reviewing my selection process for the images to be included into the book, i made an interesting observation, for which today’s lead shot can serve as an example. during the first review of the pictures within days after their creation, i had a very different attitude towards their qualities. the image above came out only…
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sofobomo 09: finished it is
finished. after some intensive hours my sofobomo 09 book is ready. it is available from the sofobomo website here: batticaloa fishermen. scribus proofed to be a reliable tool for this work, it can only be recommended. the resulting pdf is 7 mb for more than 40 images with 150dpi, so compression works reasonably well. plans…
hiding in the tree
another find from a stroll with the kids: a wonderful round tree shadow. the only difficulty was the photographer himself. i didn’t want to take a self portrait with tree, so after some difficulty i merged my shadow with that of the tree’s stem. oh yes, and the rarely used tamron 11-18 again performed well…
shadows on the wall, and power lines
the already familiar alleys of krk showed different aspects in the late afternoon soon, walking them together with the kids. the earlier visits i had paid to them early in the morning, when light and air were cooler and daily life was just starting. together with the family, working a scene was not possible –…
see the details
with only 3000 permanent inhabitants, the city of krk on the island of krk in croatia is really a small place. but wandering with open eyes again and again reveals beautiful details, those door handles among them, found on the church of sv. kvirin, the patron of krk. and i never before found such a…
krk beach
family holidays in krk mean spending quite some time on the beach, often without the camera. but when i finally took it with me and dug out my 11-18 lens, it was quite nice to make a wide beach scenery out of a nice small spot. guess it should qualify for the mindful eye’s assignment…
sofobomo status
using the evening hours for sofobomo work, i learn to master scribus more and more. it turns out that the first framework i had prepared did not make proper use of the templating functionalities, so modifying fonts and text colors turned out to be more tedious then necessary. as i prefer the systematic approach, i…
fully insured
to describe traffic in sri lanka along european criteria, there is just one word: insane. even for a seasoned driver, not shy of left-hand driving, it is so much better to have a careful sri lanka driver and a working seat belt. and when you have the lorry so close in front of you, it…
blue boat, blue bike
sometimes colors and forms just grab me and for moments i stop thinking about the stories behind. those occasions i do cherish, even more as they don’t happen too often to me. in these rare moments i can see beyond simple shapes. but they are rare. travelling to sri lanka, i had david duchemin’s new…
barrel door
a matching door for the fence blinds shown yesterday, this door is one of the rare cases where the recycling/upgrading path left the original structure well visible and self-contingent, not mixing in or adding other components. the fence, too, is a case of recycling: the net was beyond repair and unsuitable to catch fishes any…
metal structures, batticaloa, sri lanka
in sri lanka, plots are usually at least fenced with barbed wire. only the wealthy ones can afford real walls, often topped with bottle bottom fragments. To protect the owners from the curious views of the bypassers, the street side of the fences is usually equipped with blinds. traditionally they were made from palmyrah leaves,…
bad reichenhaller fotospaziergang / worldwide photowalk in bad reichenhall
as it generally is of interest for bad reichenhall locals, here bilingually with german as the first version: Im Rahmen des “2. worldwide photowalk” findet am 18.7.2009 der “Reichenhaller Fotospaziergang” statt. Im Rahmen eines gemeinsamen Stadtrundgangs mit Gleichgesinnten wollen wir Fotos machen und über alles reden, was mit Photographie zusammenhängt. Zur (kostenfreien) Anmeldung gibt es…
sofobomo 09: batticaloa fishermen
finally my sofobomo 09 theme has found me: the fishermen of batticaloa. since 2005 i try to spend the early morning hours of my missions to batticaloa on the beach, and over the time i got more and more acquainted with them. since quite some time i planned either a small exhibition or a pod-book…
the grave of s. thinusika, 8 years
in his comment on a bitter victory, thomas stated that there is no justification for terrorist attacks like the ones the ltte comitted. of course he is correct, still my answer contained a big ‘however’. to understand why many of the tamils did not support the ltte any more due to their murderous acts even…
the president’s funds
trincomalee internally displaced persons again, in front of their shed. one of the boys is sick, born with a hole in the cardiac septum. basic healthcare in sri lanka is free, and in some aspects of really high quality and excellent quality/circumstances ratio. however an operation in this case has to be paid extra, and…
idp bathroom, batticaloa
some people are not born poor, but made poor. the idps that now live in navallady, batticaloa, in the former tsunami buffer zone (no permanent house should have been there, the former residents were all resettled) had their homes in the trincomalee district. the civil war came, they were driven out of their houses in…
to be poor
taking up the topic of my recent post “eyes”, just a bullet list of what it means to be poor in batticaloa, sri lanka (but feel free to put in any other place): the husband (if present) works as a day labourer, earning barely enough to feed the family the kids leave school early to…
tata and grapes
sometimes when the eyes open, gestalt reveals itself. though i am sweating for many of my pictures, on quite some occasions i just recognize, see. and sometimes, i also like the framing and don’t feel the necessity to crop or modify otherwise. rare moments that i really cherish.
beach abstract
at the moment i feel a bit like this pants on batticaloa beach: totally worn out after more than 30 hours work and traveling with only some naps. at least the official part of this mission was successful, so no reason to complain. photographically it still has to be evaluated. more after having slept, promised!
dancing feet
still under pressure, this time at the airport already, on the way home. today i got sad news again about the refugee situation in the north of sri lanka – ban ki moon seems to have categorized the situation ‘apalling’ regarding the government’s treatment of the tamil civilians – and he seemingly has seen only…
eyes
no words at the moment – time presses. i hope the picture speaks for itself
giving something back
photographing in exotic locations usually means meeting people only once in a lifetime. photographing the not-so-well-off means that you even can’t just send a picture or two as email, and even when they write down their address – in the present case i couldn’t read it as i don’t know tamil. but in this case…
sad holiday for the tamils
dark clouds over the sea here in batticaloa, no sunrise – matching weather for a holiday that is a holy day only for the sinhalese. from some tamil houses we heard funeral music. a sophisticated way to express their sadness that they seem to have lost their case.
a bitter victory
here on the east coast of sri lanka, the only people celebrating a victory were soldiers and policemen, all of them members of the 80% sinhalese majority of sri lanka’s population. the photo above was taken in dambulla. the tamils almost all were quiet, only the members of the ruling party tmvp showing open contentednes,…
knocking on (fire)wood
risking the fact that it sounds boring to hear the same thing over and over again: being here on the east cost of sri lanka changes (again) my perspective. whilst at home wood pellets form the ever available and theoretically co2-neutral alternative for burning oil to heat the rooms, and that ever-ready central heating makes…