A Day out in Town
Fresh Buds
Mar 6th 2010 (10:43) NIKON D70, Sigma 18-250mm F3.5-6.3 DC OS HSM (1/320sec, f=8.0, ISO:200, No Flash, WB:Auto)
Chance has it's ways. So I got myself a day out in town. I spent five hours walking the streets of Berlin with my camera. Here I now present
three photographs from that day.
Dylan visited a friend from kindergarten on Friday, with the aim of staying over night. And he did. That's the second time he's spent a night
separated from us. The big surprise was the next morning when I got a phone call - not to pick him up, as I supposed - but if he could stay on
for the rest of the day! As my wife had important work to do I was all of a sudden free until four.
Dylan eventually was brought back home at half past five. Completely exhausted. He spent the first 20 Minutes hugging us.
The fresh buds above are a lovely sign of spring coming. Photo taken in the same small, nameless park behind the
Tempodrom that I walk through every morning on the way to the
S-Bahn train station.
Holocaust Memorial Berlin
Mar 6th 2010 (11:32) NIKON D70, Sigma 18-250mm F3.5-6.3 DC OS HSM (1/640sec, f=6.3, ISO:200, No Flash, WB:Auto)
My long walk took me via Potsdamer Platz also past the
Holocaust Memorial. With hundreds of tourists swarming the place nearly every minute of the
day, it's rather difficult to take photographs with no humans to be seen. It's also difficult to try and capture the impression of the place. If
you're ever in Berlin please take your time to wander alone through the memorial.
Fernsehturm Berlin
Mar 6th 2010 (13:45) NIKON D70, Sigma 18-250mm F3.5-6.3 DC OS HSM (1/250sec, f=8.0, ISO:200, No Flash, WB:Auto)
I continued my walk via Brandenburger Tor to the
Reichstag. The dome was open to the public but the queue promised a wait of at least two hours and
although the sun was shining at the time it was bitterly cold. So I continued along the Spree to
Alexander Platz, where I got this unusual perspective of the
Fernsehturm.
In the whole I didn't take very many shots. But I certainly enjoyed my long walk.
Sunday, March 7th 2010
Botanischer Garten Berlin
Dylan in front of Leaf
Jan 30st 2010 (12:31) NIKON D70, Sigma 18-250mm F3.5-6.3 DC OS HSM (1/200sec, f=6.0, ISO:1600, No Flash, WB:Auto)
Dylan, his cousin Angharad, his Oma (Grandma) and myself went to the Botanical Gardens
here in Berlin last week. They've only recently reopened the greenhouses after several years of renovating. It was very well worth the visit.
Everyone except Oma was shooting photos constantly. Dylan used three cameras: A small toy video camera, a disposable camera and my Nikon. I haven't
seen the pictures from the disposable yet, but there should be some good shots that I will then scan and upload here.
The shot above is only an opener. My choice of the day is
uploaded to Picasa.
Tuesday, January 19th 2010
Snow
Snow on Foot Bridge
Jan 18th 2010 (20:51) NIKON D70, AF-S Nikkor 50mm f/1.4G (0.4sec, f=4.0, ISO:1600, No Flash, WB:Auto) cropped
Night time photos always make things look so much different to day time. I walk this foot bridge nearly every evening on the last foot steps coming
home from work. But yesterday I saw it differently and took a shot.
Tuesday, January 19th 2010
Concrete Stair
Concrete Stair
Nov 19th 2009 (13:53) NIKON D70, AF-S DX Nikkor 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6G IF-ED @135.0 mm (1/500sec, f=8.0, ISO:400, No Flash, WB:Auto)
When the main justification for buying an expensive camera is taking photographs of a child, it becomes difficult to gain an artistic approach to
photography. And even when I do get round to it, I don't often get round to publishing the photographs. Anyway, I didn't get round to pointing the
camera quite right: the diagonals on the top left and right should both end in the corners. I was a that site for three days so I attempted to
correct my mistake the following day - but the latter photos are different altogether. So we'll stick with this one.
Saturday, January 2nd 2010
Christmas 2009
Dylan asked the Christmas Man for a Chainsaw
Dec 25th 2009 (09:09) NIKON D70, Sigma 18-250mm F3.5-6.3 DC OS HSM (1/60sec, f=4.5, ISO:200, Metz 48 AF-1 Flashed, WB:Auto)
...and ear phones
Dec 25th 2009 (11:29) NIKON D70, Sigma 18-250mm F3.5-6.3 DC OS HSM (1/60sec, f=5.3, ISO:200, Metz 48 AF-1 Flashed, WB:Auto)
Dylan asked for a chainsaw for Christmas. And ear phones. And a helmet. And gloves. Funnily enough the guy in red did visit in the night and brought all those goodies. Although I had put the camera ready on my desk the evening before, I didn't manage to catch any good photos - Dylan woke me and then remembered straight away that he should have looked under the tree. I hardly had time to get out of bed before the first package was open. So we've got this photo of Dylan with his chainsaw. And a second of Dylan with a lovely grin.
The day before, Christmas Eve, his Oma had visited with a fire engine. He really loved that too.
Dylan with a Crowbar
Dec 25th 2009 (13:09) NIKON D70, Sigma 18-250mm F3.5-6.3 DC OS HSM (1/60sec, f=5.3, ISO:200, Camera Flashed, WB:Auto)
Later in the day Dylan and I went for a long walk. Actually we went down to find out where all the noise was coming from. The newsagents in the neighbouring house is being refurbished. We were invited in to have a look around. They saw the camera and gave Dylan a crowbar. Nice people.
Dylan with his "Laufrad"
Dec 25th 2009 (13:14) NIKON D70, Sigma 18-250mm F3.5-6.3 DC OS HSM (1/60sec, f=5.3, ISO:720, Flash Off, WB:Auto)
As stated instead of just having a quick look we ended up to a round around the block, then further off up to the Tempodrom and back past the Technik Museum arriving back home two hours after we'd gone down.
So that was Christmas 2009. Fairly quiet. Nice.
PS: My own Christmas presents included some lovely books an other thoughtful surprises, but also a new lens. See above.
Wednesday, December 30th 2009
blacksmith
The Blacksmiths Fire (Exposure Compensation +4,3)
Dec 5th 2009 (19:10) NIKON D70, AF-S Nikkor 50mm f/1.4G (1/125sec, f=2.8, ISO:1250, No Flash, WB:Auto)
Dylan and I spent yesterday afternoon at the only decent Christmas market in Berlin. All others are so highly commercialised, that they are a
bore. Not so with the Christmas market in Rixdorf. Rixdorf is the old village centre that later
evolved into the borough of Neukölln. Most if not all the stands are run by Vereine (a special German version of a non profit organisation).
It's only one weekend and none of the helpers get paid. All money is for a good cause, which makes spending more Christmas-Like. Main attractions
in the village centre is a Church built 1481 and the blacksmiths built 1624.
Dylan pulled me through to a tent of the THW, where a Father Christmas was waiting to have his
picture taken. From there we continued to the church with a short stop for a Bratwurst. In
the mean time I was longing for a Glühwein, but Dylan wouldn't let me stop. We arrived
at the blacksmiths and entering through a rear door found a place to sit and had a hot children's punch (mine contained a little rum). Strengthened
by that we worked our way to the workshop and Dylan up to the rope boundary. It took nearly an hour to get him away from there again.
Cutting Iron
Dec 5th 2009 (19:11) NIKON D70, AF-S Nikkor 50mm f/1.4G (1/100sec, f=2.2, ISO:1250, No Flash, WB:Auto)
They were making a fork to insert in their anvil. We saw quite a lot of the work on it. In this shot they were cutting the half-made tool off the
block.
In the evening Dylan started playing blacksmith. The day before he had been playing archaeologist, after I had watched
Time Team with him on my computer.
Sunday, December 5th 2009
Copyright © 2005-2011 Daniel Cutter
This version of this site created May 3rd 2009, but partially updated since.
