Tag: Me2

Passion

This weeks word on Stuckinplastic is Passion, and after my musings on last weeks word with Friends, I was thinking what does passion mean for me.

Wikipedia calls it like this:

Passion is the feeling of intense enthusiasm towards or compelling desire for someone or something. Passion can range from eager interest in or admiration for an idea, proposal, or cause; to enthusiastic enjoyment of an interest or activity; to strong attraction, excitement, or emotion towards a person. It is particularly used in the context of romance or sexual desire, though it generally implies a deeper or more encompassing emotion than that implied by the term lust.

Hmm. Another topic listening to a letter W comes to mind, but that will be a different post, with different kind of images. Maybe. Later.

Fishing Rod

So, back to the eager interest Wikipedia was talking about. An interest that reminded me of fishing rods.

A good 15 years ago, when we moved to Sweden, we made the move from the big city of Leuven to the awesome country (or should I say water) side of the Stockholm Archipelago. We got ourselves a little boat and started to explore the Stockholm Archipelago from the water side. One of the first things I bought once we had our little boat was a fishing rod.

Being out on the water, trying to catch some fish sounded like a good idea. I managed to catch everything from seaweed to hats and caps of my fellow boatsmen, but actually never any fish. A few tries later, and I permantly exchanged my fishing rod for a new camera and have been out on the water taking pictures ever since.

P as in Photography

I am not sure what would have happened if I would have caught some fish on those first few trips, but for sure my passion for photography was rejuvenated the day I decided to exchange the fishing rod for a new camera.

The rest is history and photography has been my passion ever since.

When a few years later I returned from the dark ages, and added LEGO to my photography subjects, my passion extended into toy photography.

I took this picture of Albert this morning on the cliffs of Kungshamn while out and about with some good friends in the other Archipelago on the West Coast.

While our boat is still on land (two more weeks to go) my passion continues.
With plastic friends and their fishing rod.
Taking pictures of their adventures.
A passion for (toy) photography.

Evolution

A new post.

2018 is well underway.
January is running to an end.
And I have been rethinking my workflow a little.
Still very much work in progress, but I will be consolidating some of my little projects here on this blog and in my little portfolio.
No revolution.
Just a logical evolution of my creative journey.

Me2 got his own blog a long time ago. Then came that little collective called Stuck In Plastic, and it has been difficult to get all the adventures connected.
I have shared a lot of my plastic adventures last year on the SiP blog.
Neglected Me2’s blog and struggled along the way to keep up my promise to post here once a week.

I will continue to actively post on SiP.  And I will add some more personal musings on all things plastic here and actually start consolidating Me2 adventures and plastic explorations here on my blog. Evolution.

Fifty-two and a little.

And that brings me to this year creative challenge we embarked on over at SiP. Fifty-two words to explore. Fifty-two odd images. Fifty-two weeks.
And this is week four.
And yes.
I managed so far to keep up the pace and follow the rhythm.
And this weeks word is fitness.
For those who know me, I am struggling with keeping up appearances at the local fitness club.
For sure I would need to get rid of a good 4K to have a full mens sana in corpore sano approach.
But hey, the next challenge will be the mens sana then.

Fitness.

So back to fitness.
After considering shooting some images in the fitness above the Diner (more on that later), I am happy I did not go that road, as Lynn did a fantastic job on that.

So I did what I always do when I am looking for inspiration and went to Wikipedia.

Fitness (often denoted w or ω in population genetics models) is the quantitative representation of natural and sexual selection within evolutionary biology.

Ouch. And it does not get easier.

It can be defined either with respect to a genotype or to a phenotype in a given environment. In either case, it describes individual reproductive success and is equal to the average contribution to the gene pool of the next generation that is made by individuals of the specified genotype or phenotype. The fitness of a genotype is manifested through its phenotype, which is also affected by the developmental environment. The fitness of a given phenotype can also be different in different selective environments.

Darwinian Fitness

I have to admit I had no clue what phenotypes are. But luckily Wikipedia had a nice introductory article on genetics. If you want to know more about phenotypes and a good refresher on genetics, I warmly recommend the read.

With asexual reproduction, it is sufficient to assign fitnesses to genotypes. With sexual reproduction, genotypes are scrambled every generation. In this case, fitness values can be assigned to alleles by averaging over possible genetic backgrounds. Natural selection tends to make alleles with higher fitness more common over time, resulting in Darwinian evolution.

And that is where it clicked.

The evolution of (plastic) men into space.
A new take on the evolution of Sapiens (the species, not the book).
The interplanetary species as part of our “Darwinian fitness” program.

To boldly go …

The evolution of little plastic space cowboys

About Space Cowboys

I created the evolution of Me2 as the invite for my 40th birthday (a long time ago) and I thought it was a good exercise to try it again.
I had the idea and wanted to execute on it.
There are some flaws in the picture, but I also wanted to execute the idea in a short period of time. And the flaws actually contribute to the Darwinian fitness program. I kinda like it.

 

O’Kay

Every year we have a little photo project running during our summer holidays and this year is no different. We had a new friend joining us in our little adventure. A security droid with attitude, listening to the name of Kay. I talked about him in that other famous blog of note (joke intended).

Kay waiting at the steps to join the crew at the ferry to Kiel.

A droid with attitude that will make a prominent place in this year’s coffee table book.

Kay taking selfies in the Colosseum … one of the many places we visited this summer …
Enjoying the evening cool of the city …

A droid that socialized pretty well after being hand painted by our chief builder and master painter Birk. Maybe he socialized a little bit too well …

Our little droid took the cider serious on day one … a true new hope …
And demanded his own little Espresso on the Piazza of Turin.
Kay taking pictures of tourists …

Okay Kay.

You are a true family member …

The Five Lands

The Cinque Terre (Italian pronunciation: [ˈtʃiŋkwe ˈtɛrre]; Ligurian: Çinque Tære, meaning “Five Lands”) is a rugged portion of coast on the Italian Riviera. It is in the Liguria region of Italy, to the west of the city of La Spezia, and comprises five villages: Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore. The coastline, the five villages, and the surrounding hillsides are all part of the Cinque Terre National Park and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a clear No Fly zone. 

Exactly. No fly. No drones. 

You find photographers in all sizes and flavours. From the pure purists who will only shoot with a Leica and a prime over the brand fashionistas (Sony is a hot brand these days) to the extremes of rugged allround photographers who use their gear, and the geeks who actually talk shop, but may be less in taking pictures (how sharp can a lens be) or printing them for the fear of chromatic abberation (also known as purple rain). You find us in all kind of flavours. From strawberry to caffe latte and I am kind of in the middle. I like my gear, I am a loyal brand fashionista (more because I cannot change my glass that often, and I do hope Nikon will bring out a new mirrorless body in the full frame range in a few years, that let me reuse my glass I invested in over the years), and I believe in the mantra that the best camera around is the one at your fingertips. So as most of you know I travel with my good old Nikon D600, my ever evolving iPhone and my beloved Falcon II (actually it is a DJI Phantom IV, but gadgets need a name).

And here I was. In the middle of the five lands, screaming to get the drone out for the perfect shot, when traffic control decided otherwise. 

Time to get the hiking boots out and walk to the end of the jetty to get that almost perfect sunset shot. 

The end of the Jetty

And it was crowded there on the Jetty. 
So crowded I ended up with getting photobombed by the crew trying to get the attention of Woody while rescuing lens caps of total strangers and hang out with this and other photographers on the Jetty.

Photobombing is an art.
Fun it was.

B.

PS. The other members of the Crew where enjoying a local white wine at the top of the hill under The umbrella at the right while looking down on our climbing efforts to get that “perfect” shot. 

Me2 – The Sfinks



The original story was created and posted by Me2 at Blurb Mobile here.