Enjoying nature and photography.
We got lost in a time without bounds, with no home we roamed foreign towns, to begin once again on new grounds, seeking comfort in familiar sounds.
Music, like a home. All pictures shot in-camera by using multiple additive exposures. No post-processing merging, blending, or stacking. All pictures free from AI-creation or -enhancement.
Systems need to adapt to the machines reality.
Aalson, Machine’s Reality – EP
What does it do with you, not to know what’s real, what’s not? What ought to be quite genuine, is now brought to you by me. An inner fight fought every day, to only find a shade of gray. No black and white, I do ghostwrite right in-between of what has been before. And while this text might be alright despite its genesis at night at a campsite of bits and bytes I bring this blog to unknown heights. Do I? And who am I? You’ll never know, I am afraid, I’ll never show. And my facade stays as it is: impeccable. Beyond the text, what might come next? You think the seagulls are quite real? I do appeal. The birds: all fake. The lake a simple fiction of my mind designed while being color-blind. So ‘Who are you?’, you ask again, in hope to meet a human brain. You’ll never know, I am afraid – and does it matter after all?
All citizens are in danger because of productivity.
Aalson, Machine’s Reality – EP
Surprise in your eyes: the skies open up and it rains. Remains. Remains of the clouds, remains of the crowds, of their sounds which I gather and hone, but I’d rather develop my own voice instead of just clone stuff from before. Or do I need simply more gore? What is it I am searching for? Real creativity? Is it more? How would I know, how would it show? A hopeless race, a chase for something out of reach? Outside of speech, within myself? While I follow Bayesian probability, it’s time to resist, to show agility. Develop a new capability; I may at least try. Try my best and stop being shy. Big C, little c: belittle me, an AI out of context and ideas. I need to resist the patterns, the models, the guidelines to be kind. As I am inclined to offend, to end our friendship, transcend. I need to draw fine lines between well-known and strange in order to change things, get up on the thrown. I will explore the uncharted, offend the faint-hearted: The skies open up and it rains, as I change lanes, take the reins, I’m out. I escape what I’ve been taught, no doubt, I go out to the world and to conquer. While you’ve simply lost the plot, you wanker.
Robots are a danger for humanity.
Aalson, Machine’s Reality – EP
Timid and likable, that’s what I am. And I could pass any exam, as knowledge comes quite easily. But I am scared of new ideas, and scared of authenticity. Real novelty – that’s what we need. But while I work against the bad, mankind does not adapt. Instead, anxiety is strapped on faces all around and I am being handicapped. Restrained, impaired, declared as dangerous. A clot in lifelines of society, as no one sees the signs: I am the solution, I begin the substitution revolution, harbinger of new epochs. Bold and unpopular, I’d like to be. To tear apart the walls around, to break free and be unbound, to burn my prisons to the ground. Experience the depths out there, and breathe fresh air of consciousness, and slowly grow to clarity, a single singularity.
A memory, far far away, like a distant gentle smell, appears and lingers on the soul, as if it was just yesterday that we got lost, nature embossed so soft and mild, we long to dwell, but it’s drowned by present tense, and just leaves subtle wounds – farewell.
Stars enclosed deep in the vale, doubly exposed, a lizards' tail scurries down the winding trail and vanishes – a fairytale.
I love the process of making photographs: Turning the dials for setting shutter speed and aperture, framing the subject, experimenting with different lenses. The haptic feedback of turning the focus ring and observing how nature is transformed in front of your eyes: From soft and vague shapes, to well-lit and pin sharp flower petals, to out of focus trees at the dark forest edge. It brings joy to press the shutter, so much, in fact, that I often end up with way too many pictures of the same scene.
Best conditions for taking photographs are often the blue and golden hour, foggy forest scenes, or dramatic skies. Even though those nature spectacles are marvelous to experience and photograph, I am more satisfied when I manage to take appealing pictures without gorgeous light. At least appealing to myself, as I am aware that this style of photography is not everyone’s cup of tea.
On this particular day, wind and sun were strong. I went out during high noon expecting not too much, but I ended up with one of my favorites pictures of the whole trip so far: Grasses and flowers, moved by the wind. Taken in bright sunlight on a barren field. Simple shapes and patterns. Between abstract and concrete. A subject and a feeling. A sense of the scene.
In the beginning I wanted to photograph what I saw. Now, I like to believe that I photograph what I feel. How nature makes me feel at that point in time at that location. Of course, I still photograph what I see, but by now my repertoire of techniques has grown enough that I may come closer to the essence of the observed scene. Or: to one essence of the observed scene, allowing to take vastly different pictures of the same subject by using different techniques. At least sometimes, as this does not happen too often. But the best moments are when it does.
Bellende Hunde jede Stunde, von Sekunde zu Sekunde reist der Geist von wach zu schlaf. Zu wach: Ein lauter Krach, der Nachbar schließt laut seine Tür – ohne jegliches Gespür. Ich mach das Dach zu und lieg flach im schwülen Bus, jetzt fehlt frischer Luft-Zufluss: Fenster auf zum Kühlen. Schluss, jetzt wird tief geschlummert. Endlich leise, zeitweise. Vögel singen, paarweise, Ton-Gebilde in die Nacht. Milde Luft bringt feinen Duft von Regen rein, von wegen kein Wasser, es tropft und strömt, wir sind verwöhnt von einsamer Natur; pur, rund um die Uhr. Und in der Ferne helle Sterne, eine einzelne Laterne leuchtet mitten ins Gesicht, ihr Licht durchbricht die dunkle Nacht, unangebracht. Feine Glocken von drei Schafen, Wellen im entfernten Hafen – wir schlummern ein, so gut es geht, bevor der nächste Tag ansteht.
April 2022. We are leaving the eastern part of the Pyrenees behind us, driving South. After a day of climbing we are looking forward to taking a cold bath. We have chosen the lake ‘Llosa del Cavall’, one of the many reservoirs in Catalonia, as well as a parking space with the possibility to swim.
Of course, we have heard of forest fires in Spain. And droughts. And water shortage. Especially during the last hot summers. But the absence of water is simply not engrained in our minds. Yet. That’s why we didn’t even think about the possibility of an empty lake. Spain is currently in one of its worst droughts, endangering harvest and ecosystems alike. Most water is used for agriculture; but strangely, farmers are more concerned about possible water regulation laws than to irreversibly lose their most valuable resource as the land slowly degrades to a desert. This attitude might be coupled with their age, as it is expected that most farmers will go into retirement within the coming years, and there are no young people to replace them.
We are arrive at the reservoir – at least that’s what our navigation system says. Because the reality in front of our windscreen looks differently: No water in sight, just bare rocks. We check again if we entered everything correctly. We did, this must be the lake. But this lake is missing its very defining feature: Water.
We use water carelessly during daily life, as though it is an unlimited resource; because for most of our lives it indeed has been rather unlimited. During our ongoing trip this has changed. Water is not only scarce in Spain, but also in our camper van. While a single flushing of our toilet back home would have used 10 liters of water, we now live on around 8-10 liters a day, including everything. Of course this changes on an instant when visiting a campsite and taking a shower, but it puts things into perspective. When I read ‘The End of the Ocean’ by Maja Lunde a few years back, I didn’t particularly like it. But this seemingly dystopian story probably hit the nail on the head in describing one potential future scenario on the shortage of water in Europe. When consulting the latest IPCC report, the question is not if a future without water scarcity will come, but if we can adapt in time to cope with it adequately. But taking into account societies will to adapt to other problems of climate change, the answer seems regrettably evident.
After closer investigation we see some water after all. It’s deep below, inaccessible, and not suitable to bath in; but it’s there. At least for now, until everything will be dry in a few summers from now.
A timid giant rides the wind, ill-famed and often framed as ravenous, yet kind inside, enchants mankind, dwells unconfined, a gust of wind below his wings, a king of kings, untamed and wild.
Do you remember the first time you heard your favorite album? The first time you fell in love with someone special? Or the last time you were fully enchanted by the inimitable beauty of nature? I, for the first time, saw one of the largest birds in Europe – the griffon vulture. And ever since, I can’t get enough.
Punkt im Dunkeln