So we return again to the photos from my walk along the Rhine last week. I don’t know what tree this is but they seem to waiting for spring to bloom again.

This is the final photo in a series of three connected with the carnival preparations of a friend. That strange white color on his face is not a PP artifact, it is his make-up!

Here is the second photo in a series of three connected with the carnival preparations of a friend. This is the same guy as yesterday. In this, he was being given some expert help by another friend. While she touched up his make-up the rest of us were wondering aloud about all the strange stuff women use to beautify themselves, lip liner, eye liner, lip gloss, blush, foundation, glitter…and the list is endless! It is a whole different world, cosmetics for women!

Since today is the beginning of carnival I thought it would be appropriate to post something connected to it. This is a friend of mine putting the finishing touches to his make-up that would go with his costume before he ventured out.

This was one of the rare instances of me shooting in jpeg format. Later, while reviewing I realized how much more ‘safe’ shooting in RAW is. Since I’m still not very good at getting proper exposures the original of this shot came out very dark. In RAW, the latitude for error correction is much greater, not so in jpeg. Still, I managed to get something back and I think the photo now conveys something of what I wanted it to in the first place. If you are looking at the focal length in the exif data and wondering where the rest of the image has gone, yes, this photo is cropped!

Thanks for the nice comments yesterday, much appreciated. This is one of the few macro shots from the shoot along the Rhine. Again, I played around a bit with PP on this. Used selective color and contrast to make the leaf stand out better against what is a slightly cluttered background.

Finding very good deals, I splurged and bought myself two wonderful cameras recently, one is the professional film camera, Minolta Dynax 9 and the other is the excellent Minolta Dynax 7D, the bigger sibling of my existing 5D. The former, now sadly discontinued, I bought cheap because of a defect and so is sent for repair but I took the latter out for a spin yesterday and today. The 7D is a superb camera to handle, fitting like a glove into my hands, with every control at your fingertips like in the old film cameras and not buried in some hidden menu feature. Due to Minolta’s exit from the camera business there are some really good deals to be had for the 7D (or the 5D). If you are looking to buy a dSLR I’d very strongly recommend this (or the 5D). I’m sure you will not be disappointed by them.

This is from yesterday’s shoot. It is the shop front of the recently opened Peek and Cloppenburg store. The building was long time in the making, needing nearly four years to finish after a series of delays. Clothes are really good, but of course, it is uber expensive and only for those whose wallets are really heavy!