Category: family

We’re back from a 3 week trip to Malaysia, which is where Mitchie comes from, so it’s kind of home for us. And we’ve visited almost all of the family and friends’ houses; after 6 years it was about time to do this.

I selected a few images which were taken with my camera, either by Zuleikha or by myself, but I still have to consult Mitchie about how to write some of the names. So for today I’ll show you just one “featured image” here, of my father-in-law, En. Suadi bin Sumadi. He allowed me to take this photo at his home, close to two windows.

I converted this one to black and white with the film simulation built into RawTherapee, using Tri-X as the simulated film. Looks better than with using Nik’s Silver Efex Pro 2 which gives more artificial grain. As usual, the image comes from Flickr where you can see or download a bigger version for prints.

More to come, but I still need a bit of time for them.

Thanks for reading.

Here in Germany, we celebrate Father’s Day each year on Ascension Day. You can read all about it if you follow the links, but I decided not to join a tour with friends, but to do something with my family instead. And of course I took some pictures during the day.

In the morning, one of the first photos I took was one of Mitchie’s tulips, which are now open – even the ones who stand in the shade most of their time:

Mitchie’s tulips, now open

Later, we drove to the nearby airport, which lots of other people also did, especially if you visit the public viewing places:

Frankfurt airport, one of the visitors’ platforms

You can see that some of these “plane spotters” even take ladders – they know the territory, and how to get good closeups of those airplanes.

On the way back to our car, I took a photo of an airplane short before its touchdown, and I included a tree in my photo:

Airplane at Franfurt airport, short before touchdown

What we also saw was a departing Airbus A380 from Emirates, the same one which will take us to Malaysia via Dubai (and back) later this year. Very interesting to see that huge airplane taking off.

I also got some presents for this Father’s Day, and guess what – one of them was a camera. But I guess no one else except maybe the Flintstone family had one of these:

Stone camera, back side

Stone camera, front and top

Very cool and minimalistic; it has just what you need to take a photo, nothing more, nothing less. Explains maybe why the Flintstones were camera collectors instead of photographers, and why we don’t have many pictures of them. And no, this is not for sale.

The blackbirds got their young ones already, and in the morning we saw one of them. But during most of the day, the parents are still feeding their breed – and protecting them. They get really loud if they see a cat, even if she’s still inside. Parental instinct…

Blackbird, complaining

We’re lucky with the weather as you can see – and it’s still 21° Celsius outside while I write this.

My lens for the day was the older Four Thirds Olympus 40-150mm zoom lens which can be adapted to Micro Four Thirds cameras and still provides autofocus, tho it’s not as fast as newer ones.

For the airport I could have brought some wider one – I have enough photos of airplanes, so I wasn’t particularly interested in a long zoom.

And for the stone camera photos I swapped my lens with my Four Thirds 50mm macro lens which lives on Mitchie’s camera most of the time now.

Thanks for reading, and for viewing.

Not perfect, but accepted as her new passport photo:

Zuleikha, passport photo, Mörfelden-Walldorf 2016

You can get 6 “biometric” passport photos at the local drugstore for about 7€, or 4 for around double the price at your local photographer’s. We’ve paid 27 Cents for 8 prints in passport size, so yes, one can do it oneself. The background should be a bit lighter if possible, and the lighting not too dramatic.

Anyway. Did my first official passport photo today.

P.S.: In the evening, we also made a real portrait, with the background – a reflector – turned to Zuleikha’s favourite golden side. First one for the white balance:

– and then the real portrait:

Portrait of Zuleikha, Mörfelden-Walldorf 2016

Thanks for viewing.