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Diet? What diet?
I am just sitting down to lunch at La Brigada, meant to be one of the top parillas (grills) and therefore best steaks in Buenos Aires. Salivating already!
Returning to Buenos Aires
Had a somewhat chilled morning yesterday after my failed attempt to enter Brazil, wherein I decided that paying 150 US was not worth it for a 2 hour visit. Ah, the joys of being a Yank abroad!
So we made do with a bit more poolside lounging at the excellent Iguazu Jungle Lodge before heading into town to catch our bus. A slight detour to the best pizzeria in town, where we ordered large pizzas so we’d have leftovers for the bus. Our previous experience of the onboard dinner (mystery meat, vegetables an abomination of nature) suggested this was a rational course of action. Here followed (and continues) another largely comfortable first class 16 hour bus ride through the night, only this tme punctuated – 5 times – by Gendarmaria Nacional checkpoints, where serious looking men with fatigues and guns would conduct a serious looking but impotent search, one assumes for dodgy drug mules, but why dodgy drugs types would choose to smuggle on the first class bus is a mystery. In any case soon we will be returning to BA and then back to Quilmes for what is sure to be a whirlwind day with Pierce and Laura’s civil ceremony and the attendant festivities.Grand tour of Iguazu Falls
In the lap of (jungle) luxury
All good in Argentina
Just a quick one to say that the temporary trauma of the flight is over (short version: never ever ever fly Iberia long haul) we were welcomed to Quilmes, a suburb of Buenos Aires, by Pierce, the groom-to-be. Driven in past slums and stray dogs to a posh barrio to a house next to a thumping nightclub. Fortunately a few beers in Quilmes at some surprisingly lively and cosmopolitan bars meant that when we got back home we fell asleep instantaneously and I literally slept through the apocalypse. Woke this morning to the clip clop of horse and cart ambling past the house. Chilling day today, maybe go into BA centre later on before catching our 16 hour bus up north to Iguazu. Hopefully post a photo or two when i next have internet access.
On the road again
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Luke Robinson
luke@mortalcoil.com / londonluke@gmail.com
http://www.mortalcoil.com/
TIME Magazine issues The Year in Pictures 2009
TIME Magazine have released their 2009 Pictures of the Year. Understandably dominated by Obama, Afghanistan, and Iran. The Obama inauguration shot is ever-so-slightly messianic.
‘Not a Terrorist’ photographer to lodge formal complaint against police – Amateur Photographer
It seems the recent message from ACPO about stopping the harassment of innocent photographers has not percolated all the way down the ranks just yet.
An award-winning architectural photographer whose innocent photos of a church yesterday sparked a security alert in central London is to lodge a formal complaint against police.
Grant Smith said his complaint will focus on why police carried out an anti-terrorism stop and search even though he had already told them that he was photographing buildings.
The complaint – which he plans to send to City of London Police – will also question why police officers acted on what he claims was an ‘incorrect testimony’ given by security guards at Merryl Lynch bank.
Smith denied that he had been taking pictures of security staff near the Bank of America building on Cheapside, near St Paul’s Cathedral.
He said that a member of security staff pictured in one of the images ‘was incidental’ and that he was taking pictures as part of a personal project to photograph ‘the remaining steeple’ of Christ Church, Newgate, built by Sir Christopher Wren.
(Mostly) Amazing 3-D fly-through of London from Skrape
- A few of the “marquee” models, especially Buckingham Palace, could benefit from some more detailed modelling on their shapes. The flying buttresses of Westminster Abbey are correct and present, but the flat front of Bucks Palace looks like one of those drape-over jobs they put on buildings in Europe when they’re being renovated. It spoils the illusion somewhat.
- (very anal) The closeup “helicopter shot” around Big Ben shows two different clock faces simultaneously – and they are showing different times. Doh!
Via DPS: How to take International Street Portraits
Few things are more enjoyable than traveling in a foreign country and using your camera as a bridge to connect with locals. Especially in countries and areas which are under developed, you may find that many people have not had pictures taken of them – and certainly not by one with an SLR camera. With a few things to keep in mind, and a little pro-activism, you may find your international trip to be full of some very special, storytelling images.
I always struggle with working up the cojones to take “proper” portraits while travelling, especially if I am suffering poverty-related guilt. Not sure it will ever get any easier on that score, but this article has some good tips on getting the shots you’ll wish you’d been bothered to take later on…
Mortal Coil 