Somewhere in Oklahoma

This one I took during my trip from the East to the West Coast. Only four months after that trip I feel the urge to explore again. In less than two months I will be in Iceland.

Salton Sea Arm Chair

If your eyes rest on this picture for more than just a second, you might enjoy reading
"A Reflection from the Shore"
by Annie Q Syed


Looks very much like my find from the other side of the lake.

Palm Trees

Prison Chess Portrait - Miguel Suarez

You can find more about this here.

Drag Me To Hell

The toy camera is taking over my photo activities.

Some parts of the image might appear completely black on darker screens. My #1 toy-camera rule is not to correct or alter the output, so here we go.

Bombay Beach

Bombay Beach is located on the east side of the infamous Salton Sea Lake.

Shadow

Had a beautiful Saturday with lots of surfing, thanks to Steffi, Daniel, Dan, Franz, and Jill. I'm not sure if one can call that stuff surfing at all, though. It feels a bit like the ocean doesn't like me much and prefers to constantly spit me out. The thing I was doing reminded me a lot of Rodeo.

It's four in the morning now. Working at night is what I really enjoy. Nighttime is the time when my productivity, creativity and inspiration (if any) is on its very peak. At least that's how it feels to me. During sunny weekend days however, I sometimes feel like a shadow of myself.


Location: Mission Beach, San Diego.
Gear: Cheap plastic and a black and white film.

Holgarama

In times where cameras are so perfect and post-processing possibilities unlimited, it is somewhat relieving to use a crappy $15 toy camera. It feels so light in your hands, and pressing the shutter feels so incredible cheap and rogue, it's a big pleasure to use it. Imperfections are considered interesting in the toy-camera world. In fact, they are so poorly built that each camera has its own unique errors, producing unique looking images. Here are my first results from my Holga. I modified my camera a little to prevent light from leaking into the camera body. The scanned images however I just shrank a little and added my web address, other than that, they are completely untouched. That's part of my Holga deal: don't touch.

I used a 400 ISO black and white medium format film. This was the first time I used film at all, and must admit that I was a bit shocked when I learned that getting roll of 12 exposures developed costs me as much as the whole camera did. Plus $5 for purchasing the film. No wonder film died so quickly. However, I strongly believe that some sort of analog photography will have a big revival at some point in the future.

Anza Borrego Wildflower

Another flower. Well, why not, call it an experimental phase. These wildflowers are actually pretty insane looking. If you would take those home and do some serious macro photography, you would probably get images that look like from another world. However, I don't have a macro lens, and instead tried my best using an extender tube I borrowed from Steffi. The depth of field with such an extender is so little, it's not even funny anymore. It's a question of millimeters. Tiny moves in the light wind make the sweetspot wander significantly from frame to frame, even with fast bursts.

And speaking of experiments, I finally started to use the toy camera that I bought almost four years ago. I cannot show any results yet, the film first needs to be developed :-D

Philadelphia in Color

A new addition to the gallery.

International Pillow Fight Day

This event is indeed taking place around the world. This is a picture from the San Diego version.

This and that, here and there

References to my photography have been popping up in different forms at different locations.

One location might be your local bookstore. The picture "Post no Bills" that I took last winter in New York is now on the cover of a book called Loving Mailer. A memoir by ex-supermodel Carole Mallory about her (very sexual) relationship with Pulitzer Prize winning author Norman Mailer. To be honest, I never heard about these people before. Maybe I'm too young and too foreign. So this is for sure not a book I would usually dig out in a bookstore, but now I'm curious - will read it as soon as I get my copy.

As a new resident, I kind of got introduced to the San Diego community on a website named Stand For Less.

Last but not least, a reference to my street photography on a German website named Farbwolke.

What else I could show off with? An art dealer sent me a contract for a collaboration. Sounded cool, but the fine-print didn't. Obviously, it's not a good idea to talk bad in public about companies that initially try to work with you. I won't speak out names, but I want to warn you my fellow photographers to make sure you read contracts thoroughly. If someone offers you a share of 6% of the money they make with your work, that's simply not acceptable. If the same contract states that you should also pay a fine of $5000 in case you offer any of your work to any of their competitors for the next four years, that's not a good thing either. From my experience a 40/60 to 50/50 share is very common. 6/94 is not. A company should also only get exclusive rights for the work you offer them, and not simply for everything that you create.

Have a nice Sunday!

Devils Playground

Devils Playground is a region in the Mojave Desert. What you see in the foreground is part of the Kelso Dunes.

The Yellow Flower

Death Valley.

Landscape photography. I must admit I'm a bit clueless about how to do this. If you ask me, appealing city images are much easier to take. You stabilize your camera and due to long time exposure the city lights look more intense than in real life. This often gives the image a little WOW-effect. Now out in the desert it's the other way around. I have the WOW when I'm out there enjoying the scenery, however, the pictures I take never look as impressive as what my eye sees. I'm bringing home tons of dull images these days. This one is one of the rare ones I liked. Thanks to the yellow flower.