Carnival is near...

 The local Candombe group, "La Gozadera", has started rehearsing. They do it at dusk, when the worst heat is gone. 

Sometimes, when I hear the drums, I zoom to their street with one of my old cameras and try to capture the action. Too often I botch something; this time it was lack of attention while developing film. 

GIMP to the rescue. 

 

 

Now it looks like a watercolor, one which I would never be able to paint.  

 

 Thanks for viewing and a most Happy New Year!

Bouza winery

 Our children gifted us a visit to a winery, and finally we could arrange a date and time. We chose the Bouza site in Melilla, and got there a bit before noon.

There was a nice collection of old cars, mostly Fords, very well kept. This was in the waiting area, while the rest of the scheduled group arrived. 

There was a small patch of grapes, still very small and green this time of the year.

The grapes are kept quite thinned to make sure that they get enough sun. This winery goes for relatively small volumes of high quality product. 

We got a thorough presentation of wine making. For me, the visually interesting feature was the large store of oak barrels where wine waits for the right moment.

I took my trusty Super-Isolette to the winery, loaded with HP5+. The venerable camera became a nice talking point with the young tour guide; film is cool now for the new generation, reared on phones and selfies.

Thanks for looking!

Ariel, master luthier

 Visited my luthier friend, who had the good sense to move close to Piriapolis and set up a cozy atelier, up on a hill with a million dollar view. 

I was privileged to portrait him as he worked to fix a nuance in my instrument.

Thanks for watching these!

Nikon F with 50/1.4 lens, HP5+ in D-76 1:1.