TV Stars

I’m still practicing cooking.
The Cooking is getting better. It all looks OK but not yet as mouth watering as on the photos in the books.
Since my dishes taste good, I decided that all I need to do now is to give my pictures some Photo Shop work. How are these “Before” and “After” pictures?



In any case, it keeps me away from bad food...most of the time.

A while ago, a friend kindly took me along to watch the TV show “Hot Seat”. It was very exciting to step into a TV studio again after 15 years away from the live TV industry.
Trying to impress my friend, I showed her how it all works and where to sit for maximum camera exposure because she wants to get famous.
After some tactical positioning she was almost guaranteed a hot spot on national TV and some degree of fame. To cut a long story short; half of the audience shots had me in them and my friend was nowhere to be seen. I must be a better Studio Director than I thought.

So called "Problem Horses"

While not much is going on in my life, I might take the opportunity to mention the number one reason for problems with horses.
Lack of physical strength!
Almost all clients horses I have ridden were presented to me because of secondary problems due to physical weakness.
Before a horse has built up strength in the top line muscles, which provide collection, they display many so called "faults" for very natural reasons.
They flick their head up when doing down-transitions, go "on the forehand" or pull the reins out of the riders hands and run off etc.
For an inexperienced rider this can appear threatening and cause more or less forced reactions, first by the rider and subsequently by the horse, reacting to the rider.
Here is a good story where the rider was worried about riding her her horse.
The mare is five years old and had a foal after being broken in.
Many riders with fear of their horses have become confident as soon as they were told some facts of nature. In more dramatic cases; that a horse can not buck with the head held high up
or; generally, a horse who rears, only flip over if the reins are pulled.
On the less dramatic end of the scale are other facts such as; when a large horse is agitated it can appear to challenge the rider because it's response is physically bigger and stronger or; very agile horses react quicker and appear more stressed or nervous when a problem occurs. The fact is that many of these horses (often thoroughbreds) are the most confident and best tempered ones. (The main reason for fear in humans, is lack of knowledge)
So, This young mare, turned out to be exceptionally calm and pleasant and she improved immediately when introduced to basic physical training and allowed the time she needed to understand the exercises.

Nothing new so far

Nothing is new in my life either. I will have a look at some pictures I have taken recently and let you know what they are. This is one of the meals I have learned to cook. Marinated Lamb Cutlets with Bacon Carbonara and snow peas came out really nice. I have now five dishes that I can do well. This is after trying a total of eight and when I have seven good ones, I can rotate every week. All that is missing now is a wife in a dark suit with a business career and three snotty kids who hates any food that I make. Then the picture would be complete and I could finally have the family I never had. No offence to my ex wife and her children. They were good but I was never too popular with any of the in laws. Once, when I turned off the power to the kids Play Station and put a padlock on the fridge, their father threatened to beat me up, so you can see why I had some communication problems. I can for my life not understand how the kids are not epileptics and obese, but the truth is that they grew up to great people, so I finally learned something from their dad. "Thanks Dad!"

The other day I had the opportunity to see the A380 take off for Los Angeles. It was a very impressing event since I was standing on the tarmac together with some colleagues. Afterwards I realised that there was almost no noise when the aircraft took off. Certainly different from last time I experienced something like this. Once I assisted a professional photographer in photographing a Jumbo Jet's front wheels during take off on a wet runway.

These were the particular requirements of the client (SAAB). They wanted their advert to show how safe their cars was on wet roads. Me and my photographer lied down on the grass just beside the beginning of the runway with a camera each ready for the aircraft to appear and take off. Since we did not calculate how wide the wing span was, we had engine number four passing us less than 20 metres away. When the pilot reved up to full throttle with all brakes on, my boss stood up, threw his $10 000 Nikon F1 on the ground and ran like hell...Being half deaf already, I could not quite see what the problem was, except my head was rattling like a maraca and I could not see much with the storm blowing into my face. The same job also resulted in one of my favourite pictures.