Berlin, seen through a toy
Preparing for gallivanting across Europe in the very near future, I splurged on a new toy. Consequently, I spent today figuring it out on the fly, at least the basics. I'm talking about a Canon digital SLR, replacing my old Elan IIE film camera. Familiar design features are still where I expect them, but blimey, if they've haven't added a few more buttons and functions in a gadget-wild world.
One of the first few shots happened through blind luck. I was just experimenting with the image stabilizing zoom, when I caught a father just beginning to crouch so as to catch his son running towards him:
Shortly thereafter, my companion and I hopped an open-air double-decker bus for a tour of Berlin on one of its few sunny days in the autumn. These next few shots are of the Berliner Dom, the reconstructed church where the Hohenzollern family bury their dead and worship on occasion:
Those hulking concrete pillars are what's left of the Palace of the Republic, the fine piece of gargantuan government nonsense bequeathed to German architectural history by the GDR, and in the process of being removed as a gargantuan ex-government nuisance / eyesore.
Keep in mind I had to shoot these on the fly from a moving vehicle. I'm not claiming compositional expertise, mind.
Of course, Berlin sightseeing would never be complete without a shot of the old GDR TV tower complete with large metal ball containing a revolving restaurant, namely the Fernsehtürm that looms over darn near everything.
Shortly thereafter, we found our way and our 15 euro tickets cut off by a marathon of young adults and kids. After watching our bus back up from an alley with no exit, we abandoned a sunny Saturday meandering for home.
Perhaps to compensate, the weather supplied a nice sunset to go with the slowly building cloud cover:
Stay tuned while I figure out the nooks and crannies of the Canon digital world, and recover from a very, very busy month.
Berlin Berliner Dom Fernsehturm
