About DU, Gulf Wars, + media

Here's the link - pretty alternative/interesting information about the reasons of wars in Iraq/Afghanisthan + much more to think about (4 pages, scroll down for the other pages)

Goetzis Hypo Meeting 2006

(It's Estonian decathlonist Madis Kallas in Jumping Gala 2005 in Tallinn)

First, when talking about decathlon, we have our superstar of all ages here in tiny Estonia, it is mr Erki Nool, winner of the Olympic Games in Athens, 2000, his personal best is 8815p (Edmonton 2001) - today the world record is 9026 (by Roman Sebrle, Goetzis 2001).

Today, #1 in Estonia, is mr Kristjan Rahnu (personal best 8526p (Arles, 2005). He's not in competition today, but he is expected to compete in Arles (France) this year, in June 3-4.

So, decathletes are in competition today + tomorrow, in Goetzis, Austria.

- List of athletes in competition
- live results

So, who's about to win? :) I personally hope Estonian risign stars Mikk Pahapill + Madis kallas (-PDF!-) will be able to beat their personal recors :)

First event is already accomplished, the winner is Bryan Clay from the United States :)

More information about Decathlon from this great site - Decathlon2000

Portrait contests and other sh*t

First, here's a portrait of a girl (don't know who's she). If you want to argue, if it is a portrait or not, just send me e-mail, and we can meet one fine day in some pub or so :P

Then, sorry for the word Sh*t, but hey I'm not the only one using it in this lovely word, and if you have happened to listened live concerts by Fish, then you know it can be one of the most used words ever. Together with the most beautiful words in the world :) So that much about the music recommendations (If you really decided to click the link for Fish page, I'd recommendto listen to the live album "Sushi", besides being one of the concerts with the most frinedly atmosphere, it's sound's not bad either :)

Okay I was visiting the Pentax Portrait Photo Contest 2006 final today, so how was that?.. Bad new are that my works were not worth a penny, good news are that they are about to start a long time tradition, which means everyone can enter the contest again in 2007 again. Kudos, PPPC team :P (If you are eager to get informed about the winners, here they are:

- Professionals, 1st place
- Amateurs, 1st place (if I remember right, it was by rising star photographer Kaarel Nurk)
- Children, 1st place

- Grand Prix (trip to Sri Lanka) (believe it or not? :)

Now, I agree with the 1st place of the pro-s. I also competed in pro class (aren't we all pros after we've shot 1st film? :P), so the conclusion is, that there's a lot of room to be better :)

As with the organization of contest, it did not fail at all, but it was not that Grand also, as advertised. But I'm not the right one to say, and I'm sure it will be x times better next time.
The representative of the council, also probably the heart of all the contest idea, Kaupo Kikkas could manage his tasks + the speech was fluent.

As with the other sides of the contest, I was not completely happy with the explanation of what was the critera for judging. I'm also not sure whether 5 members of the council are enough to judge the winners, but as the company was diverse, that's ok. (For example, of the judges was one of the most famous Estonian portrait artist Aapo Pukk).

As with defining which category to be belonged to, I'd quote my drawing courses teacher Ülle Marks: " For me, you are always amateurs, no matter how long your learn, or how intensive you learn" :) (greets for her, she's the best art/drawing instructor I know :)

Now what else. I promised to upload you some skins, eh. Will do that later, I'm sure pretty much before the dollar collapse + oil wars :P There's also a list of psychedelic/progressive music I'd like to recommend you, but this take some serious hours to create that list :P

And there's another thing, I'd like to ask you - if yo happen to read some of these "articles", feel free to leave a comment :P comments are cute ˆˆ

Anders Quickver's flash page

ok here - link - is a link for Swedish flash designer porfolio page.
It's made almost four years ago, so you can imagine what can be done today with such a poweful tool like Flash. Last year Adobe has bought Macromedia, so Adobe's a big player in the field today (with its Photoshop, and now also Flash).

So I recommend you to learn some flash (oh, me? I'm lazy,*cough*) if you wanna be an outstanding performer in the field :) .. khmm and also if you want to know the score what's going on in Estonia's new media design, you should visit pixel :) not sure if the community is active these days (visited it a few years ago), but there's also archives + links to great design sites of all times.

I've been recently also been designing some "skins" I think I should upload some examples here as well how do they look like. Designing skin usually consists of 2 parts:

- graphics for the skin
- code that makes it work.

So I'm responsible for the graphics for that kind of bloody applications these days :) (ugh, code? :P *cough* khmm)

:)

I didn't know there's another excellent nature out there blogging from Estonia (shame on me) :)

Okay here's the link - click it or die! :P

Remo Savisaar's photo blog

This blog was chosen #1 animal photo blog of the year 2006!

"Da Vinci Code"

I'm one of the laziest human to read books these times (shame on me), fortunately there are some folks in Hollywood who care to make movies about this and that time by time, and they charge only a few bucks from you to see it.

So, if you have a minute, you should sit back and enjoy one of the Latest movies with Tom Hanks in head role, "Da Vinci Code" (by Ron Howard, based on a story by Dan Brown)

It was an exciting experience compared with the rest of Hollywood sh*t (*cough*) we can meet on cinemas these days :)

What's inside digital cameras

Link for a webpage, where are some decent information (in Estonian) + pictures, how digicams look like from inside :) If you know estonian language, the better :)

red leafs

.. dug in the old photo folders today, discovered that picture :) - it's a bit blurry, what pity, but when sized down to web, perhaps you won't notice that :))

tiny gallery ..

.. about kind youngster in Tallinn's EU Day (perhaps it is EU Day in all over EU countries?.. :P ). Thanks. I think I can consider the day succeeded in terms of photographing people :)

:)

Picture is from European Day in Tallinn, (thanks Laura and other kind youngster for the kind permission to make some snapshots)

I'm busy with different kind of things, including participating in many photo contests.

More "news" soon :P haha

some photo-related links

I'd like to recommend you to visit some pages. You probably already know them, and these are also found via google, but hey, who cares :)

Sven Zacek - outstanding estonian nature photographer. I'm personally a huge fan of his photos and there are no shots in my libraries that reach even close for that kind of excellent work. Awesome!

Tõnu Ling - another outstanding Estonian nature photographer. If Sven is specified (is he?) more to wildlife, Tõnu is specified more to landscapes and that kind of stuff. Do not hesitate to click, and perhaps you can even buy something from the site? :P

okay, there are many great photographers, but I'll check them out later :P


Now, some photo related sites of Estonia:

- FotoKala - probably one of the first sites allowing to upload your photo, so the others could critisize it and so. There's some serious art out there, and if you do not tolerate critique, this site is not for you :) many professionals are spending time there, so if they're in the bad mood (or just arrogant) they come and smack you up. I also started with that site, I reached for the mark of ~4.5 but today it has been exhausted for me as a channel to distribute my photography, I visit it often for new fresh art shots, though. Recommended :)

- Looduspilt - pretty new nature photograpy related site. As it is pulled by mr Zacek and his friends (I hope I remember right), there are a lot of activity there. I bet even more as the summer is about to begin soon. Very good contest/upload-type site for every kind of nature photographers.

okay, there are many others, but hey let's have something for the next time as well :P

Vote!

Here you can vote about what do you think about the works of the Pentax Portrait Contest pictures :) - do not hesitate to click! ;)

this time

First, some music recommendations.

- Pink Floyd - The Division Bell

very psychedelic and mystical album. It happens to be ordinary, that you discover the real character of the certain albub, when you have played it twice or more. Music has to clear up some time, then it shows up its real face. :-) anyway, music is so wide area of discussion, that there will be no day when all you want to say about music, is told. And it is also fatal that every time you listen a song, tons of songs are created realtime. So you are not able to listen all world music within your short life :) so better get the best ouf of shit till your ears are able to hear :P
So now it's time to listen to Pink Floyd's 'Division Bell' - pay good attention to "talk to me"

I get addicted by some certain song sometimes (do you?), then I play it till every second of it is written on my ear drums. In 1998, I listened to the Marillion's 'Brave' - loud and often. If you happen to see 'Brave' somewhere in the CD-store, do not hesitate to purchase it. Every song in it is a whole album, and the album is one whole song. 'Brave' is not easy to listen, so if Britney is your no #1, this album is not for you.

What else. I've been workin' in the garden a few days (got to be out when there's sunny days, especiallt after 5 months rain, snow, ice and cold), so no funky articles in blog. If it rains, I'm back again in front of my 6 years old Hitachi display, radiating my eyes again :P By the way, Hitachy CM625 is the sharpest/best 17" trinitron-based display by far :) (ok, I haven't seen Eizo's from this era).

I'm dreaming about getting some serius photos / photo sessions from this summer, I need to go on with shooting people. If you'd like to get pictured, do not hesitate to send me mail - thanks :) .. thanks for help Krislin, new people are alway interesting to shoot :) a picture as follows:


and another:



There's also an upcoming protrait contest made public, Pentax Estonia is about to organize a grand contest including spectacular final show in 'Estonia' National Theathre.

So now I'm browsing my 24,000+ pics to find something to refer to the contest. Hard to find, actually. As the time goes on, the more you pay attention to the quality and concept. So what looked brilliant 3 years ago, might not look so marvellous today :) ..

I'm also thinking about making a film come-back somewhere in the near future - film colors are just so much better (even simple standard 35mm films). More current spendings, but that's how things are. I fell in love with film photography a few years ago, starting with simple Pentax MZ-50 SLR, then a few years later, till today, many different digital (point & shoot) cameras have been in use (Panasonic FZ10, Sony F717, Nikon 5400, Canon G5, Pentax *ist DS). Using *ist DS today and very happy with it. But film is more lively, so you should consider it one fine day too, if you are started your photography life with digital camera :)

...