ungeschminkt...

I am self-employed... read 'I must have f**k me over written all over my forehead'

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 12:40:00 +0000

Dear (project manager),

I assume that (end client) has shortened the event and would like to off-load the cost of it (i.e. the cancellation charges that (agency), I'm sure, has in its contract with them) on you. Maybe with a statement to the effect that they appreciate your understanding and flexibility, which may be read as an implied promise that they may repay the favour some other time.

So the agency then sits on its own contractual obligations with the freelancers, and it is then tempting to repeat the dance with them. The implied promise there being that one will be closer to the top of the list of people who are offered future work, which means that there is an implied threat, as well, of the opposite happening.

Here is where it gets tricky, and please let me point out that this is nothing personal. Agencies offer us work because we are the ones with the skills and knowledge to do it. It is not to do us a favour. Certainly, choosing one (contractor) over another is influenced amongst others by how well one gets on with that professional on a personal level. If the only communication between agency and (contractor) is that related to jobs, then clearly, those who allow contract changes (which are bizarrely ALWAYS to the contractors' detriment) without complaining are clearly preferable to those who won't accept this kind of dodgy tinkering. Perfectly understandable.

However, accepting changes to one's own detriment without complaining means first and foremost one thing: a lack of business acumen. So now it is the choice of the agency: Do I prefer people who don't cause any trouble but whose lack of business savvy is probably indicative of other gaps, as well? Or do I work with people who know what they are doing and in return insist on being paid what they are worth?

It's a difficult one, I understand, especially as we so rarely get to see, even less to know each other.

One thought about the much touted 'flexibility' that deserves to be rewarded... just not right now.

I have been in the job for 20 years now. Being flexible in the sense of waiving legitimate claims I had to the benefit of the agency/end client is overall not a satisfactory business model. People still wouldn't remember me or give me more work, and the first time that someone did after years of trying (which was, by the way, me sticking to a contract that turned out to be very unattractive in reality when other colleagues with more business acumen than me got out), soon after, that particular person left the agency, and I found myself exactly back where I was before, just a big chunk more disillusioned.

If the reward for this kind of 'flexibility' was not the privilege of being offered work again at all, but maybe a real attempt to make up for a sacrifice of half of the pay agreed in the contract, by somehow allowing the contractor to recover that money on top of what they would normally earn (so that the contractor is, including the reward, at least balance-neutral, so in financial terms not rewarded at all), it would be a different issue. But that has never happened to me.

So please understand that if I see: 'Thank you for your flexibility and understanding ...', I really read these days: 'If you want to work for us again, you'd better just swallow this.' I am sorry, that does not make me feel professionally fulfilled. And after 20 years of trying to build a career in my chosen profession, I feel I haven't got anywhere and my not inconsiderable skills and experience count for nothing. I do hope you understand.

Best regards,

...

True to life but is it a good movie?

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 15:47:00 +0000

It was my turn last night to pick a movie for the evening. My choice, after some internet research, fell on ‘Take This Waltz’. I took along someone who takes a keen interest in cinema and knows much more about it than I do. The review read well enough, and it resonated with some of my own life experience.

Only after inviting my friend to come along did I read the comments to the review which ranged from 2 walking out of the movie to 2 who adored it. Needless to say, the majority of the remaining comments were on the side of those walking out.

Let me say ahead of all else that I quite like Michelle Williams. Yes, I did watch Dawson’s Creek back in the day, and I liked her there. I also like that she didn’t, as opposed to co-star Katie Holmes, marry an established Hollywood actor to get movie roles offered. Not saying Katie didn't deserve them.

Having said that, when my friend appeared to fall asleep about 20 minutes into the movie, I couldn’t blame him. I did like the photography, lots of shallow depth of field and colours reminiscent of polaroids, but to be fair it was pretty for the sake of being pretty a lot of the time rather than taking over part of telling the story.

Let me not comment on the acting, as I am not really qualified, but the movie moved along very slowly. Okay, it is about a woman who’s been married 5 years and meets someone on a trip whom she’s attracted to, who turns out to live across the road from her. So far, so contrived. But it may happen.

In some more polaroid-y shots the movie goes on to show us how she grows more ambivalent about her husband as she feels more and more drawn to the guy across the road. All those scenes drag their feet, but then again, having been through something similar, that’s how it is in real life. It’s not usually some cataclysmic event that makes you fall in love with someone else than your spouse. It often, I think, is lots of trivial moments that add up, and none of them are to the point. Nor was the movie. In that sense, it failed in my friend’s opinion and succeeded in mine.

Okay, so being unfaithful isn’t nice, it isn’t comfortable, it is only done for reasons known to the person who does it, not the observer. That’s life, but does it good cinema make? Clearly not, by majority vote.

Leaving that aside, some observations of my own on the actual story.

If you don’t have much to talk about with your spouse because you are not interested in what they do for a living (coming up with recipes for chicken dishes worth turning into a cookbook) and you can get your only affirmation of your position in their lives by getting physical at the most inopportune moments, please don’t accuse them of having nothing to talk about over your anniversary dinner.

Also, if you don’t know what you want, like: ‘I am writing, but not really…’, don’t expect others to find you interesting beyond your physical attributes. No wonder that after leaving your husband for someone else, soon it’ll take threesomes both ways to keep the spark alive, and finally even that will fail.

Finally, maybe alcoholics are the best people to take life advice from, especially when they crash into some rubbish bins across the road with some chickens after having been reported missing. In vino veritas. Or in any kind of alcohol, for that matter.

However, I agree with my friend, as good as the scenes with the alcoholic are, they do not compensate for the time sitting through the rest waiting for them.

what size are you...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Sun, 02 Sep 2012 22:15:00 +0000

With a somewhat heightened awareness for things that deviate from the truth, I spotted this scene. Well, that's not quite correct as I am seeing it all the time, to the point of not really paying attention to the fact that the mannequins in this department store or any other as well as most high street fashion shops have visually very little in common with the women spending their hard-earned cash in them. I am not talking about the degree of undress seen here, I am talking about size - as you might have guessed.

Shops sell fashion from sizes 6 or 8 to 20 or 22. So why only show off the merchandise on mannequins that must surely give every woman looking at them an inferiority complex? What would be wrong with having displays of the wares addressed at the women who actually do the shopping? Surely someone size 16 would like to see the fit of a pair of jeans she likes on someone that looked a bit more like herself?

I know it's all about aspiration, shops don't sell reality, they sell dreams. And of course, even the silliest girl knows that she won't part with £120 for a pair of jeans and immediately look like the model strutting her stuff in them in the poster. But surely, women these days are smart, educated and worldly-wise enough to know that real dreams and aspirations have more to do with achievement and personality, not inches.

There is one women's magazine I know of that from the beginning of this year has only used real-life women to model in any of their features - exluding adverts, of course. Personally, I found looking at the magazine (targeted at the mid-20ies to late-30ies woman) and the version aimed at women from 40 - which I am, after all - very empowering. Of course, these women get styled and photographed as professionally as 'real' models but they come across as much more genuine and true to life. Not everyone apparently agrees but hey, I'm part of the readership, so I assume my opinion counts. I love it, and I hope Brigitte manage not only to stick with this policy but to set an example for others to follow...

Photojournalism, dead? or immortal? - The Photo Society

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 19:48:00 +0000

Photojournalism, dead? or immortal? - The Photo Society

postal voting...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 13:39:00 +0000

... has been getting a fair bit of press for all the wrong reasons, like being linked to election fraud.

Really, though, it is meant to give people who are (most likely) not around on election day the opportunity to still cast their vote.

This very concept implies that postal votes need to be cast well in advance of the actual election. Or at least that seems obvious to me. To those who don't see it that way, let me explain:

The London election for mayor is on 3 May 2012.

I am freelance and when I work, it's mostly abroad.

The likelihood of me not being in London on any given day is fairly high, so I registered for postal voting.

The polling cards for non-postal voters arrived in the mail around late March, if I remember correctly. Let's be generous and say they arrived at the beginning of April. I received, about a week later, a letter informing me that I should get worried and call for assistance "if I have not received" my "postal voting papers by 27 April". A Friday. Seven calendar days before the election, and just before a weekend. Say I didn't get the papers. The earliest anyone could do something about it is by Monday.

Assuming also that I opted for postal voting because - remember? - I would presumably not be there on Thursday. And - in my case - not on Wednesday nor on Tuesday and Monday, either. That's my chance to vote gone to hell.

If then, as in my case, you are also away all the week that the postal voting papers are being sent out, you can see how tight time gets.

In my case, I did find the papers on Saturday 28 April. Now it's Monday, and I've finally had time to fill in the ballot papers, spending too much time again considering who to vote for. Stupid me for taking it all so seriously, right?

Now I'm not sure if I trust the Royal Mail to get the letter to the right place on time. I may take the envelope to the polling station in person on the day. But then again, just like the Monday to Thursday job in Holland didn't happen, anybody can call me now for work on Thursday. So either I pay at least one day's fee for my right to vote, or I waive it altogether.

I used postal voting to cast my vote in German elections while I already lived in the UK, and I always had plenty of time to fill in the papers in a considered manner and send them off without worrying the time would be too short for my vote to make it into the count.

Receiving postal voting papers within 4 business days of the election is clearly not enough time.

That should worry people just as much as the alleged fraud, because it may mean that people who are perfectly entitled to it, are robbed of their vote, because either their filled-in ballot papers are still in the mail when the counting begins, or they themselves were already gone by the time their papers finally land on their door mat.

why I seem to be using hipstamatic all the time...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 21:24:00 +0000

reward...

I have been asked by friends and have subsequently asked myself why I have put my camera away and have for most of this year taken pictures exclusively on the iPhone, and recently, even more 'limiting', with the Hipstamatic application, rather than editing the images afterwards in Snapseed (the very best iPhone photo processing app in my book).

Maybe I have to go back a little bit, and this first thought is actually confusing the picture even more but bear with me if you will.

Before I got my iPhone 4S in November last year, I had heard and read so much about the iPhone, and mainly on Twitter had witnessed a fair number of pro and semi pro photographers turn into complete iPhone nuts. Forgive the term but it seemed to me like so much hype, and who would, having much better equipment, even choose to make technically worse pictures than he or she could, right?

At around about the same time I felt I needed to reassess my own photographic path. I had learned a lot about equipment and to take better pictures in terms of composition and using manual camera settings, thanks to someone who turned out to be a true mentor in that respect, after all the jokes we had cracked about that word in the beginning. However, I increasingly felt that I was taking pictures fulfilling someone else's criteria of a good picture, needing someone else's approval (another personal weakness of mine), and in the process I grew somewhat alienated from my own work and in fact stopped taking pictures altogether for a while.

This realisation combined with that dinky new toy with its lots of brilliant (or trashy) apps allowed me to get over the confusion of not knowing what kind of photographer I was by getting me to play again. I am now taking pictures like I did with my little plastic 16 square exposures on 12 exposure film camera that I got for Christmas at age twelve or thirteen or so. Technically as good as a plastic lens, heads to trees for focus settings, and clouds to sun for exposure would allow you to be; the more important thing being what was in the frame.

Hipstamatic is even more limiting. You have a 'lens' and a 'film' combination and no control other than choosing that combination. I find right now, this very fact allows me to focus exclusively on composition and, even more so, on the mood I want to capture through it.

This is my argument for all those people who moan everywhere that cheap apps 'make any picture look nice, no matter how bad it is', thus devaluing 'good' photography, i.e. pictures taken with expensive (and hence still somewhat exclusive) gear.

I disagree on two counts.

Good camera phone and app pictures still require skill. True, if you take a bland flower picture in gritty b&w, it might add a certain interest to the picture that it wouldn't have in colour. Why? More contrast, focusing on the main thing without colourful distractions around, making it possible for the viewer to find connections: I remember those flowers in my grandma's garden. We had lovely times there. I miss her. It's getting under the skin. I don't think there is anything wrong with it. I rather think it's using what you have available to achieve a certain purpose.

Secondly, the exclusivity of the gear is mostly less dictated by the skill in making good use of such equipment than much more by the size of one's wallet or bank balance.

It's knowing why you are using it that way. We have a saying in Germany that even a blind chicken will find the odd grain. This happens to iPhone shooters, but it also happens to more high-end gear users than would care to admit to it.

Another reason why I like the limitations of what I am using now to take pictures is my attempt not to try to document facts, occasions, buildings, ... whatever, but to get back to taking pictures that evoke emotions. I don't need pixel-peeper-satisfying full-frame sensors and £6000 lenses for that.

I cannot remember her name (my biggest fallacy) but David Land, now editor of F2 magazine, talked in one of his classes at my BTEC course about a US photographer who took amazingly haunting pictures with a Brownie. Blurred, having you engage with the picture to figure out what was going on, with enough detail present to satisfy the search.

Now that you know, maybe my pictures don't look that nice anymore, but hey, I'm trying, and I'll never stop learning.

My final reason to explain why the iPhone is my first choice in most cases: it's just ready to shoot so much faster than my camera...

the love of (self-) important men...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 20:08:00 +0000

I once knew a painter. I liked his art.

He made me a present. It was a painting called 'The Kiss', and he said it was inspired by us. He gave it to me for my birthday.

Except he asked me to let him show it in an upcoming exhibition. It would be marked as 'sold', and I would get it afterwards.

Then he gifted it to me again for another occasion. Maybe Christmas. I should check my journal but I can't be bothered.

Then he gifted it to me again, I think. I hope you guess what follows. We broke up without me ever actually getting my present.

One day long after our break-up he rang me one Saturday to meet in one of our regular late breakfast places in Hampstead. One of the nice things about being with him were extensive informal weekend morning walks.

He was very friendly and only got around to business shortly before we were ready to leave. He then offered me to hand over the painting or to repay me the £1000 I had lent to him over the time we were together. It was clearly very obvious what I would go for as he had someone at his bank on the phone to make the transfer right there and then.

Before we left, he confided in me that anyway, he had sold the painting to a bank for over £3000.

He must have loved me very much indeed.

He did give me a very dull (compared to the original colours) and tiny print of it. No. 2 or 3 of a run of 100, it's a bit smudged. The print has the same place of pride in my flat as Picasso's paintings had at Dora Maar's place when she died. I seem to remember they were found under her wardrobe.

make a smile go around the world...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 14:04:00 +0000

happy face
Originally uploaded by antje b.

... it really is so easy.

Yesterday I went to collect a parcel that couldn't be delivered to me the day before, from the local sorting office. "Local" on a London scale as is still a 25 minutes walk or several bus stops away.

Normally, the sorting office opens really early but closes at 1pm. For Christmas the normal red card left to inform of a failed delivery had been replaced with a blue one with snowflakes on, but the most important change was made to the opening times which had been extended to a generous 5.30pm.

As I collected my parcel after returning early-ish from work, I told the young man behind the counter that although it clearly was extra work for them, I really appreciated the new opening times and thought they were a great idea.

He beamed at me, said something along the lines of it making their work easier, as well, and that he would pass the comment on.

I left the sorting office also with a smile on my face, and it stayed with me as I pondered how easy it really was to be nice to people, and yet also how rewarding.

It is so easy not to comment on things well done. It's just become an expectation, and usually, things only get said if something doesn't work.

A case in point was the conference I was interpreting at just that very day of yesterday. After the meeting the interpreters weren't given a glass of champagne, as happened recently at a similar event, but someone from the organisers came to the back and told us that there had been very positive feedback about the interpretation, commenting about what a change that made from the normal 'no-news-is-good-news' attitude.

That made me smile and feel appreciated, and I managed to pass this feeling on to the young man at the sorting office. And hopefully, he, too, would get an opportunity do that to someone else at some point.

I used to be one person who would respond more strongly to things that went slightly wrong than to things that went smoothly. Thanks to my currently slightly readjusted brain activity, I find myself being more relaxed in dealing with mishaps and much more willing to express my appreciation for the opposite.

In that sense let me send a smile to the one(s) who made me seek help about negativity.

Pass it on. Generously. :-)

'The Debt' - screening at the Frontline Club...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 11:45:00 +0000

The screening of ‘The Debt’ by director John Madden at the Frontline Club was announced as a bit of a rarity, moving away from the purely journalistic treatment to the fictionalisation of political issues.

The film, starring Academy-Award winner Helen Mirren, Academy-Award nominee Tom Wilkinson, and Ciaran Hinds, as well as Jessica Chastain and Sam Worthington, picks up in the lives of three Mossad operatives who worked together in the 60ies on a mission in East Berlin to extract Dieter Vogel, known as the ‘Surgeon of Birkenau’, a medical doctor who conducted cruel experiments on concentration camp inmates in Nazi Germany.

The occasion is the launch in 1997 of a book about the operation written by the daughter of the woman in the trio. Not wanting to give a way the plot as the film is going to be on general release in UK cinemas from 30 September, I’ll just talk about one aspect of it that struck a chord with me. To do this, I may have to digress a little.

After the fall of the Wall and German reunification, documentaries and feature films dealing with the ‘trauma’ that was the GDR history were everywhere. Some of them were the usual propaganda with a rather obvious agenda (or straight-forward counter-propaganda, if you want), some was very delicate and thoughtful work, revealing with a great deal of understanding deeper layers underneath the bare facts and leaving viewers to judge.

‘The Debt’, based on an Israeli film from 2007, explores several issues in a similar fashion. Apart from the obvious, Isreal’s policy of actively persuing outside their own jurisdiction those guilty of holocaust crimes, there is the motivation of the three young people to do what they have come together to do; there are the personal relationships within the group, couped up with only each other for company on a dangerous mission abroad; and there is an interesting exploration of the relationship between captive and captors, with the captive cleverly manipulating his captors who will carry a number of the personal issues arising during this mission with them for life.

However, even more interesting was the conflict between honesty and covering up the actual results of a mission, supposedly for the ‘greater good of society’. This in my opinion was as relevant an observation in East Germany as it is in Western democracies today as it is pretty much everywhere in the world. Inevitably at some point personal interests will clash with more powerful people’s personal interests, and under the mantle of ‘the public good’, lies are told.

A very interesting film, well worth watching.

Brian Storm at the Frontline Club...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 10:22:00 +0000

Could Multimedia Story-telling be the new journalism? Who are its clients and how to survive commercially with it? All highly relevant questions that have been asked a lot recently.

Brian Storm, founder and executive producer of MediaStorm, came up with some assured answers during his fascinating presentation at the Frontline Club.

Being passionate about stills photography, he was shocked to learn that newspaper readers spend no more than 0,6 seconds on average looking at an image. He believes that good photography has so much information contained in it that it deserves to be taken in thoroughly. One way of gently forcing viewers to engage with a photograph beyond a cursory glance is to embed it in a multimedia story, where the makers of the piece decide how long the image remains in front of the viewers’ eyes.

Here is one example of multimedia photography projects that he showed to illustrate the kind of work MediaStorm does.

In Rwanda, in 1994, Hutu militia committed a bloody genocide, murdering one million Tutsis. Many of the Tutsi women were spared, only to be held captive and repeatedly raped. Many became pregnant. Intended Consequences tells their stories. See the project at http://mediastorm.com/publication/intended-consequences

He touched upon some ways to structure a multimedia story to make it compelling viewing: establish empathy with the character(s), using body language, which makes up 80 percent of communication. He spoke about ‘back-timing’, having an element in the imagery that challenges a statement that has just been made. Visual sequences should be little essays, moving without extreme cuts from wide to extreme close-up. Make sure that in cuts the viewer’s eyes can stay in the same place and remain on the point of interest. Take stills in the same format as the video, 16:9, to avoid letter-boxing or crops in the edited piece, and finally, be as ruthless in editing by subtraction as you would be when selecting your portfolio.

Just as interesting is the business model of MediaStorm with four lines for diversity: publication, project specific agency work, production work for others, and teaching online and in workshops. Interestingly, MediaStorm content is available without charge to embed in online publications for the desired reach. In order to show a whole project (story, supplementary stories, photographer’s epilogue) with or without subtitles in several languages, with easy access to options like forward, comment, access to transcripts in several languages, buy related photography books or get involved, MediaStorm has developed its own media player. This code is available to embed free of charge, as long as it’s not tampered with, which means that MediaStorm monetises every view of the story anywhere online, as it and the advertising is running off MediaStorm’s website. To prevent abuse, the back-end control is pure genius: anyone who embeds the player gets a unique ID within the code, and if any tampering with the code is detected, MediaStorm can switch that particular embed off from their end.

Editorial work for partners proved to be particularly interesting as NGOs and non-profit organisation begin to seek partnerships with journalists rather than straight marketing to get their message out. They want awareness raised by people who know how to get a story in depth, i.e. journalists, and even tend to pay more for such projects than regular editorial clients. Also, this can develop into long-term partnerships with updates and new stories in the future.

Due to the huge amount of really interesting information there was little time for questions. One that was particuarly relevant to photographers ‘crossing over’ raised the issue of video work compromising the stills photography. Storm replied that one needed to allow enough time for ‘hunting’ (getting the right stills) and ‘fishing’ (filming).

It was certainly one of the most informative and positive presentations about journalism and its future forms that this blogger has seen.

to have or not to have...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 11:40:00 +0000

aunt and nephew
Originally uploaded by antje b.

Today my attention was drawn to this article about the intention of the Department of Health to introduce independent counselling for women wanting to terminate a pregnancy, sold as ‘tightening the rules’. I agree that it could effectively be that if the independent counselling caused undue delay, seeing as medical abortions (pill) are only done within the first 9 weeks and anything beyond that up to 24 weeks requires progressively more invasive procedures.

I was a little intrigued by the fact that I was interested in this as it is not necessarily all that relevant to me anymore. Still, I am a strong advocate of a woman’s right to choose whether a pregnancy is what she wants or, if it was a genuine mistake in the heat of the moment (literally), to have the chance to wash her hands off it like the man can at any time, in the hope of a more cautious approach the next time.

I would like to share my experience with you. I had a termination at 27 years of age. I was in a relationship with someone who didn’t want a child at the time I told him the ‘good news’. He was a very good musician and sound technician but due to circumstances in his life largely depended on his car to make some money mini-cabbing outside clubs he used to play in. I was just beginning to find my feet as a freelance interpreter and translator.

Maybe I should have given my partner the benefit of the doubt and the chance to rise to the occasion, although he had said he didn’t want the child. Maybe I was right to be what I thought realistic about me being unable to handle a pregnancy, the early stages of motherhood AND being the sole breadwinner in that ‘family’.

Be that as it may, I was scared of the profound change that was bound to happen, the leap of faith against all odds that was required, and my potential failure to look after a child and myself without entirely depending on someone else. I was on holidays when I found out, so had a good week of debating with myself what to do. And believe me, when you know there is a life growing inside you, there is not much else you can think about!

In the end I went for the termination, and looking back at this decision now, it was based on sound arguments that would convince me even today that what I did was right. (edited) What I would have done differently with hindsight is confide in more people, especially my family, and trust their advice rather than thinking I had to face it all by myself. (edited)

When I got married 9 years later, I got pregnant within a few months. The relationship was a bit shaky at the time for reasons I won’t go into in detail. Suffise it to say that I didn’t want to keep my man tied to me through a child. I wanted him to stay with me because that’s what he wanted. I went to a family planning clinic again but when they checked me, I was told that my pregnancy seemed less progressed than it should be given the time. Tests confirmed that the foetus I carried inside me was already ‘dead’. While that news did come as a shock, I was kind of glad that I didn’t have to go behind my husband's back to get rid of the pregnancy or otherwise blackmail him into making a decision about me based around a child of his, which really were the only options.

In each of the three following years I got pregnant again but lost all of those pregnancies again in the first trimester. Thorough checks confirmed there was no scarring of the uterus from the initial termination, so that was ruled out as a cause of the spontaneous abortions, as were other physical causes or genetic problems. To the last day the specialists shrugged it off as one of those things.

At least the last two of those times I really wanted the baby. I felt ready to devote myself to teaching another human being about life. I didn’t feel it would take away from my work ambitions, which by and large I have realised. And yes, on the odd occasion I thought of the child I had aborted when I was 27 and who would now be about 16 with a tinge of regret.

What has made me ready to have a child now (that it is probably too late), is knowing that you simply cannot plan for everything anyway but that resourceful people will always find a way to cope. I am confident now that I would have acquired the skills necessary ‘on the job’, just like pretty much every other mother throughout the history of mankind. But I am also aware that I didn’t have that confidence then, and that is what made all the difference.

I stand by my decision made nearly 17 years ago. I am in favour of every woman being able to make that decision, preferably together with the man who fathered the child. Just take this from me as you weigh your, your sexual partner’s and your possible child’s life options, though: the time rarely ever seems right if you have to earn your own living, there are many things you will be unprepared for, your flat may be too small, your job uncertain, and it may all just seem too much for you to bear. But where there’s a will, there will always be a way, too. Don’t just let fear decide as fear of the unknown will always be there with every profound life decision. :-)

evening at the frontline club: the price of sex (screening)

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 16:27:00 +0000

Yesterday I visited another event at the Frontline Club, championing independent journalism. I sometimes write posts for their blog, and yesterday it was about a screening of a documentary, becoming one of my favourite events at the club.

Photojournalist and filmmaker Mimi Chakarova introduced her film The Price of Sex about women sold into sex slavery with the plea to ‘stay with us’. She was keen, she said, to observe the audience’s reaction.

The film follows three women from Bulgaria and Moldova who managed to escape from the vicious trap they had naively walked into at a young age and were prepared to go on the record with their clearly painful and humiliating experiences. Three of a worldwide number of 1.5 million women traded for sex, according to UN estimates.

The film explores those young women’s origins. Post-communist Eastern Europe with its mainly rural existence, the young generation leaving for the West to follow the lure of better-paid jobs or even any jobs at all... some of them turning out to be false promises.

There was a look at the traders, some of them women effectively betraying their own (all three women in the film were initially lured abroad and sold by women).

There was a description of the conditions sex slaves are held in, without papers, blackmailed into submission, in squalid lodgings they must not leave, working off their ‘debt’ at a rate of up to 50 clients a day.

There was an attempt to talk to punters. The statements from some clients in Turkey who were prepared to go on camera were truly mind-boggling. Equally telling was the testimony of a former pimp, even more so his friends’ attempts to stop him talking.

There was also a look at law enforcement and NGO responses to human trafficking and its fall-out, both doing their best but seemingly fighting a losing battle. The probably most enraging revelation was that foreign funds Moldova receives to fight human trafficking don’t benefit the victims but effectively help maintain the country’s status as ‘Europe’s biggest exporter of women’.

The questions after the screening explored the perceived incompleteness of the film as it focussed on Eastern Europe as the origin of the traded women and their destiniations when we are clearly dealing with a global phenomenon, which Chakarova said was intentional as the story was built around the three main characters.

Other contributions bemoaned the lack of a more thorough forray into the demand side of the equation, making the sex slave trade such a profitable proposition in the first place, and questioned what the film intended to achieve.

The reply to the final question, how legislation on prostitution might solve the problem, was typical of the entire discussion. Chakarova maintained that the film, a result of years of work on what was originally a photojournalistic project, was the best she could do. She never set out to answer all the questions and let the audience go home slightly shocked but in the comfortable knowledge that the issue was taken care of. She encourages her viewers to become involved, to care enough to find answers to their questions by themselves, and to act accordingly - to contribute their ‘Granito’, their grain of sand, to what has to be a collective effort, in reference to a previous film screening at the Frontline Club.

child's play...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Sun, 22 May 2011 11:05:00 +0000

invisible...
Originally uploaded by antje b.

I just read this article in the Guardian about findings regarding the loss of physical strength in 10-year-olds, with one in ten in 2008 unable or unwilling to hold his own body weight hanging from a bar, when in 1998 it had been one in 20. With at the same time a comparable body mass index, indicating that the children, for the same weight, are carrying less muscle and instead more fat around with them.

Until I was 9 years old, we lived in a rented flat in one of 3 low-rise blocks built from yellow brick in the 1930ies. They hemmed in a huge courtyard with a little fenced-in garden with some fruit trees, a broken and disused concrete paddling pool that I only ever saw water in after the rain, some wild patch of grass and shrubs and two rows of garages in the centre, surrounded by a footpath, and a square of lawn lined by hedges for every back entrance of the buildings with room to hang the washing... and for children to play.

There was no official playground in that yard but there were trees and a little hill at the far end to climb, catch and hide and seek to play, and the footpath around the centre island of the courtyard served as a bicycle track for the children who knew how to ride a bike already. I remember I was out there every day, except when it was raining.

I also went to a creche from 6 months (when my mum's maternity leave was over), and then from age 3 to kindergarten. Both of them equipped with fantastic playgrounds, and there, too, we would have at least a couple of hours a day playing outside, weather permitting.

When we moved to the Baltic Sea, the new sprawling estate there had several playgrounds to make sure children didn't have to go too far from home to play. Again, we were out pretty much every day. Apart from that, I had ballet classes and gymnastics training to keep me moving by then.

Change of scene: In 1993 I lived in Lyham Road right behind Brixton prison, renting a room from an elderly lady whose son and daughter-in-law with their two little boys lived just next door. The boys were out playing a lot, too, but only in the narrow and bare strip of a garden behind their council house, and only with each other. On his first day in school, the older boy was taken home after one hour because he was crying the whole time. Suddenly he was surrounded by several children his own age and not his little brother, and he couldn't cope!

The nearest playground in that street was probably a kilometer and definitely at least one very busy road away. Not a way I would like my children to take routinely just to get to play. I like the playgrounds in London's parks, but the nearest one to where I currently live is a 15 minute walk away. Again, although there is less traffic here, it is not a distance I'd be comfortable letting under 10-year-olds walk by themselves. So a parent always has to go along, and has to have the time to, instead of being able to shout down from the window that it's dinner time.

It is a great shame that there are so few playgrounds around in the UK, and it's a great shame that there are so many reasons to fear for your children's safety when they are out and about by themselves. And now we see it doesn't just affect children's social skills, it makes them physically weaker, too.

Amnesty! When they are all free

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Tue, 17 May 2011 15:29:00 +0000

another of my blogposts for the Frontline Club

Kate Townsend, executive producer for BBC Four's international documentary strand Storyville, introduced the film about the 50 year long story of Amnesty International.

The opening sequence set the scene with statements about Amnesty as the right place for people who “liked to cause mischief and put it to good use”, that Amnesty was the “McDonald’s of human rights” to Jack Straw’s: “If people do nothing, nothing will happen.” The film goes on to tell the story of not so much an organisation, but a movement, that started 50 years ago and is still going strong, despite questions about its objectives and the way it goes about achieving them.

After the screening James Rogan, director of the film, Claudio Cordone, Senior Director of Research and Regional Programs for Amnesty International, Patricia Feeney, former Amnesty researcher for Argentina, and Dr. Stephen Hopgood, Reader in International Relations at SOAS and Amnesty biographer, answered questions about the film and its subject.

Claudio Cordone classed it as the best documentary about the organisation so far, acknowledging that 50 years was a long time to condense into just over one hour, and that the issues chosen were necessarily limited but still representative of Amnesty’s work, successes and difficulties.

With its widening remit from initially purely pressing for the release of prisoners of conscience to the current work on broader human rights, like ending poverty, violence against women, and homophobia, tensions have appeared between the broad base of the membership, which was and remains in the European and North American middle class, people with enough time and ressources to care about issues other than their own, and the specific needs of those fighting conditions in their own countries. The campaign against homophobia in Uganda was cited as an example where Amnesty as a Western NGO might not be as helpful as it would like to be due to the perception there of homosexuality as an essentially Western evil.

A long-time worker for Amnesty in the audience defended the organisation against the “McDonald’s of human rights” label, pointing out that Amnesty had always worked by asking those affected what kind of help they needed instead of presenting a “set menu” of options that did not necessarily fit the purpose of those whom they tried to help.

Other questions probed changes Amnesty International made after being criticised for their hesitant response to Rwanda, the rift at times between its principles and practice, as in the controversial pay-off of its General Secretary Irine Khan at a time when the organisation was fighting poverty elsewhere, as well as Amnesty’s roll in the Arab Spring.

James Rogan summarised it well when he said that in initial talks about the documentary the reaction had been critical with questions raised about whether Amnesty had lost its way. However, there was a bigger message: Amnesty International as a movement is about people with the luxury of being free to protest, and using that freedom on behalf of those who don’t have it. As a principle, there is only so much anyone could find fault with that.

adult conversations...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Sat, 30 Apr 2011 08:51:00 +0000

2011-04-22 rumbaba deluxe 037
Originally uploaded by antje b.

If you find yourself in an argument with the other half, covering the same ground over and over, if you seem to be turning in circles, getting back to questions you have already answered so many times, when everything you say seems to go unheard, don't get upset or loud but...

night @ frontline club: face the future...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 09:58:00 +0000

To mark the publication of Face the Future: Tools For A Modern Age edited by John Mair and Richard Keeble, a panel of journalists came together at the Frontline Club to discuss their take on the future of journalism, moderated by Raymond Snoddy of BBC Newswatch.

The first to present his thoughts was Kevin Marsh, until recently executive editor of the BBC College of Journalism. He set out the issue of the ever expanding information universe with equally diversifying ways of accessing and transmitting information, which is exciting but not really journalism, as many seem to think. Journalism to him is rather a small, precise part of this information universe whose distinction lies in the ability to sift through the deluge of information, filter out items of value to the audience, investigate and analyse them properly, and finally report them honestly, all things that require special skills, mindsets and commitment.

Laura Oliver, community co-ordinator for Guardian News and Media, agreed in principle but added another twist by saying that new media, like Twitter, Facebook and blogs should not be discounted as some of the writers are in fact professional journalists, and even some of the amateurs are committed, skilled and reputable sources of information. An important new skill for journalists therefore is to establish credentials for online sources and to verify the information gleaned from them. However, this is still rather uncharted territory with more grey areas than in the past.

Judith Townend, a freelance journalist currently working on a PhD, replied to the question if we could expect new developments every 6 months that she hoped so. The example of MySpace should be a warning to anyone who mistook new online media for an end in themselves rather than a tool. Facebook is well established in her opinion due to its size but it is not a good news source as it is about its members’ personal lives, whereas Twitter has its own limitations that make it not particularly efficient, amongst them that it is not representative of society at large. She cited journalists on Twitter who ask colleagues for case studies to flesh out preconceived stories and just pick the bits that fit as an example of ‘lazy journalism’ using new media, even from professional journalists.

In the following debate this question was picked up again, and an interesting argument was that what is seen as ‘lazy journalism’, like journalists not going out and talking to people to get a story but being stuck in the office, is sometimes simply a consequence of the rolling news issue of continually having to update, leaving no time to do the actual journalistic work.

Other questions looked at the way editors may influence journalism in attempts to ‘pander to their readership’; new online media allowing the return to citizen journalism as the historical precursor of commercial journalism; how news organisations go about establishing trust and their brand value, especially where paywalls are in place; and whether declining news viewing figures really mean that people are less interested or simply signify a shift in the way they access news.

Richard Keeble, one of the editors of the book, closed the evening with the summary that it was precisely this kind of constructive debate that the book was all about.

Face the Future: Tools for the modern age is available now priced £17.95. ISBN: 978-1-84549-483-4.

granito de arena...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 23:44:00 +0000

Pamela Yates answering questions after the event
Originally uploaded by antje b.

My first brush with the problems in Guatemala happened in the mid-80ies in the form of Raúl de la Horra, much admired Spanish conversation teacher in my linguistics honours course at Leipzig University. He didn’t talk about it much but word was that he had left his country because of the death squads.

200.000 others were not so lucky. In Pamela Yates' strong documentary 'Granito'* there was this unbelievably touching scene showing Alejandra García’s search for her father, whom she'd lost when she was a baby, culminate in finding files on his abduction and killing in the archives of the Guatemalan police which were found by accident.

It put into perspective the minor losses in human terms that I have experienced so far. People haven't died around me, they have just moved on. But knowing how even that always made me suffer, I cannot imagine the pain I would have to deal with if someone I loved was taken from me that way. Even seeing her father’s file in front of her, Alejandra said she still clung to the hope of seeing him in the street one day, hearing his voice, just once. Tears ran down her face as she said this, and tears ran down mine as I watched.

Alejandra dealt with the tragedy that befell her family by becoming a lawyer and seeking and winning justice just this February for her father by putting the immediate perpetrators in prison for 40 years. She has now set her sights higher and is going after those who gave the orders. She is definitely contributing her granito de arena, her grain of sand, to the important national effort of seeking justice for the crimes committed against her father, her people.

And what am I doing? I hide in my home and feel sorry for myself for standing once more in front of the broken pieces of a relationship. Feel sorry for myself for not having quite achieved what I set out to achieve when I left university. Feel sorry for myself because there are so many things that annoy me or make me sad but that I can’t change, anyway. How appropriate to be reminded that all I as one human being can contribute, anyway, is my little grain of sand.

I shouldn't need this reminder, I did feel like this once. Before and just after the wall came down I did my share by printing flyers off someone's PC in a suburb of Leipzig where I studied and taking sheaves of them to university to distribute. I did my share by going to the Monday demonstrations, despite the letter from the university threatening that if we were seen, we'd be expelled. It wasn’t much, but by so many of us doing the same, across the whole former communist bloc, the result was momentous.

But the film and Pamela Yates’ story teach me more still. This contribution of whatever little we can give isn’t necessarily a one-off thing, like the fall of the wall. She made the first documentary, 'When the Mountains Tremble'*, in 1982, more or less accidentally stumbling across the genocide while filming. The film didn't stop the USA continuing to support the regime and other Latin-American dictators, as she had hoped. Yet years later the film and its outtakes would serve as evidence in an investigation that was meant to lead to Efraín Ríos Montt, general and one-time dictator of Guatemala, being prosecuted in Spain if nobody in Guatemala would touch his case. The prosecution might well have been successful if Ríos Montt hadn't managed to avoid extradition to Spain. Without him being there, there would be no trial. Although this effort still came to nothing, it was just one more step taken towards the same aim.

And the struggle continues, Alejandra's, Kate's, Pamela's, Almudena's, Fredy's, Gustavo's, Rigoberta's, and Francisco's, to name some of the protagonists. All of them carrying their grains of sand together to amass a great collective work but also to form their personal legacy, much bigger than themselves...

* Links are pointing to trailers.

drawing strength from the past for the future...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 22:19:00 +0000

my parents
Originally uploaded by antje b.

I am enjoying spending time under one roof with people who love me for who I am; who don’t indulge me but accept me with my flaws, weighing them against my good sides; who don’t need nor ever would demand sacrifices of me to prove to them that I love them, too; whose only expectation of me is to be happy and fulfilled, because seeing me happy is the fulfilment of their lives’ amibition for me. I’m with my dear parents.

True, it is easy for them to love me like this. They didn’t meet me somewhere along the way and have to get to know and learn to accept my idiosyncracies. After all, I am their creature, physically and to a large degree mentally and emotionally, as well.

I don’t and now never will have children of my own whom I could give this kind of unconditional love but I will try to love like that someone who at some point may cross, then join my path, or I his, or maybe we find and follow an entirely new one. I hope that he can love me like that, too.

And I wish all of you that you did, do or will experience how beautiful it is to love and be loved this way.

still in love... despite some flaws

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 11:49:00 +0000

I have been proud owner and user of an Olympus E-P2 for a little over a year now.

While in general I am very happy with it and the image quality, there are a few practical issues I thought might be interesting to know about.

Let me start with the EVF which for me makes this camera such a pleasure to use.

I like that it can be flipped up and make frequent use of this feature either to make sure I don't attract people's attention in street photography situations by effectively looking down, not at them, or simply to change the viewing angle ever so slightly from the eye line view one would normally have. However, with a year of use the somewhat flimsy little plastic hook that snaps the eye piece back down has worn away so much that it doesn't do any snapping at all these days. I am now holding it down with a black soft grip hairband.

The diopter control, while certainly useful for some people, is taped down in my case as it would quite often move around when packing the camera or taking it out of the bag and needed some fiddling with when I really wanted to take a picture, resulting in losing that particular moment. I am short-sighted and wear glasses or contact lenses all the time (have since I was 11 years old) and cannot conceive of an occasion when I would wish to take the glasses off or the lens out just to take a picture.

Also, now that I have a rather hefty lens in the Voigtländer Nokton 25mm f/0.95 for M43, the VF fell off a couple of times as I walked around with the camera around my neck. It was tilted forward by the weight of the lens and the VF encountered the resistance of my jacket which pushed it out of the hotshoe. It would also slip out a little bit sometimes, just enough to disconnect, when putting the camera into the bag lens down. I've for now solved this problem with another lovely pink soft grip hairband. It would be good if the next generation EVF had some kind of locking mechanism, like DSLR TTL flash guns do.

Overall, I think for such a vital part of the camera and a price tag on its own of £219 one should be able to expect a little more attention to durability, sturdiness and security.

Moving on to the menu design of the E-P2, there is an issue when using non-Olympus manual focus lenses: it is very fiddly at the moment to change vital settings like ISO and WB when in the focus assist mode, which allows enlarging the area one wants to focus on in the VF. Once those settings have been changed, it then requires another two presses on the info button to get back into focus assist. Too much time in most situations to still get the picture. Could the focus assist function be given its own button or barring that, is it possible to customise a button to that function? And/or could the ISO be set through a separate mechanic dial which would allow making this basic change before even powering up the camera?

Personally, I am looking forward to what else might come out in the M43 standard. I feel it is the right system for me, allowing for the same flexibility in terms of lenses as SLRs but at a fraction of the weight and bulk.

love...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 10:49:00 +0000

hand in hand
Originally uploaded by antje b.

'The one who loves me
has told me that he needs me.
Therefore I take care myself,
watch my step
and fear of every rain drop
that it might strike me dead.'

Bertolt Brecht
(translated by myself)

Take good care of each other - for each other. :-)

in defense of philosophy

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 11:18:00 +0000

In Defense of Philosophy
Originally uploaded by antje b.

When I first saw the title of the series advertised in the Tate guide, I was a little surprised. I never thought that philosophy needed defending. I always thought it was an integral part of any developed social system.

However, when Tariq Ali came to speak of the making of the film 'Spinoza: Apostle of Reason' for Channel 4 (which was shown at the beginning of the event), he mentioned that the channel was originally set up to cater for non-mainstream political, cultural and minority audiences. All this changed towards the end of the 90ies, he said, when Channel 4 succumbed to measuring the value of its content by ratings. And thus the 'marketisation' of Channel 4 commenced.

He added that sadly this phenomenon was also visible in education, which these days, to put it bluntly, he said, only served the needs of the market. Philosophy, the 'love of wisdom', doesn't seem to fit in. It's just not profitable. (Unless, of course, you count people like Jim Rohn as philosophers.)

Another intriguing thought that came out in the Q&A was the use of the politics of fear in controlling the masses. Especially the fear of loss and ultimately the fear of death. When ordinary people lose that fear of death for a while, things like Egypt happen.

In summary, I had an interesting evening. I would have liked to have shared it with someone to bounce some thoughts off afterwards but it was a somewhat spontaneous decision to go. As it was, I left with the unsatisfying feeling that I have spent years successfully dulling my mind. In my whole life, I'm afraid, I've never had an original thought. I feel rather clever and proud when I understand what intelligent people talk about but it's not the first time that I think I have nothing to contribute. Looking at the amount of reading I would have to do just to catch up is off-putting in its own right.

I haven't decided what to do about it but I'm teetering on the verge of just letting it be.

My apologies if this post was a little bitty but I just wanted to share my impressions of the event.

closed doors...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 00:57:00 +0000

white #9
Originally uploaded by antje b.

...They are everywhere around us. We can ignore them, feeling safe with what we know, or we can continue to discover new things. I for one am still curious.

Our interests as children are initially developed (hopefully) by perceptive parents who spot our talents and enrol us in the right clubs to develop them. The first such action by my mother was to take me by the hand and drop me off at a newly formed ballet group in my hometown when I was still in kindergarten because I constantly got in her way on weekends as she worked in the kitchen, and I was supposed to help but preferred to dance around to whatever music was playing on the radio.

As I grew older, my mother's guidance had taught me to find out by myself what piqued my interest and look for ways to become more involved in it. Prime example here is photography, still a work in progress.

However, I have noticed that as with everything in life, at some point we often stop expanding our horizons and instead begin to limit ourselves. Or, to make it sound more acceptable, we become 'selective'. In itself, there is nothing wrong with it. I have given up on painting as I labour too hard, and it brings me no joy, so I was better off in that phase of my life - I was dating a painter - to stick with the photography and produce images that way.

Still, I would feel my life would be a lot poorer if I hadn't developed an interest in things I didn't care about, thanks to some people who came into my life and left me with unexpected gifts. I never liked jazz much, for example, until I dated a bass guitarist (that was before the painter, for the purpose of chronology) who made me listen to Yellowjackets and Weather Report. He didn't last forever in my life but he left me with some of the most uplifting soundtracks that have brought me joyous moments while I was with him and even after our paths separated.

I could have persisted in my opinion that jazz is discordant noise but let's admit it: first of all I would have made myself look and sound like the ignoramus I was when I thought this, and what's even worse, my life now would be a fair bit poorer without the appreciation of something I used to dismiss so flippantly.

I am glad for the people who have come into my life in one capacity and ended up being catalysts for learning something new and entirely different. I hope I will remain open to others who challenge my perceptions - or really preconceptions - about things I have merely an opinion and no real knowledge of.

Of course, sometimes more knowledge only confirms a preconceived idea, although at least it is an informed opinion then. But one of the best things, even at age 43, is still to have a door opened in my head every once in a while that I had until then been quite happy to leave closed - and to find a fascinating world hiding behind it...

home town seen with a lot of love...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 17:48:00 +0000

white #4
Originally uploaded by antje b.

... this is what a person who used to live in the same town, too, wrote about my series of pictures around the cathedral square.

This made me think. Have I taken any pictures with a lot of love? My impression is that when I take pictures, I become very technical and calculating. Which is the best angle? What should be in? What out? What aperture? What depth of field? There doesn't seem to be much room for emotion.

Then I thought again: if I didn't care about the subject matter, I guess I wouldn't spend that much effort on figuring out the best way to capture it. So maybe I should give myself a little more credit for the emotional contribution and/or content of my images...

thank you...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 17:29:00 +0000

Antje-20101217-118
Originally uploaded by edopix

The discussion goes on as to whether it’s a good idea to be on Twitter or not. I don't want to sway anybody's opinion, you are all entitled to yours, but here is my story:

Since joining Twitter I have made quite a few friends. Most of them are certainly friends only in the realm of my and their timelines, and our acquaintance is limited to what we are prepared to divulge about ourselves ‘out there’. Those are not close friendships in the conventional sense but I have learned an awful lot through following discussions between tweeps and links posted by people who know much more about subjects I'm interested in than I do. Many of them have been very helpful when asked direct questions, too.

Many thanks.

Most of my earliest 'followers' and people I followed back were other photography enthusiasts or even professionals in London, and so I slipped into monthly or other regular meetings in town that allowed me to get to know all those Twitter 'friends' in real life and yet more people through them at those events. They all helped me advance my photography skills and as a pleasant side-effect also enriched my social life. Apart from those regular gatherings, I have met up with people I originally knew from Twitter for drinks or meals in town and have even been invited to some of their homes and have welcomed some of them to mine in return.

Thank you.

Some people (or organisations) I follow without expecting any reciprocity. I’m just interested in direct access to what they have to say. Some people I chat with because I find what they say intelligent, witty or just plain interesting, and they help me pass idle down-time pleasantly. I even found someone I went to school with back in Germany, although we didn’t really personally know each other back then!

Thank you, too.

I am normally rather shy when surrounded by people I don’t know and will easily stand in a corner all night, leaving in the end without having talked to anyone. I find the Twitter banter a wonderful way to break the ice.

Finally, I met someone very special on Twitter (who kindly allowed me to use this recent portrait of me for this blogpost). A person who was initially a great mentor to my mentee, like he is for many other people every day (and yes, the word does exist!), and later became a close and caring friend who helped me through some difficult times in the last year and a half and has been there for me with technical advice and emotional support ever since.

A very special thank you to you. :-)

In summary, to me Twitter has been an enriching experience. I’m not saying my life has become wonderful since I joined and that I will live happily ever after but it certainly opened doors and windows for me, and it’s up to me to do something with it. I’m not leaving anytime soon. But as I said, that’s just my story.

I wish all of you a Happy New Year. :-)

one week of Nokton joy...

noreply@blogger.com (f2point4) — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 14:33:00 +0000

I have had my Voigtländer Nokton Micro 4/3 25mm f/0.95 for a week now, and it hardly ever came off my Olympus E-P2 during that time. Being a girl, I may be allowed to first of all comment on what a beautiful lens it is. It feels solid, no least thanks to its weight of 410g, but not chunky, and it certainly doesn’t look chunky, either.

The Nokton being a manual lens, I was looking forward to taking more control again over the images I take. Initially it means that fast-paced street photography gets harder as my manual focusing skills are not what they used to be before I bought my first autofocus camera. Of course, I'm also still getting to know how this lens works and how it interacts with my camera. Anyway, I relish the challenge and left all the autofocus lenses at home when I travelled to Germany to visit my parents over the holidays. It has to be said, though, it's really nice to have an aperture ring instead of having go fiddling with the camera’s menu options. At least it makes setting apertures quicker and easier.

The temptation initially was obviously to play around with the amazing shallow depth of field at the aperture of 0.95. At this setting, the camera is easy to focus thanks to the amazing amount of light that it allows in. The electronic viewfinder is very bright, and due to the shallow depth of field of the wide aperture, the area in focus literally pops out. On the images, the area in sharpest focus is a touch soft at that aperture, looking fantastic given the creaminess of the out-of-focus areas of the image.

Focusing at narrower apertures is still easy enough but due to the wider area in focus, it’s a bit harder to find the sharpest pane. However, help is at hand by using the manual focus assist option which on the E-P2 is accessed by pressing the info button twice or until you get the green focus rectangle in the viewfinder. Pressing ‘OK’ zooms in to what’s within the rectangle, something the E-P2 does automatically for its own lenses when the focusing ring is touched and lightly pressed. Once in this mode, turning the dial around the OK button changes the zoom ratio from 7x to 10x and back. Pressing OK after focusing takes you back to the normal viewfinder image. If you thought I was clever enough to figure that out myself, you are wrong. I was just clever enough to find it here.

I personally find it bit harder to focus at higher ISO settings as the EVF image becomes quite noisy itself. I’m not an expert on this but maybe this issue could be resolved by somehow filtering the ISO noise out of the EVF image or by having a hybrid viewfinder which overlays an optical viewfinder image with the electronic data we’ve become so used to.

The aperture ring moves easily but positively clicks into position with a range from f/0.95 to f/16 with two steps from each aperture marked on the ring to the next, i.e. from 0.95 to 1.4 and so on. The focusing ring is easy to grip and turn and moves smoothly with focus from 17cm to infinity in pretty much a 270 degree turn. It offers enough resistance to avoid any focus creep.

The lens has 10 blades which allows for as round an aperture as practically possible. Judge the bokeh yourselves.

When I took some pictures of the snowy landscape on a drive in my dad’s car, I noticed some vignetting in the very edges of the image. I had used the widest aperture then to counter-act the speed at which my dad was driving - despite the snow. :-( However, seeing as the image was still taken at 1/2000 of a second, I could have afforded to stop down more, thus eliminating the vignetting, and besides, I would probably have added it later on, anyway, to make the image pop a bit more. Just thought it was worth mentioning.

I am so far very happy with the lens, the way it works, the way its cool metal casing lies solidly in the hand, and the pictures it produces. It’s early days but I’m sure I’ll be using it a lot in the future. At some point it would be great to have a lens of this optical quality with the extra speed of autofocus but until then it will help me become a better photographer by making me do the work by myself, and I’m sure all three of us, the Olympus PEN, the Nokton and I, will take some smashing pictures on the way there. So watch this space. :-) For now, I leave you with my Nokton images on flickr so far.

Merry Christmas!