Photography | uncoy

Paolo Fresu and Ralph Towner at Porgy & Bess: Chiaroscuro tour

Paolo Fresu and Ralph Towner at Porgy & Bess: Chiaroscuro tour

Published March 2, 2010

Superb trumpet play, along with quiet mastery on the guitar. Your ears are there for Paolo Fresu but Ralph Towner makes it all possible.

I bought the Chiaroscuro CD while I was there. Surprisingly the CD is just a shadow of how Fresu and Towner play live together. This is one rare occasion where the live performance clearly outranks what the musicians can do in the studio. I guess you had to be there.

Porgy & Bess artistic director Christoph Huber was very animated after the show as well. It was one of the top five concerts I’ve ever attended there in five years.

Paolo Fresu on trumpet

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Elio Gervasi – Geckos: The Extraordinary Ordinary

tanz-company-gervasi-geckos-kenia-bernai-gonzales-leoni-wahl

Elio Gervasi – Geckos: The Extraordinary Ordinary

Published February 11, 2010

Elio Gervasi is the great master of movement among the Vienna choreographers. His work is usually musical, the light design exquisite and artistic direction provoking. Gervasi has a talent to take simple daily objects and make them special.

Tanz Company Gervasi Geckos Kenia Bernai Gonzales Leoni Wahl

And so it is with Geckos.

Here we meet in the rehearsal hall on Laxenburgerstrasse. The ceilings are a bit lower than in a full theatre, the seating more limited. But no matter, Markus Schwarz’s light makes the space bigger, pouring light through blinds set up between a side room and the main rehearsal space.

Leoni Wahl Salvatore la Ferla

The décor is a single red armchair which serves as a place for lovers to sit together, for one lover to miss the absent one and for another as a cliff from which she considers self-destruction.

Tanz Company Gervasi Geckos Leoni Wahl psychological tightrope

Gervasi is working with three dancers here, all excellent. The long and handsome Italian Salvatore la Ferla, the compact Kenia Bernai Gonzales and longtime muse Leoni Wahl.

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Kaffeesiederball 2010 | Nokia N97 Mini High ISO Photos

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Kaffeesiederball 2010 | Nokia N97 Mini High ISO Photos

Published February 11, 2010

Warning: schizophrenic weblog post on the way.

Kaffeesiederball 2010 Nokia N97 Mini high ISO 01

The Kaffeesiederball together with the Opernball are Vienna’s two best balls. It’s a very close call which is better. I’d say the Kaffeesiederball with its 15 live orchestras is more fun, while the Opernball is more glamourous. But the Opernball is fun too, and Kaffeesiederball has glam aplenty. The contrast between both and banal balls like the Artztball (Physicians’ Ball) are striking.

Kaffeesiederball 2010 Nokia N97 Mini high ISO 02

Usually I have some great shots of the Kaffeesiederball but due to an arm strain back at the Austrian Fashion Week which turned into RSI, I’m off the main camera with full lens setup except for special occasions. Quite nice as it means that I can enjoy evenings without trying to capture fleeing time through a lens. Just for fun for a few minutes in the middle of the evening I pulled out the Nokia N97 mini and tried some snaps with it. Definitely not a low-light camera, but I can see that if one caps ISO at 400, the pictures are not at all bad.

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How Aperture 3 Will Make Your Photos Better: Curves

Published February 11, 2010

Curves are a game changer for photography. Learn how to use curves in Apple Aperture to improve speed in workflow and the quality of your work.

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Viennale Soul Powered on Badeschiff

Viennale Soul Powered on Badeschiff

Published November 9, 2009

Managed to catch some Viennale films and a couple of Viennale parties.

The strange thing at the parties is that many of the people there had not been to any films or to just one film. I suppose at the films many of the people had not been to any parties.

If you get the chance, I’d recommend to do both.

While I was at the Soul Powered evening on 31 October I managed to snap some photos both upstairs and downstairs.