πρώρα (Prora)'s photostream  

I am a keen amateur photographer who took his first photographs with his mother's Kodak Folding Brownie camera at the age of 10 at the London Zoo. I still have one of the shots. Here it is.



My equipment has evolved since then a little, via 35 mm film SLRs to an 8 Mpx Canon EOS 350D digital SLR (known in the US as Rebel XT) which I bought in April 2005 and to which I have added an EFS17-85mm (with image stabilisation), an EF 22-200mm and EFS 10-22mm lenses and,my latest acquisition, a 50mm f/1.4 Canon prime. I no longer have the kit lens which I sold through eBay. I also have a 4Mpx Canon Ixus 430 (US PowerShot S410) which is a snug fit in my pocket when I want to travel light. I have given up all 35 mm cameras etc.

Many of the photos I have posted here will have been taken with the 35 mm cameras. My subjects are varied, from candid pictures of people (in general I hate posed shots), animals (no problems with posing here), landscapes and, especially, places I have travelled to either on business or pleasure. With thousands of pictures it is likely that I shall be busy posting to Flickr for a while - but don't worry, I am being very selective in my postings.

An unfortunate episode, in a thread I started, resulted in a suggestion that my pseudonym Prora was associated with a Nazi health resort. This is the last thing on earth I would do, and I had no previous knowledge of that place. Here is the explanation I posted in that thread, in the hope that nobody else will misconstrue the name.

As a Jew I would not choose anything associated with the Nazis.

The name was an old allusion to my schooldays, when my (mad) Latin master, in a vain attempt to liven up lessons in that dead language, gave us all ancient Greek names, which we had to write in Greek letters (lots of fun). My name was a translation of my surname into said ancient Greek. I transliterated it into Roman letters (using Greek was too much of a chore on the internet) and in the process made an error, (it was the only Greek he taught me and that was 60 years ago) so anybody who knows ancient Greek would not necessarily see the link.

But link with the Nazis - NEVER!

2 November 2006: I have amended my screen name accordingly, thank to the help of a native Greek.

The misunderstanding reminds me that car manufacturers go to great pains to ensure that the name of a new car does not have some unpleasant connotation in any country to which the car might be exported. By the same token the name of the aircraft company "Fokker" has caused lots of fun in some English-speaking circles. Maybe I should have done a search like the car makers before adopting the pseudonym. But the only time I was involved in naming a car, without research, was when I got my very first vehicle, which we called "Piggy" - the reason is shown in this photo:



26 May 2010 to 30 June 2010
I am in the process of revising my profile after a 12 months absence from activity in Flickr - caused by Multiple Myeloma - a cancer of the bone marrow for which there is currently no known cure - all the doctors can do is to gain a period of remission. At the moment I am waiting for their verdict on a new treatment as their past efforts have not been successful.

While their efforts have failed to gain me a defined period of remission they have allowed me to enjoy life more - at the start of the disease I could hardly walk across my living room to switch the radio on or off; currently I am far more active and in recent months rewired my garage on my own, for example. But unless I get more treatment the advances may prove short term. So I am waiting for their advice on medication for the next period - I shall probably be told on my next scheduled hospital visit on 7 July 2010 - by then the committee considering my case will have decided if my life is worth the cost of Velcade - a very expensive drug.

However, while I am now a great deal more active than at the start of this nasty disease it does limit severely my ability to travel any distance - visiting the centre of Ealing, (where I live) is about the furthest I dare go unaccompanied. I rely a great deal on the help of my partner of many years, Sandra. So my horizons have closed in and with that the opportunities for photography - even they were curtailed when a much loved cat (you'll find him in my photostream) was run over and killed by a car.

One thing is constant with me I love the English language (British English since I live in the UK - but it has been heavily influenced from the US and from Asia - we have a large Asian population here in the UK these days). I also enjoy learning other langauges and have a knowledge of German, French, Swahili with smatterings of other, mainly European, langauges. Lack of opportunities to practice these tongues recently has taken its toll - though I amazed the native inhabitants (and myself) a few years ago when I visited Tanzania and started addressing them in Swahili It proved valuable when bargaining with local traders.






Places I have visited.


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