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Before the start of the Great War, the prevailing sentiment in most, if not all, European countries was that victory in any major military conflict was guaranteed only if it was fought with a large, durable, well trained and modern army. The dawn of the 20th century established the environment in which countries entered the race to mobilize the largest part of the qualified population, to create faster motorized transport for troops and logistics, to use state of the art communications and the greatest range of artillery as well as to use various new drugs in medical treatments like morphine and even a cocaine to boost the troops and fuel their fighting mood. Comparing to 19th century wars, new warfare was revolutionized and upped to the next level. By June 1914, the stage was set and only a spark was needed to fire off the conflict. But was it really inevitable? Was the military race alone enough to cause the conflict in which 20 million died and many more wounded? Or did it need a pl
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Lately I was watching current stream of war related news and Syrian migrant crisis and I thought of what would I say on the blog about actual, continuous and devastating warfare in Europe, Africa and Middle East and stupidity of literally inexplicable background of who is fighting whom in all those conflicts and what cause would justify the aftermaths in form of devastated cities and long refugee-columns... Or even what words should I use to describe foolishness of the new cold war between nuclear powered "super countries" and what that will mean for our children and theirs in the future... Then I realized that reacting to meaningless affairs and worldwide political absurdity in a world so divided by racial, structural, governmental and religious diversity is also meaningless. I also realized that I said enough in the past. There is nothing new to be added or said. There will always be people who will think that rifle is not a rifle if it never fires a bullet. And to use a
Lately I was watching current stream of war related news and Syrian migrant crisis and I thought of what would I say on the blog about actual, continuous and devastating warfare in Europe, Africa and Middle East and stupidity of literally inexplicable background of who is fighting whom in all those conflicts and what cause would justify the aftermaths in form of devastated cities and long refugee-columns... Or even what words should I use to describe foolishness of the new cold war between nuclear powered "super countries" and what that will mean for our children and theirs in the future... Then I realized that reacting to meaningless affairs and worldwide political absurdity in a world so divided by racial, structural, governmental and religious diversity is also meaningless. I also realized that I said enough in the past. There is nothing new to be added or said. There will always be people who will think that rifle is not a rifle if it never fires a bullet.
And to use a rifle you need war, right?
I have to admit that I have mixed fillings when it comes to military, soldiers, wars, battles, tactics, military gadgets and stuff. On the 'interesting' side of the medal, warfare, if placed in history, good stories or movies are simply extraordinary tales and I love them. Perhaps, in a way it was also based on my experience as a soldier - I served the army more than two decades ago within the mandatory military service and I was situated in the surface-to-surface missile unit and trained for operating small rockets designed for targeting tanks and other heavy machinery. I couldn't say I enjoyed all the time spent in the service but I wouldn't be telling the true if I'd say that it wasn't interesting and educational, at least from the technical point of view.
Speaking of history and tales, this summer, I mentioned one of the most famous last stands in the history of wars in post "Fishermen and Pirates of Evia" when king Leonidas of Sparta confronted large army of Persian Empire and stood to the very end guarding narrow pass in the battle of Thermopylae almost 2500 years ago. Anyhow, here, in Serbia, in our own history, we also have one of those suicide missions, conveniently called "last stands" by military vocabulary and it happened only couple of kilometers on the north from our house on the nearby hill called Čegar. Just like Leonidas, Serbian general Stevan Sindjelić, during the First Serbian Uprising against Ottoman Empire in the year of 1809, confronted huge Ottoman offensive after Serbian army failed to capture main Turkish fortress in the city. Outnumbered by 1 to 10 Serbian trench only managed to reject several attacks and after almost all day long of fighting the battle turned to be one of the best known last stands in long history of Ottoman occupation of Serbian lands. Ultimately, when battle turned to be hand-to-hand combat in the trench, Stevan fired his flintlock pistol into a pile of gunpowder kegs in the moment when ottoman soldiers swarmed the trench from all sides and headed for him personally. Explosion was tremendous and the fall of Stevan's trench created time for other Serbian troops in remaining 5 trenches to retreat on time and, in the aftermath, Turks took all the Serbian soldiers' heads off and used the skulls to build a tower along the road to Constantinople, as a warning to anyone rising against the Ottoman Empire.
Yesterday, we decided to visit the hill where it all happened and took some photos with two remaining cannons from the battle and from the monumental tower standing in the middle of the field. It was one of the kind experience that leaves distressed filling, especially after the glimpse from the top of the narrow tower toward the planes and the city.
But there is another side of my mixed fillings regarding this topic. Simply put, if you place the warfare outside the history or fiction, and experience it live, for me, all the magic from movies and books is evaporating into thin air almost immediately. While I wasn't participating any warfare in the army, I have witnessed real air strikes performed by NATO aircraft, dropping cluster bombs just hundred's of meters away from my house. I saw them explode*. I saw real damage in neighboring houses and streets and saw people injured from the impacts. Real people. Not soldiers. Collateral victims. Civilians. It wasn't fun. It seems that warfare two centuries before were more dignified, to say the least. The battles before were "organized" outside settlements and most of them took place in the fields where no civilian casualties could be possible. Today, if you look the aftermath of any wars happening everywhere on the globe, first thing you will notice are devastated cities, villages, houses, schools, hospitals even... Murdered innocent people and children. Ruins in all directions. It is easy today to pull the trigger. From the distance. There are no real heroes or knights today like before.
Modern times and technological advances perhaps ruined the very essence of war, but deeply in it's core, the war was, is and will always stay our darkest invention. Yes, it looks amazing with special effects in movies and written in our history books full of heroes and heroic events but in the nutshell it represents the worst genes we kept from our animal ancestors, evolutionary speaking.
And the armies... They are big part of it. Following words, said couple of years before the battle of Čegar, on a different continent, are still fresh and valid, just like if they were said yesterday. Almost certainly, the famous James Madison's quote will stay accurate for many more centuries. After all, as a species, humans are not really capable of learning from their own mistakes:
I am sure proving his point is as easy as glimpsing the yearly statistics for the Global Firepower, aka GFP. Following numbers I acquired from "Business Insider" and "The Center for Arms Control & Non-Proliferation". They are collected for the latest year and I summarized the data for only top 5 armies in the world - US, Russia, China, India and UK (and you can freely double these numbers for accounts of all other countries).
Anyway, more or less, give or take, believe it or not, in the nutshell, GFP numbers are:
And don't forget to add uncountable and I really mean devastating large number of missiles and rockets, all kind of ballistics, regular weapons, drones, rifles, pistols, cold weapons, military based factories, scientific research facilities, spy satellites and military space programs, state of the art uniforms etc. Indeed we don't have name for that big number in mathematics. Even the number of zeros in that count would be probably longer than the letters in this very sentence.
Now, only by comparing these numbers with James Madison's words, it seems that after 200+ years, perhaps armies are not children of war anymore. In the dawn of third millennium it seems now that they are perfectly capable of creating wars just to justify their own existence. If only war could stay in history and fairy tales... But we all know that's not going to happen. With all those weaponry in existence there will always be people who will think that rifle is not a rifle if it never fires a bullet.
Original post date: November 2014, Update: November 2015
Image ref:
**http://www.businessinsider.com/11-most-powerful-militaries-in-the-world-2014-4
Refs:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Čegar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skull_Tower
http://armscontrolcenter.org/
http://www.globalissues.org/article/75/world-military-spending
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_with_nuclear_weapons
http://armscontrolcenter.org/issues/nuclearweapons/articles/fact_sheet_2014
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Madison
http://www.businessinsider.com/35-most-powerful-militaries-in-the-world-2014-7
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_bombing_of_Niš
And to use a rifle you need war, right?
I have to admit that I have mixed fillings when it comes to military, soldiers, wars, battles, tactics, military gadgets and stuff. On the 'interesting' side of the medal, warfare, if placed in history, good stories or movies are simply extraordinary tales and I love them. Perhaps, in a way it was also based on my experience as a soldier - I served the army more than two decades ago within the mandatory military service and I was situated in the surface-to-surface missile unit and trained for operating small rockets designed for targeting tanks and other heavy machinery. I couldn't say I enjoyed all the time spent in the service but I wouldn't be telling the true if I'd say that it wasn't interesting and educational, at least from the technical point of view.
The cannon from the Hill of Čegar
Speaking of history and tales, this summer, I mentioned one of the most famous last stands in the history of wars in post "Fishermen and Pirates of Evia" when king Leonidas of Sparta confronted large army of Persian Empire and stood to the very end guarding narrow pass in the battle of Thermopylae almost 2500 years ago. Anyhow, here, in Serbia, in our own history, we also have one of those suicide missions, conveniently called "last stands" by military vocabulary and it happened only couple of kilometers on the north from our house on the nearby hill called Čegar. Just like Leonidas, Serbian general Stevan Sindjelić, during the First Serbian Uprising against Ottoman Empire in the year of 1809, confronted huge Ottoman offensive after Serbian army failed to capture main Turkish fortress in the city. Outnumbered by 1 to 10 Serbian trench only managed to reject several attacks and after almost all day long of fighting the battle turned to be one of the best known last stands in long history of Ottoman occupation of Serbian lands. Ultimately, when battle turned to be hand-to-hand combat in the trench, Stevan fired his flintlock pistol into a pile of gunpowder kegs in the moment when ottoman soldiers swarmed the trench from all sides and headed for him personally. Explosion was tremendous and the fall of Stevan's trench created time for other Serbian troops in remaining 5 trenches to retreat on time and, in the aftermath, Turks took all the Serbian soldiers' heads off and used the skulls to build a tower along the road to Constantinople, as a warning to anyone rising against the Ottoman Empire.
Yesterday, we decided to visit the hill where it all happened and took some photos with two remaining cannons from the battle and from the monumental tower standing in the middle of the field. It was one of the kind experience that leaves distressed filling, especially after the glimpse from the top of the narrow tower toward the planes and the city.
Stevan Sindjelić & Remains of the Skull Tower in Niš
But there is another side of my mixed fillings regarding this topic. Simply put, if you place the warfare outside the history or fiction, and experience it live, for me, all the magic from movies and books is evaporating into thin air almost immediately. While I wasn't participating any warfare in the army, I have witnessed real air strikes performed by NATO aircraft, dropping cluster bombs just hundred's of meters away from my house. I saw them explode*. I saw real damage in neighboring houses and streets and saw people injured from the impacts. Real people. Not soldiers. Collateral victims. Civilians. It wasn't fun. It seems that warfare two centuries before were more dignified, to say the least. The battles before were "organized" outside settlements and most of them took place in the fields where no civilian casualties could be possible. Today, if you look the aftermath of any wars happening everywhere on the globe, first thing you will notice are devastated cities, villages, houses, schools, hospitals even... Murdered innocent people and children. Ruins in all directions. It is easy today to pull the trigger. From the distance. There are no real heroes or knights today like before.
Modern times and technological advances perhaps ruined the very essence of war, but deeply in it's core, the war was, is and will always stay our darkest invention. Yes, it looks amazing with special effects in movies and written in our history books full of heroes and heroic events but in the nutshell it represents the worst genes we kept from our animal ancestors, evolutionary speaking.
View from Čegar's monumental tower with Viktor's plastic AK-47 toy gun
And the armies... They are big part of it. Following words, said couple of years before the battle of Čegar, on a different continent, are still fresh and valid, just like if they were said yesterday. Almost certainly, the famous James Madison's quote will stay accurate for many more centuries. After all, as a species, humans are not really capable of learning from their own mistakes:
"Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes … known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.… No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare." - James Madison, Political Observations, 1795
I am sure proving his point is as easy as glimpsing the yearly statistics for the Global Firepower, aka GFP. Following numbers I acquired from "Business Insider" and "The Center for Arms Control & Non-Proliferation". They are collected for the latest year and I summarized the data for only top 5 armies in the world - US, Russia, China, India and UK (and you can freely double these numbers for accounts of all other countries).
Anyway, more or less, give or take, believe it or not, in the nutshell, GFP numbers are:
6.000.000+ soldiers (human beings, men in the uniform)
35.000+ tanks (the iron amfibia combat vehicles with a heavy guns on the top)
22.000+ aircraft (fighters, bombers, logistic planes, all kinds of military flying machines)
16.000+ nuclear warheads (only couple of them needed to cease all life on earth)
1000+ warships (cruisers, destroyers, frigates, corvettes, etc.)
15+ aircraft carriers (monster nuclear powered ships)
230+ combat submarines (with large nuclear engines under the sea)
900.000.000.000+ dollars spent for military budgets (per year)
35.000+ tanks (the iron amfibia combat vehicles with a heavy guns on the top)
22.000+ aircraft (fighters, bombers, logistic planes, all kinds of military flying machines)
16.000+ nuclear warheads (only couple of them needed to cease all life on earth)
1000+ warships (cruisers, destroyers, frigates, corvettes, etc.)
15+ aircraft carriers (monster nuclear powered ships)
230+ combat submarines (with large nuclear engines under the sea)
900.000.000.000+ dollars spent for military budgets (per year)
And don't forget to add uncountable and I really mean devastating large number of missiles and rockets, all kind of ballistics, regular weapons, drones, rifles, pistols, cold weapons, military based factories, scientific research facilities, spy satellites and military space programs, state of the art uniforms etc. Indeed we don't have name for that big number in mathematics. Even the number of zeros in that count would be probably longer than the letters in this very sentence.
The 11 Most Powerful Militaries In The World**
Now, only by comparing these numbers with James Madison's words, it seems that after 200+ years, perhaps armies are not children of war anymore. In the dawn of third millennium it seems now that they are perfectly capable of creating wars just to justify their own existence. If only war could stay in history and fairy tales... But we all know that's not going to happen. With all those weaponry in existence there will always be people who will think that rifle is not a rifle if it never fires a bullet.
Original post date: November 2014, Update: November 2015
Image ref:
**http://www.businessinsider.com/11-most-powerful-militaries-in-the-world-2014-4
Refs:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Čegar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skull_Tower
http://armscontrolcenter.org/
http://www.globalissues.org/article/75/world-military-spending
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_with_nuclear_weapons
http://armscontrolcenter.org/issues/nuclearweapons/articles/fact_sheet_2014
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Madison
http://www.businessinsider.com/35-most-powerful-militaries-in-the-world-2014-7
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cluster_bombing_of_Niš
I remember that scene from the movie "The Blues Brothers" with Jake and Elwood hiding from who-knows-who in the super tiny apartment next to skytrain or railway tracks, shaking every now and again and every time when a train is passing by the neighborhood. I always felt sympathy for all those people who are actually living next to those high trafficking high or rail ways with heavy tremors in the air in form of high decibels of various noises all around them. Guess what? Our own neighborhood is now getting similar feeling. Actually, similar is understatement. It is way worse. The new tracks are placed just couple of dozens of meters above our house. In recent months and years, the local airport are getting more and more traffic and the runway position is actually crossing our street almost to the single angle. I couldn't do much about it except to took the camera as soon as I heard the noise and 'shot' their underbellies. So here are couple of those taken in previ
I remember that scene from the movie "The Blues Brothers" with Jake and Elwood hiding from who-knows-who in the super tiny apartment next to skytrain or railway tracks, shaking every now and again and every time when a train is passing by the neighborhood. I always felt sympathy for all those people who are actually living next to those high trafficking high or rail ways with heavy tremors in the air in form of high decibels of various noises all around them. Guess what? Our own neighborhood is now getting similar feeling. Actually, similar is understatement. It is way worse. The new tracks are placed just couple of dozens of meters above our house. In recent months and years, the local airport are getting more and more traffic and the runway position is actually crossing our street almost to the single angle. I couldn't do much about it except to took the camera as soon as I heard the noise and 'shot' their underbellies. So here are couple of those taken in previous couple of days. Some of they ended interesting enough from down here.
The star of the show is of course the biggest of them all - Ilyushin II-76 Candid or some of it's versions made overtime. It was the old Soviet star craft from the late cold war time, especially during the Russian-Afghanistan adventure back in the 80s of previous century. I know I would easily be able to surf it out why it is flying these days regularly on and off our local area but in the end I don't really care much. I am not 100% sure, but I think couple of days ago I spotted a six-engine aircraft over the house but in the ultimate surprise I couldn't find the camera on time... Anyway, if it happens again and if it wasn't my imagination I will definitely update this post in the future.
Our local airport, named "Constantine The Great", after famous roman emperor from third century who was actually born in the old roman city of Naissus, is actually a small surrogate airport when it comes to commercial and passenger flights. Currently only couple of low-cost airlines are operating commercial flights but also lots of cargo flights are scheduled over the year and especially tourist charters over summer time. To me, shots taken from underbelly of those four aircraft above, with their wheels downed, trigger mixed and opposite feelings in me - their almost vulnerable side not often seen from this angle and a little proud of humanity mastering the light and tiny air by ultra-heavy crafts capable of carrying tons of cargo and hundreds of humans.
Somehow, when I glimpse about airtravel, I really think we are taking our own achievements for granted and I couldn't agree more with Louis C.K., who would say to all those people who are complaining about their 'poor' flight experience: "Did you fly through the air like a bird, incredibly? Did you soar into the clouds, impossibly? Did you partake in the miracle of human flight and then land softly on giant tires that you couldn't even conceive how they f**king put air in them?...You're sitting in a chair in the sky. You're like a Greek myth right now."
The Airport is also used by the Russian-Serbian Humanitarian Center that was established on the basis of cooperation in the area of emergency humanitarian response, prevention of natural disasters and technological accidents and elimination of their consequences. Although, politically confronted EU and USA are openly talking about 'hidden' military operations by the Russians acting in undercover as a response to USA/EU military establishments in the neighboring countries, I have to say that I didn't see any proof of that. Instead, what I really saw couple of years ago, when large forest-fires stroke this area, the only ones who actually tried to help were Russians with their large aircraft who along with heavy firemen helicopter (in the photo above) made four-five rounds per day trying to put all the fires out on several places in neighbored mountains and forests in flames.
If you were reading my blog in the past, you would probably notice that I am not really big fan of the worldwide politics and certainly not a follower of any agenda but in this particular case when it came to some non-war action against natural hazards, what I saw from Russians is all the action taken, while all I saw in USA/EU media was just vague political talk in vain. If you ask me, and even though I am pro-western oriented mind, in today 'bright and shiny', new world order, it seems that there are no good and bad guys like before. As it appears, the world today is not black and white anymore and instead painted in dozen of variations of gray. It's impossible to state anything for certain. Just couple of miles next to this 'Russian Center' there are also other 'offices' like 'American Corner' or 'British Council' in city's downtown. Probably more of those with 'humanitarian' or 'cultural' adjectives in their names or descriptions. Do they all do just what they say they are doing? If I answered with 'yes' I would be, most likely, insulting my own intelligence. But I refuse to see spies and 007s everywhere and to always suspect the bad and the worst in any institution. As long as they put fires out or spread democracy and good values to children I will be happy they exist.
Anyway, talking about military aspects of the world, the local runway is also used by Serbian air force and once a year they open their gates for a small exhibition of their selected aircraft flotilla, or whatever the military word is, and show off flights in form of modest airshow. Last year we went to see it with Viktor for the first time and he was excited to enter some helicopters and especially one old military biplane that is used even today, by local parachute jumpers. Anyhow, while I still think that the world would be way better place without military and army installations as I portrayed in post "Warfare Then and Now", perhaps the biggest impression in that regard I have, is with airplane industry. Ever since Wright brothers and their first flight 112 years ago, this industry, in part thanks to military affairs, is probably the most developed then any others, or in better words and thanks to all its achievements, it made that entire world is not that big place like it used to be. Literally.
The star of the show is of course the biggest of them all - Ilyushin II-76 Candid or some of it's versions made overtime. It was the old Soviet star craft from the late cold war time, especially during the Russian-Afghanistan adventure back in the 80s of previous century. I know I would easily be able to surf it out why it is flying these days regularly on and off our local area but in the end I don't really care much. I am not 100% sure, but I think couple of days ago I spotted a six-engine aircraft over the house but in the ultimate surprise I couldn't find the camera on time... Anyway, if it happens again and if it wasn't my imagination I will definitely update this post in the future.
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Our local airport, named "Constantine The Great", after famous roman emperor from third century who was actually born in the old roman city of Naissus, is actually a small surrogate airport when it comes to commercial and passenger flights. Currently only couple of low-cost airlines are operating commercial flights but also lots of cargo flights are scheduled over the year and especially tourist charters over summer time. To me, shots taken from underbelly of those four aircraft above, with their wheels downed, trigger mixed and opposite feelings in me - their almost vulnerable side not often seen from this angle and a little proud of humanity mastering the light and tiny air by ultra-heavy crafts capable of carrying tons of cargo and hundreds of humans.
Somehow, when I glimpse about airtravel, I really think we are taking our own achievements for granted and I couldn't agree more with Louis C.K., who would say to all those people who are complaining about their 'poor' flight experience: "Did you fly through the air like a bird, incredibly? Did you soar into the clouds, impossibly? Did you partake in the miracle of human flight and then land softly on giant tires that you couldn't even conceive how they f**king put air in them?...You're sitting in a chair in the sky. You're like a Greek myth right now."
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The Airport is also used by the Russian-Serbian Humanitarian Center that was established on the basis of cooperation in the area of emergency humanitarian response, prevention of natural disasters and technological accidents and elimination of their consequences. Although, politically confronted EU and USA are openly talking about 'hidden' military operations by the Russians acting in undercover as a response to USA/EU military establishments in the neighboring countries, I have to say that I didn't see any proof of that. Instead, what I really saw couple of years ago, when large forest-fires stroke this area, the only ones who actually tried to help were Russians with their large aircraft who along with heavy firemen helicopter (in the photo above) made four-five rounds per day trying to put all the fires out on several places in neighbored mountains and forests in flames.
If you were reading my blog in the past, you would probably notice that I am not really big fan of the worldwide politics and certainly not a follower of any agenda but in this particular case when it came to some non-war action against natural hazards, what I saw from Russians is all the action taken, while all I saw in USA/EU media was just vague political talk in vain. If you ask me, and even though I am pro-western oriented mind, in today 'bright and shiny', new world order, it seems that there are no good and bad guys like before. As it appears, the world today is not black and white anymore and instead painted in dozen of variations of gray. It's impossible to state anything for certain. Just couple of miles next to this 'Russian Center' there are also other 'offices' like 'American Corner' or 'British Council' in city's downtown. Probably more of those with 'humanitarian' or 'cultural' adjectives in their names or descriptions. Do they all do just what they say they are doing? If I answered with 'yes' I would be, most likely, insulting my own intelligence. But I refuse to see spies and 007s everywhere and to always suspect the bad and the worst in any institution. As long as they put fires out or spread democracy and good values to children I will be happy they exist.
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Anyway, talking about military aspects of the world, the local runway is also used by Serbian air force and once a year they open their gates for a small exhibition of their selected aircraft flotilla, or whatever the military word is, and show off flights in form of modest airshow. Last year we went to see it with Viktor for the first time and he was excited to enter some helicopters and especially one old military biplane that is used even today, by local parachute jumpers. Anyhow, while I still think that the world would be way better place without military and army installations as I portrayed in post "Warfare Then and Now", perhaps the biggest impression in that regard I have, is with airplane industry. Ever since Wright brothers and their first flight 112 years ago, this industry, in part thanks to military affairs, is probably the most developed then any others, or in better words and thanks to all its achievements, it made that entire world is not that big place like it used to be. Literally.
This year and especially during the next one is one major anniversary - 70 years after the second worldwide war ended. In the second part of 1944, third Reich ultimately started to collapse and German soldiers with their allies began to withdraw from occupied territories, toward the last days in April back in 1945 when Hitler committed suicide and toward officially surrender of German army week later. In the aftermath, couple of months after May 8th, the War finally ended with devastating and completely unnecessary dropping of two nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Nuclear weapon test at Bikini Atoll, Micronesia, on 25 July 1946. Looking to it from this distance, these very two bombs, immediately after the war, initiated the race between major developed countries in fast developing technology in both military and civil environments within various sciences. Especially within military. If we look into the history of wars and even before 20th century, the winner of any war w
This year and especially during the next one is one major anniversary - 70 years after the second worldwide war ended. In the second part of 1944, third Reich ultimately started to collapse and German soldiers with their allies began to withdraw from occupied territories, toward the last days in April back in 1945 when Hitler committed suicide and toward officially surrender of German army week later. In the aftermath, couple of months after May 8th, the War finally ended with devastating and completely unnecessary dropping of two nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Looking to it from this distance, these very two bombs, immediately after the war, initiated the race between major developed countries in fast developing technology in both military and civil environments within various sciences. Especially within military. If we look into the history of wars and even before 20th century, the winner of any war was always the one who had better toys. Or came in bigger numbers. The race for the best player in the world started that very day. Still ongoing.
Well, if we disregard all military aspects of the technology development in latest 70 years, what I really want to write in this post is something that affected all of us regardless where we live on the planet. It is the race within development of communication within home appliances and their usage in our daily entertainment. Many years before WW2, radio and television broadcasting were already invented and in commercial use, but only after the second world war, it all began to grow rapidly and television sets started to move into our living rooms, occupying the best spot in the house, replacing old and large radio receiver with scary vacuum tubes inside. Ever since then, there is no doubt that no matter how we placed or removed our living room furniture, the almighty TV would always get the major position. Even for all those people who said that TV is just a distraction and moved it outside of their living rooms, the question is where they spend more time now - where TV is moved or in the old living room? The simple fact is that your living room is not the place you set to be the one - it is the one where you spend the most of your time. Yep, even if you hanged your state of the art HDTV in the hallway and built a fireplace in your living room on its former spot, if you are spending lots of time in the hallway now ... well ... you can freely re-think if what you did was the right call.
But really, is TV indeed that bad and loosing battle to the NET today. The same the FM radio lost its battle to TV before? Hmm, well, I am not so sure this is the case. For that matter, I am not so sure that radio lost the battle too. Let's see what is going on in our houses. Well I surely don't know what is going on in most houses so I will tell you what is in mine. It is the same as in all other houses I know. Houses of my friends, relatives, business friends, acquaintances.. There are TVs, FM receivers, and computers all hooked to the NET. In living room you ask? Yes. And in many other rooms. I don't live in denial. It's most likely that I live according to that saying - if you can't win them, join them. And I am trying to get the most of them all. And to keep (remote) control of them. What I did was to isolate dozen of channels that fits our mutual interests into several lists and programmed the TV to ignore all the others.
It was much simpler in the days when my father was in my age. In that "black and white" era, in Serbia only national operator existed, broadcasting only one channel within VHF band and with use of large antennas on the roofs. When revolutionary color TV set arrived with new, state of the art, broadcasting towers, using new UHF technology, my father and his peer friend, took the opportunity and started a small business of manufacturing smaller antennas that were able to catch more channels. Competition added new dimension into quality of the broadcast as well with inevitable trashing the content and accepting commercials in business-fying the whole thing. The result? What we have now. Zillion of channels and you have to add all your efforts to sort the good from bad. Today, we are living in a world of cable, satellite and terrestrial TV feeds along with YouTube and other various NET based channels with the cost of requirement for your viewers to possess higher level of education than in my father's days - all you needed back then, was to power your TV, connect it to antenna, click on a big red button and browse up and down within few channels. Today, the smallest HDTV is a computer with a operating system and complicated settings page(s).
Of course, nowadays, with tons of channels, cable video stores, content on demand or online, more questions are popping one after another related to security, parental guidance, absurdity and shallowness of the shows, education concerns, etc... Is watching television good or bad and in what 'dosage' or whether or not TV affects your children in a bad way, there are tons of sociological studies and articles, but the cruel true is that you are given the ultimate control of it. You are the one who decides what to watch or whether or not to watch it at all. You are the one who are responsible for your children and how to use TV to provide the best education for them. You are the one who selects the good and bad based on your taste. If you think that shallow 'reality' TV shows or pornographic content or bad taste music channels are not suitable for you then delete those feeds or don't subscribe to them in the first place. If you think news channels are controlled by some powerful people and affect your mind in a bad way, just do what I do - move them in a separate list and block them from appearing on the screen.
You have the remote. Use it. If you don't know how, learn it. If you don't know how, well ...
But enough with TV. What about the Radio? Unfortunately, I can't be objective with the Radio. Simply put, I belong to the FM generation. The one who witnessed the first FM pocket receiver. The one who owned one of those tape recorders with radio tuner on the top of it and the one who played the radio during all of my university days in the back and foreground of my student room. I am also the one who lost fate in Radio after the internet arrived and pressed the off switch. I haven't listen good music or radio talk shows for years. But I am also the one who restored that obsession and in recent months, after the net and it's glory days with social networks collapsed beyond good taste, returned to the old habit and not just in the car. So, in order not to spread my subjectivity with FM radio I will not talk much about it. But still, I have to say this: FM broadcasts have one big advantage over the TV - it occupies only one of you senses and if it is good - it focuses all of your attention and if it's 'bad' - you can always listen the music in background and even while you are working. It has that magic that it can take you when wanted or leave you at your job if it's on idle. It doesn't insist. If you are living in large cities, the better, listening radio in background has it's own advantages - it can hide all those unwanted sounds, like traffic from outside or your neighbors fighting outside thin wall of your apartment or even isolate good tunes from your own habitat and block the other ones...
But it is not the fair fight. TV and FM are two different things. Even during the day I draw the flat line between them. It's simple - I listen the radio in the morning and watch the television in the afternoon. It is never the other way around. And I can't remember the last exception. Perhaps the last one was on September 11, 2001 when I turned the TV all day long. Also during several days after. "Break news" are something that doesn't go along with only audio... Sometimes you have to see it to believe. Or comprehend.
Nevertheless, even though TV and FM are not real rivals per se, from time to time you can catch a good television show or movie that are based in Radio studio. One of the best in the past I can think of was "Midnight Caller". It was one of those when I had to turn radio off in order to watch Jack Killian's adventures that all started behind the FM microphone.
Nevertheless, in the verdict, from my point of view they both wins, each in it's own category. Even though Television requires much filtering, the results is fun and ... watchable. On the other hand The Radio has something mysterious and more than fun. Just to illustrate this I'd like to share one FM-related experience of mine. Once I called a radio station during the live talk show and got lucky to be one of those chosen to request a music wish. It was a jazz related talk show I was regularly listening while learning for exams and I waited for it eagerly every Friday night. I remember I wanted to hear a tune from the movie "The Sting" and when the speaker eventually answered my call, my brain actually blocked - in that moment I forgot what I wanted and why I even called. I guess I never expected my call would be transferred to the live studio in the first place, but fortunately, the host with one of those radio-friendly crispy voice (and clearly possessed by couple of whiskeys), correctly recognized Scott Joplin's famous "The Entertainer" when I whistled to him directly on the air. What he played for me after, was something extraordinary like the video from YouTube I embedded above. Enjoy.
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight_Caller
** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_tube
http://techchannel.radioshack.com/difference-between-vhf-uhf-2119.html
http://bs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Žaoka_(film)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070735/
Nuclear weapon test at Bikini Atoll, Micronesia, on 25 July 1946.
Looking to it from this distance, these very two bombs, immediately after the war, initiated the race between major developed countries in fast developing technology in both military and civil environments within various sciences. Especially within military. If we look into the history of wars and even before 20th century, the winner of any war was always the one who had better toys. Or came in bigger numbers. The race for the best player in the world started that very day. Still ongoing.
Well, if we disregard all military aspects of the technology development in latest 70 years, what I really want to write in this post is something that affected all of us regardless where we live on the planet. It is the race within development of communication within home appliances and their usage in our daily entertainment. Many years before WW2, radio and television broadcasting were already invented and in commercial use, but only after the second world war, it all began to grow rapidly and television sets started to move into our living rooms, occupying the best spot in the house, replacing old and large radio receiver with scary vacuum tubes inside. Ever since then, there is no doubt that no matter how we placed or removed our living room furniture, the almighty TV would always get the major position. Even for all those people who said that TV is just a distraction and moved it outside of their living rooms, the question is where they spend more time now - where TV is moved or in the old living room? The simple fact is that your living room is not the place you set to be the one - it is the one where you spend the most of your time. Yep, even if you hanged your state of the art HDTV in the hallway and built a fireplace in your living room on its former spot, if you are spending lots of time in the hallway now ... well ... you can freely re-think if what you did was the right call.
TV size and resolutions over time
But really, is TV indeed that bad and loosing battle to the NET today. The same the FM radio lost its battle to TV before? Hmm, well, I am not so sure this is the case. For that matter, I am not so sure that radio lost the battle too. Let's see what is going on in our houses. Well I surely don't know what is going on in most houses so I will tell you what is in mine. It is the same as in all other houses I know. Houses of my friends, relatives, business friends, acquaintances.. There are TVs, FM receivers, and computers all hooked to the NET. In living room you ask? Yes. And in many other rooms. I don't live in denial. It's most likely that I live according to that saying - if you can't win them, join them. And I am trying to get the most of them all. And to keep (remote) control of them. What I did was to isolate dozen of channels that fits our mutual interests into several lists and programmed the TV to ignore all the others.
It was much simpler in the days when my father was in my age. In that "black and white" era, in Serbia only national operator existed, broadcasting only one channel within VHF band and with use of large antennas on the roofs. When revolutionary color TV set arrived with new, state of the art, broadcasting towers, using new UHF technology, my father and his peer friend, took the opportunity and started a small business of manufacturing smaller antennas that were able to catch more channels. Competition added new dimension into quality of the broadcast as well with inevitable trashing the content and accepting commercials in business-fying the whole thing. The result? What we have now. Zillion of channels and you have to add all your efforts to sort the good from bad. Today, we are living in a world of cable, satellite and terrestrial TV feeds along with YouTube and other various NET based channels with the cost of requirement for your viewers to possess higher level of education than in my father's days - all you needed back then, was to power your TV, connect it to antenna, click on a big red button and browse up and down within few channels. Today, the smallest HDTV is a computer with a operating system and complicated settings page(s).
Of course, nowadays, with tons of channels, cable video stores, content on demand or online, more questions are popping one after another related to security, parental guidance, absurdity and shallowness of the shows, education concerns, etc... Is watching television good or bad and in what 'dosage' or whether or not TV affects your children in a bad way, there are tons of sociological studies and articles, but the cruel true is that you are given the ultimate control of it. You are the one who decides what to watch or whether or not to watch it at all. You are the one who are responsible for your children and how to use TV to provide the best education for them. You are the one who selects the good and bad based on your taste. If you think that shallow 'reality' TV shows or pornographic content or bad taste music channels are not suitable for you then delete those feeds or don't subscribe to them in the first place. If you think news channels are controlled by some powerful people and affect your mind in a bad way, just do what I do - move them in a separate list and block them from appearing on the screen.
You have the remote. Use it. If you don't know how, learn it. If you don't know how, well ...
But enough with TV. What about the Radio? Unfortunately, I can't be objective with the Radio. Simply put, I belong to the FM generation. The one who witnessed the first FM pocket receiver. The one who owned one of those tape recorders with radio tuner on the top of it and the one who played the radio during all of my university days in the back and foreground of my student room. I am also the one who lost fate in Radio after the internet arrived and pressed the off switch. I haven't listen good music or radio talk shows for years. But I am also the one who restored that obsession and in recent months, after the net and it's glory days with social networks collapsed beyond good taste, returned to the old habit and not just in the car. So, in order not to spread my subjectivity with FM radio I will not talk much about it. But still, I have to say this: FM broadcasts have one big advantage over the TV - it occupies only one of you senses and if it is good - it focuses all of your attention and if it's 'bad' - you can always listen the music in background and even while you are working. It has that magic that it can take you when wanted or leave you at your job if it's on idle. It doesn't insist. If you are living in large cities, the better, listening radio in background has it's own advantages - it can hide all those unwanted sounds, like traffic from outside or your neighbors fighting outside thin wall of your apartment or even isolate good tunes from your own habitat and block the other ones...
Jack Killian*
But it is not the fair fight. TV and FM are two different things. Even during the day I draw the flat line between them. It's simple - I listen the radio in the morning and watch the television in the afternoon. It is never the other way around. And I can't remember the last exception. Perhaps the last one was on September 11, 2001 when I turned the TV all day long. Also during several days after. "Break news" are something that doesn't go along with only audio... Sometimes you have to see it to believe. Or comprehend.
Nevertheless, even though TV and FM are not real rivals per se, from time to time you can catch a good television show or movie that are based in Radio studio. One of the best in the past I can think of was "Midnight Caller". It was one of those when I had to turn radio off in order to watch Jack Killian's adventures that all started behind the FM microphone.
Nevertheless, in the verdict, from my point of view they both wins, each in it's own category. Even though Television requires much filtering, the results is fun and ... watchable. On the other hand The Radio has something mysterious and more than fun. Just to illustrate this I'd like to share one FM-related experience of mine. Once I called a radio station during the live talk show and got lucky to be one of those chosen to request a music wish. It was a jazz related talk show I was regularly listening while learning for exams and I waited for it eagerly every Friday night. I remember I wanted to hear a tune from the movie "The Sting" and when the speaker eventually answered my call, my brain actually blocked - in that moment I forgot what I wanted and why I even called. I guess I never expected my call would be transferred to the live studio in the first place, but fortunately, the host with one of those radio-friendly crispy voice (and clearly possessed by couple of whiskeys), correctly recognized Scott Joplin's famous "The Entertainer" when I whistled to him directly on the air. What he played for me after, was something extraordinary like the video from YouTube I embedded above. Enjoy.
* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midnight_Caller
** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_tube
http://techchannel.radioshack.com/difference-between-vhf-uhf-2119.html
http://bs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Žaoka_(film)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070735/
The year was 1975 when I was browsing small dusty workshop located next to the garage within our house backyard. It was perfect combination, I was about to turn 7 years old, eager to explore the darkest corner of my childhood realm and the dark workshop was the most mysterious chamber in our entire family estate, no bigger than four cubic meters occupied with heavy and old greenish oak cabinet with couple of drawers and compartments filled with tons of different tools, mechanical devices and various interesting stuff I didn't know their origin and purpose. It was, more or less, the year when I started to break things in order to find out what was inside or to find how something works, foolishly believing that I would be perfectly able to put things together back. Well, from this point of view in time, I can't remember if there was at least one mechanical device I "inspected" in such manner that I successfully restored after unscrewing all the bolts and junctures
The year was 1975 when I was browsing small dusty workshop located next to the garage within our house backyard. It was perfect combination, I was about to turn 7 years old, eager to explore the darkest corner of my childhood realm and the dark workshop was the most mysterious chamber in our entire family estate, no bigger than four cubic meters occupied with heavy and old greenish oak cabinet with couple of drawers and compartments filled with tons of different tools, mechanical devices and various interesting stuff I didn't know their origin and purpose. It was, more or less, the year when I started to break things in order to find out what was inside or to find how something works, foolishly believing that I would be perfectly able to put things together back.
Well, from this point of view in time, I can't remember if there was at least one mechanical device I "inspected" in such manner that I successfully restored after unscrewing all the bolts and junctures or by simply breaking the metal hood. One thing is for sure though. What I found that summer morning in the workshop I definitely never managed to restore. I simply succeeded to dismantle old thing beyond any possibility for repair. But the knowledge I gain from what I found inside was priceless. It was something I never saw before. When I broke hard metal hood of an old binocular I found hidden in one old bag stored in the old oak, at first glance I thought I found a treasure. Two shiny, perfectly aligned and beautifully shaped objects smiled at me from the inside of the optical instrument. I was too young to understand what was their purpose but in a following days I learned everything about it. That very day I discovered a prism. Two of them.
Needless to say I instantly became attached with my newest discovery to the point that I kept them with me all the time. I was carrying them to the school and bragging around with their almost magical abilities of bending light in different directions. Well, I wasn't any different from any other kid at that age. Only in this case with a little twist. Guess what the twist is? I still have one of them (above photo).
After almost 40 years, one prism survived and in more or less expected shape after four decades, still playing with photons the same as years before. But this is not the end of the story about this particular prism. The history of the little thing goes even more in the past. Actually this binocular belonged to my grandfather who brought it directly from the World War II. Some 30 years before I found it hidden in old cabinet, my grandfather was experiencing final year of his captivity in one of those German camps for military personnel imprisoned back in the year of 1941. After German capitulation he was traveling half an Europe on foot, trying to find his way home carrying this binoculars with him. Sometimes, I wonder what exactly little prism saw in these turbulent years changing who knows how many owners during the war and how many untold stories are lost forever and hidden in little crystals now perhaps more than 80 years old.
But to get back to the title story, basically technology behind the acronym is connected to the camera's solution of how photographer's eye is monitoring shooting object. In the history of photo cameras, way back in 19th century, first professional cameras were designed with two objective lenses, perfectly aligned and with same focal length, one for taking the light to the photographic film and the other toward the viewfinder. Single lens system was natural step forward where mirror-prism system mounted between lens and film forced light to make couple of sharp turns and to end directly to the viewfinder. The result is obvious, framed image shown in front of you eye is the one forming the final picture after mirror is lifted up and photographic film is lit during desired exposure time. What is also obvious is that if objective lens, mirror, pentaprism and eyepiece are manufactured with more quality, the better image you see in viewfinder before final moment of triggering shutter mechanism. The other non-optical part of analog era SLR photo cameras directly responsible for the quality of final product is of course sensitivity of photographic film as well as quality of embedded microscopically small light-sensitive silver based crystals responsible for contrast and resolution of the film. Back than in analog era, photographing process didn't end by clicking the button. The film needed to be chemically developed and with another optical/chemical process of illumination the negative taken images are finally transferred to the photo paper.
If you were photo enthusiast back then in seventies and eighties of previous century like my father was you might imagine that having a proper cameras along with photo laboratory with dark room was not very cheap hobby. But thousands of images were worth all the effort. My favorite memories from those days were all connected to spending hours in dark photo room with red light producing pictures on paper. The moment of appearing the image on the surface of photo paper submerged in a dilute solution following by washing the photograph with fixer liquid and water was my favorite part. I was typically in charge for these final steps in the process along with hanging wet photos for final drying. In this part of Europe in those times best amateurish and semi-professional cameras and all the equipment needed for photo laboratory for hobbyists with all the chemicals and supporting devices came from East Germany and Russia. My father owned couple of those days cameras and the one I remember the most was Zenit E/EM (pictured to the left), manufactured couple of years before Olympics in Moscow 1980. Zenit was made by KMZ (Красногорский завод), leading Russian enterprises in the area of optical and electro-optical engineering and you would be amazed how nice photos this little fellow made 25-30 years ago.
In conclusion, after little history and technicalities, in final chapter of this blog post, let's talk a little about digital SRLs. Basically, optical systems used in old cameras are the same. Two things changed though. Quality of manufacturing all optical parts in nowadays photo cameras are far advanced than before and all aspects of final image increased to the edge. There is a software term in early digital era called WYSIWYG, meaning "What You See Is what You Get" initially referred to printing documents looking the same as seen on display of your computer. I guess photo industry today reached the same goal and with not even too expensive lenses and moderate dSLR cameras, final photos reached the quality of the image appearing in viewfinders or the one seen with your naked eye. Second major change is in simple fact that all the chemical industry and paper photos are replaced by pure digital systems. Film is removed by light sensor in form of electronic chip filled with matrix of millions of tiny analog to digital converter dots capable of instantly saving image into fast memory card. Perhaps the third change is the fact that each dSLR device today is also a specialized computer and comparing to old systems they are now able to perform various post-processing procedures, to assist you with intelligent zooming, face recognition, adapting to shooting conditions, filming entire video clips and maintain detailed database of taken images.
Considering all the features of one dSLR I can surely say that this one device replaces my father's entire environment, from the camera through darkroom for developing photographs till the bulk photo albums where final photos are stored. And all that with smaller price and what's more important with far more space for creativity and for taking photos in professional manner. To me, today's worldwide market is taken by two big players, Canon and Nikon, Japanese multinational corporations, both specialized in the manufacture of imaging and optical products especially in the market of digital SLR cameras. It wasn't easy to choose one of their models and I took several days of browsing stores and reading about all the specifications, but eventually chose Nikon D5200 that fits all the requests and budget I had in my mind.
At the very end let's speculate a little of how the future of photo cameras might look like. Will it be further development and improvement in optical and digital systems or with upcoming ultimate speed of future computer circuits or with introduced quantum computers digital system will "evolve back" to the analog world it remains to be seen. One thing is for sure though, miniaturization of optical systems is still not possible by simple fact that more photons you get in the sensor the better image is saved and it this case size really matters.
Ref:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-series/viewfinders.shtml
*
http://www.theothermartintaylor.com/moveabletype/archives/cameras/000005.html
http://www.nikonusa.com/en/nikon-products/product/dslr-cameras/d5200.html
**
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2313418/Times-Square-kiss
Well, from this point of view in time, I can't remember if there was at least one mechanical device I "inspected" in such manner that I successfully restored after unscrewing all the bolts and junctures or by simply breaking the metal hood. One thing is for sure though. What I found that summer morning in the workshop I definitely never managed to restore. I simply succeeded to dismantle old thing beyond any possibility for repair. But the knowledge I gain from what I found inside was priceless. It was something I never saw before. When I broke hard metal hood of an old binocular I found hidden in one old bag stored in the old oak, at first glance I thought I found a treasure. Two shiny, perfectly aligned and beautifully shaped objects smiled at me from the inside of the optical instrument. I was too young to understand what was their purpose but in a following days I learned everything about it. That very day I discovered a prism. Two of them.
Needless to say I instantly became attached with my newest discovery to the point that I kept them with me all the time. I was carrying them to the school and bragging around with their almost magical abilities of bending light in different directions. Well, I wasn't any different from any other kid at that age. Only in this case with a little twist. Guess what the twist is? I still have one of them (above photo).
Leica IIIa, rangefinder camera 1935-38 (responsible for the kiss photo**)
After almost 40 years, one prism survived and in more or less expected shape after four decades, still playing with photons the same as years before. But this is not the end of the story about this particular prism. The history of the little thing goes even more in the past. Actually this binocular belonged to my grandfather who brought it directly from the World War II. Some 30 years before I found it hidden in old cabinet, my grandfather was experiencing final year of his captivity in one of those German camps for military personnel imprisoned back in the year of 1941. After German capitulation he was traveling half an Europe on foot, trying to find his way home carrying this binoculars with him. Sometimes, I wonder what exactly little prism saw in these turbulent years changing who knows how many owners during the war and how many untold stories are lost forever and hidden in little crystals now perhaps more than 80 years old.
But to get back to the title story, basically technology behind the acronym is connected to the camera's solution of how photographer's eye is monitoring shooting object. In the history of photo cameras, way back in 19th century, first professional cameras were designed with two objective lenses, perfectly aligned and with same focal length, one for taking the light to the photographic film and the other toward the viewfinder. Single lens system was natural step forward where mirror-prism system mounted between lens and film forced light to make couple of sharp turns and to end directly to the viewfinder. The result is obvious, framed image shown in front of you eye is the one forming the final picture after mirror is lifted up and photographic film is lit during desired exposure time. What is also obvious is that if objective lens, mirror, pentaprism and eyepiece are manufactured with more quality, the better image you see in viewfinder before final moment of triggering shutter mechanism. The other non-optical part of analog era SLR photo cameras directly responsible for the quality of final product is of course sensitivity of photographic film as well as quality of embedded microscopically small light-sensitive silver based crystals responsible for contrast and resolution of the film. Back than in analog era, photographing process didn't end by clicking the button. The film needed to be chemically developed and with another optical/chemical process of illumination the negative taken images are finally transferred to the photo paper.
If you were photo enthusiast back then in seventies and eighties of previous century like my father was you might imagine that having a proper cameras along with photo laboratory with dark room was not very cheap hobby. But thousands of images were worth all the effort. My favorite memories from those days were all connected to spending hours in dark photo room with red light producing pictures on paper. The moment of appearing the image on the surface of photo paper submerged in a dilute solution following by washing the photograph with fixer liquid and water was my favorite part. I was typically in charge for these final steps in the process along with hanging wet photos for final drying. In this part of Europe in those times best amateurish and semi-professional cameras and all the equipment needed for photo laboratory for hobbyists with all the chemicals and supporting devices came from East Germany and Russia. My father owned couple of those days cameras and the one I remember the most was Zenit E/EM (pictured to the left), manufactured couple of years before Olympics in Moscow 1980. Zenit was made by KMZ (Красногорский завод), leading Russian enterprises in the area of optical and electro-optical engineering and you would be amazed how nice photos this little fellow made 25-30 years ago.
In conclusion, after little history and technicalities, in final chapter of this blog post, let's talk a little about digital SRLs. Basically, optical systems used in old cameras are the same. Two things changed though. Quality of manufacturing all optical parts in nowadays photo cameras are far advanced than before and all aspects of final image increased to the edge. There is a software term in early digital era called WYSIWYG, meaning "What You See Is what You Get" initially referred to printing documents looking the same as seen on display of your computer. I guess photo industry today reached the same goal and with not even too expensive lenses and moderate dSLR cameras, final photos reached the quality of the image appearing in viewfinders or the one seen with your naked eye. Second major change is in simple fact that all the chemical industry and paper photos are replaced by pure digital systems. Film is removed by light sensor in form of electronic chip filled with matrix of millions of tiny analog to digital converter dots capable of instantly saving image into fast memory card. Perhaps the third change is the fact that each dSLR device today is also a specialized computer and comparing to old systems they are now able to perform various post-processing procedures, to assist you with intelligent zooming, face recognition, adapting to shooting conditions, filming entire video clips and maintain detailed database of taken images.
Nikon D5200 dSLR and Zenit EM SLR*
Considering all the features of one dSLR I can surely say that this one device replaces my father's entire environment, from the camera through darkroom for developing photographs till the bulk photo albums where final photos are stored. And all that with smaller price and what's more important with far more space for creativity and for taking photos in professional manner. To me, today's worldwide market is taken by two big players, Canon and Nikon, Japanese multinational corporations, both specialized in the manufacture of imaging and optical products especially in the market of digital SLR cameras. It wasn't easy to choose one of their models and I took several days of browsing stores and reading about all the specifications, but eventually chose Nikon D5200 that fits all the requests and budget I had in my mind.
At the very end let's speculate a little of how the future of photo cameras might look like. Will it be further development and improvement in optical and digital systems or with upcoming ultimate speed of future computer circuits or with introduced quantum computers digital system will "evolve back" to the analog world it remains to be seen. One thing is for sure though, miniaturization of optical systems is still not possible by simple fact that more photons you get in the sensor the better image is saved and it this case size really matters.
Ref:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-series/viewfinders.shtml
*
http://www.theothermartintaylor.com/moveabletype/archives/cameras/000005.html
http://www.nikonusa.com/en/nikon-products/product/dslr-cameras/d5200.html
**
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2313418/Times-Square-kiss
In our part of the world summer vacation is the most important one for most people. There are several reasons for this and probably the major one is that during July and August in this part of western Balkans, where we live, temperatures can go as high as 45C (113F) degrees and the obvious solution is to pack your bags, jump into the car and go to one of four nearby seas for couple of weeks to cool and enjoy (and also to change the everyday scenery and recharge your inner batteries which are always seriously depleted when summers come). Due to the shortest distance and good roads Greece is probably the best destination for a car trip to the seaside that takes less than 10 hours of drive. Unfortunately this is one of few routes for all those " gastarbeiter " people who mainly work in Germany and other western countries and during summers form very long river of vehicles toward their home destinations in Turkey and other countries. When they hit borders along the way thi
In our part of the world summer vacation is the most important one for most people. There are several reasons for this and probably the major one is that during July and August in this part of western Balkans, where we live, temperatures can go as high as 45C (113F) degrees and the obvious solution is to pack your bags, jump into the car and go to one of four nearby seas for couple of weeks to cool and enjoy (and also to change the everyday scenery and recharge your inner batteries which are always seriously depleted when summers come).
Due to the shortest distance and good roads Greece is probably the best destination for a car trip to the seaside that takes less than 10 hours of drive. Unfortunately this is one of few routes for all those "gastarbeiter" people who mainly work in Germany and other western countries and during summers form very long river of vehicles toward their home destinations in Turkey and other countries. When they hit borders along the way this is a nightmare you want to avoid. Once we had bad luck and stuck in one of 7 lanes between Serbian and Macedonian (FYROM) borders and waited 4 hours to pass through. This is why we always travel half a way during night and cross the borders around dawn or so to avoid crossing peeks and giant waiting times. Returning way is always smoother and we mainly use borders for rest and shopping. Like I already wrote in the post Aegean Sea before, short car destinations in Greece are all connected to Aegean sea, but this time we chose to check out Ionian basin and try relatively new motorway Greeks built not so long ago. Only once I spent vacation in this part of the Greece and I remember it was hard job for my father as the curvy road from Aegean to Ionian sea included one mountain after another and driving them through required full concentration all the way with frequent resting points. Today, this is different story with new modern freeway and the same destination is now reachable within 3 hours or so. Believe it or not, this new route includes about 60 tunnels almost 50km long combined and during summer heat driving through all the tunnels comes extra handy and relaxing.
Since this was the first time for me driving this road I decided to use little help from modern GPS navigation. It was only needed for last hour of the trip where we needed to leave motorway and find our way to the final destination in Parga, small and old town located some 40km south of Igoumenitsa port across the Corfu island. I didn't have any specialized GPS car device before and I decide to risk it a little and use the smartphone instead. I bought cheap navigation software called "Navi Ninasus" despite not so many recommendations online. To my surprise it handled all the situations extremely well and pointed us exactly to the front gate of our villa without any problems. Rerouting was perfect and fast and it proves very well on the ship and foot as well. You can see it in action in bellow photos and if you want to save some serious money in the big GPS market, this one is a very good solution.
When we visited our travel agency (Big Star Niš) and told them that we decided to go to Parga this year, Stefan, one of the agency owners, while describing the house we wanted to hire said something about nearby olive forest that looks exactly like the scenery from "The Lord of the Rings", fantasy trilogy based by J. R. R. Tolkien famous book. Of course, I was little skeptical about this but in the same time very curious to explore. The moment of our arrival, when I saw first large olive tree just above our villa I was eager to go to the forest as soon as possible. So we did very next day and if you look next couple of photos from the woods when we made a shortcut our way to the Lichnos beach I am sure that, like me, you will agree that old olive trees are something special to see and to tell you the truth if Bilbo Baggins or Gandalf jumped out of some tree I wouldn't be surprised at all. My only regret is that we didn't hit the time when olives are being collected with large nets villagers are using for this purpose. I am sure this would be something worthwhile to see. Needless to say, our landlady on our last day gave us a bottle of olive oil as a present, made exactly from the olives collected right from the woods we saw and photographed and with this blog post I thank her for all her hospitality and kindness. The same level of gratitude goes to Stefan and "Big Star" which is one of the best travel agencies in Niš.
Perhaps to better feel and in this case hear the forest, I took couple of seconds long video clip showing all the beauty of old olives:
According to couple of wikis I read, I learned that Pargians are descendants from the old Greek tribe called Thesprotians. Perhaps the best known resident in the ancient times was Odysseus himself who married Thesprotia's queen of the time by the name Kallidike and spent many years in this area leading the tribe and fought many wars as their king. Unfortunately, if we leave mythology aside, real history for Pargians was not so cheerful especially much later in the dark ages when these people shared violent times with the active neighborhood. They survived different rulers and occupations starting with Normans, Venetians, French, British, Ottomans, not to mention constant attacks from various pirates from the sea. Today, monumental fortress built for their defense is the sour witness of the old times standing above the small town for centuries. In the town bellow, old stone narrow streets, similar to those of Corfu are now wonderful tourist attraction along with four beaches, all very different in nature and appearance. Surrounded with large hills and dense forests, Parga today is one of few real tourist paradise during summer filled with voices of dozen of different languages especially at night when it is not easy to find empty chair in local tavernas. In addition to Parga's social life, to me, Greek vacations are always more about reading books and enjoying peaceful moments. This time I brought "The Lost Symbol" and swallowed it in just couples of days. If you want to learn something more about worldwide freemasonry this is the book for you, especially if you are, like me, big fan of Robert Langdon's adventures. We had large garden in front of the house with big stone table where bellow the shadows of lemon's leaves, reading Dan Brown's book got additional pleasure. At the other hand, for Viktor no summer vacation can pass without his tablet and couple of video games (picture to the right).
Just 20km offshore there are two small islands called Paxos and Antipaxos. According to the legend, Poseidon himself used his mighty trident and sliced the southern part of Corfu making these small archipelago paradise just for him and his wife Amphitrite to enjoy some peace and quiet. Comparing to nowadays worldwide religions I really love Greek mythology and their amazing stories. I mean, come on, if you are creating a mass fairy tales using wild imagination is a must and ancient Greeks did it very well. In all religions in existence today and those extinguished in the past, Greek former beliefs are probably the best in the history of mankind. Anyway, there are many boats sailing to Paxoi islands every morning providing one of the kind experience of swimming the same waters where Poseidon enjoyed his time with his wife alone on the beach. Small boat even entered one of the sea caves providing the unique feeling for us, but the best was the moment when one of the boats turned loudspeakers toward the cave and played James Brown's "I feel good" famous song. The echo from the cave provided a sound effect I never heard before. Don't miss this trip if you are spending vacation in Parga or Gaios, the main town of Paxos island where we enjoyed "Τσιπούρα", delicious Mediterranean fish with teeth.
Second boat trip was ship cruise to Corfu and island of Vido (Greek: Βίδο), special place for Serbian history where more than 5000 Serbian soldiers were buried at sea. At the beginning of the World War I, the whole Serbian army was forced to retreat by the major offensive by Austrian and Bulgarian armies. In just two years of war Serbian army declined from 420.000 to the number of 150.000 ending to the island of Corfu with the help of Allied forces' ships. Those who didn't survive harsh winter time during long walk over Albanian's mountains were buried on island of Vido and those who couldn't find empty burial space on the island are just buried in the sea near the island. This very spot where they are buried are called Blue Sea Tomb and there is now almost hundred years old poem "Ode to a Blue Sea Tomb" describing the pain and suffering of the Serbian people and soldiers during the WWI. I simply wrote "History is sometimes painful" to the book in the memorial. And I meant not only Serbian history. More about our trip to Corfu please read in the post Streets of Corfu where I experienced unique kind of Déjà vu I tried to describe there. Following are photos from Corfu and Vido and second image is Serbian House in the street of Moustoxidou 19 which is one great museum dedicated to the WWI events.
But, life is always going on and history is there to remind us for our failures and our brightest moments. We should use it to learn from it but honestly speaking I have that feeling that humans have long way to go in order to start avoiding mistakes and stop repeating violent behavior from the past.
Well, this post is also a photo collection from the vacation and now is the time to choose the best photo taken. Of course this is subjective business but if you ask me the honor goes to my wife Cica who took the opening photo of this post. I am sure for some of you this would be just bunch of rocks on the shore but for me this is the perfect example of accidental photography and Pareidolia. My wife actually just wanted to take a photo of the rocky formation from the taxi boat when we were returning from the beach to Parga, but after we saw it on the big screen, from this angle, it looks amazingly like a giant prehistoric fish or sea dinosaur with large fin or flapper on its back.
Needless to say that we all fully recommend Parga and Ionian sea for summer vacation. I am sure we will be returning here in the future maybe next time on the northern Corfu or one of the southern Ionian islands.
Due to the shortest distance and good roads Greece is probably the best destination for a car trip to the seaside that takes less than 10 hours of drive. Unfortunately this is one of few routes for all those "gastarbeiter" people who mainly work in Germany and other western countries and during summers form very long river of vehicles toward their home destinations in Turkey and other countries. When they hit borders along the way this is a nightmare you want to avoid. Once we had bad luck and stuck in one of 7 lanes between Serbian and Macedonian (FYROM) borders and waited 4 hours to pass through. This is why we always travel half a way during night and cross the borders around dawn or so to avoid crossing peeks and giant waiting times. Returning way is always smoother and we mainly use borders for rest and shopping. Like I already wrote in the post Aegean Sea before, short car destinations in Greece are all connected to Aegean sea, but this time we chose to check out Ionian basin and try relatively new motorway Greeks built not so long ago. Only once I spent vacation in this part of the Greece and I remember it was hard job for my father as the curvy road from Aegean to Ionian sea included one mountain after another and driving them through required full concentration all the way with frequent resting points. Today, this is different story with new modern freeway and the same destination is now reachable within 3 hours or so. Believe it or not, this new route includes about 60 tunnels almost 50km long combined and during summer heat driving through all the tunnels comes extra handy and relaxing.
Since this was the first time for me driving this road I decided to use little help from modern GPS navigation. It was only needed for last hour of the trip where we needed to leave motorway and find our way to the final destination in Parga, small and old town located some 40km south of Igoumenitsa port across the Corfu island. I didn't have any specialized GPS car device before and I decide to risk it a little and use the smartphone instead. I bought cheap navigation software called "Navi Ninasus" despite not so many recommendations online. To my surprise it handled all the situations extremely well and pointed us exactly to the front gate of our villa without any problems. Rerouting was perfect and fast and it proves very well on the ship and foot as well. You can see it in action in bellow photos and if you want to save some serious money in the big GPS market, this one is a very good solution.
When we visited our travel agency (Big Star Niš) and told them that we decided to go to Parga this year, Stefan, one of the agency owners, while describing the house we wanted to hire said something about nearby olive forest that looks exactly like the scenery from "The Lord of the Rings", fantasy trilogy based by J. R. R. Tolkien famous book. Of course, I was little skeptical about this but in the same time very curious to explore. The moment of our arrival, when I saw first large olive tree just above our villa I was eager to go to the forest as soon as possible. So we did very next day and if you look next couple of photos from the woods when we made a shortcut our way to the Lichnos beach I am sure that, like me, you will agree that old olive trees are something special to see and to tell you the truth if Bilbo Baggins or Gandalf jumped out of some tree I wouldn't be surprised at all. My only regret is that we didn't hit the time when olives are being collected with large nets villagers are using for this purpose. I am sure this would be something worthwhile to see. Needless to say, our landlady on our last day gave us a bottle of olive oil as a present, made exactly from the olives collected right from the woods we saw and photographed and with this blog post I thank her for all her hospitality and kindness. The same level of gratitude goes to Stefan and "Big Star" which is one of the best travel agencies in Niš.
Perhaps to better feel and in this case hear the forest, I took couple of seconds long video clip showing all the beauty of old olives:
According to couple of wikis I read, I learned that Pargians are descendants from the old Greek tribe called Thesprotians. Perhaps the best known resident in the ancient times was Odysseus himself who married Thesprotia's queen of the time by the name Kallidike and spent many years in this area leading the tribe and fought many wars as their king. Unfortunately, if we leave mythology aside, real history for Pargians was not so cheerful especially much later in the dark ages when these people shared violent times with the active neighborhood. They survived different rulers and occupations starting with Normans, Venetians, French, British, Ottomans, not to mention constant attacks from various pirates from the sea. Today, monumental fortress built for their defense is the sour witness of the old times standing above the small town for centuries. In the town bellow, old stone narrow streets, similar to those of Corfu are now wonderful tourist attraction along with four beaches, all very different in nature and appearance. Surrounded with large hills and dense forests, Parga today is one of few real tourist paradise during summer filled with voices of dozen of different languages especially at night when it is not easy to find empty chair in local tavernas. In addition to Parga's social life, to me, Greek vacations are always more about reading books and enjoying peaceful moments. This time I brought "The Lost Symbol" and swallowed it in just couples of days. If you want to learn something more about worldwide freemasonry this is the book for you, especially if you are, like me, big fan of Robert Langdon's adventures. We had large garden in front of the house with big stone table where bellow the shadows of lemon's leaves, reading Dan Brown's book got additional pleasure. At the other hand, for Viktor no summer vacation can pass without his tablet and couple of video games (picture to the right).
Just 20km offshore there are two small islands called Paxos and Antipaxos. According to the legend, Poseidon himself used his mighty trident and sliced the southern part of Corfu making these small archipelago paradise just for him and his wife Amphitrite to enjoy some peace and quiet. Comparing to nowadays worldwide religions I really love Greek mythology and their amazing stories. I mean, come on, if you are creating a mass fairy tales using wild imagination is a must and ancient Greeks did it very well. In all religions in existence today and those extinguished in the past, Greek former beliefs are probably the best in the history of mankind. Anyway, there are many boats sailing to Paxoi islands every morning providing one of the kind experience of swimming the same waters where Poseidon enjoyed his time with his wife alone on the beach. Small boat even entered one of the sea caves providing the unique feeling for us, but the best was the moment when one of the boats turned loudspeakers toward the cave and played James Brown's "I feel good" famous song. The echo from the cave provided a sound effect I never heard before. Don't miss this trip if you are spending vacation in Parga or Gaios, the main town of Paxos island where we enjoyed "Τσιπούρα", delicious Mediterranean fish with teeth.
Second boat trip was ship cruise to Corfu and island of Vido (Greek: Βίδο), special place for Serbian history where more than 5000 Serbian soldiers were buried at sea. At the beginning of the World War I, the whole Serbian army was forced to retreat by the major offensive by Austrian and Bulgarian armies. In just two years of war Serbian army declined from 420.000 to the number of 150.000 ending to the island of Corfu with the help of Allied forces' ships. Those who didn't survive harsh winter time during long walk over Albanian's mountains were buried on island of Vido and those who couldn't find empty burial space on the island are just buried in the sea near the island. This very spot where they are buried are called Blue Sea Tomb and there is now almost hundred years old poem "Ode to a Blue Sea Tomb" describing the pain and suffering of the Serbian people and soldiers during the WWI. I simply wrote "History is sometimes painful" to the book in the memorial. And I meant not only Serbian history. More about our trip to Corfu please read in the post Streets of Corfu where I experienced unique kind of Déjà vu I tried to describe there. Following are photos from Corfu and Vido and second image is Serbian House in the street of Moustoxidou 19 which is one great museum dedicated to the WWI events.
But, life is always going on and history is there to remind us for our failures and our brightest moments. We should use it to learn from it but honestly speaking I have that feeling that humans have long way to go in order to start avoiding mistakes and stop repeating violent behavior from the past.
Well, this post is also a photo collection from the vacation and now is the time to choose the best photo taken. Of course this is subjective business but if you ask me the honor goes to my wife Cica who took the opening photo of this post. I am sure for some of you this would be just bunch of rocks on the shore but for me this is the perfect example of accidental photography and Pareidolia. My wife actually just wanted to take a photo of the rocky formation from the taxi boat when we were returning from the beach to Parga, but after we saw it on the big screen, from this angle, it looks amazingly like a giant prehistoric fish or sea dinosaur with large fin or flapper on its back.
Needless to say that we all fully recommend Parga and Ionian sea for summer vacation. I am sure we will be returning here in the future maybe next time on the northern Corfu or one of the southern Ionian islands.
Long ago I started to experience that one extremely memorable dream. One of those that doesn't fade out with first morning sunshine. Instead, it was regularly popping the surface of my mind making me wondering if these vivid images, haunting me every now and again, were just product of my imagination or perhaps there was something more hidden beneath. In the dream I wander the narrow streets of an unknown city one after another and after a while I stumble to the big square with large monumental building decorated with dark reddish bricks with no signs or any familiar markings I can recognize. I was always wondering where all these colorful images originated from and somehow always had that feeling that I am probably missing an important link to fully understand the whole picture. Recently this final link suddenly appeared and during our vacation last week I accidentally found my dream site and all missing pieces finally placed together forming a memory almost 40 years old. Someh
Long ago I started to experience that one extremely memorable dream. One of those that doesn't fade out with first morning sunshine. Instead, it was regularly popping the surface of my mind making me wondering if these vivid images, haunting me every now and again, were just product of my imagination or perhaps there was something more hidden beneath. In the dream I wander the narrow streets of an unknown city one after another and after a while I stumble to the big square with large monumental building decorated with dark reddish bricks with no signs or any familiar markings I can recognize. I was always wondering where all these colorful images originated from and somehow always had that feeling that I am probably missing an important link to fully understand the whole picture.
Recently this final link suddenly appeared and during our vacation last week I accidentally found my dream site and all missing pieces finally placed together forming a memory almost 40 years old. Somehow, subconsciously, I have always known that it wasn't the dream at all and all the streets and buildings were very real and instead represent one of those almost forgotten recollections hidden deeply in my memory banks. What I saw in my night vision was the lost memory of the city of Corfu.
It all happened when I was the age of my son today. I was about 7 years old when my parents chose to spend vacation on the island of Corfu in the northern part of the Ionian sea, just about 100km away from the southern cape of the famous heel of Italian peninsula. While waiting for the ferry in the early morning, we took a walk to the empty streets of Corfu (Greek: Κέρκυρα), the main city named after the island itself and what was once one small walk under the morning sunshine now is just one almost faded memory for some reason refusing to die and from time to time reminding me of a beautiful site I experienced so long ago.
Couple of days ago, after almost four decades after my last encounter with the island, I decided to take my wife and son to the tourist cruise to Corfu. The ship was medium size filled with approximately 300 people of different nationalities and not so small group of Serbian tourists. During the final two years of World War I, the island of Corfu served as a refuge for the Serbian army that retreated there on Allied forces' ships. More than 150,000 soldiers, royal government and civilians established Serbian administration in exile during 1916-1918 while in Serbia under occupation of Austrian and Bulgarian armies staid only women, children and old men. We started browsing the city in the street of Moustoxidou, where next to the French Consular Agency lies honorary Consulate of Serbia or simply called Serbian House, the museum completely dedicated to the WWI events happened on the island and island of Vido (Greek: Βίδο) across the harbor (first three images above).
Center of the city is a labyrinth of narrow streets and it requires great orientation skills to remember where you are or where you were in order to find the place of interests. While we waited in front of Sorbonne's office of the French consular building, I got the idea to use extremely elongated portrait size of 16:9 aspect ratio of digital format and start taking photos of small stone alleys. Generally I don't like this format comparing to its landscape counterpart just because the image looks too narrow in vertical direction but in case of streets of Corfu I could say this is ideal combination. We didn't have much time until the ship departure time so I chose "Scene Selector" feature on my Coolpix camera (which is somewhat improved automated mode in Nikon's software for digital cameras) and started clicking at the beginning of each street we crossed. After little post processing (mostly minor changes in brightness, contrast and sharpness) this blog post is the result. I included in this page 36 images of beautiful small and narrow streets all taken in the center of Corfu.
When I was 7ish years old I was lot smaller, streets were empty and everything looked large to me. This is probably why I remembered the whole site and its mystical appearance in early hours. Especially when we stumbled big city hall with loud church bells echoing the streets. Today tourism changed the scenery a lot and streets are full of various stores, coffee shops and restaurants. Comparing to 70ies, now walking the colorful streets full of people and friendly salesmen brought familiar environment of other Greek towns. However, unusual city's topography with up and downhill streets orientated in all directions provides Corfu little authentic feeling and small glimpse to the old times when civilization was still knocking the doors of all Greek's coastal towns. My wife chose some small authentic Greek tavern ran by old couple where we experienced even further travel to the past where traditional Greek hospitality was still not influenced with modern times, Wi-fi hot spots and where time flowed much slower.
Our free time in Corfu were between 2 and 4 PM and photographing empty streets or scenery were mission impossible. Still I managed to find couple of empty streets and alleys or the ones with not too many people inside. These photos (in above last segments) ended probably the best and showing the Corfu's special mixture of Venetian, British, Italian, Greek, and Byzantine architecture mainly originated in 18th and 19th century.
At the very end of this special photo story I can only recommend this part of the Balkans highly along with Parga - small town where we settled for 10 days in a family villa next to amazing olive-tree forest. I am sure this part of western Greece hides many more interesting places to visit and photograph. If you add crystal clear waters of Ionian sea and friendly faces wherever you look I am sure spending just one vacation on the island is way too little time. I will definitely come here again in the future and this time I am not going to let new memory to fade again to the point of haunting dream like before. I have to say though that when I was walking the same streets again after long time I didn't experienced typical Déjà vu feeling like I described in the blog post last year. Even though there were some glimpses that looked familiar, too much time passed and I guess I wasn't able to recognize exact spots and views probably due the fact that children and adults experience events and scenery differently and not just because of different point of view but also because memory bucket of child's mind is lot's emptier and simply they don't have much data to compare with especially if they are experiencing something for the first time. Nevertheless, the whole experience with my lost memory was at least unusually unique and I doubt I would encounter many more alike.
Streets of Corfu (Full Photo Album):
https://photos.app.goo.gl/TLw83qgV8ZmMe1Gi8
Parga:
https://www.milanzivic.com/2013/08/parga.html
https://photos.app.goo.gl/vSM1DFFafrfvMxU96
Corfu (Wiki and Web):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corfu
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vido
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbian_Campaign_(World_War_I)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Serbs_Corfu1916-1918.jpg
http://www.greeka.com/ionian/corfu/corfu-architecture.htm
http://www.pargagreece.co.uk/
Recently this final link suddenly appeared and during our vacation last week I accidentally found my dream site and all missing pieces finally placed together forming a memory almost 40 years old. Somehow, subconsciously, I have always known that it wasn't the dream at all and all the streets and buildings were very real and instead represent one of those almost forgotten recollections hidden deeply in my memory banks. What I saw in my night vision was the lost memory of the city of Corfu.
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At the very end of this special photo story I can only recommend this part of the Balkans highly along with Parga - small town where we settled for 10 days in a family villa next to amazing olive-tree forest. I am sure this part of western Greece hides many more interesting places to visit and photograph. If you add crystal clear waters of Ionian sea and friendly faces wherever you look I am sure spending just one vacation on the island is way too little time. I will definitely come here again in the future and this time I am not going to let new memory to fade again to the point of haunting dream like before. I have to say though that when I was walking the same streets again after long time I didn't experienced typical Déjà vu feeling like I described in the blog post last year. Even though there were some glimpses that looked familiar, too much time passed and I guess I wasn't able to recognize exact spots and views probably due the fact that children and adults experience events and scenery differently and not just because of different point of view but also because memory bucket of child's mind is lot's emptier and simply they don't have much data to compare with especially if they are experiencing something for the first time. Nevertheless, the whole experience with my lost memory was at least unusually unique and I doubt I would encounter many more alike.
Streets of Corfu (Full Photo Album):
https://photos.app.goo.gl/TLw83qgV8ZmMe1Gi8
Parga:
https://www.milanzivic.com/2013/08/parga.html
https://photos.app.goo.gl/vSM1DFFafrfvMxU96
Corfu (Wiki and Web):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corfu
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vido
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbian_Campaign_(World_War_I)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Serbs_Corfu1916-1918.jpg
http://www.greeka.com/ionian/corfu/corfu-architecture.htm
http://www.pargagreece.co.uk/