Take Off to Burning Man

In a few hours I'll be on my way to the Burning Man "festival". It's commonly described as "an art event and temporary community based on radical self expression and self-reliance". I believe this is going to be a somewhat extreme experience as I have never been there and especially because I'm going all by myself.
Because I'm starting from Southern California, I will be first driving for 12 hours to get there. The fastest way seems to be the 395 which -according to some websites- seems to be a major attraction by itself.


What I also read is that the desert where Burning Man is located has a very unfriendly climate. Besides very high temperatures during the day, and very low temperatures at night, the most difficult thing to handle are sudden dust storms. The fact that you cannot buy anything at the Burning Man except coffee, tea and ice made me buy lots of stuff I would regularly never buy. It has been recommended for survival, so here we go.


In order to get around in this Mad-Max-like city of 50,000 people, I also got this old black beach cruiser with silver flames on it ^^


Publication of photography and recordings is very restricted from the organziers, however, they gave me a permit. If everything works out well, you will find pictures right here starting next week. Till then I have to say arrivederci, as I will be cut off from the outside world once I'm there.

Cheers!

Beach Stairs

One exposure of several minutes around midnight.

Foggy Icelandig Morning

This was during my first hike after leaving Reykjavik. Photography-wise there was so much to explore and to play around with, I think I felt like Alice in Wonderland. Was Alice happy to be in wonderland? I never really looked into the story to be honest.

Liquid Heaven

First try photographing in the water (click on the image to enlarge for a better in-water-experience).

Have you ever walked deep into the ocean while holding a Canon 5D II? I'm telling you, it's a strange feeling. While paddling around on a surfboard the other day I came to the conclusion that I need some sort of underwater housing for my camera to capture such beautiful moments. Now the typical price tag for such a piece of equipment is ridiculously high if you ask me. I understand it's a tiny niche and the housings are customized for each model, but $1500 for playing around a little is just too much in my case. After some searching and discussion with friends on twitter, I finally found something that does the job for much less money. I got this one for just $95. After the first test run I can tell you that the camera staid perfectly dry.

Venice Beach Sunset

I know it's not comparable, but being in Venice Beach last Saturday and taking this picture reminded me that I'll be at Burning Man very soon.

Taking a Picture

Venice Beach, 2010

2012

Shortly after doomsday.

Neptune Pl

1 AM.

King of Pop

New York City, 2010

4 Movies You Might Like If You Like Photography

I'm in the middle of writing an "About Me" section for this website. Because I really like cinema I thought of pointing you toward my favorite movies that fall into the photography/picturesque section. These four are the ones that immediately came to my mind. Don't forget to hit the fullscreen buttons.

The Decisive Moment - Henri Cartier-Bresson This little documentary shows images by French street photography pioneer Henri Cartier-Bresson. The interesting thing about this movie is that his images are accompanied by his voice.
Killer of Sheep This one is an old and slow movie full of candid scenes that would make great photographs. If you find yourself often in museums starring at street photography from recently past times, you will enjoy this one a lot.
Baraka A documentary about the world we live in. Imagine the best travel photos you have ever seen and make them move. You might not be able to digest this movie in one session - it is quite intense.
The Band's Visit Okay, this one is a bit different. It does have some great imagery, but it is particularly funny. Check it out!

New Series - Prison Chess

This new series is the first serious documentary project I dared doing.
All pictures were taken in 2008 and 2009 while accompanying Princeton University students to chess events in a maximum security prison in Trenton, New Jersey. What I tried to document was not the events. I focused on portraying the prisoners and their thoughts about the game. I hope you find it interesting.

Pick a star in the open sky

Are you aware of the meteor shower going on outside right now? It's best viewed in the desert where it is pitch black. So last night we spontaneously drove out to Mount Laguna and indeed, we saw a shooting star every few minutes. I'm not sure what I found more impressive, the meteors or the starry sky itself. Maybe the sky.

If anything could ever be this good forever

I took this one after work today. From what I heard from the glider pilots the wind was incredibly good today.

Pacific Beach

This spot is within a five minute walk from my current apartment. I just can't stop appreciating this.

Photo Flow - iPhone App Review

I found something really neat for all you picture takers who use iPhones and iPods. Actually it wasn't really hard to find it, as the author of the software asked me to use some of my images for an example slide show. So yes, I didn't find the app, the app actually found me.

So I tried this today, and I must say I'm really hooked. From a user experience point-of-view this app is super smooth and lets you create cool slide shows in no time. At the same time, the degree of freedom given to you as a user is pretty high. You can edit the duration of each image by moving a slider and choose fading effects from a drop-down box. I wish more apps could be so straight forward and yet powerful.
Other things I liked (besides the fact that it is free) is the option to convert slide shows into video clips and the fact that I can send slide shows as email attachments straight out of the app.

For upcoming version it would be great to have an option to import images from online photo pages like Flickr, etc.

So far it's my personal favorite for slide show creating. Two thumbs up!
You can find this app on iTunes right here.

Trailer

Iceland #9 & Flattr Invites

Don't let the title confuse you. It's actually the 11th picture already :)

I don't remember any other time where I set up a tripod that often. The trip was only five days long, but I still have images I haven't even looked at yet.
Following this link you can see all the pictures I posted so far.

New Flattr.com invite codes:

fa1fb7edb9d11c7f5
e49a9a85584ac63d3
dd7fec5b08e050717
f826347446a875997
f4e3fadc3f03536b3
cb24c6467a7635887
d38e02ba7b4005cdf
400028347fdf64669
6410cab77b8ff1646
b08dcb81de638b16d

New Flattr Numbers

Last month I got 135 Euros ($178) through Flattr.
Looking at those numbers I'm truly flattered, thank you guys! I'm still only having two Flattr buttons, but the overall number of clicks increased from 90 clicks in June to 175 clicks in July. Mostly through the New York series.
During the previous month Flattr-clicks accumulated to 33 Euros. The other day I read a post on the Financial Times blog about this new payment system and was very surprised to find my report mentioned there.

I would like to share some invite codes with you, but I'm out of them. So I guess you have to check back later..

Fishermen

Like for most of Iceland, this was a totally empty landscape except this SUV and the guys fishing. I saw them arriving at this spot. A few minutes later the guy on the left had a first catch, and so I had mine. From the far distance we gave each other thumbs up and a minute later I was on the road again.