It has been what ? Like 14 years ago we had masquerade party in our home the last time (i think two we had) - and I thought, boy - why did we wait such a long time for the next one.

So, once the idea was reborn ... from there it didn't take very long time - and we organized the first Carnival Party last Sunday on 17 March 2024. And boy was it fun. One of the most interesting aspects was the warmth among the people. And how much effort they put into their costumes. Absolutely lovely. Despite the presence of booze, nobody went over board. On the contrary, the majority of Wine and Bubble were left. And we had so many cakes (7 !!), most of them went back into the freezer again.

Roger's Swedish Classic, the "Janssons Frestelse" (Janssons temptation) was amazing in the taste and went very quickly away, as everyone loved it. It is a dish made out of fine striped potatoes, Anchovies fish, and fresh cream. Normally I am not a big fan of that - but Roger had some magic in it - it was devastating good. Gabriella brought lovely vegetarian pie, and than we had Claus' tasty roasted sesame chicken - and it too was delicious !!

Jonas & Daniel had brought a special, creamy cake - and boy, that went all away, it was that good !!

The Laowa Argus 28m f 1.2 lens

Was absolutely perfect for the type of light levels, which were not as bright as it looks like in the photos. But the combination of the unique super bright ƒ1.2 aperture, together with high ISO (sometimes up to ISO 5000), made a perfect combination to be able to photograph in this kind of low-light party light. Also the fact that it was a wider focal length, made it a perfect lens to capture the people in their surroundings. The extreme aperture also allowed that the background quite often showed a moderate blur, separating people from the background. As i said - it is truly a unique lens. But it is manual - so, i often said "wait, wait, i am a slow photographer..." *LOL*

The majority of the people were straight. We gay's where in minority - but that didn't keep people from the fun of dressing up in various constumes.

So, here are the impressions from that lovely Carnival evening.