Notes
As this whole part of the blog is called “Notes”, here it is. Notes from the warm part of 2024. Düsseldorf and some places around. Just a thought: on the website where you pay for the storage capacity, it is really a notebook and not just notes spread around the platform. This notebook has a size and weight. Pretty big actually. In the beginning, I wasn’t bothering myself with resizing the pictures to a smaller size so they load faster and occupy less storage. But now I do. Probably not a big difference in visual quality, but this “notebook” will be able to hold much more (years?) now.
As I have probably already mentioned in some other note, the tram/subway (Stadtbahn) system in our city is spread out far from the city center. In fact, it goes to the city centers of at least 4 neighboring cities. Still a lot to cover, but that day I found Something – weird stairs looking like a rollercoaster in the middle of almost nowhere. No brainer – I went there.
You basically can’t go from the beginning to the end – there is a dead loop
And back to the evening city in one of the upscaled neighborhoods that look even more peaceful and almost utopian during non-rainy evenings.
And of course, I had to take a moment to take pictures of the local flowers and inhabitants that highlighted wast green zones in our green areas.
Kirmes
Each year we have some days when one side of the city becomes a colorful buzzing explosion of emotions. One of the most extreme attractions I saw was tightly placed in a smart way mixing food counters, lotteries, and bars.
There is no way bad weather and rain can stop the celebration of this time. If there is rain, people will just stay in bars and food places and the moment the last drop falls from the sky, everything will start again.
Behind the scenes, there are a lot of people making this possible. This is like a theater but without the “internal” part hidden. Everyone can see, there is almost the same space occupied by technical, maintenance, and support. Everything to make this summer miracle happen.
Graffiti
Usually, we are not going to more eastern areas of the city. Because it just happened, our friends live elsewhere, and there are fewer nice spaces.
But this one is special. Not the neighborhood most people would love to live in. But it has its character. Graffiti is everywhere. It reminded me of the game “Marc Ecco’s Getting Up” I played more than 15 years ago.
Solingen
It was hard to believe, but in the region where I was born, there is a small town Zlatoust which is famous for its knives. And Solingen is actually a source of its fame. Here, in another small city near Düsseldorf, some of the best blades are still being made and the masters from there reached masters from Zlatoust to produce high-quality steel and make sharp knives.
It was my birthday when we went there and the walk was nice and peaceful. Had some thoughts. Don’t remember which anymore. As the autumn comes, I often have more thoughts. Somehow autumn is the most productive time for me in terms of planning. And winter sometimes. But here winter is autumn so, maybe it is for the better?
Almost a year
It’s been almost a year since I started taking photos. Everything started with a film camera and I still appreciate it. I probably, found my favorite films, like Portra 400 and Fuji Color 200. Although I’m still curious to try new ones. This is a particularly interesting time for film photography. Just 10 years ago it seems like the industry was dying out and was supported by remaining enthusiasts, but nowadays more and more people are getting into it. Probably as a part of the modern retro fashion.
Got a digital camera that I’m pretty happy with. Fujifilm X-S10 holds great after its first year. I am pleased by its versatility and complete different experience with different lenses. And how many opportunities it gives to learn and to try. At first, I was shooting JPEG-only. Now these are RAWs originally with some minor adjustments. I have in my ToDo list a plan to streamline the process, develop a set of presets/film simulations that I will be happy with, and come back to sharing photos that weren’t touched by any kind of editing software. Well, truth be told, even the scanned film photos I’m sharing here have some minor adjustments. I hope they are not too funky or taking away more than bringing.
And soon, in a week actually, another big trip will start. Which hopefully will bring a lot of impressions, but also a lot of photos from the places I’m incredibly curious to visit. That part of the world perhaps is the most interesting for me. Even though the “interesting” part might be very different from the one I want to live in. As for now.
In recent years I feel having a lot of rationalism to balance emotional moves. Is it right? Don’t know. Part of me wants to create more exciting moments, while another part craves to have benefits and results of well-rational and precalculated steps achieved by continuous work goals. Is there a balance? Probably there was always some kind of balance and there is one now. Just interesting to observe.
Echo 