Faith, Life and The City of God

This is an apricot. I've purchased some of them for degustation, and we like it, so it seems we'll buy some more to make jam of them (jam with white breat is a better sweet than skittles or cola bears :P )



Now, have you wondered what's going on in Isreal and Libanon these days. I have never understood all this magic Israel-and-Middle-East-show. I have never read a word from bible or koran, too. So I'm stupid these days. I have to authoritative friends these days, one of them has read bible from start to end and vice versa many times, to find how it is all connected with basis of all world and life today. And the second one tells me that why should one read just a history of jew nation. I personally believe that faith doesn't matter, but personality does.

--



Have you lately seen any movie, I happened to see the City of God (Cidade de Deus) - it is a nice seeing for the relatively rich european man, the movie talks about ghettos of Rio de Janeiro, and of the sentences in the start of the movie is something like this: the most part of Rio do Janeiro is far of what you have seen in postcards.. so, see the movie now.

...

time by time I find myself being kidnapped for photo sessions.. which is welcome, time by time :-)

Be a National Geogrpahic photographer

Have you ever had a dream to become photogrpaher of National Geographic Magazine? :P
Today, there's an easy way to participate via internet. If your shot os good, it will be printed in NG magazine. To submit your work, follow this link:

NGM.COM/YOURSHOT

...

failure

Today, I failed in a competition to enter estonian academy of arts, in photogrpaphy. Will have to prepare better, next time :) Will later also upload the photos that were represented in my portfolio for the council.

my sister's blog :)

Dat's myah sista'zz blooooooogh :P - click, click, click :)

caterpillar

This cutie was sleeping under the sun while we were visiting Hiiumaa this week :)



Hiiumaa is a nice island of Estonia, and if you ever care to take a trip there, don't miss the places like Sõru, Ristna, Tahkuna, Kõpu, Sääre Tirp and so on :P

jump :)

this is what happens when they miss to jump at the same time :-)

flower

Summer is late this year, these flowers (what's their name, again?..) were blooming on May 28th last year.. so 2 weeks. .. .. ..

:)

Hmmmm nothing fancy these days. Except that have had a great opportunity (thanks Merje) to make some freewear shots with some great models like Madli (yes, click it, don't wait for the better government).



I'm also attending spanish courses these days, that's why not surfing the holy internet too much. Our teacher is an interesting person, as there are also interesting ppl everywhere in the world, and I enjoy learning spanish. I wouldn't tell the date I'll speak spanish, it is like (quoting someone I don't remember, sorry) urinating against wind (sorry for the tactless thoughts).

Well what else. Yesterday I was lookin' at the world map, and it is a phenomenon that mayority of the world's population, some 3-4 billion people (including China + India) live in Asia + Oceania, while the territoy of these countries is equal/smaller than the territory of Russia. While there are only ~140 million people living in Russia. So, what is the force that holds back ivasion to Russia (as one of the most resourceful countries these days) when Asian people decide to move to the north? :P

Today I read from the news that price of the crude oil is to drop as Iran and Western countries are no longer to fight so much again. So step on the gas again, like it was the very last day you can tank and drive :P

Do you know what's specific to Estonian's climate? That theres 10C two times a year, in June and in December. Today we're suffering from the same here :P

A month ago we were planting 3x6 gladioluses in our tiny garden. 8 of them have risen so far, so you better be more careful takining care and treating them when you are about to do the same, because the flowers seem to be a bit finicky :P

another decathlon..

:) Another decathlon to take place this weekend in Arles (France).
Hopes were high in terms of Estonian #1 decathlist Kristjan Rahnu to compete.
It seems he will not participate this time, though.

Entry list of participating decathletes.

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