Rainy Night

A rainy night in Havana.

Scott London
I have an interesting link for you today. Ivan just left a comment on my latest Burning Man image with a link to the website of a philosophical journalist named Scott London. Scott shows 100 great images from the last BM, but also 100 images from 2009, 08, 07, all the way to 2005. What I found interesting, he also photographed Salton Sea - maybe you remember my posts from this place. I only have scratched the surface of the page so far, but it seems to be intellectually very stimulating Here is the link for you.

blissdance.org

Did you have a good weekend? I just came back from a trip to Sequoia National Park. I took a few pictures (really not many) and in case I got something nice looking, I'll post it here later.

By the way, it seems many of you really liked the Bliss Dance photograph. If you did, you might wanna check out blissdance.org. You can find many more great pictures from other photographers there and much more information about the artwork.

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.

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.

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..

Nose Manual - East Village Skate Park

Actually, I don't know if it's called East Village Skate Park, but it's a skate park in East Village.

Picture was taken with the lightweight and inexpensive Tamron 28-200mm lens. With this zoom range it will probably be my lens of choice for Burning Man - an upcoming event I'm starting to get excited about as the date gets closer.

I thought I would try something new: If you follow the link to the lens and end up buying it, I get a small percentage of the sales price. I'm wondering if you guys would appreciate occasional links like that. Thinking about it, there are so many online stores where one can buy photo gear: where do you shop? I believe Amazon.com is the most known and trusted one.

Flattr Update & iFolio

I just created a portfolio on a free iPhone/iPod app named iFolio. It really doesn't do much more than showcasing images, but that very nicely. You can find it right here. Once you have the app you get to see lots of beautiful imagery. I'm sure that my stuff will get lost there, but for now you can find it if you tab on 'new'.

Flattr: After participating on Flattr for one month I counted about 90 clicks on my two Flattr buttons (one is in the New York HDR series). You might be wondering how much they accumulated. I'm looking at a revenue of 33 Euros ($42).

Flattr

OK, starting today I'm trying Flattr. Flattr seems to be the latest and greatest internet idea. I only know about it since yesterday when Kamih sent me an invite (check out Kamih's music!). On the top of this blog I have this button now that looks like this:




If you happen to have a Flattr account already, you know what it's all about. You can do something for your good karma and leave something in the tip jar. If not, you might wanna watch this little video that explains it all:

Man with Umbrella

Philadelphia, 2009.

The larger my photo archive gets, the more fun it is to dig in it. I'm looking forward to the times when I'll be able to post images randomly from different decades. Matt Weber is doing this. From what I know, his work - all shot in NYC - is the most impressive and interesting street photography collection out there.

Toycamarama

I wanted to share this with you since a while: people on twitter that do photography with toy cameras.

Drop me a line if you are missing on the list.


@shoepner just had some interesting Holga accidents: link

@deedeephotog has a colorful selection of plastic camera shots: link

And so does @fallenposters: link

@markolwick takes beautiful black and white images: link

@jaredadunn shows pictures of a blonde lady: link

@JonCart does toy camera street photography: link

You have to click on galleries to find @jimslobodian's toy cam section: link

@dj_ir0ngruve uses a holga lens on a nikon :-) link


If you haven't seen enough yet, here is another one from Venice Beach:

Stefanie Hoepner Interview

Steffi got interviewed about her photography. You can find it on Slashmaraud.

Guest Picture by Jason St. Peter

Today I want to post a picture that I found on Jason St. Peter's blog named "50% Chance of Rain". A while ago Jason asked me if I would like to make a "guest appearance" on his blog. That was very nice. Then when I saw all his neat photography I decided to turn it around and post something here.
I must say that I really liked the title of the blog along with Jason's eye for dramatic skies. That works very well for me.
So if you are in for some treats, here is a link to 50% Chance of Rain.
You can find his post about my stuff here.

HDR Max Contest

Sent an image to an HDR photo contest. Not sure what to think about the concept of photo contests from a photographer's perspective. The company which is organizing it has a clear motivation, though. They want people to try and fall in love with their HDR software. My first impression: the program works nicely.

What I found most interesting about it is the fact that it can load RAW images. You can find more about it follwing this link.
If you are thinking about entering the contest: the deadline is today. I'm last minute...as usual.

Have a nice Saturday!...and maybe Sunday as well!

Featured on T-Online.de

T-Oline is Germany's biggest Internet Service Provider. Their website t-online.de has a section dedicated to photography. It can be found at augenblicke.t-online.de. I'm happy to tell you that T-Online contacted me. I'm featured as a serious photography newcomer.

The newcomer-section just started off and shows the work of ten international talents, when I looked at everybody's excellent work I got seriously nervous to be part of this.

The other artists are:
- JanLeonardo Wöllert und Jörg Miedza
- Florian Schüppel
- Emmanuel Decouard
- Fabrizio Cestari
- Jakob Wagner
- Juha Arvid Helminen
- Li Wei
- Martin Preissner
- Michael Schlegel

Here is a link to the newcomer section.
And here is a link to my part.

Some text on my images needs to be corrected. Also the images appear a bit funny. I will try to resolve this with T-Online.