On 21st of June there was the first official photowalk in Vienna. At 6 a.m. our train left the railway station in Klagenfurt and we arrived at “Südbahnhof” in Vienna at 9h45. Then we (mgratzer and I) sponsored ‘Starbucks’ (I can recommend a Frappucino with Caramel) and ‘Burger King’ (a double whopper menu is really too much for me) and at 2 p.m. we (19 people) met us at the tramway station ‘Schottenring’. We ‘photowalked’ along the metro U2 with it’s new metro stations up to the ‘Ernst-Happel-Stadion’.

There were also two funny photowalkers from Burgenland with us, one of them asked some young tourists to dive into ankle-deep water (you can see on the photo below).

After a great photowalk we went back by train and arrived in Klagenfurt at 23h30.

… but I want to clarify that I’m no hippie…

Today I shot a few photo of some cut flowers. Therefore I used a tripod and my beloved lens, the Tamron macro f3.5 with 180 mm. With manual focus the lens works really well, the results are below:

Yesterday mgratzer and I took on Radsberg Open 2008 in Oberkreuth some photos. Unfortunately the weather was really bad for photographing. The view was okay, but the clouds were in contrary to the pilots too lightish.

While mgratzer tested his brand new 40D, I shot most of my pictures with my 400D and my Tamron 180 mm macro lens. I also had the chance to try mgratzer’s ‘Canon 70-200 f4.0 L USM’ lens and I was really impressed by the speed of the USM.

Although the weather was not perfect I wanted to try plane-spotting.

In Google Earth I have had a look where the light and the position could be great.

In the southern of the runway the position was useable, but because of the fence of the airport you can see on the picture below, I should buy a small ladder.

Other aggravating circumstances (erschwerte Umstaende) were some small kids ripping on the fence and after the landing of the yellow ‘tuifly’ it began to rain. :’(

Nevertheless I’m going to go there more often – it’s a great training for using manual focus.

Yesterday I photowalked in my hometown around the fanzones ”Neuer Platz” and ”Messegelaende”.

I was surprised that beside the fanmiles and fanzones it was rather quiet, as on a normal Sunday. The alarums and excursions were only inside the projected fanzones. Another thing that caught my eye is that everywhere were policemen but most of them were from Germany.

When I tried to get inside the fanzone ”Neuer Platz” I really thought the guys from the security want to kid me: Firstly without having a press card it is not allowed to get into such a fanzone with a DSLR and secondly my Tamron 180 mm was too long, it could be used as a weapon. Nevertheless they let me in – I think I’m not really the target group of hooligans that make troubles.

”Neuer Platz”:

”Messegelaende”:

Some fans:

By the way:

We have had a little guest in our family a few days ago and now I’m missing her:

One month ago a good-natured, small black cat strayed to us. Because it wasn’t our first cat, we decided to keep her private. A few days later we went to a veterinarian who told us that she must be pregnant with a sureness of 80%.

However with the help of the animal shelter in Klagenfurt we found the real owner of the cat, a week ago – even though we didn’t want to give her away any more.

For another time we went to the veterinarian, because the real owner told us that he sterilised her. And really – she has never been pregnant.

But I was surprised that a cat aged 6 months is able to litter 3 to 6 cats.

Cats are real ‘breeding-machines’