Blog Merge and Site Feed

This is a blogger feature I was waiting for since a while. It is now possible to export a whole blog to an XML file, download it to a local hard drive and import it to other blogs. This can be another of your blogger.com blogs or even (if I got this right) another blog-provider.
Fact is, I actually had some older posts on other blogs that I created for a reason that I don't understand anymore. If you have several blogs on your blogger dashboard and want to merge them, this is what you have to do:
Currently you have to log in to http://draft.blogger.com. There you will find links for export and import on the "Settings | Basic" tab of each blog. It's that easy.
First I was afraid it would also export template information and mess up things, but there was no problem.
As a result, in the archive on the bottom of this page are now 137 additional old posts listed. Starting from the very first post in May 2006. It also imported all the old comments from these times which count 332, so my blog is basically complete now.
And to make Snirgel happy, I also added links to the post feed and comment feed, maybe you wish to subscribe, too.

Photography - Video Convergence

In the past few days more and more articles came to my attention that mentioned the merge of still image cameras and video cameras in their headlines. I'm not too much into gadgets so I ignored all those articles. Everything merges all the time: cameras, phones, music players, etc.. I simply find it tyring to jump on new technological gimmicks. Most things are obsolete before they are established and when ever cameras are merged with something small and gadgetry, the image quality is terrible, so why bother?
My preferred source for photo-talk is Dave Beckerman's blog, he is an excellent blogger and I read him daily. So did I today and when reading one of the comments on a recent post, I found a link that ultimately reminded me that the still image/video merge is serious.
With 'serious' I mean quality. One of Canon's upcoming digital SLRs seems to be having outstanding video capabilities. What the heck!? It's an SLR!
If you click the link below you will see a little movie that was made by Vincent Laforet with a pre-production Canon EOS 5D II. Nothing in this video has been post-processed.
He also shows still images taken with the camera during production. If you have a close look at the un-processed ISO-1600 and ISO-3200 images, one can see that the 21 mega pixel sensor hardly produces any noise. I don't like tech-talk too much, but this is big.

Link to the video named "Reverie".
Link to the still images.

Jetzt wieder zusteigen,...

...jetzt wider mit dabei sein.

1x.com aka Onexposure.net

I've found another gem in the wide universe of photography hosting/community platforms: onexposure.net (link)
Just as seen-by (link) it only shows work that has been screened by the 'staff'. seen-by really shows interesting things, but I have the feeling that Onexposure puts the bar a little higher. Maybe it's just my personal taste, but I literally chocked over my food when I first noticed the density of perfect work on that page :-)
For the first time since a long while I actually felt inspired to go out and do something creative with my camera, which might have also to do with the fact that this humid summer is finally vanishing, but that's another story.
So, besides being impressed, what is my personal experience with onexposure so far? I uploaded one of my pictures (Stairway to Hell) and gave a little artistic description. It got accepted, which was followed by a warm welcome by several other users.
You can find it here (link).
An for completeness: My current seen-by portfolio is here (link).

Lower Manhattan Pano

Starting at what point is a panorama a panorama? This one is made of two images stitched together with the tape of love...sticky stuff.
OK, actually, this is done with the new photo merge tool of Photoshop CS3, it does the stitching very well. If you find this picture too blue, let me tell you, it's not the software's fault.

Window Ladies

I liked this - the reflection on the window glass makes a good background.

Lower Manhattan 9/10

The currently most prominent building of the Lower Manhattan skyline is under construction. I did a little search and found out that it's a new 43-story building called Goldman Sachs New World Headquarters.

Gallery and Exhibition Opening

Today is the opening day of a new gallery based in Frankfurt, Germany called ccprintgalerie. Among others, I was invited to a collaboration which was about a month ago. Since then we were busy arranging everything and now I can finally announce it:

The gallery opens today with its first exhibition called "Frankfurt I". It shows work of Philipp Klinger, Christian Mueglich and some of my output.

About the prints:
The gallery sells high-resolution fine-art prints on Hahnemuehle paper. The prints are up to 100 cm (40 inches) wide, signed, numbered, and limited to up to 100 pieces.

In case you are around and interested in visiting, during this first week the champagne is chilled and waiting for you from 11 am to 8 pm. The address is:

ccprintgalerie
Sophienstraße 43
60487 Frankfurt

If you are curious about it but cannot be there (like me), you can visit it online: Click here.

From the ccpint website:
"Die ccprint*galerie ist eröffnet!
Die Eröffnungswoche findet vom 8.9. bis zum 12.9. 2008 statt. In dieser Woche haben wir von 11-20 Uhr geöffnet. Bei einem Glas Secco haben Sie die Möglichkeit, nach Feierabend die Ausstellung "Frankfurt I" zu besuchen. Die Ausstellung "Frankfurt I" zeigt ungewöhnliche Ansichten bekannter und weniger bekannter Frankfurter Motive. Die ausstellenden Künstler sind: Philipp Klinger, Christian Müglich und Oliver Fluck. Im Laufe der Ausstellung werden weitere Motive anderer Künstler hinzukommen."

Lecture Room II

Lecture Room

Princeton University.

Dining Hall

Princeton University.
I had a closer look at some of these paintings. What I found interesting (and I looked twice to make sure I'm not wrong) is that the people in those antique looking paintings are actually professors from the 1970s to 1990s.