Masterful writing Mike, Chapeau!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R51jmndHEr4

Среќен Роденден Мајк! That would be Happy Birthday Mike in Macedonian. I wouldn't bother much about the right angle at 114. At the time you reach 110 they would have figured it out how to keep those cells dividing undamaged. Isn't it strange that although life expectancy has grown steadily we somehow assume that it will not in future. I for myself (now 41) am expecting that my generation will reach 120 in average even without disruptive breakthroughs in medicine. A lot of people (even Google) are investing a lot of money in prolonging life, not only because prolonging life will surely be a massively lucrative endeavor. So lookout for that bus and prepare yourself for at least 60 more years of TOP!

Leica S Pink Floyd Echoes

I learned a new word here today, again. Valise. And a beautiful one too.

I am very happy for you Mike. I am confident that you will find the strength as you have already found the courage to pull the move trough. To sacrifice the comfort of the status quo and even more, be ready to go trough the energy-robbing process of moving (something you must have fresh memories of) in order to be closer to your girlfriend sounds so right and so romantic to me that in gives me hope for the human condition per se. Love is the only answer. Go for it, enjoy your late ticket to happiness.

Really happy for you Mike! Great house and yard. In the suburbs of Skopje, Macedonia where I live to buy the land and build the house would cost from 200.000 to 300.000 EUR depending on the location. That is a lot of money for Macedonian standards and that is why people seldom buy houses, you buy condos here yes, but if you have the money needed for a house you buy the land and build yourself the house. The suburbs of Skopje are still considered rural and land is considered to be still cheap- it costs from 50 to 100 EUR per square meter. That said the style and the materials we use to build houses here are different than in the US because Skopje is in a seismic area meaning strong earthquakes can be expected like for instance the earthquake in 1963 that devastated the city. Thus the material of choice is reinforced concrete skeleton with clay building blocks. www.offspot.blogspot.com I build this house 5 years ago when land was even cheaper 25 EUR per sq meter. The cost for the land 700 m2 and the finished house was 200.000 EUR Once again - Congratulations! [Very interesting Darko, and that is a beautiful house you have! I like the style. --Mike]

Leica M8 for its Gestalt, sadly electronically immature, thus Nikon D700.

Sorry to rain on your parade, but I see no clothes here. I understand that the thrill of these images is in their exceptional technical quality, but to me that is not enough in this day and age.Strip them of their technical supremacy and what remains? Or in other words, imagine this were inkjet prints of a DSLR, would they still be desirable? That is the reason for the widespread outcry for higher resolution samples I assume. A photograph for me has to work even as a small jpeg. I guess that's why people went to the Leica format, it's hard enough to produce anything remarkable with a relatively handholdable camera, and seemingly impossible with those great boxes. I maybe an ignorant and insensitive Rookie but I had to be honest to what I see and feel. [So then, you've decided that since you don't happen to like these particular pictures, that means they're bad pictures, and no one else will like them either? And you read this site? 'Cuz you're making me feel like a failure.... I guess I should say this...photographs are a matter of taste, and not everyone likes or dislikes the same things in perfect lockstep. If you don't like something, all it means is that you don't like it. Your personal reaction is perfectly valid, but at the same time it's not automatically generalizable to the whole rest of the world. --Mike]

Dear Ctein, we all here cherish YOUR interests here. My concern is that this lens is not suited for such pictures. But shoot a portrait on near minimum focusing distance and all the mentioned shortcomings become irrelevant. With all respect, shooting landscapes @ infinity, wide open with this lens is like riding downhill offroad with a street racing bicycle and finding that it has shortcomings.

Gursky reclaimed the most expensive photograph ever sold badge, that before Cindy Sherman's 'Untitled #96', his '99 cent' bore. And '99 cent' brought me originally to Gursky, the Düsseldorf School of Photography and Bernd and Hilla Becher. I remember that this "Rhein II" was my favorite Gursky when I googled him back then. I still like it, would make me happy to see its gigantic self. I very much enjoyed the comments here, most of them are very thoughtful and true, still they show how dramatically the cream of the world's contemplative photographers and photo enthusiasts is detached from the photography as art world.