Kapa’s Blog

Wow, what happened to March? Can’t believe how quickly it’s passed, been too pre-occupied with many things & before you know it April is here. My birthday was even last month & that day passed just like any other.

There was a couple of personal projects that just had to be done, I was on a very tight timetable with a lot to do. After a number of 15 hour days and help from family, finished on time.

There was also the Greek Festival of Sydney, which I wanted to attend. As luck would have it, never made it.

Inspired by a mate, New York Photographer Christos Hountas who updated his website recently, I have also started making changes to my website. They are still in “development” mode and I won’t make any promises as to when the new site will be on-line. What I can say is the colour scheme & layout will be very similar to my blog, however the look, feel & navigation will be similar to what I currently have. The website & blog will be more integrated, with links & references between the two seamless. More importantly for clients, I will be implementing a new on-line gallery as well as information & resource pages however these will be available some time after the new site is on-line. If you have any idea’s or suggestions, feel free to drop me an e-mail, use either the contact page from my main web-site or post a comment here.

Photography wise I have been busy as well. I have experimented with some high-key shots using multiple flash units, something I want to try with a bride however since the setup takes time (something which is usually scarce on a wedding day) I need to have the setup process down to a fine art otherwise it ain’t gonna happen. I even managed to shoot a couple Greek Orthodox Christenings, the first was twin boys, James & Peter (Dimitri & Panayi) followed by another boy, Jamie (Dimitri). One of the options I provide to clients is to provide them the images I shoot on CD/DVD that have been batch converted straight out of the camera, no additional editing or fine tuning on my behalf. This is great for parents as it allows them to pick & choose which pictures they want to print at their own leisure, and also saves them dollar$ as they don’t pay for my time to convert & print for them.

The drawback to this is that I find myself almost a month later I have not gone through the images in detail to pick, edit & post images for my blog. If you have followed my previous posts, I like to select about four to six images from each job, maybe stick to a theme, things I like, photographs that caught my eye, things that made me laugh, whatever.

Today, I have just done a very quick scan & picked just one picture. It’s one of the twins (James) in sitting in the baptismal Font.

I picked this one because this shot was actually quite difficult to get. If you have ever been to a Greek Orthodox Christening, at the time I took this photo, you have the Priest holding the child in the Font, the godparent is standing right next to him, next to the godparent you have the Priest’s assistant. To add to the chaos (apart from the fact it was a twin christening), I also had two over zealous paparazzi to deal with. I don’t have an issue with family & friends shooting around me, I’ll even help them out if I have time. To get this image I had to hold the camera over heads & shoot blind, relying on the autofocus to do it’s job & my experience to ensure I had the framing about right (hence the square crop ;-).

Recently, I received an e-mail from Carol Myers, representing the St Nicholas Centre. Firstly, I will highly recommend you visit this website, there is some great information, for example, I had no idea where the tradition of why stockings are hung on Christmas eve came from, now I do

Anyway, here is an extract of the e-mail she sent me:

St Nicholas Center, a non-profit with US tax-exempt status, exists solely to spread the word about St Nicholas and to help people understand who Santa Claus really is. We provide information about the saint, customs from around the world, and a large variety resources for churches, schools, and families to use to celebrate his feast day. There is also a section for children with on-line activities.

Carol has a simple request, if I had any photo’s of churches dedicated to St Nicholas and if she could use them on the website. Although I didn’t, I promised that when in the area I would take some for her.

Today, on the way home from a twin christening (more on that when I post process the images), I stopped to take a few quick shots.

The Greek Orthodox St Nicholas in Marrickville, Sydney, NSW.

Technically, this photo was taken at the wrong time of the day, next time I have to ensure I’m in the area first thing in the morning, however this will suffice until then.

On another note, I want to point out why I really hate power lines, apart from the fact they look ugly and people get killed on them, have a look at what they do to architecture pictures.

7th January, in the Greek Orthodox religion, this day is the celebration of “John the Baptist” (happy name day to me). Today was also the day that the “Blessing of the Water” was performed.

For those not familiar, it is where a service is held on the edge of the water, and at the time the water is blessed, a Cross is tossed into the water. This is the signal for males to jump into the water and be the first to attempt to retrieve the Cross.

In Sydney, the service is held at Yarra Bay, La-Perouse. It’s a great day which is celebrated as a festival with music, food & a great day out.

Those wishing to participate in retrieving the cross, swim out to a pontoon after registering for the event.

A fleet of boats were anchored nearby to witness the event from the water, some sporting the traditional Greek colours.

Waiting on the pontoon for the signal to begin.

They’re off

The victorious winner, by at least 4 lengths.

As always, 2007 starts of with a bang, fireworks that is.

This is the first time I have even tried to photograph fireworks, so the above is the best of a bad bunch. The “squiggles” are supposed to be straight, it’s the result of hand-holding the camera instead of using a tripod for long exposures. I knew it wasn’t really going to work however I had my camera with me & wanted to give it a go anyway.

A big thanks to Nick & Irene, a couple friends with an beautiful apartment that overlooks Sydney Harbour right at The Rocks. They opened their doors to many people, were great hosts, & it was much appreciated. We so close we could smell the gunpowder, & the fireworks were literary right in front of us. The kids absolutely loved it.
New Years Resolutions, I actually made one many years ago I haven’t broken, and that was not to make any more New Years Resolutions so I’m not going to begin now.

I wish everyone all the best in 2007, & may it be filled with health, love & happyness.

Kapa

I’m reading a book at the moment, it’s Dr Karl Kruszelnicki’s 25th book called “It ain’t necessary so, bro“. An interesting book debunking a lot of myths & misconceptions (he terms mythconceptions).

One of the chapters discusses the mythconception (I like this word) that you’re safer in a car without a seatbelt that with? My thoughts were immediately to Greece, where no-one there wears a seat belt. I remember a taxi driver once who got offended when I put on the seat belt because it insinuated he wasn’t a good driver. Of course I told him it’s the other malakes on the road which scare me, not him, and we proceeded to our destination.

Driving through Greece, it’s quite saddening the common site you see on most bends, many highways, especially in rural area’s and islands. Little shrines set up in memory of those that have lost their lives in road accidents.

In his book, Dr Karl throws statistics on the number of deaths in road accidents in the USA and how many of them could have been prevented if the occupants wore seat belts, I would say the statistics would be even worse if he used Greece as his base.

Firstly, don’t confuse me with the other John Kapaniris from the band 39 Stripes. He has talent, he can sing & play musical instruments. As for me, I remember playing the accordion very badly when I was in primary school & karaoke bars aren’t even an option with my voice.

These pages will be used to discuss my interests like photography & IT, general current affairs, books, music, and I’ll even throw in some personal stuff for the hell of it.

Feel free to comment, make suggestions or even flame me, I’ve got thick skin

Kapa