raw power

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no, i won't bore you with this topic here again. but raw power this is, the power of the green weißbach waters (which is kind of oxymoronic as weißbach means white creek) cascading down in their canyon. having worked quite a while on this picture i am still not completely satisfied. i think i managed quite well to bring out the deep colors of water and moss as well as the brilliance of the reflections, but compositionally the right border puzzles me because of the out-of-focus blur. f-stop was already 11, 16 might have been better but at an focal length of 180 mm-e i doubt it would have rendered the rock in complete sharpness. i tried some cropping, but for several reasons i want to stick with the old barnackian 3:2 ratio (i estimate it to be more dynamic than 4:3) and then i loose too much of the diagonals, rocks and whitewater. so i will have to live with it. a view camera might have helped to solve this problem, or 2 shots with different planes of focus (i had used a tripod anyhow) and following combination in the gimp. alas - would/should/could doesn't really help, so i enjoy what i have got and what i am able to destill out of it.

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applied macchiavellism

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can't help it: as a pupil this facade of your school just serves one duty: make you feel small, confronted with such uniform power. of course didactics inside this building have changed now, and every year dozens of girls successfully finish their education, but the outside still breathes the spirit of past centuries where the church was a power factor, supportive sometimes, oppressive not infrequently.

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the emperors pool, sigiriya

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not that the impression comes up that ranting about the present situation in sri lanka is my one and only preoccupation. whenever possible i try to find beauty, and so i did here in this ruins of the emperors of a kingdom long forgotten. on the top of a monolitic, magmatic rock, to be reached only by really steep chairs, there was once a palace, inhabitated by emperors - unfortunately entrapped in politics, power, murder. it seems i can't flee this topic...

as they are dead and gone now, now it can be quite peaceful up there. with the sinking sun however the ak-47 of sri lankan soldiers dominate the climate for the night again.

this photo on flickr

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