Ripples

It's snowing again

2007-02-06 It's snowing again
Originally uploaded by Squonk11.

This winter has been distinctly un-wintry up till now, with last January being the warmest since the meteorological data are recorded. But this evening, when coming from the office, there was some light snow falling from the sky. Of course most of it melted away immediately, but still...

So I took this picture (among others) with my camera resting on the open car window, in front of our home, just before putting the car in the garage. I think it turned out quite nice considering the long exposure time...

Letters to heaven?

Letters to heaven?
Originally uploaded by Squonk11.

So many months already since I last posted... The advent of our little boy certainly changed a lot in our life! He is absolutely lovely, but demands so much time and energy that some other pursuits have temporarily taken a back seat.

Also, with my discovery of flickr I've reactivated my photography and am spending much more time on that than previously. The daily hunt for pictures somewhat displaced the daily hunt for a blog topic (and even that sometimes gets overridden by our baby's influence). I'm trying to work out a new "modus operandi" that could help me balance and maintain those different interests in parallel, but I'm not there yet...

Advent on flickr

zum 2. Advent
Originally uploaded by pete`s wonderful world.

In the German-speaking world, a lot more seems to be made of the Advent than over here. This is illustrated by the flood of -often very nice- pictures posted on flickr each advent Sunday. This is a nice one I found today. Please visit Pete's wonderful world for more of his pictures...

First snow

First snow
Originally uploaded by Squonk11.

This weekend it has been snowing for the first time this winter here in Belgium. This picture was taken just after midnight, from the front window of our little appartment. It looks kind of magical...

Of course, snow is magical and fine if you're well off, cosy and warm inside. It's less fun for people who need to go on the road for their jobs and who get stuch in huge trafic jams. Or for those who were hit by a power cut as consequence of the snow. Or the worst, what about those two homeless people who died of the cold this weekend in Brussels...

A new life

Today at 7:52 our little son Jonas was born. Needless to say that we're immensely happy with this wonderful little boy. But also very tired, so I leave you with this picture of my beloved and our new treasure...

Lamb review

Just a quickie to show that I'm still alive (and busy preparing for the arrival of our son in about a month). And to tell you about a review of the "The Lamb" tour by The Musical Box, which more or less echoes my own feelings from when I saw it in Brussels.

I hope to be back with some more substantial postings soon...

Coffee gallery

I'm something of a coffee addict. At work, I only drink water (the stuff produced by the coffee vending machines is no good). But before, between and after hours, I can often be found in the neighbourhood enjoying a good cup of coffee.

So I thought it would be a nice idea to kick off my new Canon Powershot A95 by doing a little project, photographing my coffee cups at a series of different locations. The tilting LCD screen is a great help in doing this: it allows me to position the camera like I want without the need for all kinds of contortions to check the framing. This was really a feature I wanted.

The first pictures resulting of this project can be found in my first online gallery, appropriately called Coffee Gallery. I intend to keep adding pictures from time to time, and maybe replace some initial ones with more successful examples. For now, I've put aside any critical sense and just put up what I had. So come back later, and maybe more and better pictures await you. I don't know if they'll mean anything to you, but for me it's just a bit of plain fun...

Powershot

In a surprising move (even to myself) I've recently bought my first digital camera. For a long time I convinced myself that I'd wait until perceived quality and prices felt just right (meaning comparable quality and prices to analog gear).

Some time ago, I almost went for the Konica-Minolta A2, as this seemed a good photographers camera at a price that was about approachable. But I decided to wait until I could have it a bit cheaper, and now it's already superseded by the A200, which doesn't appeal to me.

Then, when we learned that my beloved is pregnant, I thought this might be the right time to go for it. I put all my hopes in the Canon EOS 20D, which is indeed a very good camera. Not cheap, mind you, but as far as DSLRs go it seemed a good buy. Until I got around to calculating how many films I could shoot, have developed ànd printed for the acquisition price of the 20D... Something like three 36 exposure films a day for an entire year! So again I decided it wasn't worth it. Just for the added convenience of immediate availability, this was a bit expensive.

But somewhere the desire to try this new thing out lingered. So finally, after reading lots of reviews (which I do anyway, as I read several photography magazines regularly) I found that the Canon Powershot A95 seemed to be a good compromise for price, quality, photographic possibilities (not for me the automatic-only things or ultra-small jewel cameras). Somewhere it was described as the "G5 killer", and the G5 was considered as quite a good camera (but it, and its successor the G6, cost double of the A95).

So now I'm working through the (quite extensive) manual, trying to find my way around this new gadget, and finding out how it can fit in with all my other photographic gear. It certainly won't be my main camera, but I can already imagine some nice uses for it. Maybe the appearance of this blog will soon change as a consequence of my purchase...

New life

It's been more than a month since I last posted here. But I have a very good reason to come out of the woodwork again. I have a very important announcement to make (important to me, at least): my beloved is expecting our first baby!

We're not that young anymore, so we were not sure if we'd ever be granted this immense joy. We certainly hoped so. You can imagine how happy we were when we learned early this year that she was pregnant. We couldn't believe our luck. Indeed, we were so worried that something could go wrong in those early stages that we kept it to ourselves for a long time. Until very recently, only our parents knew.

But now things have been steadily evolving without any problems or complications, and all tests contributed to reassure us. So since a few weeks we've started spreading the news to family, friends and colleagues: we're expecting a little boy somewhere in September. That's around my own birthday...

I've also set up a new blog where I write letters to my unborn son. It's written in Dutch, my mother tongue(*), as this is quite personal and emotional, and these things are more difficult to express in a foreign language. If you understand Dutch, feel free to come by, read and comment...

Of course, all this takes away some of the time and energy I need to keep these Ripples flowing, so you may temporarily see a bit less postings here. I'll try to keep it going at an acceptable rate. But you'll understand that my main focus is elsewhere for now. Wish us luck...

__________
(*) In fact, that should be my "father tongue", as my mother speaks French...

The Lamb comes down to Brussels

Last year, I went to two concerts by Genesis tribute Band "The Musical Box", where they played the "Foxtrot" and the "Selling England by the Pound" tours (I wrote about that here and here). As the originals were before my time, this was a great occasion for me to appreciate what I'd missed.

Tomorrow, they are "Back in Brussels city" with their most ambitious undertaking, a painstakingly detailed resurrection of the "Lamb Lies Down on Broadway" tour, including all 1100 original slide projections from the 74/75 tour (according to the flyer). They received the worldwide licence from Genesis and Peter Gabriel to do so. To quote the flyer again:

In the early 70’s, Genesis’ Tony Banks, Phil Collins, Peter Gabriel, Steve Hackett and Michael Rutherford redefined the concept of a rock concert. Genesis’ artistry had such a profound impact on its audience that to this day, it still enjoys a cult following. The Musical Box has undertaken the task of re-enacting Genesis’ performances as originally presented between 1973 and 1975.

I can't wait to live through this experience. And I'm happy to say that a friend and a few colleagues of mine will be there as well...