131 - Habeas Corpus



This time it was different. It began with the Story of the Day, and that is The New York Times’ coverage of the decision of the federal appeals court regarding constitutionality of the recent law that denies foreign prisoners’ challenges to their detention at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Yes, I suppose there are people at Guantánamo who deserve to be at Guantánamo. Still, it is at least very likely, that this is not the case for all of them. But even if it were so, why on earth should the right to appeal against detention be denied? If the US government are so sure about their actions, is it not a given, that no court could decide against their righteous judgment? There is nothing to fear, is it? But that’s obviously not the case. There is only one explanation, and that is, they are not at all sure.

After reading this story, I began to think about a suitable image. Note that this is the first time that one of my Images of the Day is made to match a given topic. It’s interesting and I should do it more often.

I imagined a fence, maybe the one around Volksgarten, viewed from a very flat angle, the bars almost overlapping, and a hand trying to reach through. At noon I tried to realize it. I used the Sigma 30/1.4 and soon found out that using my own hand would be rather difficult, thus I stopped down a young man and asked him to lend me a hand. I tried some shots, but was not at all satisfied.

Thinking about it brought me to the conclusion that the fence was wrong. I tried the one not facing Ringstraße but Heldenplatz, and that was more after my taste. In the meantime I was alone again, nobody suitable was in reach, thus I got back to using my own hand.

The final image, one of maybe 10, was indeed taken with the Sigma 30/1.4 at f1.4. I had tried the ultra-wide as well, but in the end the shallow depth of field won.

The Song of the Day is Tom Verlaine’s “Cry Mercy Judge” from the Album “Flash Light”. Excellent stuff. By the way, should it make me nervous that the lyrics to a song, that I bought while being on university, are served from a site called oldielyrics.com?


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