A couple of months of ago i was talking to my mom and she mentioned that she was gonna go to a wedding in France, i didnt think som much of it at first but then i thought that a trip to to France didnt sound too bad.
So i asked her i could come along and she said that would be great.

So then i tried finding out the where and whats, but as it turned out she didnt know much other then that we would spend the nights in a either apartment or a hotel in nice and also that the wedding itself would take place in Monaco.

So i had to rethink my strategy and stop asking questions that there would not be answers too, something i have a hard time doing (I can relax alot easier of i know what i am getting myself involved in)

After accepting that i had to go with the flow i started planing what equipment to bring, read this entry for the complete list http://belola.wordpress.com/2008/05/31/the-gear-i-am-bringing-to-the-france-trip/

We booked at first a hotel, but days before the trip began it became clear that we would live in a apartment so we unbooked the hotel.

At the airport i found 300$ US on the floor, now that i think of it i stupidly gave it to the airport people.

When it was time to check in wasnt sure how my tripod would count as, part of the luggage or as photograpic equipment. I found out that is it part of photographic equipment.

We borded the plane, took off and took i took some great over the air photos, almost three hours later we landed in Marseille (The pilot should have shot, he landed the plane really really bad), and got our luggage back. (pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/belola/sets/72157605527181013/)

We spent the night in a small and shitty hotel room (for one night a shitty room will do fine), and in the morning we had a good breakfast and later borded the train to Nice. (pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/belola/sets/72157605527181013/)

At Nice airport we met up with the bride and was taken to the grooms apartment, there we spent some time talking and socializing until later when we were taken to our apartment.

The next day we spent some time walking around Nice and bought some food for breakfast and dinner. (pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/belola/sets/72157605540355597/)

The next day we spent some more time walking in Nice and in the evening we went to a pre wedding dinner and met a bunch of people. (pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/belola/sets/72157605540382337/)

The the wedding day came, by the way its not the “i do” part of wedding, its the part that envolve the guests socializing and dancing and just having fun. The wedding itself was great, i took alot of great photos and also made alot of new contacts. (pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/belola/sets/72157605540391361/)

The next day it was time to travel back to sweden, the trip started with a excellent train ride to Marseille then a ok flight back to Gothenburg with another horrible landing.(pics: http://www.flickr.com/photos/belola/sets/72157605540414755/)

My trip to France was over but what a trip it was!

A longer and more detailed blog about the trip will be posted at a later moment so here is the short version.

I took over 430 digital pictures and 10 rolls of film, and of the digital images i have uploaded 211 of the digital pics on my flickr site:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/belola/
Browse using the sets on the left for better overview.

I have the negatives of another 4 rolls that i will scan, the rest of the six rolls i will have developed at a later moment.

Thats all for now, a longer blog later.

I was reading about the awful fire that struck Universal Studios, and i started thinking how awful it is to loose irreplaceable material like movies, soundtracks and even allot of the history of a country.

In the case of the universal studios fire, i have been reading about what was lost and what was saved and the latest i read was the alot of the sets were destroyed but not the movie negatives. Regarding the music the latest is that thousands of master recording were lost.

Its worth mentioning that for the Chinese this isnt anything new, they had to go through the same thing during the cultural revolution. where a awful destruction of there own history was going on just because one man told them to start from scratch and forger the past, and if it were not for one man we would not be able to visit the majestic place called “the forbidden city” today.

Its also worth knowing that its just not major studios or whole counties loosing irreplaceable history, families that loose their homes in fires, flood, earthquake or other situations loose their irreplaceable history, photos, home movies and other valuable stuff is lost.

And so to conclude i want to say, have in mind that one day you may loose you whole family history just like that, and in order for you not to have to go though that please make sure that the irreplaceable stuff is safely stored in a safe place.

There is this British tvshow that is called Doctor who, its the worlds longest running science fiction show on tv.

I have not watched the show from the beginning instead in 2005 when the show was resurrected i decided without having seen any previous episodes to follow this show called Doctor who.

Ever since then i have been entertained by a really really good science fiction show that really is meant for younger people, but where its so good that even a adult like me loves it.

Here is a couple of reason i love the show:

David Tennant: he is excellent as the doctor.

Murray Gold: the composer of the equally excellent music in the show, well worth buying the soundtracks when their released on cd or in digital form.

Russell T Davies: the person who resurrected the show and acts as a writer too.

The wonderful, imaginative, scary, exciting and even sad story lines!

The complimentary show called “Doctor Who Confidential”, its a really good behind the scenes show that explains allot, interviews the people, show past clips as a way to explaining the episodes.

There is also a commentary track for each episode to download from the doctor who bbc site, they are a little hit and miss, some episodes have really good tracks and some are ranging from average to bad.

Here is the gear i am gonna bring to the upcoming (my flight is on the 4th of June) trip to France.

Camera: Canon EOS 1V HS
Camera body only gear: extra hand grip battery, lithium battery for the body without the battery grip
Lenses: EF 35-80mm f4-5.6, EF 80-200 f4.5-5.6
External flash: Speedlight 200M
Other gear: a spirit level, a ND4 filter, lens cleaning fluid with a cleaning cloth, lens and camera body cap.

Negative Films i am bringing:

3x Kodak Tri-X 400 36 black and white

3x FujiFilm superia x-tra 800 36 color

1x FujiFilm superia 200 36 color

3x FujiFilm superia 200 24 color

2x FujiFilm superia 400 36 color

All that will be in a compact camera bag.

A Tripod and a monopod.

Also i may on either Saturday or Sunday secure access to a digital point and shoot camera, i will know for sure by Monday.

My laptop is still in service (a new motherboard is ordered but is delayed), but even i had access to my laptop i would still have left it at home.

Thanks to that my phone is a Nokia series 60 smartphone i can do most of the stuff i want to do on a computer (except for that my phone doesn’t have wifi and i am not interested in paying those fucked up super high roaming prices that the cellphone companies charge. So i will stick to twitter sms:es.

Also i will find some good stuff to fill my 1GB Iriver mp3 player, (probably audio books)

That should be all.

Found a release that i think is the one that the bbc aired:

Eurovision.Song.Contest.2008.Final.WS.PDTV.XviD-iNGOT

About ten years ago i traveled to Prague in the Czech republic as a school trip, and i cant remember why but i brought a camera with me, when i came back i developed the photos and forgot about them.

Fast forward to one year ago, when i took my interest of photography from a hobby to today’s advanced amateur level.

I happened by chance to discover the pictures i took in Prague and saw that i even back then had “the eye” for taking interesting and good photos.

Its one thing to have “the eye” for photography but you also need to know is considered to be a good photo according to certain rules.

I now am aware of a bunch of those rules and i try to apply them whenever i can.

My current status is that i have learned a lot about basic rules and compositions, but i still have a long way to go before i can feel secure enough to sell my photos (i have been told by others that my photos are good, i just don`t feel secure enough where i can know for sure that my selection ability is the best it can be)

ok first of all, i find that the songs that are played on the Eurovision Song Contest is absolute shit!

Thats not why i watch the final show (they ruined the Eurovision Song Contest by splitting it in three parts: two semifinals and a final), i watch it for the wonderful and sarcastic comments the the veteran commentator Terry wogan.

Unfortunately i cant no longer legally watch the BBC version of the finale because i dont have access to a channel that airs it (bbc prime used to air it, but i last year they didn’t air it and i no longer get access to bbc prime)

So i am forced to use illegal methods to get access to the bbc version and so far i have not seen a release yet, i suspect that within a couple of hours a pdtv or hdtv version will show up and i will download it.

I find the musical performance part absolutely horrible , its instead the in middle parts when the commentator can speak ,the parts where the horrible hosts talk and the commentator mocks them, and lets not forget the funniest part: the voting portion when all of the neighbouring countries vote for each other that i love.

So in conclusion i hate the musical performance of the show itself but the rest is just very entertaining.

So i have a blog now, i now have to find topics to write about!