Limassol

Rocked a bit

Today I went to “Stork” again with some friends of mine. There was yet another hard rock party. It wasn’t as good as the last time, but it was pretty good anyway. There were enough of both old songs – those that I hear on every rock party, and news songs – old songs, but that I really hear. One of the new songs that really brought up a few good memories was “Another brick in the wall” from Pink Floyd. Among the old ones was an excellently performed “Smoke on the water” from Deep Purple. And yes, it was good even considering the fact that I am among those lucky ones who can compare it to the original.

Although I enjoyed the concert, the atmosphere wasn’t moving enough for me to jump around like a crazy horse and shout like a wounded elephant. Not to worry though. Kakomalis Amateur Song Festival (aka KSP) is coming soon. So far it is expected on November 12th, which is only a couple of weeks away. There I will tear my throat to pieces and abuse my muscles to the point of no return. Again. Yeah. Rock on!

Pictures from Lemesia 2005 Boxing

I was lucky enough to get to Lemesia 2005 Boxing championship in time. And not only that – I also had a pass into a VIP area and all around the stadium, thanks to a certain someone.

Not that it helped me much in my photography quest though. While I could enjoy the fights from a really close range, photographing those still was a challange. The biggest issue was, as usual with this type of events – light. There was simply not enough of it. Few lamps made it possible to watch the matches, but making pictures of fast moving subjects could have been possible only with a good flash unit, which I don’t have. Yet.

The second obstacle was – ropes. There were four thick ropes going around the ring. While that was something you could filter out with your mind, taking those out of the pictures weren’t possible. In fact, the close I went to the ring, the bigger problem those ropes were. Finally, I moved away and up into the audience to be slightly above those ropes. For that I used my 75-300 IS USM lens, which is not as fast as the 50mm/1.8. ISO 1600 added lots of grain and on-camera flash unit resulted in a lot of red eyes.

But I did my best. I shot plenty of images and later had a lot to choose from. Enjoy!

Now, the boxing. As it was the first day of the competition, there were some good fights and there were some bad ones. Few fights were very boring with opponents investigating each other for three or four rounds without any actions. Other fights were exciting because of all the action. Few knockdowns, a couple of broken noses, few dislocated thumbs – the usual mix.

Overall I had a lot of fun watching the fights, talking with a few people I knew, and photographing this whole thing. If you didn’t go – you missed a lot. Especially considering that the entrance was free for everyone.

Album location: /photos/2005/2005-10-14_Lemesia_Boxing

Lemesia 2005

There are plenty of posters around the town notifying that Lemesia 2005 is approaching. Lemesia 2005 is supposed to be one of the biggest sporting events of the year. It is organized by the Municipality of Limassol and is sponsored by a number of commercial entities.

I would really like to attend this event this year. Especially since I missed it entirely last time. But I have the same problem – the lack of information. Last year the Municipality of Limassol at least had something at their website. This year there is nothing.

If you have any information about the event – dates, locations, prices, contact phone numbers – please let me know. And I’ll share pictures in return.

No parking

The weather wasn’t very good for sea swimming today. It was raining during the night and sun was still hiding behind clouds in the morning. So Maxim and I went for a little walk in the downtown instead of the beach. Better even, we walked a couple of streets that I’ve never walked before. Made a few shots.

Album location: /photos/2005/2005-09-17_Downtown

Hard Rock in Stork

I attended an excellent musical event today. It was a hard rock party in Stork club. Basically, it was the crowd from the forum with all those KSP musicians – Alexander (Doors), Albert, Slava Dyrdine, Tony, Victor, Andrey, etc. There were few new music masters too.

I had an enourmous amount of fun. That is my lousy excuse for not taking a lot of pictures. It was the good thing that I put the camera back into bag as I got pretty drunk by the end of the evening and could easily lose or brake it. But I didn’t. Yey! Hopefully there will be lots of pictures from other people.

Oh, and if we are lucky enough someone might have even caught me on video. Dancing. In the most embarrassing of ways… Told you it was a lot of fun! :)

Album location: /photos/2005/2005-09-06_Hard_Rock_in_Stork/

Update: More photos from Alexander Avanesov are available here.