Cleaning Up My Desktop

How about a few photos that have been sitting on my desktop for a while? All of these images are in the Flicker Berlin set, click them to go to the larger size.

The first one is at Kranzler Eck in the center of the buildings. People walking through the area find two huge "birdcages" filled with squawking parrots and other exotics. For some reason I cannot comprehend, the parrots are there... in the open air... all winter long. Surely they would rather be warm all year long.

On this day the sky was so perfect, the vapor trails from the airplanes lovely, and the reflection from the building stunning.

The next two are Potsdamer Platz at sunset. It was such a warm, nice day. I was waiting at the red light on the bicycle enjoying the peeking sun when I happily realized that I had a camera in my pocket.

The next image is the same location, same picture even, but I've taken liberties with Photoshop. Unfortunately it was a point and shoot camera, so the quality tends to suffer at this size. But I think the added texture or "noise" does interesting things.

The last is the Brandenburg Gate seen from the side. The lighting is really mostly Photoshop although I do enjoy the effect (hard light for those who know Photoshop) ... it's like the Gate from Hell or something. I took this about three point and shoot cameras ago with one of the first Casio Exlims on the market. The camera did funny things with night shots anyway, I just enhanced the weirdness. In this picture all lighted areas came out this lovely warm beige. The very next shot (sorry, it isn't here) was taken from within 5 feet of the first shot, yet the lighted areas came out a funky light blue color. Neither picture was true to the color my eyes could see.

Some things I've been reading:

• Gay Unions Shed Light on Gender in Marriage
• Ireland Takes the EU Spotlight
• Waterlogged - Bottled Water
• The World is Watching- by BerlinBound - blogging about American politics