WLMRO bragging time

The winners of the Wiki Loves Monuments photography contest are announced today, time for me to take a deep breath, rest and then brag a bit :D

From the almost 5800 submitted pictures, the jury made a short selection of 284 "finalists", pictures considered the best and worthy of a closer evaluation. Despite my notices and warnings, the other members of the jury selected a few of my own submissions among those finalists (as an organizer and jury member, I could not receive any prizes, but couldn't abstain from contributing). And again despite my notices and warnings, they noted my photos (I disqualified them to be fair, giving my notes as ZERO) and, even with one of the 3 jury members noting them "0", they are not the last in the list.

Bunt enough talk, here are the pics:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

One step closer

Now that the Wikipedia campaign closed, is the time for the next step, judging the photos, and the jury started to work on that. See, even the diplomas are ready:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

Starting to put pics to WLMRO

It was kind of frustrating to promote the Wiki Loves Monuments, make video tutorials, organize photo walks, but not upload any photo (I can't and I won't enter the contest, since I am organizer and judge). Until the solution stroke: there can be a photo category for organizers, which is counted for the total and seeding data, but not entering in the contest. Relief! A first batch is up, more are to come :) This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

Wide in Brussels

Over the week-end I was in Brussels for the FOSDEM conference, as part of the Fedora team, the perfect opportunity to take my wide lens with me and take a lot of travel photos.

So of course there were building, cathedrals, monuments and so:

And there were cool stores, anime, comic books and so forth:

And plenty of good Belgian beer, at Delirium and not only:

And there was specific food:

Of course the chocolate was not missing, but this time was no chocolate:

Many more photos are dumped in a quickly made gallery.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

Mici and bere at Curtea Berarilor

For a while we practically moved the headquarter of the FLOSS meetings at Curtea Berarilor (Brewer's Court) in Bucharest and since then I wanted to take a photo with their most popular (and a modern Romanian tradition) menu: mici, fries, mustard, pickles and, of course, plenty of beer. Every time people were hungry and I missed the opportunity. Until now...

Or in other words: I am Mitica :)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

People of FLOSSCamp

This year's FLOSSCamp wad a good opportunity for some people photography:

It was also a good opportunity for playing:

Now eagerly awaiting for the next one...

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

Stupid people story

When I bought the toy a few days ago I hat it shipped at my office, as usual, since this is the most convenient for me. Couple of days later, it was the time to bring it home and much to the shock on friend who lives in an unsecure country where something like this is inconceivable, I had no problem taking in the street, since in Bucharest something like this is obviously a toy. Of course, inside its original box :D

The day coincided with the openSUSE release party, where I participated along with a few friends and all the toys I could carry (Mo called us "Fedora release party crasher crew" for this). The meeting point with the other guys was at the exit from a subway station, Piața Victoriei, since I thought this may be the most convenient for all. And now is the moment when my stupidity shines: while waiting, I showed them my toy, ready to take it out of the box and fully assemble it. And only then we realised we are less than 100 meters away from the Government Palace, a building heavily guarded, with armed soldiers and in a time when the government just raised the taxes. And realised is probably a good idea to keep the toy inside the box :D And also realised how stupid can I be at times.

But this is not all... we continued to wait with the box under the arm while a guy passing by, not sure if he was drunk, crazy or both, asked us if that is real. From the box it was obvious is a toy, but we told him this once again. Then he asked us if we know where he can buy a real one (AFAIK, is not possible or legal to buy an AK 47 in Romania) so we, amused, directed him to ask the palace guards, since they surely have real guns. Before leaving he let us know how angry is he with the Prime Minister and bragged about he would do if he had a real weapon (from his look I doubt he ever touched one).

So I am stupid, but probably not the only one. Hope not the biggest one either...

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

Sexy Fedora T-shirt

In less of a couple of hours today is the release for Fedora 13 and specially for this event I am putting out a few sexy pics with a beautiful girl wearing the classic I <3 fedora T-shirt (stay tuned for the second part next week, when the shirt will come of!). Right from the bat, it should be noted Aneska is a professional model and I, the photographer, have the full rights to use the pictures.

And all is not about looks, she is quite a geek: doing photography and photo editing playing good computer games (Baldur's Gate, if you can believe!) and also having heard what Linux is... it was easy for me to explain what Fedora is, by telling it is something similar with Ubuntu. Her boyfriend (yes, she has a boyfriend, I can hear now millions of geek hearts being broken and suddenly silenced), also photographer, knew Fedora by name (well... he knew it as "Fedora Core", bad for me for not having a Live image with me) and have tried once Ubuntu on his desktop... he was unhappy with the software (troubles of installing proprietary nVidia drivers) but amazed by the helpful community (I owe now a beer to some unknown guy from the Romanian Ubuntu community).

We touched just briefly in the talk the topic about women and technology, their lack of involvement... I feel this is something worth revisiting at a later date, as she can provide useful insight on it - I expect a point of view radically different to the extremist hate groups driven by the USian politically correctness, prudity and hypocrisy.

Anyway, she will read the comments, being genuinely interested in the people feedback about this photoshoot, so please leave feedback in the comments, it will be read.

I also have to make today and exception from my rule, I believe in Freedom and use the CC-BY-SA license as much as I can, but in this case the rule is the photos can't be used in a way that will damage the model image/reputation, so let's consider them also under a "Non Derivatives" (ND) clause. However, she wants to see them used, so if you make a wallpaper from them, feel free to post a screenshot for her.

...and don't forget to visit and pass forward the URL of the entire gallery. And wait for the second part, is hot.

Update: The second part is up.

Making of: Ziua Eliberarii Documentelor

If you don't appreciate the irony of having the Document Freedom Day photoshooting "Making of" video delivered in the close Flash format offered by YouTube (where the main audience is locked), then a Theora version is available too on Blip.tv.



This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

More DFD

Another set of pictures for the Document Freedom Day:

Piata Victoriei and the Romanian Government

Culture Ministry on the Kiseleff Boulevard

Free Press Plaza and The Free Press House
If you like the initiative, spread the word and the photos in any form and media, they are freely licensed as CC-BY-SA.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

Ziua Eliberarii Documentelor / Document Freedom Day

This was an interesting photojournalism project: for Document Freedom Day do a series of photos in front of a number of Public Administration buildings with the message "Nu va putem citi documentele! / We can't read your documents!":

Piata Constitutiei and the Parliament Palace

Near Cismigiu Park, in front of the State Archives

Piata Romana, in front of the Academy for Economic Studies
If you like the initiative, spread the word and the photos in any form and media, they are freely licensed as CC-BY-SA.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

Enhancing her

Is arrogant to pretend you enhance the model, but after shooting you have to enhance the photos a bit, even if you just smooth the skin, sharpen the eyes and mouth and adjust the colors. Being quite a FLOSS zealot, I do that with GIMP:


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

Tux play

Who said gaming in Linux is hard? You just need a stuffed Tux and a playful model. Is that simple.


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

10by10by10: Support LGM2010!

The Libre Graphics Meeting (LGM) is the annual working conference for free software graphics application users and developers. The fifth edition takes place 27-30 May 2010 in Brussels, Belgium. Teams from GIMP, Inkscape, Blender, Krita, Scribus, Hugin, Open Font Library and many other graphics projects gather to improve their software and discuss new ideas for interoperability and shared standards.

LGM2010 has launched a fundraising campaign called 10by10by10 to raise $10,000 USD from grants, $10K from corporations and $10K from the community. The funds raised from granting organizations, public, and corporate partners will allow participants who have no other means of sponsoring their travel to Brussels to attend the event.

Please contribute to the community campaign at: http://pledgie.com/campaigns/8926

All donations are tax deductible for US taxpayers. For larger donations from corporations and individuals, you can contact us directly at lgm AT gnome DOT org

---

Note: I have proposed a talk there titled Desiging with Free tools in an Open Community: experiences from the Fedora Design Team

Box of eyes tutorial

Still looking for a storage solution, have not published a large amount of photos lately, but I am still alive, doing a little bit different stuff, like writing, like this weird box of eyes with GIMP tutorial or identity design.



This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

Butterlies near the forest

Camping in the middle of the nature has a lot of gifts, like parting with the insects. Those may be unpleasant, like the insect bites on your arm and legs, but also beautiful, like a butterfly encounter. You see him first near your tent and if following things may happen. You only need space on the memory card (and the space is plenty).



This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

In the forest

Going in the middle of the nature, even for a geeky event, I obviously couldn't stop myself from going a few steps away in the forest and looking around. You will surely find little gems.




... now I am definitely NOT bold enough to tag those as "food" :D


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.

FLOSSCamp photos

While still on hold from substantial photo posting due to the lack of a suitable gallery to power the content, the recent FLOSSCamp at Curmătura Ștezii proved to be a great opportunity for a large number of good or great shots, so I have to work around ways and post some.

>

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.