Greetings from Luxembourg!

[Jonathan K]

Dear Shirley and David, dear forum members,

Yet another long time visitor to this site coming out of his hiding...

It was my father who tought me the basics and passed the "photobug" on to me. At the age of 9 I learned to handle a 6x6 Yashicamat twin lens camera, after that I was allowed a Zeiss Ikon SLR (one of the very first SLRs produced) for a short time before it ended up in daddy's showcase... I even learned the basics in the lab, although we only did B&W.

At the age of eleven I got my first Minolta AF 5000 after winning a bet against my father...

There was a long time I stopped shooting (don't ask me why), but it all restarted when the DSLRs appeared...
I use a KM7D since 2004 and an Alpha 700 since two weeks...

I work as a conductor, I mostly do contemporary music, although I regularly do symphonic and operatic repertoire.

I used some of the recent rainy days to put together a gallery. Nothing spectacular (yet...), but at least I don't show up at the party with empty hands :

http://picasaweb.google.com/jonathankaell

Last, but not least, I wish to thank you, David, for the valuable information you have shared with all alpha-mount users on this site and elsewhere...

Greetings from Luxembourg,

Jonathan

[Dr. Harout]

Hi and welcome Jonathan
And wonderful pictures you have there (I will definitely look again at your site today and will try to find weak points to criticize heh-heh-he ).

[rogprov]

Welcome to the forum Jonathan!

[Cogito]

Welcome, Jonathan!

[David Kilpatrick]

Greetings! I have been out all evening playing music - nothing on your level, some a cappella Scottish songs, some guitar in polyphonic style after the manner of early baroque lute (Dowland is one my heroes), some good ol' strumming, and some folk viola (having decided to learn some viola chops, because we have too many guitar players and it needs something different). I know many photographers who are musicians, and at one of our professional photo awards nights, we had a band made up entirely of staff from Kodak Limited UK.

Mannes and Godowski, the inventors of Kodachrome, were both concert violin players by original profession.

My good friend Stu Williamson, who was the drummer in the group Marmalade, now runs the most profitable and successful studio operation in Dubai.

David

[Jonathan K]

Hello all,

thanks for the warm welcome.

David, I am very pleased to hear that you are a musical enthusiast. I was wondering about your passion for the lute since you posted those A700/D300 comparison shots. I absolutely agree with you about John Dowland, the only thing about him is the fact that I hardly ever get the luxury to perform his music. The closest I got to him (except learning his music on the piano) was Benjamin Britten's „Lachrymae“, a set of variations for solo viola and string orchestra which are based on the thematic material of two popular Dowland songs.

On the other hand I am pretty asthonished to hear about so many „photo-musicians“ or „musigraphs“, or whatever you want to call them... I only know about two other musicians that are photography enthusiasts (and they are all string players, just as myself... I am a double bass player).
I know lots of pilots, accountants, salesmen and teachers enjoying photography but only very few musicians.

Dr. Harout, thanks for looking at my gallery.... Still waiting for your criticisms....

Cheers,

Jonathan

[David Kilpatrick]

The stringed instrument in those comparison shots (A700 image above) is a Lombard Mandolino by Dr Alfio Leone, Sicily (Musikalia). It was a prototype and has a simple error of luthiery - the tuning pegs are swapped left to right, the treble side 1st peg should be placed at the distance the bass side peg is, vice-versa. If anyone knows a left-handed 18th century mandolino player, I have just the instrument they need...

The double-reed pipe is a Turkish zurma, a much cruder and deeper pitched relative of the Catalan dulzaina and Breton bombarde. Unfortunately it fell off the still life set (which remained like that for almost six months) and broke the best reed I had. It is not much use anyway as the scale pitches are incompatible with western European music. I'm trying to get someone in Valencia to find me a good dulzaina/dolcina, like this:

Alpha 700, 28mm f2 lens, Alicante Fogueres de San Juan street performance - solo dulzaina is unusual, they normally play 'massed' like pipe or military fife bands. Because they are made of ebony and either played in sunshine or at night they don't really photograph very well!

The reason those instruments ended up as a studio set is because they are small enough to fit, almost unplayable and they look good!

David

[Jonathan K]

HI David,

if it were only the pegs, I believe that it shouldn't be a big deal to fix... As long as the construction is correctly done in the body... One of my basses has been changed from three strings (old italian tuning, also used on 19th century french basses) to 4 strings. It can go pretty wrong soundwise, since the dimensions are not correct...
But your instrument looks good indeed.
Do you play any of those double reed instruments? Any shawms, bombardes, oboe da caccia, dulcians, or anything alike? Or why do you like to own a dulzaina?

The music academy where I teach (in Saarbrücken, Germany) has just got hold of an instrument collection from a private collector in Berlin, and it (appearantly) has some 150 wind instruments... I'll be interested to see what will show up...

Cheers

Jonathan

[David Kilpatrick]

I like the dulzaina because it is very loud indeed and some of my friends play bagpipes. I just would like something a bit louder to shut them up

I sell the Maui Xaphoon in the UK - Gary Friedman, the Alpha e-Book author, is the main worldwide distributor. But I can't manage to play it, it requires too much lung power!

David

[Javelin]

I've been reading this thread with great interest. trouble is near the end I got the sick feeling that i'd had a stroke and forgot how to read english

[David Kilpatrick]

You should have been looking at Jonathan's gallery instead. I liked the portraits, landscapes and trees most of the galleries. In the wildlife gallery, the lizard on the cactus is superb. The glimpses of Luxembourg are intriguing and for me, so it is the limestone landscape and coast of Croatia - I have always felt that limestone transforms places (Les Baux, Guadaleste, the Burren, Malham Cove, anywhere in the Dolomites - etc), never really felt that sandstone and shales work all that well despite the Grand Canyon, and living in a sandstone/volcanic region in Scotland.

David

[Jonathan K]

Good morning David,

thanks for your compiments on my gallery!
The thing is that there is very little of Luxembourg in there... Sorry for this. There are bits of Saarbrücken, Freiburg, the UNESCO world heritage site of Völklingen (D), Sarreguemines (F). I actually never felt the urge to show what is so common for me
But thanks for the tip. I will browse through my pics and see if I can put together someting decent about Luxembourg.

Cheers Jonathan

[Wes Gibbon]

I like the dulzaina because it is very loud indeed and some of my friends play bagpipes. I just would like something a bit louder to shut them up

I sell the Maui Xaphoon in the UK - Gary Friedman, the Alpha e-Book author, is the main worldwide distributor. But I can't manage to play it, it requires too much lung power!

David

Is a dulzaina the same as a dulcian? I've never tried one, but I seem to remember reading somewhere that a dulcian is quieter than a bassoon? n.b. I eked out a meagre living as a bassoonist in the 1970's. I only play as an amateur nowadays. Do I qualify as that rare breed - a musician + photographer (assuming I qualify as either!)

[Jonathan K]

Hello Wes,

No, the dulzaina is a Catalan instrument, which is somewhat related to the bombarde, so it should have a similar nasal and "noisy" sound and should be extremely loud... (maybe my perception of the bombarde sound being noisy has to do with the people whom I heard playing)
Check this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dulzaina

The dulcian is the predecessor of the modern bassoon... Did you work as an orchestra musician?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dulcian

Honestly, I didn't know the dulzaina before David draw my attention to it... So this forum is pretty educative

Cheers Jonathan

[Dr. Harout]

Jonathan, you know what is criticism, so be prepared
EXIF data are absent
I like your pictures specially those in landscapes.
By the way, for that lighthouse and cactus photo, for which pharmaceutical company was it done
Thanks for sharing.