At the zoo part III

It's kind of sad that most of the photos I took that day are not usable because the subjects are not visible. Even today, that I had to choose the fifth and sixth photo, I tried hard to find suitable ones. Anyway, I think that I managed something at the end. We begin with a beautiful tarantula.

A lot of light, especially on the rocks on the bottom of the picture. Still, the spider is visible, but not in a satisfactory way.

Contrast and Curves to the rescue (Curves is a setting for manipulating colours in photo-editing software). The burned parts of the rocks weren't saved, but the background is sort of better now. I don't know exactly how a DSLR could save the day here, but that's what I'm trying to learn.

This one is called Grue de Paradis. 

And this is Grue de Paradis with some editing that shows how important correct lighting is for a photo in the first place.

In other news, we now have a Facebook page, so that we can enjoy new photos straight in our feed. Lucky, lucky us!

At the zoo part II

Some more zoo photos today. Unfortunately I don't know the names for every animal we saw.

These birds look like ostriches, but they are probably not, since the ostriches were in a different place.

As for the one on the right, I can only guess and this won't make me appear any better.

This is one part of the huge closed ecosystem, reserved for various kinds of birds. Ducks were having a good time swimming in the small river. At least, I hope they did.

A very nice place to go in general. It's a bit expensive to enter, but in order to feed and take care of all these animals properly, it's kind of a necessary evil.

A day at the zoo

Today we decided to go to the zoo. It's very near the Paleontology museum, where a part of Halfway Back takes place. My feelings about this place are mixed. Yes, they keep in captivity many animals that should be in their natural habitat instead. But, at the same time, they take really good care of them, in many cases they have lots of space and, most importantly, there are some species that are in danger of being extinct. And it costs a lot to preserve them. So, I don't know what is better after all.

During the whole visit I was upset. Many people with their DSLR's were taking photos and I had the poor Android, which is unable to zoom and so I missed many chances for some great snapshots. I did my best, but my best is very lame with the phone. So, from today I'm counting on you.

On the right side you can see the promotional video for my book, Halfway Back, under which there is a Scribd page where you can buy it. It costs $1.49 (about €1.20) and I need to sell about 1200 copies in order to be able to buy the Canon 650D and finally have great quality pictures and video to share with you. Even if you don't buy the book yourselves, please share it with the people you know. The book is quite cheap, some people have said that it's fun, and you'll be helping me raise the funds I need.

Unless you're some racist nazi asshole. In this case, ignore what you just read. I don't want to thank human garbage like yourself.

Off to the photos now. Of the more than 100 I took, I'll be able to present you a few that are tolerable.

This beautiful fellow here had just receive his/her lunch, but wasn't hungry and came for some pictures instead. The light is distorting the colours and I'm not yet quite accustomed with white balance in order to find the best solution.

I tried to reduce a bit the excessive yellow, but still I didn't manage much. I chose this photo for the challenge and for the beauty of this creature. There was no information about it. It could be a dragon of Comodo if it weren't so small.

Awesome pink flamingos. Beautiful and all together all the time. Very noisy, separated from the visitors by only a low wall. They are enjoying the short parisian summer.

Here, with more intense colours. A great image. A freaking DSLR with a 75-200mm lens would allow me to capture more details. I'm still very annoyed and it's been about 6 hours. Seriously, the book. Share the blog. Please.

Pink flamingos, you said? Nah, more like black and white flamingos. Am I right? I must be!

That's all for today. We'll get to see more beautiful animals in the next posts.

Love the differences! (Torino intermission)

Last year, in August, we were in Torino, Italy, for a week. It was a very nice experience in total. What I regret is that I only had my video camera with me and I took mostly some video clips. The pictures were taken with this camera, which I used in a few of my movies, and it's on 5MP. Yet, i managed to have some interesting shots. Like these:

This is part of the view from the top of the Cinema Museum. Definitely worth the visit.

There is a glass elevator that takes you to the top and you see everything on your way up. Not very comfortable!

Here's something that I loved. The old watch shed, as it says in Italian above the silver car.

On it, written in various languages, "LOVE DIFFERENCE". Written in English, Italian, Hebrew, Arabic, Russian, Greek and a few more that I couldn't see. It's quite simple, really. Love the fucking differences, because they make us better.

Torino is beautiful. At least in summer. But in summer, almost all places are beautiful. Love the differences!

Something from the previous days

So, today I have two photos that I took the days before but they didn't make it to the posts. Also, they are too nice to be left out completely, so here they are. The first one is from line 6. Behind the protective bars and the trees, there is a building that looks old. Its style is met in many buildings throughout Paris and, even if I love modern stuff, in architecture I have a thing for oldies. I admired them in Amsterdam and Torino as well.

The main differences are on the design of the roof and on the banisters of the balconies.

Is the editing making the details clearer? I don't think so, but the photo looks nicer this way.

Back to the area of La Défense, next to the thumb. To the left, we can see the entrance for Cnit, one of the commercial centers of the area. Far away, at the top right corner of the photo, is the grande arc of La Défense. And, in the center, the main subject of the photo. The flowers. When I get my hands to that 650D, I will take so many photos of flowers that the blog will look like a hippy blog from the 60's. I mean, if such a thing existed, anyway.

And here are the flowers with their colours a bit more intensified. I'm happy with this picture.