I was in Slovakia a few weeks ago, and I felt like listening to OK Computer, by Radiohead. This is already an incredible album, and pretty much kills me every time listen to it, but I came upon a really strange realization while I listened the 4th track, Exit Music (for a film). I wanted to pay attention to the lyrics, because if there’s one thing I do with songs, is overlook (or overlisten?) the lyrics, which a lot of the time are just as powerful, if not more powerful, than the music itself. I started listening to the lyrics, but found myself unable to concentrate. Not even after a verse I found myself so taken by the music that I forgot that I was listening to the lyrics.
I start the song from the beginning and this time I make sure to listen to the lyrics only. It wasn’t easy, but I managed to follow the lyrics up until the buildup, where the bass comes in, with minimal restarts. The pinnacle of the buildup is THE part of the song that always gives me the shivers, and I found it impossible to concentrate on the lyrics beyond that point. The music is just too powerful; it’s just too raw, too honest and too authentic. I don’t know, but I couldn’t do it. The music just felt too good. I am absorbed by it so much every time that I don’t care about anything else; I just enjoy it as it comes. It fills me from my head down to the bottom, to the tips of my toes.
It’s a rare experience, and few groups are able to do this. Few groups are able to reach that level and are able to hit that nerve within me.
Radiohead somehow manages to consistently combine the music and lyrics into a homogeneous mixture of beautiful emotional sounds which must resonate at the same frequency as the human body.
This is how music should be, all the time. Thank you, Radiohead.
The worst thing about photography is the fact that you never capture exactly what you see. There is such a diversity of colours and brightness levels that a camera simply cannot capture. Compromises have to be made for a satisfactory picture to be produced, and sometimes it’s hard to come to a happy medium.
Days with bright sunlight often tend to blow out the sky out, leaving it completely white. If you attempt to capture some of the sky the way it actually looks, with its cloud formations and deep blue colour, then you’re likely to underexpose the subject of the photo. The greater the difference between the brightest colour and the darkest, the harder it is to come to a happy compromise. This difference is called the dynamic range of a photo.
The dynamic range that can be captured in a photo depends on the camera sensor and the file type. Different cameras obviously have different sensors, the better sensors being capable of capturing a greater dynamic range than other sensors. The file type is probably the more important of the two. Cameras can usually save in JPEG or raw. Shooting in JPEG limits the amount of information stored in a photo, and basically puts the camera in control of what is being saved. This severely limits the potential of photos when post processing, and hence limits the higher dynamic range that could be achieved.
HDR stands for High Dynamic Range, and this type of photography produces exactly that: A photo that has a High Dynamic Range. This is done with a combination of photos taken at different Exposure Values in order to piece together something that more accurately represents what the human eye sees, something that would otherwise be impossible with one photo.
I had my first attempt of this yesterday, and here are my results:
Comparing a photo with a HDR to one without, a standard photo, is like comparing the same piece of music being played straight, note for note, without variation in volume, without accentuating important parts and without playing with the physical nature of the instrument itself. It’s like listening to an important piece of writing being read by a politician, or a poet.
For the sake of knowledge,
there is no other
than shapes and colours
and feeling each other.
the poetic feeling comes and it goes
holding my faith,
in my hands and my toes.
I want to hold it,
it's grander than light,
I want to consume it
make it all of my life.
I want to inspire it,
take hold of my soul,
but the truth is I surround it
it’s the greatest thing I know.
It’s nothing I can hold
it’s nothing I can eat
it’s something that I feel,
before I go to sleep.
there’s no recollection in dimes
in shapes or times,
it’s all I feel every minute,
of any day, anytime.
My essance lies within it
My presence with it shines,
I am the revolution within it,
it’s forever and always this time.
Szabó Petra
A friend of mine wrote this beautiful poem, and every so often I feel like it perfectly describes the mood I'm in.
Today we went up to the highest point in the area, a hill from which you could see (at least while we were there, an autumn afternoon doesn’t usually bring the clearest weather) 7 or 8 villages and the city, Székelyudvarhely, in the distance.
Sose fogom elfelejteni azt az út, fel a kilátóhoz, a terepjáróban. Ahogy a délutáni nap sütött a lombos, vékony fák között… Ahogy a levelek gyulladtok fel, mint egy vadtűz, a ragyogó napfénytől.
Amikor megérkeztünk a hegytetejére, felnéztem a kilátó irányban. Ott lobogott a magyar és székely zászlók. Egy jó melegítő érzés áradt ki a szívemből, mosolyogtam és a kilátóhoz indultam.
Csodálatos volt a kilátás. A hegyek, mint hullámok, kifolytak a tájon. A melegítő őszi színek egy hideg napnyugtáskor megkezdte az égő lángot bennem, és a székely pálinkát, amit ittunk a lapos, jéghideg alumínium üvegből, elkezdte a futótüzet.
Megígértem magamnak, hogy visszajövök.
