A Canon lo que es de Canon (cuento de navidad)

A principios de diciembre me había comprometido a hacer un vídeo en el colegio de mi hija. Para hacerlo pensaba usar nuestra cámara, una Canon MV630i con siete años de vida, que en el mundo de la electrónica es una eternidad. El caso es que después de decir que sí que haría el vídeo, vi que la cámara no funcionaba. Se podían ver las cintas, pero no grababa. 

Después de preguntar en el curro me di cuenta de:

 a) la poquita gente que hoy en día tiene cámara de vídeo,

 b) lo difícil que se estaba poniendo el asunto.

Más por casualidad que por otra cosa, y bastante a la desesperada, llegué a la página oficial de Canon donde encontré un artículo que se refería a defectos similares en ciertos modelos. Para mi sorpresa, Canon todavía repara las cámaras al entender que es un defecto de fabricación. Y lo que es mejor, lo hace gratis como parte de la garantía del aparato. LLevé la cámara y, efectivamente, me la devolvieron a los diez días con el sensor reparado y sin pagar un duro.

Un poco por los pelos, pero todo salió bien. El día que vaya a comprar otra cámara, seguro que me acuerdo de esto.

La única pega es que si no la hubieran reparado ésta, junto con la navidades, habría sido la excusa perfecta para jubilar mi 400D...

Frohe Weihnachten!

Alguna vez habéis traído a casa el árbol de navidad con un trineo? / Did you ever bring the xmas tree home on a sleigh?

2010 wrap-up

Qué tres fotos de las entradas del 2010 te han gustado más? Y por qué? Gracias por participar dejando tu comentario.

I have the feeling this is it for this year. Which three photos you liked best from the 2010 posts? Why? Thanks for leaving your comments.

El manuscrito de piedra

Por casualidades de esta vida, hoy veo que alguien de Salamanca ha entrado al blog a través de una búsqueda que incluía el título de esta entrada. Pero la casualidad es mayor porque justo acabo de empezar a leer el libro "El manuscrito de piedra", de Luis García Jambrina...

South Kensingon - London

After spending the afternoon in the Natural History Museum, we came back to our car and it is not possible to wonder how life would be in one of these magnificent townhouses (I guess a lot of walking up and down the stairs).

FoL (v)

El resto de las fotos están aquí. / Some other photos are here.

FoL (iv)

National History Museum - London

I believe this is the one Miss Missing was referring to in London a few weeks ago (I don´t think the British Museum has any whales). I agree it is not as impressive as the one in New York, and the exhibition is just a bit too crowded for my liking. 


Admittedly, I do not like this photo. The stitching did not work well with the giraffe (too close) and the skeleton above the whale, but I thought it would be nice to include it because of the comment (just to prove that I actually do read the few comments that I get).


By the way, I noticed that one of my pictures appears on the first page of results in a search engine when typing natural history museum london.

FoL (iii)

St Gallen

From time to time I look at the pictures I took a long time ago and I find photos like this one.

FoL (ii)

En realidad esta foto no tiene nada que ver con el Festival of Lights, excepto que ese día todo el mundo anda por la calle con el trípode a cuesas, y claro, ya que estás, pues aprovechas.

I wanted to take this one for a long time now. I have similar ones with day light, but not quite the same as at night.

Park

Would you risk your camera?

Dando un paseo por Xi'an (en realidad iba de camino a un museo, pero ésa es otra historia) me encontré varias tiendas de fotografía y electrónica. En una de ellas me encontré con esto y pedí permiso (por señas) para hacer la foto. No sé que pensaría el de la tienda cuando me vio sacar mi Canon!

En cualquier caso, no estoy seguro de si pondría mi cámara en un helicóptero, quizás porque Helicópteros fue la última asignatura que aprobé en la carrera.

Festival of Lights 2010

Last year I was in England during the Festival of Lights. This year I went out again to take some photos. I learned the lesson from previous times and got more layers of clothes than you can think of. I am not sure if I took the gloves off for the one above. Probably not.

Natural History Museum, New York

I have decided to create a new label called flashback with old photos I like but that somehow never made it into the blog.

Y ahora qué?

Muralla de Xi'an - Puerta Este

Mi hotel estaba cerca de una de las puertas de la muralla. Cuando llegaba del aeropuerto tuve que bordear parte de la muralla (tiene casi 14km en total) y recuerdo haberme acordado de las murallas de Ávila (unos 2.5km) y haber pensado que todo parece tener otro tamaño en China.

Hay más fotos de Xi'an en mi galería pública

View from Big Wild Goose Pagoda

Tempelhof

Some times I see the postcards on sale for tourists and I think, "I don´t like them at all" If you have the time, it is better to take your own postcards of the place you live in.


Not that it matters, but this is the 300th post I have published on this blog. Just noticed.

Pide un deseo

Big Wild Goose Pagoda

If you are wondering what can be seen from the seventh floor of the pagoda, make sure you come back to this blog in a few days.

Bronze Chariots

The soldiers are not the only treasures. The bronze carriages and the horses are at least as impressive. The second photo is a window of the museum. Very appropriate.

National Geographic - Otoño

National Geographic organiza un concurso con el otoño como tema, así que he presentado esta foto y ésta. No espero ganar, obviamente, pero ya que las tenía hechas...

Oktober

Foto presentada al concurso de National Geographic

Terracotta Army (ii)

Otoño en Berlín

Aunque el tronco ya no esté, el musgo sigue creciendo. La vida no se para.

Uno de los atractivos de Berlín son los bosques que hay en la ciudad. No hace falta ni el coche, basta con unos minutos en bicicleta.

Foto presentada al concurso de National Geographic

Terracotta Army

Exactly one month ago I visited the Terracotta Army just outside Xi'an. Certainly very impressive.

Reading

Contrasts

I guess like everywhere else, Hanoi is full of contrasts, same as Beirut, same as Xi'an, same as Berlin, same as New York. Walking around the center I could feel, see and smell the bustling life of Hanoi. I must admit I didn´t like everything I saw, but I suppose I am happy I saw it nonetheless, especially since I never thought I would be visiting Vietnam.


Some of the photos I took can be seen in my public gallery.

Street Vendors

You would imagine that this woman earns her living selling fruit. Well, think twice. You cannot really make much with such minute amounts of fruit. This woman makes her living getting tourists to pay for a photo with the hat and the baskets, at western prices. A colleague of mine has the photo after paying two dollars for a couple of bananas that, by the way, we did not eat.





There are hundreds, if not thousands, of other women in Hanoi carrying heavy goods in this traditional way. But these, I photographed discreetly from the back, not showing her faces and, believe me, were not so smiley as the one above...

Weddings in Hanoi

La cantidad de parejas haciéndose fotos de boda aquí es simplemente increíble. Lo curioso es que algunos de los fotógrafos tenían una cámara como la mía.

Creo que el collage tiene más fuerza desde el punto de vista de la composición que mostrar cinco entradas consecutivas con novias (y novias).

B52

Si hay algo que está en la memoria colectiva al mencionar Vietnam es, precisamente, la guerra con los EEUU. Quizás por eso me llamó la atención el hecho de poder pagar con dólares en casi cualquier sitio. Supongo que son guiños de la historia.

Hanoi

I spent all of last week in Hanoi. Although I was not there on holidays, I had time to walk around the city a little bit and take some photos. The one thing that caught my attention is motorcycles, which are used to transport pretty much anything. If you add a somewhat chaotic traffic system, a liberal rule on what constitutes a safe load and how best to keep it in place, it is the perfect mix for some interesting shots.

12 meses

Some time ago I read somewhere that as people grow older, years seem to pass quicker and quicker. Apparently this is so because repetitions are not felt as something new (even if they are not so in the day-to-day detail), so we pay less attention to years where nothing new has happened. This may be so, or not. Maybe I am not old enough for that yet, or maybe this was an odd year.

Looking back at the last 12 months I was actually surprised at how much travelling I have done to unusual places (for me at least), although I have always considered myself not much of a traveller. Even so, I managed to clock 24 flights to 14 airports in 6 different countries. Some flights were bought months in advance. Others were bought the night before. I spent 7 weeks away from home on business travel, and about the same amount away on holidays with my family. I drove cars in both sides of the road in places where I could understand the road signs and took taxis in those cities where I could not read a word. I rushed for flights from a hundred miles away and sat in airports for hours waiting for my flight. Most importantly, I enjoyed my time all along and always tried to find time to take a couple of photos to capture some of the moments I lived so that they could be shared with my family and friends. Some photos were shown in the blog, which went through ups and downs in terms of quantity and quality. Some were shown in my first exhibition, which was well received by friends here in Berlin and, finally, most were kept for my family or simply myself.

And on top of this, there was the excitement and the joy of seeing how our two children grow and start to reach for the world...

Schule

Cuando llegó de su primer día de colegio, le pregunté a mi hija qué tal lo había pasado. Me dijo que muy bien todo pero que estaba un poco disgustada porque ... no había aprendido nada ese día!

Sächsische Schweiz (ii)

Same conditions as in previous post. I programmed the posts about one month ago, while still on holidays. Right now I should be just about to come back home after spending a few days in China and Vietnam (business trip, but hopefully with some time to take photos of these countries, which I am visiting for the first time).

Sächsische Schweiz (i)

It was raining, I had my child on my back, one umbrella on one hand and a cheap compact (PowerShot A570IS) on the other hand. And still the photo came out reasonably well. I suppose on a sunny day it would have been packed with people, so I guess I was still lucky. I would not mind coming back one day with better gear and some time to spare. Beautiful area.

This is a shortcut to somebody with a higher budget and way higher creativity.

Ultimate DM 2010

It´s been a while since I last played Ultimate, but I was close to Jena on the weekend of the german championship (about a month ago) and managed to come round for a couple of hours and see a game or two. I got the decent shot above and two burnt arms before of the sun...

Hochzeit

While walking in one of Weimar´s parks during my holidays, I found this couple having their wedding photo session. They did not seem to mind me taking a few shots, although they probably did not notice that my interest was on the photographer and his crew!


Off-topic update: As it happens from time to time, today somebody from Madrid discovered the blog and spent some time reading it (30+ hits). And then disappeared without a message. Who knows, maybe he/she will come back? Maybe somebody I used to know?

En casa de Schiller

Wasserfall