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I gave a lecture about panoramic photography. I was invited to give a workshop at the
Urban 3D Modelling International Summer School. The study area was the historical town
center of Székesfehérvár (Alba Regia), the town where Hungarian kings were crowned.
During the summer school students could take part in keynote lectures, practical hands-on
exercises and fieldwork.

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For more info about the Summer School visit it’s website at http://www.geo.info.hu/urban3d/

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Orthent – a progressive rock band’s approach to the traditional Hungarian folk-song heritage

The Band:
Identification of Orthent’s musical style is not justified. It has been called progressive rock – most commonly, or culture-rock and because of its certain elements, it has also been called folk-rock or even world music. Their aim is to create a new, unusual, but widely acceptable musical atmosphere behind the traditional Hungarian folk-songs.

The band always starts working on the songs with care and respect, so that they would still deliver their messages – as they always have. By putting a new-age instrumental sound behind, they try to update the songs to the understanding of a new generation. So, it is only the music they change, the songs are sung in their authentic way.

The photo:
The photo was taken in Göd, Hungary, at the side of the River Danube (Duna – as we call it). The scenery was provided by the low tide of the river. This area is under water for more than half of the year. The water level can easily be over one and a half meters high at the point where the photo was taken.

As you can see, we were trying to create a little bit of fantasy atmosphere for the band. The “creatures” at the background are from Mohács, in southern Hungary. They are called “Busó” masks. They are worn during the carnival season to say goodbye to the cold season and welcome to spring time! The tradition originated from the sokac (Croatia) nation and they can bring good luck besides many other aspects.

At this session they were worn by the members of the band, so you can imagine the many layers used for this panorama!

Thanx for the masks: Csaba Vikár
for the smoke: Gyuszi
for the photo: vrphoto.hu!

Sára Tímár – vocals
Lóránt Both – guitar
Gábor Majoros – guitar
András Hajnal – bass
Márton Orosz – drums, percussion

Music is available on-line at http://www.orhent.hu
e-mail: orthent@orthent.hu
Here you can find more info on this busho tradition.

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For more info about the Summer School visit it’s website at http://www.geo.info.hu/urban3d/

This picture was made at the city center in Szekesfehervar,
during a visit to the historical center. If you were there,
and have a question about my presentation or anything about photography
or panoramics, just write me an email and I’ll gladly answer you.
You can find my email address at the bottom of this page, in the footer.
Later I will upload the other panoramas too, and there will be a new
menu where you can download my presentation, and other stuffs.
Hopefully you will get the sources on DVD, I gave it to Mr. Bela Markus.

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Located in the historic centre of Székesfehérvár, the Hiemer House,
called the “jewel of the downtown”, is one of the major monuments
of the royal town. Different kinds of architectural styles appear on
the House. The baroque, gothic and neo-classic style ornaments make
the building a unique monument. You can have a refreshment in the
coffee bar or in the wine cellar, also located in the building.

The buildings of the building complex are protected historic buildings
listed in the List of National Heritage. The baroque-rococo main façade
is one of the most spectacular elements of the city’s main square.
The investigation of the building complex has discovered that the buildings
of the complex were rebuilt between the XV-XVIII century and they had
been rebuilt several times. They won their present aspects around the
XVIII the century.

The Hiemer house was originally built for dwelling purposes but during
the centuries its part at Jókai street 1 served as a parsonage too.
The block at Jókai street 3 gave place for the music school of the city
for decades.

The Font house – at its present address Oskola street 2 – was partly
built for a school partly as stores, while the Caraffa building at Oskola street
4 was also built as a school, stores and flats.

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The first wine-cellar visit was made as we passed our first semester
at the Szent Istvan University. We’ve made a bet, that if we pass all our
exams than we will go and drink some wine in the Valley in Eger. That all
happened in february 2005. From that time we’ve never missed an occasion
and have visited that place in every year. The company is changing from
year to year, but there are constant members like me, Daniel Kadar or
Balazs Balint Szabo.

“Germol” aka Daniel Kadar and “BB” aka Balazs Balint Szabo

And now some words about the “Szépasszony völgy”, about the
“Valley of Beautiful Women”:

The Szépasszony Valley is the largest area of wine cellars in Eger.
Many legends are linked to the development of its name. According
to Bakó Ferenc /1843/ The Szépasszony which means the Beautiful
Woman used to be one of the goddesses of the ancient religion, she
was similar to Venus, the goddess of love.

According to another explanation there used to live a really beautiful
woman close to the Valley. The area of the Valley was called Koháry
Valley in the first quarter of the 19th century. Koháry István vice
general participated in the relief of the Eger Castle in 1687.

On the basis of the archives data the origin of its name cannot be
clearly ascertained, neither can be the date of the building of the first
cellars in the Valley. What is certain is that the building of the Öregsor
started in 1774 with the permission of the bishop and the landowner.
In consequence of Archbishop Barkóczy’s economic policy, there was
a boom in wine producing, wine market as formed, so the establishment
of places for storage was necessary.

In 1781 there were 32 wine cellars. In the last century the reputation
of the Eger wine has been related to the Szépasszony Valley where
150 cellars can be found. Today’s group of cellars of the Valley was
built after the land reform after the Second World War. These cellars
were scooped out from riolit tufa because it can be easily formed and
wine can be held on 10-15 Celsius degrees in it.

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The long awaited new cultural institution of Budapest and Hungary, the Palace of Arts, was opened in 2005. (Then palace is so newly built that it even can’t be found at googlemaps – notice the picture of the construction site below.) This was one of the most prestigious celebrations of the past hundred years in Hungary’s cultural history, since this conglomeration of cultural buildings has no precedent in 20th century Hungarian architecture. The investment took place in the form of a “Public Private Partnership”, in a co-operation between the Ministry of National Heritage and Trigránit Development Corporation. The principal contractor, Arcadom Construction Ltd and the planning Zoboki, Demeter and Partners Architectural Office, developed the institution’s programmes and details in collaboration with numerous associate planners and specialist consultants.

There are few cultural institutions in Europe that can boast the ISO quality certification (for example, the twenty year old Pompidou Centre in Paris only launched its application in 2004 before finally obtaining the ISO 9001:2000 version). In the year of its inauguration, 2005, the Palace of Arts, initiated the detailed examination process and after continuous inspection, in 2006 was awarded the latest version of the certification, the ISO 9001:2000, ahead of the Pompidou Centre.

About the making of the panorama:

On the way on the bus to the capital at around 6am

The idea of that panorama came to me about two months ago. I work at the other side of the bridge, at a newly built IT center, and walk every morning and evening across that bridge. At the evening the Palace of Arts looks very shiny and compelling, and I thought that at 7am it will be an amazing location for my wrinkle tribute panorama.

Unfortunately it had no floodlight in the morning, and the wheather was foggy too so the other lights on the other side of the Danube river couldn’t be seen too. Above all it was extremely cold too by that time (at least for wheather it used to locally), and I didn’t have any gloves with me. I could hardly managed this panorama, but it worth for it.

The position of the sun at the winter solstice

And another note: Yes, the local time at the moment the first picture was taken was 7:08am which is 06:08 UTC. It was a real challenge to wake up at 4:30am, and to wait about 15 minutes for that minute at that wheather conditions.

And why the Yin Yang (or Tai-Chi) symbol at the nadir? I searched for a nadir cap that has something to do with the solstice. It has.

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We were so young by that time. It was the shortest four years we’ve ever had, that grammar school ment us our second home.
Only the good memories remained, the rest is history…

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It was an auction and exhibition of oldtimers, old parts of cars, and other documents related to oldtimers. More than 400 items sold, among others specialities like the Pannonia MC68 cross motorbike, and the legendary twin-cylinder speed motorbike, the Pannonia P20M.
The first Oldtimer auction was held in year 2000, since then there are more visitors and bidders in every year.

I’ve reached the end of the auction, arrived almost at 5pm (at closig time), so I only had time for one panorama. The most of the cars were disappeared by that time.

The cars in the panorama (from left to right:)

• Ford Model A
• Rolls Royce
• Buick Eight
• Unknown
• Ford Model T
• Cadillac Fleetwood

Ford Model A

Rolls Royce

Buick 8 Front

Me and a Buick 8

The “unknown” model

Cadillac Fleetwood and its bidders

Cadillac Fleetwood

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Our head cook posed like a saman.
He said that he won’t drink any alcohol during the cook.
That was a very hard decision from him in that situation,
but he didn’t failed.

There were other helpers like Gergely Dosa aka ‘Doshee’,
he was the transporter, he carried all these stuffs together.
At the turntables the tall guy with the red ambulance jacket
called Balazs Balint Szabo aka ‘BeBe’. He was responsible for
the good atmosphere.

Altough he can be seen multiple times, because I added
some duplicate persons to beef up the picture.

In two months we graduate as communication technic engineers…