it was time for some tests with my camera again. so i went to areas near hagenberg, on the 25th of april and 04th of may. the first shooting was done at the aist, a lovely small river in a wood near hagenberg. it's really worth a visit, either for rock face climbing, walking, hiking, or simply just taking pictures. that day i was alone and i spent about 2-1/2 hours, but it was really worth every minute, since this region is really awesome. pictures from aist... ...and around hagenberg a few weeks later i did some test shoots again, again in an area near hagenberg. there were strange colours from the sky and the cereal field. furthermore it was pretty windy that day and there were loads of clouds. so i took a circuitous route home from work and took a walk along this particular field. on the 27th of april zombiequeen and i went to vienna to have a picnic at the prater with some friends. it was very relaxing (since all were a bit tired, either because they were ill, or had a hard party the night before, etc). everyone brought food like salads, cakes, or cookies. the mixture of various cooking/baking styles was very interesting and delicious. some guys also were playing with their diabolos, the rest of us was chilling and enjoying their spare time. a relaxing prater picnic in vienna coming up next in the "wrapping up the past:"-series: more pictures of linz and loads of zoo pictures.

as my faithful readers already know, chicks dig... horses. yes, they really do! another example of this thesis is mirjam. she even has two horses. so, one day zombiequeen and i have been invited to go with mirjam to her horses. i had the honourable task of taking photos - yep, what else. so, on the 21st of april 2007 we drove to saint florian to the horse stable. there were several girls combing, petting, feeding, and riding their horses. zombiequeen and i had our bikes with us, so while mirjam was riding her horses we were riding our bikes. mirjam's horses in st.florian it was another warm and sunny april day when we got to the zoo in altenfelden for the first time. there are two routes one can go. the short one takes two hours, the other longer one takes three hours. i guess this is estimated for very old people or families, since the two hour tour we took this day, took as way shorter and we were going at a really very low speed. since it was friday afternoon there were only a few people visiting the zoo. this came in extremely handy, as the animals were not pissed off by visitors and therefore spent their time in their outdoor, rather than in their roofed enclosures. especially the pumas were in a very good mood so i could take loads of pictures of them. unfortunately, after several minutes of being really very close to them - there were only about three or four metres between us - one of the two pumas got bored and started to hiss at us. pretty scary to hear a real hiss, not the cute 'chhhhhhr' from the little cat called lilo we have at home. as we are cat-lovers, zombiequeen and i of course went on, leaving the pumas, resting in the sun, behind. zoo in altenfelden this zoo is really great, the enclosures have reasonable sizes, the admission is fair, and the amount of animals is really big. additionally it is a nice walk in nature, since all the animals are spread over a large area. we intended to come back to take the three hour tour soon... coming up next in the "wrapping up the past:"-series: pictures from the aist-tal and a picnic in the prater.

michele booked the photo-"studio" at the university of applied science in hagenberg for the 12th of april 2007. we planned to try out portrait-photography. additionally we invited klaudia (yes, the girl with the horses and the new lens again), since she enjoys posing in front of the camera - a rare habit. but unfortunately michele got sick that afternoon, so klaudia and i went to the studio alone. inside the "hype"-studio (i wonder what the guy was thinking when he came up with that name for a studio) we had some hot lights with soft boxes, diffusers, and umbrellas. we did not make use of flash-lights (since there were no flashes anyway and i still don't know how to handle them to get good results). as michele was sick and i do not like to have pictures taken of me, klaudia had to be the model all the time - lucky me. i really learned a lot this day since i could try out many things and klaudia was a wonderful model. we planned to redo such a session, but this time with michele, klaudia, me and a model that will pose for the three of us. poor model... portraits with klaudia two days later michele felt better again. in fact, he felt that good that he wanted to go to the traunsee to go kite-surfing. he invited me to join and of course i did so. the traunsee is a wonderful lake surrounded by mountains. i took my bike with me (yep, michele hat an old VW-bus that was big enough to carry all our stuff) and drove along the lakeside. i found a little road that led right to the place where michele was kite-surfing. so i had the opportunity to take some pictures of him. but suddenly a cord broke so michele lost control over his kite. you can see it on the pics at the URL below, slide 46 to 51. after getting back to the shore and getting back his board, it was drifted away from the beach, we drove back home again. although some things did not flow that smoothly it was a nice day at the traunsee. kite-surfing with michele coming up next in the "wrapping up the past:"-series: yet another visit to a zoo and another chick that digs horses.

on the 5th of april i got my new tamron lens. some technical details can be found here. for the impatient ones, read this: SP AF 17-50mm F/2,8 XR Di II LD Aspherical [IF], with minimum aperture of 32, a minimum object distance of 0.27m, 67mm filter size and it weighs only 430g. ok, enough with the technical specs. the day i got the lens, klaudia (yes, the chick with the horse) and i went to the botanical garden in linz to test it. klaudia and i ordered a lens each at the same shop, so we both were looking forward to test the lenses. it was also the last day that the botanical garden had butterflies in their glass-houses. botanical garden with klaudia, in linz i wanted to try some things out with gimp so i searched my picture archive for old "portraits" of friends. i found some pictures, actually all of them were more or less spontaneous shots with no intention of portrait photography. the one i like most is a picture of nipes. below you can see it, along with a picture of chris. on the left the gimped versions, on the right the original versions. the portraits series coming up next in the "wrapping up the past:"-series: a more professional approach to portrait-photography and kite-surfing with michele (of course in spectator-mode).

chicks dig... horses. and so does karmakiller (aka "klaudia" - there will be another wrapping up the past issue with her soon). so i made some pics of her horse "esprit", a real cutie-hottie (this is a horse-lover's insider-joke - don't worry if this is not funny to you). unfortunately the weather was not too good at all this evening - shady and sometimes a bit rainy too. additionally it was march, so the days are still short. therefore, the pictures i took for the most part are unfortunately too dark and blurry. nonetheless i think klaudia liked them (at least she said so). karmakiller and esprit, somewhere near linz on the 4th of march michele and i did a photo-safari through linz again. it was on of the first warm and sunny days in march after a long (but not really cold) winter. we decided to take a closer look at various churches that are in linz. so we have been to several churches (actually, i really don't remember in how many we have been all together, because in some we didn't even start to take pictures as they actually were too boring, from a photographer's point of view). we finally came to one of the two cathedrals we have in linz. and what we found inside was awesome and breath-taking. the sunlight flooded the halls and because of the colourful glass-windows the walls were all colourful. all in all i think we took pictures for about one and a half hour. the both of us really enjoyed it. another wonderful photo-safari with michele. more visual impressions from the tour with michele through linz coming up next in the "wrapping up the past:"-series: my new tamron-lens and some older pics i turned into portraits.