22 April 2012

Peaceful

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Many people imagine Africa influenced by the movies they see on television and in the cinemas. But is this really like the bush is?
All films are a compilation of moments in the bush. The choice of moments is influenced by the target group the film production has in mind.
The traditional BBC documentary with David Attenborough was aiming on education, the wonder of nature and to give the audience the feeling to be there. Nowadays wildlife TV channels focus on entertaining a target group that likes action, spectacular situations, high tech and excitement. On the other hand Disney has just discovered a market for nature fairy tales with real animals where the lion’s mouth gets cleaned from blood after filming and the kill happens out of sight.
It is not surprising that people have diverse ideas what to expect when
visiting the bush for the first time. Often female visitors are afraid of seeing fighting and kills all the time and male visitors are disappointed when not seeing spectacular kills the whole day. But mostly all end up loving it. A day in the bush is for 95 % peaceful and the other five percent can be impressive moments with their own beauty. There is nothing like a one-hour sequence of kills and fights in the bush. Only men create something like that.

Ute Sonnenberg, rohoyachui.com

Silence and Space

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There is a semi-desert in South Africa, called the Karoo, where one can easily think that there is nothing but dry land and heat. The heat is what I’m struggling with when going to deserts, the heavy heat, almost paralyzing, just trying to keep breathing and then I wonder why I came to this place. I’m always arguing with myself when I’m there, impatiently waiting to leave this oven. But the moment I left I feel homesick to this desert and I feel the impact its beauty made. And I look at the images and see silence and space, a strong remedy what makes one falling in love with it.

Probably the best ever Müsli … served in the bush

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There is almost nobody not asking for the recipe when staying at Londolozi. So, to make it easy, here the recipe for probably the best müsli ever!

Ingredients:

Glaze:
500& Butter
500ml Vegetable oil
5OOml Brown sugar
500ml Golden syrup
250ml Good honey

Cereal:
1kg Jungle Oats
750£ All Bran flakes
7508 Fiber Bran
500g Puffed Wheat
500ml Wheat germ
5OOml Sunflower seeds
500m1 Sesame seeds
500ml Shredded coconut
1kg Mixed nuts

Method:
Combine: all the ingredients forth' glaze in a medium size saucepan and heat slowly,stirring to make sure the sugar dissolves, bring to a short boil and set aside.

Combine all the cereal in a bowl and pour on the syrup. mix well and spread mixture over several baking dishes, place in oven at 100’C. toast muesli until golden, remove from oven and let cool. Alternatively, for a better crunch, leave in oven overnight at lowest setting (try and see- all ovens are different, but toasting does lake
some time)

Happy Cooking!
With Love from Londoloz! Kitchen

Ute Sonnenberg, rohoyachui.com

Snap & Share

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photo 1: Instagram, photo 2: Hipstamatic, photo 3: 645 PRO

Review on Instagram, Hipstamatic and 645 PRO.

Instagram is a fast and easy tool to snap and share and its for free. The interface is easy and practical, no submenus before taking the photo and only one step further to share. Open the app, take the picture, choose a filter (or not), check “ok” and the submenu to share opens. With three taps you decide what and where to share and its done. Not much thinking needed and lots of space for artistic playing. Just as easy as it is to handle, is also the result pretty. The filters create great retro looks and the results are often surprisingly interesting to share and keep.

Hipstamatic is also a free app, but in order to use the whole variety of the app you got to buy additional packages. This app requires more think-work. Hipstamatic allows the user to make combinations of different film types, flash types and lens types, all tools from the analog photography times. In order to do that, the user got do go through several submenus to choose the film, the lens and the flash. They can all be combined with each other, which give lots of possible combinations and possible results. There is a button for favorites, to save your favorite combination of film, flash and lens in order to find it easy the next time you want to use it. Helpful with the decision of “which combination” to use are the packages the films, lenses and flashes are sold in. They give a recommendation about what works best together and makes the choice a bit easier. Probably one gets faster when finding it’s way around in the app and having found the favorites, but then it’s probably a pity having bought also the other options. Sharing is easy. Just a tap and several options can be chosen. From my experience, sharing with Flickr didn’t work well.

645 PRO might sound complicated and demanding, but it is actually very easy and great to use and play. The interface is clear, no submenus to go through and the manual accessible with one “tap and hold”. Different ratios and films can be chosen easily and “live view” shows you what you are doing. If you prefer a normal “view finder” look, also this is possible. It works incredibly good and even night shots have a good quality. I had the impression that it works easier and better than my point and shoot camera. And just as easy is the sharing, tap and share.


Ute Sonnenberg, rohoyachui.com