Sunday 23 October 2016

Magnetoffon Gorzów - PLAY !T LOUD - some impressions

After the Jazz Concert I moved to the Club Magnetoffon, a dance event was starting. I only took some shots and left before the beginning.


Jazz Club Pod Filarami Gorzów - Ed Cherry Special Trio

Born in New Haven, Connecticut, Ed Cherry moved to New York in 1978 to play guitar with Dizzy Gillespie from 1978 to 1992 performing in Gillespie's quartet, big band and with The United Nation Orchestra. In addition to his stellar work as a sideman and as a critically acclaimed leader, Ed Cherry also has impressive credentials as a music educator. He taught guitar at Essex Community College in Newark, NJ from 1995 to 1996, and at the Henry Street Settlement in New York City from 1996 to 1997. He was also a faculty member at Montclair State University, School of Fine and Performing Arts for J.O.Y. (Jazz Opportunity for Youth). 

Here in Gorzow he played with his new Trio together with Adam Kowalewski (bass) and Ark Skolik (drums).

All photos with Canon 5D III and EF 70-200 1:2.8 L IS II USM at ISO 1600.



 

Wednesday 19 October 2016

Kyūdō photos

Kyūdō (jap. 弓道, The Way of the Bow) is the art of Japanese archery, which is practiced since the 16th century.
 

About historic photos on Korean archery I have written in my first Blog (Walter Ulreich in Seoul: http://walterulreich.blogspot.com/2014/10/koran-nationwide-archery-competition.html). By and by I dicovered some Japanese historic photos on archery also. The strange design of the Japanese bow always fascinated me.

Wakatsuki Reijirō (若槻 禮次郎, 21 March 1866 to 20 November 1949) was a Japanese politician and the 25th and 28th prime minister of Japan. The text on the backside of this photo says "Premier Wakatsuki of Japan at archery practice in the garden of his official Tokyo residence. He takes a keen interest in the art, practicing whenever an opportunity permits. The Premier is also a judo expert." The photo is dated 12 August 1926 and shows stamps from 'Acme Newspictures' and 'Newspaper Enterprise Association'. This is an original press photo and retouching work can clearly be see on the outfit. 
Unknown archer, the photo is by Photostudio Misawa in Tokio, round 1920.
Hand coloured Japanese albumine print from about 1880-90.


Further reading:
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wakatsuki_Reijir%C5%8D

Monday 17 October 2016

Magnetoffon - Jachna/Mazurkiewicz/Buhl

Since two weeks I attend on the weekends a - for me - new club in Gorzów, the 'Magnetoffon', very nice location, friendly audience and great concerts. The club is located on the backside of the beautiful former 'Volksbad'. 

This weekend a Polish Jazz trio comprising of trumpeter Wojciech Jachna, bassist Jacek Mazurkiewicz and drummer Jacek Buhl played a mixture of Jazz and improvised music with electronic effects from their new album 'Dźwięki Ukryte'. 

As the stage room is very dark and I do not use flash lights, all photos are shot with ISO 25600. This is the highest ISO on the Canon 5D III, as lens I used the EF Macro 2.8/100 L IS USM. The high ISO brings much grain to the photos, which makes them looking somehow film-like. I converted them to black and white, because otherwiese they would have been very red, like the one unchanged photo at the beginning. The B/W conversion gives additional old fashioned impression.

Inside the 'Magnetoffon'

The latest album of the trio
 Ticket of the event









Further reading:

http://polish-jazz.blogspot.com/2016/05/jachnamazurkiewiczbuhl-dzwieki-ukryte.html

Sunday 16 October 2016

Gorzów - roof sceneries

Cloudy weather in Gorzów and cold, and I want to test my CFE Sonnar 4.0/180 under these harder photografical circumstances. Switched ISO to 400, shutter speed to 1/250 and made a little afternoon stroll through wellknown roads. This time I was looking more to the roofs of the houses. Aperture was mostly 4.0 (that is open aperture for this lens), in few cases 5.6.

The Sonnar 4.0/180 is one of the few new lens designs after the Hasselblad CF series and is known as superbly sharp and one of the best Zeiss lenses for Hasselblad. From the CFE version only 1000 to 2000 have been manufactured. My lens is from 2001.









 
 For the last photo I looked more to the bottom.


Skwierzyna - portrait of a town

Very subjective portrait of course! Skwierzyna (former Schwerin an der Warthe) is a little town situated only about 25 km south from Gorzów. I saw this town quite often from far going south for my monthly home trip to Austria. It is distinctive by its many towers and I always thought about visiting it for a closer look. This Saturday the weather seemed comparatively nice and I took my Hasselblad 503CXi out for a little excursion. 

I learned to use the Hasselblad for portrait formats too by the prism PME45. The VFC50c digital back has a rectangular format instead the native Hasselblad square format 6x6 and with the normal waste level finder it is nearly impossible to shoot portrait format. But the PME45 not only offers through-the-lens light measuring, with this device it is quite easy to shoot portrait format. Something a Hasselblad V serie camera never was thought for!

One of the destinctive towers in the town

Protestant Church

Town Hall from 1841



Post Office


 
 
Abandoned storehouse

Inside the storehouse

Old granary


Market stalls


The back side of the pretty town - waste management

Saturday 15 October 2016

Gorzów - St. Mary's Cathedral

St. Mary's Cathedral is the oldest building in Gorzów Wielkopolski. It was founded at the end of the 12th century on the site of the city's former church. The cathedral was constructed in the gothic style, although it also includes romanesque elements. 

Yesterday I visited a photo exhibition inside the Cathedral and took some evening shots outside with Canon 5D III and the little EF 1.8/28 lens. 



Today I visited the tower of the Cathedral up to the top as only foreigner with a big groop of Polish children. The tower is huge inside and the rooms are used as a museum. The guide explained a lot, I understood nothing. The church bell and turret clock photos are by smartphone. 





On the highest point unfortunately all windows with the nice views over the town were closed and locked. The window glasses were quite dirty, so I quickly decided not to take any photo. But the friendly guide mentioned my disappointment and that I brought a big heavy camera (Hasselblad 503CXi, Distagon 4.0/40, PME45 and digital back) all these steps up to the top and without a word unlocked two windows for me and I could shoot some city views. Very nice guide - thank you.