adetorrent; photography, lifestyle.

Just like that, I was handed a  Zenit-E by an elderly Slovakian gentleman. It had been well looked after, loved even - obviously, and it came complete with it's original everything. I was happy. I was very happy indeed. The Zenit-E I believe was manufactured in western Moscow between the mid sixties to the early eighties.  It's a rugged-as-heck pentaprism SLR camera capable of shutter speeds from B to 1/500. The default lens is the Helios-44-2 58mm f/2. It also has an inbuilt selenium cell exposure meter, which means no batteries are required what so ever.  However the meter is not TTL, so it is somewhat equivalent to carrying a standalone meter. I let this camera sit on the shelf for a few months before even loading it with its first roll for two reasons.  One, I had a few other cameras ahead of this one to test.  Two, I found the exposure meter a bit baffling at first, and after playing with it for a few hours and figuring it all out, decided to ...

O, M, G! This is like toooootally a-maze-inn!

Sometimes I get a roll back from the lab, and I just spend the first 15 minutes laughing.  Technical errors, over exposure, framing mistakes and what have you.  This hobby is 50% comedy I tell you.

And here we are, it's the following day and the storm has subsided into a jovial wind while the clouds periodically part to let in glorious rays.

To that guy that plummeted to his death off the big bank building in Canary Wharf yesterday, rest in peace.

You heard it here first.  Sunday has been renamed appropriately.  

How is it that a metal tube weighing about 2.5 million kilograms, laden with a cargo of 2.5 million kilograms - human and otherwise, manages to take to the air and move through the apparent void of atmospheric nothingness? It makes no sense. Not from down here looking up, not from up there looking down. Ok. So, channeling Isaac Newton the great, a certain Leonhard Euler explained the concept thoroughly way back in 1754 .  To paraphrase - a curved body moving through fluid (air, say) experiences a difference in pressure from the fluid above and below it. This pressure gradient creates movement of the body in the direction of the pressure gradient, creating 'lift' (or dip, depending).  This lift is proportional to the velocity and angle of interaction of the body and fluid. Offsetting lift against gravity thus is how these gigantic metallic birds, and flesh-and-blood ones too in fact (albeit slightly differently), take to the air as if by magic. I am well aware of t...

It's theoretically Boxing Day in England right now, but It's still Christmas in America, so I suppose I'm still on time. Besides, in ancient days when all this went down, it wasn't the 'next day' until sunrise, or at least dawn. Anyhow, in honour of the (modern) origin of the whole Christmas shebang, here are some photos of christian places of worship, mostly cathedrals and old churches in England and Spain, all taken with my Olympus 35 RC. I wish you all peace, love and happiness.