John Pilger : The War On Venezuela Is Built On Lies

A day of fog

It was foggy again except for a spell of sunny blast after lunch but I was stuck in the cubicle then. These photos were captured at home around the neighbourhood from the balcony.

Afternoon shot from the previous weekend.

Morning fog from the balcony and variations of.

Evening shot from the balcony in the afternnon after work.

Night time shots around midnight, I captured some constellation a bit later when the fog lifted with the wind.

Foggy Nights Stars from Vaulen

It's been foggy the past week, which makes the surroundings errily strange and funky in someways. I have been meaning to capture streetlights in heavy fog one of these days but haven't quite managed to do so just yet. Took the opportunity yesterday to pop by Vaulen beach on the way home from the post office.

With almost clear sky higher up, the fog added quite a rather nice atmosphere to the captured images. Some of the heavy LP in the area seemed nicely muted by the thick fog. I might have to go back to take advantage of the fog these next few days.

Iflight 8B

This is large 8in craft fitted with 7in props and DYS Samguk Wei KV2300 motors. It's a pwerful flyer seen here with Gopro Session 5 attached in a protective cage. The camera angle is pointed slightly downwards to give more emphasis to ground view though with sufficient capture of the sky during non-aggressive forward flight.

Summitar Lens Hood

I reestablished my connection with Leicashop after many years of absence. They were my regular source for pre-war gear when I was smitten with shiny chrome lenses formulated and built even before I was born. Some of them still stand up pretty well against modern lenses.

After taking out the Summitar for a stroll the other day, I noticed that it needed a lenshood. I was at the time using a lenshood that was meant for the Summicron 50. Surfing around Leicashop I stumbled upon this nifty looking original Leitz lenshood specifically meant for the Summitar. So I ordered one, EUR 60 for the item itself, and additional EUR30 for shipping, and 25% Norwegian tax on top as well as NOK150 for handling by the Post Office.

Now I'm a proud (cynical tone) owner of a vintage lenshood (1939). One great feature is it's foldability ... kinda cool!

Be careful what you wished for

"Be careful what you wished for ... you may just get it." I was watching  Submitted For Your Approval, a documentary on Rod Serling of Twilight Zone fame with his voice over in the back. He uttered these exact words reflecting his career as a writer and I was rather struck by it.

These were the exact wise words that I myself used as guide throughout some parts of my ventures all these years. Serling strived hard, reached out for stars and grasped them in his hands then head back to earth to lead a quiet normal life.

The documentary took viewers throughout his early hard writing career to the end, dwelling considerably on his successful Twilight Zone series all the way to his early retirement back to his childhood home in Billington to live a quiet life on a farm. He died at 50 years of age, I hope a happy man.

Rod Serling of Twilight Zone, my most favorite show growing up if there ever was one. I admit I'm still a big fan.

In contrast my life has been rather grounded close to ground except maybe for the first few years of my working career. All the years after the two kids have been rather lack lustre unambitious and unpretentious as far as I can tell. From 5 series BMW in Holland to five star hotel weekends while in Sarawak to commuting on public transport in Norway of all places, I think I deserve the badge "Not changing the world anytime soon".

Stars up above

It was a partially foggy late afternoon which extended well into night time. By 2100hrs from where were standing you could clearly see the thin fog hanging in the air. Further above Leo, Orion, Gemini and Cassiopea were clearly visible. Half of Orion was dipping in the fuzzy fog. By 2400hrs the clouds came in rapidly from the south.

Orion in the fog.

Orion higher up.

More Orion, the bottom city lights slightly tamed with a graduated filter.

Orion in bright city lights tempered by the fog.

Pleaides and friends at 30 secs exposure on the 24mm.

Leo

The Bigger Dipper.

Table top studio

Over the years I've accumulated numerous photographic gear that I seldom useful but almost always am very glad that I have them handy when I needed them. These included flash softbox, led panels, reflector umbrellas, flash units, battery packs and lightstands.

I think it started when I was bitten by the macro bug, shooting macro on site in the dark rainforest of Sarawak was always a struggle. Though I built the collection of tools over many years, the defining objective has always been to be able to shoot that bug or little flower on the forest floor in the end. My attempts haven't been very successful then.

I must have stored subconciously in memory how hard it was at the beginning trying to shoot with one direct flash unit on camera and later 2xflash units off camera and still not getting the desired results I was aiming for. I don't think I have many successful shots of that period either. I let that goal simmer for a long time and focussed on macro in bright daylight.

Looking back I realised that I now have all I needed for that perfect shoot of a bug or gecko with a glint in his eyes lounging on a rotten log in the dark rainforest floor, along a small flowing creek. Except for the fact that I'm now no longer anywhere near a rainforest. Closest I have to a collection of trees is a small park of planted pines behind the house, I know they have horses sometimes (with a rider on top), but I am quite certain that  they don't have geckos there.

Alas all is not all lost. I have set up a small table top studio in the corner of the hobby room. Two lightstands, two led panels, a reflector umbrella, a 50cm softbox are now at the ready if ever I find something interesting to shoot.

When winter passes shortly and spring comes along again, maybe I'll go scouting for spiders or some rare orchids to bring home and photograph.

Flights today

This weekend was a bit windy but the wind was blowing in a favorable direction, add a bit of favorable light and the conditions for flying became almost perfect even if it's not a completely bluesky day.

I took out the Iflight8B, Iflight7, XSR Mini and the GTR300 out today and they were recording on GoproSession 5 and Onepaa. In the end I used only two of the clips for Youtube upload. The Xsrmini had Onepaa on board but it wasn't recording though the flight itself was satisfying.  The Iflight7 had the Gopro onboard however I felt the vantage point wasn't so attractive with the camera angle set too high, all I recorded from the flight was an empty sky.

The weekend wasn't all a lost, I made two clips from the Iflight8B and the GRT300, both crafts are 7 inchers.

Iflight8B

GTR300

With Spring inching it's way slowly and steadily in the West Coast, undoubtedly there will be more opportunity to take up to the sky. And if weather cooperates like it did last year, there'll definitely be more flight time to look forward to in the days ahead.

Almost 8 hours of clearsky and there's a Moon.

Expectations were high approaching the weekend ... the sky was clear with no clouds in sight from mid afternoon all the way til the wee hours of the next day. The temperatures seemed mild too, above 5 deg C. And then of course there the moon which hung around from noon till 5 am the next day.

Orion was willing, the sky was willing, even winter temperatures cooperate willingly ... and the moon too. 

One makes do with what one has, you can go out buy gear but you can't go out buy perfect alignment of the universe for that perfect imaging night. Unless you are in the Atacama Desert or Tenerife ... maybe.

Foggy nights colorful sunset

Spring is in the air. With winter slowly edging out to spring the temperatures are getting milder during the day of about 8-9 deg C though the nights are still cooler around 5-6 deg C. There've been a couple of foggy nights and mornings. The sun now stays out longer for a later sunset and rises earlier. It seemed like this year's winter is rather short, with hardly any snow on the ground at all.

Entire streets disappeared one foggy nights. I'm tempted to go out with a tripod to make a couple of Jack the Ripper shots along the streets in the neighourhood.

Not long now, spring is slowly making a comeback.

The fullmoon was supposedly to be the largest this month 19-20th Feb was sadly masked by clouds.

It's sunny up above the clouds.

It'll soon be time to take up to the skies again.

Jatta and Gausel in the distance under clouds.