An old un-posted travel story.._

Intro

“Mediating with Comics in Environmental Education” was the title of the event I was fortunate to participate in France 22.11 – 29.11.2008. Basically the idea of this was to teach and discuss how to raise the awareness of environmental issues through comics. Event was organized by TERA-Maison de l’Europe de la Charente in cooperation with Regional office of the French Ministry of Youth and Sports, the CNBDI (National Center of Comics and Picture), the Centre de découverte d’Aubeterre.
Event took place in little town called Aubeterre-sur-Dronne and Angoulême – World capital of comics. Aubeterre was the headquarters of the event and CNBDI (National Center of Comics and Picture) in Angoulême was where the seminars were held.
Participants gathered from all over the Europe – Creek, Macedonia, Romania, Latvia, Spain and of course hosting country France and myself from Estonia. It was an misfortune that people from Armenia and Georgia couldn’t participate.

Conclusions – in random order:

• French are about cheese, red wine and hospitality.
• French have lunch as a social event – its no problem to eat lunch for an hour.
• Some even speak English.
• The hardest English word for them is “environment”.
• French know how to make a short story long.
• Creek have some strange chewing gum and alcohol. Alcohol must be better than the chewing gum, cause it did not last long, while the gum lasted forever.
• French have some really strange green marmalade jam.
• French have some weird cars (have you seen electric window control in the center console? Fuel filter nearby rear right wheel?)
• French are very thorough.
• An airport can have inner railroad system.
• Romanian men are strong-boned, probably wrestling with a bear in their free time.
• Romanian women don’t talk when they have nothing to say.
• Macedonian men are quiet observers and can tell a joke.
• Paris is very much afraid of terrorists.
• French are very tolerant.
• Countryside around Aubeterre-sur-Dronne is amazing – people, landscape, atmosphere…
• Every house has window covers, I don’t know why.
• French don’t use much spices in their food while desserts are very sweet. Desserts make an excellent combination with coffee.
• French have their morning cereals with warm milk.
• French eat the 300 different types of cheese with bread, not bread with cheese like us.
• There is a university in the World where they teach how to draw comics. That is in Angoulême.
• You need GPS to navigate.
• You can have unlimited roundabouts in a city.
• French love-love-love comics.
• You can have a store which sells only comics and covers about 100 square meters.
• French are very aware of environmental issues and teach ecology in schools.
• Some parts of Spain already face clean water issue and have a factory to make sea water drinkable. So it isn’t a “to come” issue.
• Lost baggage can be found.
• Don’t buy books as souvenirs, nor accepts them as gifts if you don’t have wheels on your suitcase.
• Travel insurance IS needed, accidents DO happen. I hope you get well soon unknown Estonian who was taken to hospital from Amsterdam airport.
• There are book authors who spend about 15 minutes writing-drawing you a dedication.
• There are people who walk around with a sketchbook and pocket-brush in their pocket. They draw anytime and anywhere.
• To some age French children have 4 days of school per week.
• Comics can be excellent way to make long story short. For example this blog post would be on 3 A4s if drawn by a good comic artist instead of way_too_long-hard-to-read-boring text. As they say: “One good picture says more than 1000 words”.
• Comics are extra useful for those who have “visual memory” (like me).
• So comics can be extra efficient educational material.
• Sarkozy can be present in every comic strip in the newspaper. Good guy, no unemployed comic artists!
• Star Alliance’s emergency baggage contains following stuff: perfume, a comb, a razor, shaving foam, a white T-shirt size of XXL, toothpaste, a toothbrush, absorbent cotton, ear cleaning sticks and some strange white powder. I didn’t forget to write shampoo or shower gel here, it wasn’t included in the package.

Image: Momo not just signing, but drawing a full page dedication

Equipment: Hasselblad 500 c/m, Carl Zeiss Planar 80mm f2,8 / Kodak Professional 120

Full set @ http://www.tiblu.com/img/mediumformat2008_4

The main rule of photography for me – If you see an opportunity for a great shot, you take it, no mater what. Once you’ve missed it, you’ve missed it. There will never be the exact same situation. Better safe than sorry.

Image: That’s the real photographers spirit right there (Prague 2009)

Equipment: Sears TLS, Auto Sears 55mm f1.4, Illford Delta 400

Full set @ NONE

I’m really out of words. That does not happen often and it feels akward.
Here is the first set from Kiev 6C. I really love 2 shots – the one attached to the post and the other with the girl having the “eagle look” on surroundings, checking out the next victim to photograph.
That’s it and remember: “Actions speak louder than words..”

Image: Mister sleeping on a bench in Prague.

Equipment: Kiev 6C, Vega-12b 90mm f2.8 / Kodak Professional 120

Full set @ http://www.tiblu.com/img/mediumformat_Kiev_6C_2009_1/

Yes, it is Hasselblad give-away! – I have to give it back to the rightful owner of the camera. So the last film was shot full quickly cause I had delayed enough already. Set is quite short, I took a lot of shots of my bass, no reason to post all of them here, just my favorite.
I have been searching for a replacement for the camera. I have found one, but no hints before the first film is developed and scanned.

Image: Tallinn zoo, the dude goes like “Wow thats a wicked camera!” and the chick is like “Indeeed…”.

Equipment: Hasselblad 500 c/m, Carl Zeiss Planar 80mm f2,8 / Kodak Professional 120

Full set @ http://www.tiblu.com/img/mediumformat2009_6/

Today I’ve been flash-backing. I don’t know what happened, but just as year 2009 started I got a few fails.

The worst fail was that my grandfather Diki passed away. I really admire the man – that optimism, that will power, that kindness, that fair-mindedness, that enthusiasm. He had all that though he had gone trough a war and imprisonment. For example – how many grandpas are there who at the age of almost 80 decide to learn how to use a computer. We bought him a machine, he had some books and few months later he introduces me Skype. He had bought speakers, mic and was already an experienced user. He used it to keep contact with children/grandchildren here and abroad.
It was really cool how he memorized stuff – as he couldn’t speak English, he had this little notebook where he had written down all the steps to achieve a specific goal. “Click START, click Programs, click Skype.”, same for opening Word. I once explained him how to add an image to a Word document, he wrote it down step-by-step. I find it pretty amazing and I really want this notebook as a memory of him, as a symbol of will power and enthusiasm.
He was also a keen surfer in the Internet. Of course it wasn’t all that easy at the beginning cause on every pop-up he pressed “Yes” and ended up having a lot of malware in the computer that my relative had to remove regularly. That happens to every new user. It all got way better when my mom told him to press “No/Cancel” to every un-expected question. Also, at first he couldn’t re-use browser windows, he opened up a new window for every new page he wanted to visit and did not close the previous, so the computer run out of resources now and then. Again, can happen to every new PC user.
Oh yes, one day he went to a store and bought himself printer-scanner-copier and learned to use that as well.
Looking back, he never forgot those who were around him, I mean never. I can’t remember a single negative experience with him although we shared the World for almost 25 years. Zero. For real. Amazing.  Try performing the same stunt on people close to you - there’s a lot that we can give.
Now he rests in peace.

I also failed to measure light properly the whole film. I decided to do some fail-posting to kick myself in the butt a bit by showing my totally failed shots also. As they say: “Good photographer is the one who shows only his best shots”. I’m not good photographer, I’m just another enthusiast doing it for the fun of it.

Image: The only and failed shot on film from my grandpas funeral.  

Equipment: Hasselblad 500 c/m, Carl Zeiss Planar 80mm f2,8 / Illford Delta 3200

The Fail Set @ http://www.tiblu.com/img/mediumformat2009_5/

Let me introduce you to my friend Von Sten who is well known as a graveyard photographer. He is the guy who suggested me my first film camera Sears TLS and after years of digital took me back to film photography. He equips me with films, hosts the development events and scans the negatives. He’s a great guy and friend with photography for a very long time. He’s studying photography right now and I like how he goes – while others represent their work as 10×15 digital image printout, while shooting medium/large formats, his works negative can be the same size and the final result A4, A3 or whatever. He experiments with all sorts of old cameras and related equipment, he has always something interesting coming out of his sleeve.
As I have to give back the Hasselblad to it’s owner, Sten lends me Kiev 6C medium format camera. Let’s see what comes out of that piece of equipment.
I’m thankful for all the help he provides and I suggest you check out his stuff @ http://www.flickr.com/photos/vonsten/

Image: The graveyard photographer after hard working day with 2 gravediggers. 

Equipment: Hasselblad 500 c/m, Carl Zeiss Planar 80mm f2,8 / Kodak Professional 120

Full set @ http://www.tiblu.com/img/mediumformat2008_4/ (mostly 2nd film from France)

So, here I was going all fancy about returning to real photography. So, here I am with first results. I’d say I missed a lot when it comes to exposure and focus. But still I have more quality in my last 10 shots on film than I had in my last 1000 digital ones.

Picture: My father and my mother. Happy people I must say and I’m happy with them.

Equipment: Hasselblad 500 c/m, Carl Zeiss Planar 80mm f2,8 / Arista Ultra 400 (developed in rodinal).

Thanks to Sten for another fun development event and Tanel for scanning.

Full set @ http://www.tiblu.com/img/firstmediumformat2008/

So, on one evening, when I was too tired to drive home I landed @ Piibe’s place in Kadrioru. With Kirke, they were minding their own business as usual and I decided to make a shot or two. Here you go.

The full set can be found @ http://www.tiblu.com/img/kadriorg2008.

And there is more, an animated gif for all you oldschool animation fans HERE!