shoot – some twenty people besieged St George’s Square with their Can(n)ons (majority) and Nikons, with the mission to catch “Street Life” as well as portraits of each other. Rather conveniently a Fiat 500 gathering from Sicily took place at the same time.
As any photographer knows, noon is about the worst time of the day you could choose for a photo-shoot (especially in this sun-blessed country!!). It doesn’t only mess with the colours, but also your head!! I was a bit disappointed by how many shots turned out, but the overall outcome of day 1 was ok. It was the first time I consciously shot in full manual mode, and actually knew what I was doing LOL!
Here are the pics I deem the better ones – out of over a hundred shots I took…
Spent half an hour experimenting with that filter again… It might be getting a little old now, me acting as ghost in the garden, but for the time being I can’t do much more. At least I chose a different spot. This corner is actually my favourite; it’s a shame I don’t spend more time outside…
All three pics are 30 seconds exposures; the first one I took with the ND400 and polarizing filter stacked on top of each other, and it turned out very dark; almost black actually. I was surprised that it was easy to rectify in post-processing without losing quality. (The reddish hue is me, wandering around before sitting down!)
Contemplation
That first half of my experiment made me realise just how enormous a difference to exposure times shade makes in comparison to bright sunlight, so I removed the CPL. Oh well… this might sound geeky to most of you, but I hope you’ll like my favourite garden corner even if you’re not a photo buff!
Having prescribed myself 2 days of computer abstinence didn’t do zilch to help my condition, it only ran me deeper into depression as I started fiddling with the facebook application on my iPhone, which isn’t really all that useful, refusing to give me much more than bloody farm crap and not leaving space for “real” updates by my friends. Oh well…
Yesterday I mostly let a normal weekend routine run its course, going to Victoria in the morning for some errands and shopping, even taking a quick detour to snap a couple of pictures down at Mgarr Harbour. This photo is really rather nonsensical. Why would one want to take a long exposure in broad daylight for a panoramic shot as this one! But I just wanted to see what difference stacking the ND400 and a polarizing filter made. Well, it gave me a couple of seconds more exposure time but also some vignetting. At least I also obtained a little gimmick on the side: the Gozo ferry speeding crazily out of the harbour…
Mgarr Harbour, Gozo, Malta (click to enlarge)
Hubby and I had even made plans for the evening, to go out for a pizza (to hell with the cholesterol!!), but by afternoon the pain got just as bad as usual, and I ended up in bed. Tomorrow being a public holiday, I tried something different today: I took a proper rest, staying in bed, and bravely refusing myself any painkillers – that courage lasted until 2 pm. Normally the Solpadeine’s effect lasts for 7 hours, but now, barely 5 hours since I took them, it’s wearing off already. I’m pretty scared of that stuff…
So, not much news to tell you, except that on Tuesday evening I have that long-awaited physiotherapy appointment and I so hope it’ll do the trick. To be totally honest, I can’t get myself to believe in it. But who knows, maybe I’ll be in for a pleasant surprise for a change! *crossing fingers & toes*
Today’s my mum’s birthday. She would be an incredible 72 years old, had not cancer ended her life when she was three years younger than I am now…
I know, I know, it’s a morbid thought and pointless, too. But I can’t help thinking of it, not only on our respective birthdays, but quite often throughout the year, even after 24 years – she died just a month after my son was born (and sadly never got to see him in person).
And of course I miss her… I wish I could talk to her when I’m particularly happy, and ask advice when I’m particularly down – as I am now. She wasn’t the kind of mum who would mollycoddle you and cook your favourite meals when you visit. But she was a good, no-nonsense friend who would say exactly what she thought (I’ve got that trait from her, I suppose), with whom you could go out for a drink or two and talk things over. And that’s what I’d really need today… right now…
I’m not kidding when I say that this chronic headache of mine just barely lets me get through a day of work. The first half isn’t all too bad, but afternoons are a killer. And only because I feel reasonable at the time I leave home for work, did I load my photo gear into the car boot. I didn’t really expect to use it, but I thought it wouldn’t hurt. So when I was done for the day and steered the car out of the hotel grounds, I had about 150 metres to consider whether to turn right – home – or left – towards Dwejra. Dwejra won…
Exposure times were between 6 and 8 seconds. Not at all what I wanted, but it was simply too early in the day. Although my photo addiction won initially, I did not manage to stay longer than about half an hour before the pain got so bad that I had to pack up and leave. The strong wind didn’t really help it either!
I wonder if this is how life will continue for me. It’s freaking me out! Today I made a private appointment with a physiotherapist – and the earliest available slot was next Tuesday evening. Makes me want to cry, but this week will also pass, like all the others before…
To be fair, not the entire weekend has been murky – but pretty much most of it!
Video-shoot Chasing Pandora
Yesterday morning heavy grey clouds adorned the sky, which seemed a big bummer considering the scheduled shoot of Chasing Pandora’s music video for their new single “People”. But when the shooting started, the sun miraculously had broken through, and remained that way until it was a wrap. (Then, unbelievably, it got all cloudy again!)
Chasing Pandora's videoshoot for 'People'
Contrary to what I expected and what I believe was planned, every extra actually had to lip-sync one short line of the chorus; I wasn’t prepared to be more than just a woman passing by the wayside. Obviously now I’m even more curious to see the finished video!! Of course there’s a chance that they cut out my part in the end… we’ll see! I’d love to play the song for you – it is another great one! – but it is yet to be released. In the meantime, if you’re on facebook, there are some more photos I took during the video-shoot here.
Long exposure shots
Well, I’d been planning on creating – and then showing you – something new in my photography repertoire, but thanks to the said murky weather, that has to wait another week. *sigh* Yesterday I received a neutral density filter I had ordered last week, an ND400 to be exact. Such filters make it possible to take photos with long exposure, even in bright daylight (see some great examples here!). Today it’s been raining on and off – I’m keeping fingers and toes crossed for next weekend!
Update… In the meantime the rain has stopped and I was really dying to try out the filter. So here is my first daylight long exposure shot with a Hoya ND400 filter! During the 20 seconds, I casually walked into the frame and had a seat. Goofy, I know, but fun nonetheless! *grin*
Healthwise I haven’t improved one iota. I keep functioning with a varied diet of different painkillers. Mind you, not all at the same time!! Solpadeine is definitely working best, but it’s also the scariest of the lot. Googling “solpadeine addiction” throws a collection of horrible scenarios at you! I’m extremely careful in that respect and take them only about every other day.
Give us this day our daily bread...
Variety is the spice of life. They say. Hmph!
Once the effect of the painkillers wears off, I’m thrown back to square one. Slowly but surely it’s driving me insane. I haven’t heard back yet from the hospital regarding my physiotherapy appointment. So probably I’ll go for a private one. A friend has given me a telephone number of someone she recommends, and I’ll call tomorrow. But I admit to doubting that this is really the solution to my chronic pain. If only I knew exactly what’s causing this nightmare…
When we went to Malta a couple of weeks ago, I took these photos upon leaving Gozo. I didn’t want to add them to the post with my Malta pics; then I forgot about them and in the end things happened that reduced my computer time drastically.
So this is Mgarr Harbour, the place you’ll see first when you come to Gozo – and last, when leaving the island…
More kitten shots… Human presence still seems extremely intimidating to the little guys, something that I really cannot figure out. From far, they do see us interact with the other cats (most importantly, with their mother!), but one step in their direction, and they just run like hell. Max (pictured below) is slightly less scared than Moritz, who is a real escape artist. He’s so quick, you wouldn’t even notice that he’d started running.
I can't see you... so you can't see me either - right?!
Don't come any closer!
You think you gonna catch me? Keep dreaming. Ha!
What do you want from me anyway?
As you can imagine, my life has been playing out in a very tight radius recently. Mainly stationed on the living room sofa, I do occasionally venture out into the garden; an attempt at keeping sane. Still trying to make sense of what’s happening to me, really. I mean, I’ve never been really ill and this cholesterol thing really scares me. The funny part is, I lost two kilos in the last couple of weeks; if I start a diet now, where will that take me?! I feasted on bread with ‘cholesterol-reducing’ margarine today (just remembering the taste sends shudders down my spine), and I even switched from coffee to tea – if only for the reason that it tastes slightly less yucky with skimmed milk than coffee… *huge sigh* Stupid question on the side: Why does margarine have to be salted??
Let’s change the depressing subject, shall we? I was pleasantly surprised to find out this morning that a fellow deviantArt member has uploaded my pic of Roger Hodgson to a Radio Paradise forum thread about ‘Even in the Quietest Moments by Supertramp. By the way, Radio Paradise is a really cool internet radio station, playing mainly prog rock. I’ve been listening to it since I found out about my photo. Great stuff!
Less than two months till Tollwood now; I pray that nothing else will pop up and cross my plans unexpectedly!
Wish y’all a nice Sunday (or what’s left of it!) and a good week; I’m going back to work tomorrow, too!
