We had a great anniversary day yesterday - spent it out at a middle ages festival that was like a mini RenFest but with more alcohol and more children with weapons. We got some very fine mead in a stoneware bottle, reuasable as an oil lamp with the appropriate wick, for 12 euros and sat on the river bank watching gothlings flock and sipping it slowly. Mmm… excellent stuff. Good mead is like distilled sunlight.

There was a blessing ceremony of a newly built Viking river boat, a small demo combat, and then a long walk home along the riverbank. Six years. We may be perenially broke, but we’re rich in experiences.

On a side note, I’m trying out a new service, Ping, which lets me cross post from my blog to a variety of other sites - LJ, MySpace, etc. So here’s hoping it works.

Also, Tony took some pictures of me for profile pics and whatnot - take a look and tell me which you think I should be using, please! They’re linked off the photo below.

Kira--6044-medium

I’ve been pretty busy this week trying to get some web software working - back in April when this blog crashed so did 4 other bits of online software I was running, and I’m finally getting them back up to speed. Anyway, I’ve been working with some models this week, including Tony who wanted some shots in his Viking gear. I’ve got 2 uploaded currently but will get some more up shortly. I’m trying some new software called Zenphoto for online gallery management - it doesn’t allow prints but it should be indexed by Google, which Zenfolio isn’t, something of a problem. So maybe I’ll put my stock photos in Zenphoto and casual shots in Zenfolio - and what is it with the “Zen” thing anyway?

Had a friend from the States visiting this weekend, and got out to a couple of museums for the free Thursday museum nights. The Pergamon museum showcases architectural antiquities - here’s Dawn sitting on the steps of the enormous Altar of Zeus, which is not exactly the sort of thing you expect to find in North-Eastern Germany. 19th century archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann dug it up in Turkey and sent it home for re-assembly… rather makes you wonder how much the Turkish people would like to get it back! It does still have that sort of tingle old temples give me, but I kept wishing they’d paint the walls with murals of what the land would have looked like in Greek times; temples like this tended to be sited over very picturesque views.

I may have gotten spoiled by visiting the temples at Dougga, in Tunisia, though; they’re mostly intact and the wind was blowing over the hills and ancient olive groves when I visited, and the sheer beauty of the site made me feel as if light was bursting out through my skin every second I was there.

Just got some older photos uploaded. They’re from the trip I took to the Seychelles Islands in early 2006 - midwinter holiday from work in Moscow to go meet up with family there. My dad was working on developing a marine protected area and it was a great excuse to Moscow’s January bleakness. At any rate, the islands are simply stunning. I don’t want to paint it as a paradise, exactly, because I find descriptions like that seem to de-humanize and plasticize a place, stripping them of culture and history in the search for the perfect stretch of sand, but being there was awfully nice.

Didn’t expect to be shooting disaster pictures when I went down to the weekly expat riverboat barbecue two weeks ago, but what looked to be a gas station was on fire upriver of us. It took the fire department about two hours to get it under control. Yesterday one of my new neighbors almost burned the apartment down, too, so it seems to be a season for fires. A guy upstairs fell asleep while cooking and there was smoke just pouring out his window… he finally woke up when the fire department starting trying to break his door.

That said, Berlin is probably the most mellow city I’ve ever been in. I was thinking about the different cities I’ve spent time in and sort of comparing them to tastes and drinks… Paris is like dark red wine, heady and old and rich. Moscow is a bit like a Red Bull & Vodka - does horrible things to your body and mind while making you both hyperactive and insanely depressed. Minneapolis is like a pitcher of Liennie’s Honeywiesse Beer with lemon slices - both earthily local and a bit gay. Berlin… Berlin makes me think of sipping vodka lemonade on the porch.

Very likable place, anyway. I just wish we were having an easier time finding work, so I could actually relax into it.

Sorry about the lack of posts recently; I just made a major international move from Moscow to Berlin with about 2 week’s notice. My husband and are getting settled in fairly well now and I should be posting again regularly! The trip was… an adventure, in the way that badly planned things often are, but we made it to our new place at about 4:30 a.m. on May 2nd and are now about 80% unpacked and set up here.

So, this photo is of some artistically dressed up mannequins I saw on the street, the first day out exploring, and links to a gallery set from that day.

This is Karina, the first of the two models I’ve been working with and the reason I went out and bought studio lights. We did a lot of playing around with props and poses - I love the golden age quality of this image- sort of a vision of Queen Maeve of Connaught via 1940s Hollywood.

Shot with one softbox for lighting on my usual Canon 350D, 18-55mm lens at 27mm. The matte black background is wide rolls of crepe paper I taped to my bookshelf. I did a little bit of “painting with light” on this one - above the basic image layer I created a transparent layer set on “soft light” and then dodged and burned that layer by painting white, black, and golden yellow at 8% transparency over the photo.

In the meantime, I’m thinking to use this as an opportunity to redo my site a bit. Now I just have to figure out how!

I do have a backup file from two weeks ago when I last upgraded wordpress, and I may even be able to figure out how to use it. But, not tonight.

Anyway, if you’re here for my photos, please view the gallery here. Be sure to check out the new work with Tamta in the “Models” folder especially - she looks like a Renaissance beauty and I’ve really been enjoying working with her.