Cycling i Warsaw

Even though conditions for bicycling in Warsaw is slowly improving - new bicycle paths are built, recently the rules were changed to make it easier to follow them - every now and then you see these things that are typical of the attitude towards cyclists. We are not really important, and those who plan cyclepaths have no clue about cycling themselves.

The chimneysweep

Today's photo was taken in Kraków about a week ago. I was there for a conference and was sitting in my hotelroom in the evening, working (really!) when I happened to look out and saw this man cleaning the chimneys opposite the hotel. Against the setting sun he was just a silhouette, and I took a couple of pictures when he was working. When he had packed his gear, out of sight from me, he lit a cigarette and walked off. I managed to catch this image. If you want to see him working a photo like that is on Flickr.

Three weeks later

Three weeks after this photo we can really see that spring is here. However, the trees in the previous image were all pruned a couple of days ago - so no leaves here.

Book café

If asked, many Warsovians will name Czuły Barbarzyńca as their favourite book store. However, I think it should be called favourite café instead. During 45 minutes sitting, I did not see a single person actually buying a book. Many browsed, had coffee, cake, talked and left... including me*. So a more accurate description I think is a café that also sells books.

* Although I have the excuse that they don't sell foreign language books.

Balconies

Saw these balconies today while out cycling. Just liked the picture.

Climbing

Today there was a climbing competition at the wall where I normally climb. It was an open competition with 7 routes in grades from 5a to 7c. I fell out at level 6b/c, but took some pictures of the event. Some of them are at my Flickr page.

Spring!

Yesterday was spring equinox, or first day of spring as they say in Poland. In Sweden the start of spring was generally celebrates in the end of April. Today the weather caught up with calendar as well - we had a pleasant 12 degress and sun - far from the wintery 3 with rain and wind we had during the weekend.
These buds are on the tree outside my window. The photo was taken testing my new 1.4x extender for the zoom lens.

The boring people

At the Centre for Contemporary Art in Warsaw I saw this very plain painting. Turns out the artist made a poll where a number of people answered a questionnaire about their art preferences. Then the artist (whose name I unfortunately forgot) made a painting matching those answers. Nice idea - good art - boring painting... but of course in this case the painting itself is not the art.

Most Gdański

A couple of days ago I was out in the evening to take pictures of the tram tracks on Most Gdański, a cool truss bridge across the Vistula in Warsaw. The temperature was about -12°C, but with the strong wind on the river it felt much, much colder. My bicycle gloves, which are fine while moving, were completely inadequate for standing still taking pictures.

However, I was apparently not alone taking photos there, though I didn't even see the guys in the picture above until I came home and looked at the picture on the screen.
I also wanted to test my new tripod by taking some long exposure shots of the illuminated Most Śląsko-Dąbrowski. That turned into a fiasco when I realised how much the bridge was moving due to the heavy trucks, trams and buses...

I had to increase the ISO a lot and time the photo to the trams to manage to get a decent picture.

Ferrofluid

A colleague and I spent some time playing around in the lab with a ferrofluid and a strong neodymium magnet. And a camera, of course. Ferrofluids are supercool and look almost unreal. A few more pictures can be found in my gallery here, and loads of them on Flickr - many a lot better than mine.

With the magnet closer the spikes become smaller and denser. The curve hexagonal pattern of light dots in the lower part comes from light scattered off the tips of out-of-focus spikes. The spikes form a hexagonal pattern on the surface as clearly seen below.

A hexagonal pattern of large spikes.

I didn't have a green lamp, so the colour comes from shining a white lamp through a solution of nickel salt.