When the wind touches the wood in Vlissingen album by Navota

I’m included in Navota’s album “When the wind touches the wood in Vlissingen” on Wikiloops, with her remix “Fun and sun”:

You can listen to her album with the link above, or you can listen to just that one track here:

This track is embedded with the friendly permission by the creatives on wikiloops.com.

List of musicians on this track was:

Thanks go out to Navota for including me on her fine album. And thanks to you for reading, and for listening.

One photo from today (July 8th, 2018)

Taken a short while ago, using two studio strobes and my 45mm lens:

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Piano practice in F minor using headphones, Moerfelden-Walldorf 2018

The photo also shows Zuleikha’s new watch 😉

Thanks for viewing.

Three photos from three days

We’ve been to Paris this week. And of course we took all the photos of all the monuments and famous places like everyone else does. Here are three of mine:

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City of Love, Paris 2018

Kunst or just Kitsch – what do you think? I thought of a double take on the “love” theme, showing “love birds” in front of a famous monument in the “city of love”, as we Germans often call Paris. And because I also thought of “street art”, it had to be converted into black & white of course, together with an “artsy” frame 😉 You can buy drawings like this everywhere, but ok, I’ve been there, I’ve taken this shot, so why shouldn’t I show it?

Ok; here’s another one:

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Zuleikha, Paris 2018

One of the reasons Zuleikha wanted to see Paris was to visit the Louvre, which we did of course (and that wasn’t the only museum we visited). Of course you don’t see much in just a couple of hours; someone calculated that you’d need 6 weeks if you stay 30 seconds in front of each exhibit shown in the Louvre. And after looking at lots and lots of art, I asked Zuleikha to stand at a window of the Denon wing of Louvre – a window to the North. That usually means good and soft light because each photon is reflected at least once before entering and falling onto your subject, which makes light from a North-facing window very flattering for portraiture. I also explained this to another woman and mum, who thanked me and then took photos of her daughter. Looking at art the whole day is nice, making your own is even better 😉

Here’s another image:

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Sacré-Cœur de Montmartre as seen from Musée d’Orsay, Paris 2018

As its title says already, you see a famous church (which was actually the very first place we visited) through one of the two giant clocks of another nice museum. Theoretically you could put your camera on a tripod there, with interval timer, and each photo would be different because of the people in the foreground. Of the few I took I liked this one best.

The highlight of the trip, for me? Without any doubt, that is the two (or rather, eight in two installments) Nymphéas in the oval rooms of Musée de l’Orangerie, by Claude Monet. Breath-taking. Cannot be shown in photos, you have to go there to see them. If you can’t, see Paris, France: Monet’s Dreamy Water Lilies for a first and short impression. It’s part of a longer version called “Paris: Embracing Life and Art” from Rick Steve’s Europe series of videos, so if you really cannot go and still get a glimpse of why Paris is a must see, then spend around 25 minutes to see it. But for water lilies? You have to go, and you have to sit there to really get it.

How nice to re-visit the City of Light after some 40 years or so.

Thanks for reading.

Not tested with Linux? Then I won’t buy it.

That headline is basically what I wrote as a comment on someone’s (very nice, thank you!) Youtube video. Background: Mitchie is looking for a replacement for her notebook. And some sites (like the very good golem.de) even test new hardware with Linux – leaving me once more with the impression that some vendors (like Lenovo for instance) don’t even test their machines with Linux, while others (like Dell for instance) do very much to being able to offer some of their machines with a Linux distribution instead of the usual Windows “tax”.

Which means for me: if we want to run Linux, and the vendors don’t care, then I/we won’t care for them as well – they certainly have more time, money, and resources for such tests than I would/could do.

So no Lenovo, no HP, Asus or whatever nice machines might be around. There are others who simply care more about the rest of us, thank you very much. Time for us to be more consequent, and to vote with our wallets – supporting those who actually care about us.

End of today’s rant.

Caro Emerald

Mike Johnston who also is “The Online Photographer” not only has a great taste in photography, but also in music. And today in his post over here he mentioned Caro Emerald. Whom I knew already; she’s totally amazing. Listen:

See her in Montreux:

What a performance, hm? Great one, definitely! Enjoy…

An awesome example of dedication

Listen to Glen McArthur, farmer, and maintainer of AVLinux, and maker of the AVL Drumkits (his and his son’s):

Oh, and hear Glen and his son Connor singing and playing as well:

Good stuff and people. I always say thanks when virtually meeting him in the LinuxMusicians Forum.

Greater Heights album by OliVBee

I’m included in OliVBee’s album “Greater Heights” on Wikiloops, with his remix of my debut track from March 10th of this year:

And I feel honoured to be included into that collection of very fine music, and musicians – wow merci, Olivier!

It’s also amazing to see a video you’re in, plus your own newest album featured on the same page, like here:

Greater heights indeed. What a feeling if one of your tracks makes it onto another one’s album. Wow.

Still have to listen to Oliv’s album, never heard some of the tracks before, but I’m very much looking forward to hearing these. He’s a very fine musician, so go and listen for yourself if you like.

Thanks for reading.