There are some evergreens. And one of them is me mulling over the question on whether I should get a printer or not. I blame Ove for that.

Con: my print volume won’t be big, maybe 1-2 prints per week. So it doesn’t pay off, and I might even run into problems with clogging nozzles. And it will eat up more time. And it’s expensive. And big.

Pro: I want to have one!

Hm. The “Pro” arguments seem to clearly outweigh the “Con” arguments.

One of the more embarrassing things that happened to me last week: I was taking a couple of group photos during a workshop, using the FX100. And then one of my colleagues took over, so that we also had some photos with me in it. And then she came over, quietly pointing out that all my shots were completely useless. Completely out of focus, because I accidentally configured the camera to manual focus. And with such a quiet rangefinder I actually didn’t realize what was happening.

Oh yes, beginners mistake. Guess I need to use the Fuji more.

Thomas

…but I’m a huge fan!

Hope you enjoyed the party, at least as much as those guys who schlepped around bucket-loads of firecrackers, “just for the kids”

And have a great start into 2012! Let’s see what the year brings…

Thomas

This time between the times – between Christmas and New Years is always time for a bit of contemplation. What did happen, what did not? What do I need to change, what do I need to hold on to?

And of course the really serious stuff: what new photo-courses to take, what gear to buy…

Hope you all have a great time!
Thomas

I’m not 100% satisfied with that shot above, the lightning is simply too flat. But although we were around that spot for a while, the sky didn’t really change. So for now this shot has to do. Next time…

Some more opportunity to burn some more time in the virtual world: I just came across Craft and Vision, who seems to be a really interesting publisher of photography-related ebooks. You can get them either as standard PDFs, or as in-App purchases on the IPad (you have to first install the Craft and Vision app).

One of the major authors/photographers of Craft and Vision seems to be David duChemin. He’s certainly one of the good guys, you can find his website and portfolio here. I really like most of the Iceland shots in his portfolio, although he’s sometimes overdoing the Lensbaby thing (or is a T&S lens?). But the antarctica photos in his blog? Wonderful!

And the prices of the ebooks from Craft and Vision are just amazing: around 4 € (5$) for each ebook.

Oh, talking about my floating backpack (in my last post): obviously you don’t need a backpack in order to experience pain on the shore:

It hurts just watching it!

PS.: I’ve just seen that David actually has a free ebook available from Craft and Vision. Enjoy!

I’ve never realized HOW quickly the tide can rise. I was happily shooting castle Stalker from the shoreline (I’d thought) with quite long exposures – around 1 minute, which makes 2 min per shot, including the long exposure noise reduction. And I suddenly couldn’t fail to note that my feet became rather wet. Ok, so be it. I really wanted that shot.

But then I remembered that I left my backpack with all the gear near the shoreline. A quick glance made me realize that it had turned into a nice floating device, course set away from shore.

You have no idea how quickly one can run through ankle-deep water even with a shouldered tripod+camera. It’s just a matter of motivation…

But at least the shot turned out quite nicely in the end.

Thomas

As mentioned in my previous post, I came directly from work (a symposium in Brussels) to the Scotland photoworkshop with Ian, and then went immediately back to my job (a workshop in Leipzig). In hindsight, I have to realize that those abrupt transitions – between activities during which I’m really going into different mindsets – were much sharper than I anticipated.

As the photo-event was embedded in two work-related events, things definitely spilled over. That is, even when standing in the Highlands and (as usual) being amazed by the scenery, and having an increased heartrate at the thought of being able to just be there and do my thing – even then every now and then my mind flicked back to the last discussions I had in Brussels and my obligations in the upcoming Leipzig workshop.

Interestingly, I perceived those flashbacks (or flash-forwards) as more intense and distracting than during any ordinary photowalk on a weekend. I guess it’s because symposia and workshops are much more intense than everyday work, and a photoworkshop with Ian is also much more intense than everyday photography. That is, I was undergoing a very sharp transition between very different, very intense activities.

Anyway, it made me realize, how very different those activities (job vs. photography) actually are. And then I need to accomodate for a better buffer zone before and after the next workshop.

Next workshop? Oh yes. Scotland, again? Oh, you bet!

Have a great weekend!
Thomas

Hi Markus,

Yes, I’m still alive (most of the time anyway) and thanks for asking!

I’ve just been traveling quite a bit during the last weeks. Gothenburg-Brussels-Glasgow-Glencoe-Glasgow-Leipzig-Bremen-Lüneburg-Kiel-Gothenburg, all in all 11 cities in 3 weeks. Somewhat exhausting – but at least I managed to squeeze in a re-visit to Glencoe, where I’ve participated (again) in one of Ian Cameron‘s workshops on landscape photography. Nice! – and a bit weird. Crawling around on a highland moor at pre-dawn just a day after running around in a suit on a science symposium – somewhat surreal.

Unfortunately, the weather during the workshop was really wet, wet, wet. Still, we had a great time, also because the group (we were five) got along very well.

Let’s see whether I’ll manage to polish those shots that I got – and post a bit more regularly during the upcoming weeks. Maybe I should develop a habit of uploading photos a bit more regularly and then I could produce the texts while traveling. Hmmm…

Thomas

This shot perhaps doesn’t mean much to most, except me. Hence, a truly egoistic shot. My (not overly sincere) apologies…

What you can see is a typical path of my running track, shortly after a semi-steep ascent. I usually slow down here – simply for lack of breath. Last time I realized once more, how fortunate I am to have such a running track just behind my apartment block. And it’s even illuminated until 22:00, which is becoming increasingly important with the autumn just lurking around the corner.

I recently came across some nice IPad Apps for Photographers, and I thought I might share them. Maybe they are of some interest. Nothing related to work with images, I still hold to my opinion that any decent work with images is better left to a decent machine. I recently mentioned the App from the European Southern Observatory (ESO), and the collection of photos from Jaime Ocampo-Rangel “Memory of Colors“.

A continuous stream of photos, usually connected to recent events in the world, is provided by the “Eye Witness” App from the Guardian. One photo per day, which is a nice speed for me (I usually check the App once a week). The “expert tips” that are provided by the App are usually worthless, though. It’s more on the level of “get on eye level with your subject” and things like that. But the photos are good to excellent.

An overview of the world’s cultural heritage sites, in gorgeous photos with locations and explanations is provided by Fotopedia Heritage. The same company provides similar Apps about France and Burma. I haven’t checked them yet, but they surely look interesting.

“Life for the IPad” is a vast collection of professional photos on almost every imaginable subject. From “Harry Potters England” to “Heidi the cross-eyed opossom” (really!) to coverage on recent events in the middle east. That app is an incredible time sink. It’s also for free, with a rare ad every now and then.

Similar to that, the Thomson Reuters Galleries. Although with an emphasis on the US.

Some photos to watch those rainy days…

Enjoy the week!
Thomas

A sunset. How boring. Haven’t we all seen pictures of THAT enough?

Nope. Not me at least. I’ve never really understood that line of reasoning: just because something has been seen or done or experienced before – perhaps even by oneself – it suddenly turns into a nono. For me that sounds like “An invitation to a nice dinner? No, thanks. I’ve had a good meal last week already”. Or: “Sex? Bah, not interested – have done that before already.”

Sometimes, repetitions are NOT boring. I plan to see and photograph hundreds of sunsets more before I finally quit.

Thomas

PS.: …if I manage, perhaps even a couple of sunrises. Although, no promises there

It started small, simple and easy.

I should have seen it coming.

After realizing that my WordPress installation was getting kind of ancient, I felt the urge to update (simply for the sake of keep things somewhat safe). Unfortunately, I couldn’t fail to realize that even my server was ever so slightly (ahem…) lagging behind. In fact, it couldn’t stomach a new WordPress installation. Especially the mySQL installation couldn’t handle a new WordPress version. Ok, so simply first updating all necessary stuff on the server. Shouldn’t be that hard…

Yeah, I’m known to be slightly over-optimistic from time to time. In fact, my Provider (HostEurope) has completely changed it’s line of virtual servers since my inital purchase, ages ago (2004). Meaning, that either I would have been forced to comb through a really mature SUSE installation and update everything manually (oh, please…), or I update to a new virtual Server. Shouldn’t be that hard…(where have I heard THAT before…?)

So I made my first mistake: I’m quite ok with Hosteurope, but I have another site running with another major German Provider (einsundeins, Puretec). So for the sake of simplicity, I thought I’d better compile everything in one place. After half a day, I simply gave up – I was not able to purchase something as ordinary as a small virtual server from Puretec.

Why? Because those geniuses require a computerized phone-check after the purchase. Meaning, a computer calls you and asks for a confirmation code that you got via email. Sounds easy enough, right?

Yeah, right.

Unless you’re in Sweden. They obviously tried to call me in Bremen, using my German contact details. Just 800 km off target. Ok, those things can happen – although it certainly would have been nice to get some warning in advance that a phonecall is needed during the purchase. Then I would have simply bought the server at a time when my wife would have been home.

Anyway, so I called technical service… Ah, scratch that. The guys neither had the slightest clue of any technical details – nor did it resemble anything even remotely related to “service”. Actually, the only hotline I could reach from Sweden was the sales hotline (surprise, surprise). All other hotlines were simply blocked for long-distance calls. Great.

But hey, we’re living in the age of emails, right? Yeah… but the email addresses that I got from that “technical hotline” (aka “we try to SELL everywhere, but that’s it”) were either simply dead (my mails bounced immediately), or seem to be located in the direct vicinity of a black hole. So, after waiting for two days and haven’t received ANY response (despite 5 calls and the same number of emails), I cancelled the purchase. Now I’m only waiting for the confirmation that they received my cancellation. Well, it’s only a week since I sent it over… Maybe they are using carrier pigeons?

Ok, so I decided to stay with HostEurope, they have performed very ok in the past after all. So, time for mistake 2:

I bought a Windows 2008 server.

Yeah, I guess I deserved the following punishment. To cut a long story short: after a couple of fruitless attempts and a technical support that was starting to get slightly grumpy, I ditched that server and went back to a Linux machine.

And then I tried to take the easy way out and asked the technical service whether I could hire them for organizing the move of my domains (new DNS-Zone entries, etc.) after moving the files to the new server. Although the technical service at HostEurope was certainly leagues more professional in comparison to the one at Puretec, they really slipped at this point. Although they are offering those service (against decent payment, obviously) on their homepages, I simply received a quite condescending mail that it’s my server and that hence I have to take care of moving things around.

So I spent the better part of this weekend browsing through HostEurope’s online documentation (which is pretty lousy organized, to put it mildly), getting to know the new Plesk server management system, unraveling the intricacies of the nameserver system at HostEurope, synchronizing it with Plesk, backing up stuff from the old server and then moving it to the new server.

The WordPress installations themselves went rather smoothly. With the exception that for one strange reason all links to all photos had an additional “11″ attached to their filenames after the import to the new WordPress system. So I need to go through each and every post and delete all the 1′s… Anybody got a trained chimpanzee that I could rent for a couple of hours?

I’m done. Completely. I think, I’ll now seek refuge to some aged, smoked and fermented malt lemonade. Mh, I guess, Caol Ila is going to be my victim for now

Cheers!
Thomas

PS.: Sorry for being offline for a while (in case you tried to get to the site), and I would be grateful for any feeback in case of technical glitches.