that noise

Well as I have no new cool pics to upload I use my endless Spain pics from 2005 this time to illustrate the boring article.



When did you last go shopping?

Estonians are crazy for shopping these days. I'm suspecting it is because of the gray/dark weather, so people get stressed and go in shiny and colorful shopping centres to feel themselves better.

I don't like shopping because after one minute in a mall I feel depressed and tired. Once a year is good enough (new jeans, t-shirt and shoes :P).

I think I also know why I'm not hearing so well these days - my ears might have been damaged in shopping centres! The level on sound/music is SO loud that my head becomes aching.. it is horrible. Why should I visit a shop with a loud level of music? I'd recommend you using nice Peltors in shopping centres.

The situation can be even worse in terms of sound levels. I had luck to visit Alicante's (South of Spain) one of the most gorgeous shopping centres (in terms of style it was pretty much like Kristiine Keskus in Tallinn, but a lot larger). So some young-oriented shops were not shops at all, but discotheques where you can buy clothes. So the process is like you scream to the seller: "HOW MUCH??!!" and she shouts: "WHAT?!" ... and so on.

Why can't we shop in quiet (OK with nice quiet music). Because then the naighbour shop volumes up their music, and people go there because they think there's something on sale, or just more life :P So if you want to sell, rent a nightclub and your sales will grow :P

3 weeks

have passed, what's new?

First, Estonia has a new president, mr Toomas Hendrik Ilves. I think he is OK, I also think former president of Estonia in 1992-2001 mr Lennart Meri (1926-2006) was the best president ever. Ilves is regarded to be west-minded president, so will we get visa-free relationship with USA? I'd like to go to get some pictures from Grand Canyon in this life :P

According to one of the most popular weekly report in TV called "Pealtnägija" ("witness"), estonian police is so corrupted that when your car is stolen, thiefs and police work together. Thiefs gets your number from police to call you to sell you back your car about a half price of what it's worth. So when you come to visit estonia, be sure you leave your car home. Of course we don't know the truth :P

I have not uploaded a picture within more than a month. Here's one, pure Estonian fall:



I'm lucky to have lovely Sigma EX 15-30mm lens these days, which is hell sharp at F8, and which is a good unit for some serious landscape shots (and city shots also, as the wide angle @ 22,5mm has some essence for urban photography).

We have had successful days in sports also, mr Heiki Nabi has won world champion title in Greco-Roman Wrestling :) Nice to see young talents to rise.

We have had lovely days also from other fields of sports, our world-champion 2005 mr Andrus Värnik has published three smart statements which are:

- if you win gold medal, you rule. If you only win silver in championships, you are no-one
- when people greet me with no title "world champion" I get offended.
- I'm not too arrogant after winning the world champion title in Helsinki in 2005

People got pretty angly with him as with the "no-one" he directly meant mr Gerd Kanter, #1 discus thrower in Estonia (#2 within many seasons lately, as mr Virgilijus Alekna rules so much :P). So we have a bad boy in our sport world, too.

Also what do you think will Michael Schumacher makes it to snap gold from Fernando Alonso in the final F1 event? :) I hope Alonso wins :P

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here's another picture, sunset in Nõva Beach, august 2006

Gobotoru

When I entered: "define: Gobotoru" in the allmighty google that most probably sits comfortably in everyones computer today, I got zero result.

However Estonian photographers may know that alias as one of the most skilful photo editor having his work represented in many online sites, also having his works being awarded a price in terms of digital photo etiting/manipulation. This man is mr Anton Novozhilov. I'm 200% impressed how easily he can make his simple but brilliant ideas work together with stunning skills with after-editing the photos. Cheers, Gobotoru, and now everyone, did you click the link?

(haha, do you know the sentence "MoVe ThAt BuS?" - It seems I'm demanding to click the links I recommend, too heavily, completing each article with the bloody words Did-You-Click-The-Link?) :P

"lomofying" your photos

there are many ways to "lomofy" ( = to make your photo look like it was made with legendary cheap and not-so-high quality russian camera named "lomo") your digital photo, one of them is described here :P - happy lomofying! :P

ha

I'm busy these days so I don't know when I'll be able to write new articles again here in this blog :P

artist acknowledgement - Billy Bussey

When the talent of Billy Bussey was discovered a few years ago, his 3D demo and also three dimensional web page is still top of the line art today. Though the site is more than three years old now, it is hard to find a condign site today, in terms of the build quality and innovation of the site, also how simple it is to use and navigate. The link.

Rotlicht Score

Whed did you last listen to something different? Estonian scene archive is a funky site to surf in, start with this track as an initial one for scene style. The music will tell :)

Recommended photographer

Very classy images at Lev Dolgachov's live blog. If you are intending to work with models (photographing), or you already do, you have no choice but to click the link in one way or another :)

:)

Estonian nature can be beautiful, too :-) (Nõva, Läänemaa, Estonia)

DeviantArt V5

One of the most popular art communities in the internet today, DeviantArt, has got completely new look and level of organization.. It was about time, but I'm sure everyone understands that it is not easy to operate more than 24,000,000 works to make them work flawlessly in new environment :)

There are a lot of other that kind of sites available, most of them are more specialized, though. DA has remained the largest, biggest, and most popular. So whether you have poems, paintings or photographs to show to the rest of the world, do not hesitate to sign up and share your talent :)

lizard & honey

This a macro shot of the lizard, she was only some 4 inches long. Proud to present her here, and I hope she will feel herself well here :P

As with the honey, one of my friends is in trouble to sell all his pure & natural honey, so if you need some, feel free to send me a mail bright "at" dlancer.net, and I ask my friend to ship you some :P (for the residents of Estonia, the price is 60EEK/kg). The amounts of the honey is actually so big, that if you are somewhere abroad and would like to import a few tons of honey, feel free to contact me again :) (that's no joke).

Artist recommendation

Today, I'd like to recommend you an artist / photographer / conceptual artist - Liva Rutmane. (Did you click it? :P). She is from Latvia, and I have been watching her works for many years now. Every single of her works is always top notch in terms of concept, quality and art. So enjoy it now, and I'll be always lookin' forward to see new works from her :)

traffic culture in Estonia

There's actually no culture in traffic, it is just the ego in the streets, transfigured from no brain to speedy new shiny cars. If you are a foreigner driving around in the streets of Tallinn, you will be surprised how agressive it is.

The situation of the traffic police in Estonia is nothing but good today, which means that people think like that when there are no police watching us, we can be arrogant in traffic, can't we.

I believe it is not a matter of police force, but a matter of brain capacity. But the picture is like that there are teenagers with BMW-s, with the attitude that no one can punish us, so we can be arrogant.

I'm lucky not to be in a rush hour today twice a day every day, but I was, so I can tell. There's no such think like economy driving in the streets of Tallinn here, also if you try to keep the safe distance in the traffic, you can be sure that someone passes you using bus stop boxes, and will occupy the place that first was your "safe distance". So you can keep the safe distance, but consider to have many cars in a minute who think that this room is for them to dash there.

Also, if you drive with the maximum speed allowed +10, you are a snail in the traffic. And finally, we can't even park politely, the better (the more expensive) the car, the less we care about how we behave in the traffic or where we park.

Estonian media has been investigating about the reasons why the situation is like that. There's still room for additional cars (compared with the traffic of the US, for example), and when you are in your car, it is easy to forget the others. It is a phenomenon that for example drivers/cars from Finland are very polite drivers. They never rush in the traffic, nor they are inpolite. So is it a matter of that we re-established our independency 15 years ago, while our naighbours have had freedom times more?..

Also, when you see someone parking arrogantly, feel free to send the picture about it here:
http://wrongparking.blogspot.com/

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.

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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

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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 :-)