So it really happened, Red Bull brought their X-Fighters over to my home town – Maribor.

I have to say, i was really looking forward to the event from the moment they announced it. You have to know that usually, this kind of Exhibitions are held in our capital city Ljubljana.

So, it was about 16:30 when i left work to run home and grab my camera, then i made myself off the the exhibition scene at around 17:20 and boooooy I was happy i went so “early”. As soon as i came close to the Main Square in Maribor i was introduced to chaos! It looked like the whole city is going to watch this freaks. Seriously, just finding a parking space was a hard task. I finally manged to “get rid” of my car and i went straight to the square.

I went around the whole thing one time to scout for a good spot to take the shots. Since i only had a Nikkor 18-70mm with me, i decided I’ll position myself very close to the landing ramp, that way I’d have enough zoom to capture them in mid air without anything else. So there i was, just about 10min before kickoff. I was ready too “attack” the 5 maniacs. To be honest, i was a little amazed, because i thought that the US people were dominating this sport type, but none of the riders actually came from the US – looks to me like the Euros are making a “takeover” .

All the riders, have shown some really cool and hard tricks, it was a really awesome, but seeing a Slovene rider amongst the pros was absolutely superb! At first, only 4 riders were announced but it seems like that our Slovene rider Primož Pavšič somehow impressed the Red Bull X-Fighters Exhibition tour organizers and they invited him to join. I bet they didn’t have to ask twice . More ’bout the whole X-Fighters Tour can be found here: Red Bull X-Fighters

Check out the gallery below, that’s what came out of standing on a fence for 45mins!

 

World Magnetic Tour – 2009

Yeah, I’ve been to Vienna to see the live, before they decide they are too old for that kind of stuff . It all started kinda fluffy, i totally forgot to ask for vacation… In the end, me and my girlfriend had to drive to Vienna by car even tho our tickets included a bus ride there and back. Well, i sure wont forget to do it earlier next time .

We arrived in Vienna at around 18:00, well… we were in Vienna at 17:00, but the last 4km drive to “Wiener Stadthalle” took a goddamn HOUR! Luckily, we found a parking space straight away. I tell you, Vienna traffic SUCKS! We waited for another 30mins before we could enter the stage area, so we decided to go out for a show walk, which was swiftly canceled due to rain.

Once we got in, first off – GRAB A BEER time , some Austrian light thing tbh, wasn’t that bad, but not even close to what i usually drink. That sorted, we started to check out the area, deciding where we’ll be during the concert, not long after, the first *pre* band were on the stage. I think the name was “SWARD”, they didn’t convince me, tbh, they sucked. As people slowly started to fill up the place and after another beer, my girlfriend became all *jumpy* and wanted to dig into the crowd close to the stage. Oh well, i have to say, i wasn’t really looking forward to it, but i gave in. In the mean time, the other *pre* band was on the stage, sadly, i forgot the name of them, they were WAY better then the Sword guys tho…

And then, it was time, for the main act: Metallica

I lifted my girlfriend on my shoulders, gave her the camera and told her to SHOOT away . Well, somehow in all that *sizzle* command dial went from M to Tv, and this is what came out:

 

Still pretty OK, I’d say, regarding everything and how it happened . Anyways, after that, i took over the shooting. Since i left my D80 at home, i have to say, I’m pretty pleased with the little Canon i had with me. Still, it’s damn hard to get anything useful from it – the light conditions are all but super, high ISO on compacts isn’t all that great and getting a clean shot while like 434098394 people are bumping into you  all the time it isn’t all that great either .

Well, here’s what i would like to think of useful shot, had to do a bit of post processing, the noise is still visible but it’s not distracting – IMO.

 

When the concert slowly started to get to the end, i decided to try a few “higher ground” shots, problem was, you could only get on the higher up floors if you had the right ticket. Well somehow we managed to get up there, just for a few shots:

 

Hun’ thank you so much for such a great time!

Me and a good friend of mine went to race on the 5th Slovenian days at Grobnik. Grobnik is a race track in Croatia that was used even as an official track for the 500cc GP back in the days. The track now is not in such a good condition anymore but still offers a lot of adrenaline .

Actually, it’s been my first time ever on a race track and since I’m not a very experienced rider i wasn’t expecting a good lap time. On Saturday, 25th I’ve managed to do a best 2:00 or 1:60 as i was told sounds better. I was quite happy with the result and didn’t think, i’ll manage to get it any better. On Sunday though, I’ve done a few great laps and finished at 1:58:72. So yeah, i was pretty happy with the result – and just for comparison, the fast and furious do laps of under 1:31 so I’ve got a long way to go.

I rode a Hyosung GT 650 R – Modified so it’s not street legal anymore. Basically only the engine and the frame are original . Still it only has about 78 bhp so it’s not the fastest bike out there .

Not all photos were taken by me, since i was riding myself. Most of them were taken by my girlfriend, some were shot by Danilo and a few shots by me as well. Have a look, it’s been an awesome weekend .

 

It’s been a nice sunny day, and I’ve decided to go to our local sports airfield to shoot a few skydivers. Here’s the lot…

 

I was asked to shoot a Kick box event held in Pischelsdorf Austria on 21st March. Sure enough, you don’t have to ask me twice to do stuff like that so I went there.

Pishelsdorf is about 25-30km out of Graz in direction to Vienna. We arrived at the scene at about 14:00 becouse my girlfriend was doing the styling of the performers, so we had to be there a bit early. There were 8 fights and 4 demos between the fights. All in all, the fights were interesting and i’ve seen some KO’s etc. It has been a pretty long day and overall I’ve shot about 735 photos.

I have to say, that working in such conditions with my Nikon D80 is not easy , the high ISO i had to use to get over the 1/250 shutter speed was a challenge of it’s own. I used a Nikkor 12-24mm f4 lens which worked great, had enough zoom and the ultra wide angle at 12mm was handy. Overall I’m pretty pleased with the results, even tho I’m sure the pictures would be WAY better if i had a camera that produces better quality images at high ISO.

I am really starting to think to upgrade to D300 or even D700… Any ideas where to get the money for it? Have i said it yet? I accept donations .

Here’s a few shots…

 

Since i really didn’t have much time lately for takeing shots, i’ve decided to post some of the older ones i’ve taken last year. All the shots are actually HDR images taken with multiple exposures.

The old bridge in the center of Maribor goes over the Drava river, it was built in the years between 1906 and 1912.

This shot was taken on a smaller hill just outside of Maribor. I loved all the colors of the autumn time and very “dramatic” clouds.

This one was taken on the way to a cave named “Snow Cave”. You actually have to drive on a road like that for about 17-20km. And yes, busses drive on this road as well, pretty tricky . The cave was discovered by speleologists from Prebold in 1981 during an ordinary caving. It is situated on the northwestern slope of the mountain Raduha (at 1556 meters above the sea level).

I have to be hones, i totally forgot where i took this one .

 

Finally! The weather is slowly starting to get more frendly .

Actually, it’s the first day this year, that it was over 12 degrees out there, so i took my camera and went for a walk on the streets of Maribor. Remarkably, a lot of people were out there enjoying the sun.

Here’s some of the pictures from that day…

 

I guess most people have tried it, so i also had to give it a go. I have to say, that i was pretty impressed on what you can do with this stuff. It is a bit time consuming but I just had to try it, even thou i’m not a big fan of big photo editing and manipulation things…

So what exacly is a HDR?

HDR stands for – High Dynamic Range Imaging. Basically it’s a technique that allows you a greater dynamic range of luminances between light and dark areas of a photo. You can read more about HDR here.

Check out the pictures, first the originals and then the HDRs.

Here’s an example. First the original photo:

And then the HDR:

Go ahead and check out the rest.

 

Yeah, been slacking the last few weeks, didn’t do anything “proper” for a while now. A picture here, a picture there, that’s all.

I’ve uploaded a few “single shots”, just to fill the void.

 

My sister asked me, if i could come, and shoot some pictures of her and her kickboxing friends. Here are some of the pics…

I have to say, that i wasn’t really happy about the location, and i’ll try to get my sister to do another shoot… Location was mildly said, TERRIBLE .