Notices by NeonSnake (neonsnake@kolektiva.social)

@hakan_geijer

looollll yes exactly that. I have enough visible piercings (oddly, it's literally just my ears, no tats, no septum piercings etc etc, although my partner does) to get labelled as antifa. I guess my shoulder length hair, as a bloke, does it.

I had it a few weeks back in the local supermarket - no biggie, but some old dude was like "Are you antifa?"

I was honestly baffled, in fricking English suburbia. "I mean, sure, but....what?"

"You're wearing a mask, and a leather biker jacket"

Ok

I think I was buying a bag of lemons, some maple syrup and some halloumi. Smash the fucking system, I guess.

@BigTittyBimbo

@hakan_geijer

"That said, I'm a kinda pissed off looking tall white guy so I tend to not attract trouble either"

yeah, same here - this is why I'm always a little cautious around this kinda thing.

A lot of it is, in my experience, "there's a lot of kebab shops around here, I don't really like it" - but also there is an element of what might be for me a bit "lol stop being silly, normie, not everything is a no-go area just because it's got shops with graffiti on the shutters" might also be "yeah, dude, I *get it*, but also - yer a nearing six foot hairy chested leather jacketed punk-arse looking fucker" - hence me massively hedging 😂

@BigTittyBimbo

@hakan_geijer

One of the things I found with Morocco in general is that it constantly defied my expectations.

I normally did a decent amount of research before travelling - what sights (touristy) do I want to see that I'll regret if I don't, and also where do actual real people hang out (ie. not tourists)

I learned pretty early on that most reports of "you're gonna get pickpocketed, and beware of scammers!" were overblown (I remember being in New York when I was 21 or 22, and thinking "if you think this is 'sketchy', then you've obviously never been clubbing in East London")

Morocco, though - the taxi rank outside the airport was all charging me double what I'd been told was a "decent" price, so immediately I was on my guard.

Then, when I got into the medina, the taxi driver called a couple of lads over to guide my down the alleyways to the riad I'd booked - I fully expected the two lads to want paying and to be very forward about it, and had girded myself towards that - but instead they simply guided me there, shook my hand, wished me a happy visit, and went on their way. So I was wrong about that one.

I got lost a day or two later, and *was* asked for money to get me back to the centre of the medina. I fell for the "free henna tattoo" thing (no biggie), but later a guy on a market stall gave me a free orange juice because we were having a nice chat and I gave him a lighter for his cig whilst we were talking.

It was wonderful, but also overwhelming - and most importantly, in this context, very, very hard to talk confidently about.

@BigTittyBimbo

@hakan_geijer

Knowing that you're not new to this, I was thinking more about human interactions than your ability to navigate.

I'm pretty well-travelled, and 90% of my travel was solo, and I did a lot of wandering about on my own with my camera out - Morocco is one of only a couple of places where I felt a bit twitchy about my safety.

(I will be frank though and say that I'm not sure how genuinely unsafe I was, and how much was culture shock - that being said, I've travelled as a European through China and Vietnam; and the other place I felt twitchy was Los Angeles)

@BigTittyBimbo

@hakan_geijer @sidereal ah, shit, really? Which band, Bob Vylan or Kneecap?

@hakan_geijer it's definitely nationalism; not a lot of getting away from that here with regard to Piccadillli

I'm defo not against transing both if them, tho x

@hakan_geijer loolllll

Am I allowed to play on the word "Tommy" and use this or similar as the logo?

I mean, if I'm gonna go for it, I'm going for it all the way and pretending that the tomatillo/turmeric mixture has it's roots in, I dunno, rural Hampshire or something 😂

@hakan_geijer You have no idea how dangerous an idea that is to put into my head, given that I have been known to make piccalilli.

@hakan_geijer obvs I will! ;)

@hakan_geijer I'll probably pass on tamales - difficult to get the masa, here, and I'm not *quite* confident in my skills yet.

Yes, though, to enchiladas - thank you - feels like a very "layer them in a foil tray" dish, which is what I'm looking for (like, as a European, I'm looking for equivalent to being to make dishes of shepherd's pie or lasagne or whatever that someone can just pop in the oven for 30 mins whilst doing other bits).

Also, yeah, a few dishes of soup and a bag of tortillas with some "pop these in at the end" feels do-able too

@hakan_geijer @KevinCarson1 @waitworry

I'd be curious as well.

The "Gray Tribe" thing is *relatively* new to me, in as much as I recognise the term, but have never had the inclination to look much further into it.

I *think* I get it - looks very much like that guy from EFF (? I've blanked on his name) that went off the rails about how "wokeness" is ruining tech and the "important conversations around it", but that impression is based more on vibes than anything solid, right now.

@hakan_geijer oof! - thanks for that, was wondering what I'd missed (a lot, evidently!)

@hakan_geijer lmao I remember being first week or so of April 2020?

I am *built* for this shit, right? Hairy-chested motherfucking cans and making the best of it, yeah?

Cracked open a can of corned beef or something similar, and cut open my finger while doing so.

I was not, as it turned out, built for this shit after all lol

@hakan_geijer For sure! Again, I would go back to "your photos are well composed"

Beyond that, it's up to you, and I'd guess there's a bunch of us who are willing to help *if* you want to add that to your capacity - but if not, mate, that's some good shit!

@hakan_geijer Editing is a mindset; I used to enjoy editing over a coffee or a glass of something nice after a day out of shooting, but it's very much a "second stage", I started with film, so it was natural.

In terms of equipment, I had a very old second hand-DLSR, and gradually moved down to mirror-less, and then to point-and-shoots. Hauling around lenses and bodies became less and less attractive to me.

I'm currently rocking an LX-100 (second-hand) and the TZ-100 (new, at the time).

These two very easily cover all my needs, whilst sitting in a bag, and can be charged from a USB port. A little bit of dicking about, and I can perform edits on my phone, or wait until I get home to do more major stuff. I'd say we're well past the point of needing a bag full of lenses, unless we're doing something professional.

Second hand camera equipment isn't hard - there's a decent amount of "oh, shit they bought out the LX-200, I need that one instead!" types that you can pick up an LX-100 off for cheap (for example) - but, again, I'd always say, don't spend money on something unless you're bloody sure you'll use it!

if it's something you think you might want to get into, then try to - if you can - grab a cheap camera and work with it for a few months, then maybe expand from there.

@hakan_geijer All photos are biased 😉

When I occasionally do my "on this day" sessions on here, I'm picking a multiple of 4 (for fedi posting reasons) from a bunch of photos that I took and decided were good enough to process and keep, that were themselves a subset of *every* photo I took. Like, I'm showing you 8 out of - sometimes - 500 or so, most of which went in the digital bin for being rubbish, and the others don't represent what I'm trying to show about (most recently) Amsterdam, say.

I'd also very strongly encourage the idea that the "moment" is personal to you.

Like: if you're taking a mountain shot and you feel warm, but the camera (on its settings) takes a "cold" shot, then use software to warm it back up until it represents what it *meant* to you at the time. Your eyes don't work the same way as the software in your camera, which is just trying to grab 50% gray, or whatever!

In terms of equipment, this is always a tricky one - cameras are *bloody expensive*. As with anything, I'd always advise to start with something cheap in case it turns out to be a fad that you're not gonna keep up.

I personally like Panasonics, but I've just looked up the price of a used TZ100 and it's 50% more than I think I bought mine for when new 😳

@hakan_geijer Phones nowadays (and for several years tbf) have had enough physical technology in them to easily stand up against the decent cameras of yesteryear.

Not just megapixels (basically sensor size), but the actual lenses are - within the bounds of physics - as good as a consumer grade digital camera.

It's obviously *very* dependant on what type of photography you're doing, but landscape like this set of yours is very well within the reach of your phone, where you essentially want the whole photo to be in focus.

And in all honesty, composition *always* trumps sharpness, depth of field, dynamic range and all the other technical bollocks anyway 😉

@hakan_geijer They're always the best shots!

Golden rule of photography: No amount of getting up at 5am because sunrise is at 5.48am precisely, setting up yer tripod, focus point etc will *ever* trump your mate who went "that looks nice" and pulls his phone out.

Your shots are really well composed

@hakan_geijer Obvious like is obvious, but that sunset photo is stunning, as is the one with the fog. Loving the foreground interest on the latter.

@folkerschamel @NicolaElle @samuel @SallyStrange @steve@s.yelvington.com

Mate, I don't know how many people need to tell you the same thing.

People are in favour of their admin blocking threads, because it massively reduces the chances of them getting spanked in the face by repeated racist/transphobic/homophobic/misogynistic/fascist insults.

Now, COULD they do it themselves? Sure. But by that point, they've already seen it.

Now, for the likes of me - and assuming your picture is you - as a middle-aged cisgendered white bloke, what will happen if I see something horrifically bigoted, is that I block the individual/instance, have a few moments of distaste, and then I get on with my day because I'm not directly and personally impacted by it.

No matter how much of an ally or whatever I consider myself, I simply cannot be impacted by (eg) white supremacy in the same way as someone who isn't white. I can be angry, I can be ashamed of my fellow white people, I can feel all sorts of sadness, but at the end of the day, I'm still white.

But by the time someone who *isn't* white has seen the white-supremacy post, and blocks the person/instance, it's already too late. Now, I don't know, and will not presume to know, how it makes them feel, but I rather suspect that they feel pretty shit for a hell of a lot longer than I do.

What you're advocating for is allowing those people to feel personal discomfort/distress, so that the likes of you and I don't have to go to the effort of, oh, I dunno, joining threads and finding the decent and interesting people ourselves?

Seriously?