Animal Kingdom...

As much as the club members enjoy taking holiday photo's, it seems they equally enjoy animal photography.

Forty-four images were presented, with a wide range of interpretation of the theme.... cats where a popular subject and land, sea, air and cuddly animals were all covered.

Nicolas presented for the first time and we welcome our newest member to what hopefully will be a photographically fruitful future...

Above you see Nico's wonderful reflection image of a swan gliding smoothly down the Danube (made you look twice didn't it !) and Baerbel's exquisite butterfly image full of melting pastel colours and a testament that film certainly is not dead.

As always the rest of the images can be viewed on the gallery pages, please leave comments and click those thumbs-up on all the photo's that you like.

As this was the last theme for 2009 the members can now take a well earned rest and just leaves me to say a big thank you to all, for your enthusiasm and participation which I hope will continue at their high levels in 2010.

One in 8 million...

The New York Times has a fascinating feature called 'One in 8 million' which is an oral history project in which a different individual among New York City's 8 million residents is profiled each week of 2009. The criteria chosen by the NYT to profile subjects is "Interesting person. Great talker. Never before mentioned in the NYT."

Its a fascinating series with a mixture of human interest stories with great photo reportage.

You can check out all the featured New Yorkers here and if you want to know some more background regarding the whole concept take a look here.

This months featured photographer...

This months featured photographer is 6261 or TEIKO she is from Japan and has a real talent when it comes to creating wonderfully atmospheric images.

She still uses film and from what I can see Rolleiflex, Pentacon and Hasselblad camera's.

Her Flickr stream is well worth a visit...

Enjoy...

Previous featured photographers:
October '09 - Vladimir Longauer
September '09 - LJ
August '09 - alex.alexander
July '09 - falsalama
June '09 - micmojo
May '09 - orvaratli
April '09 - ArTeTeTra
March '09 - Tom Hoops
February '09 - Strobist Favourites
January '09 - Tommy Oshima

This months featured photographer...

This months featured photographer is Vladimir Longauer a Slovakien who now resides in Dublin, Ireland.

Looking at both his Flickr and DeviantART galleries, you'll see a wonderful mix between landscape and portrait photography, a lot using shallow depth of field effects and something he calls 'tilt' where he deliberately puts the lens on his camera in crooked manner !!

He has also been featured in Issue 14 of Blur e-magazine (previously known as Bulb) and you can find his personal website here.

Enjoy...

Previous featured photographers:
September '09 - LJ
August '09 - alex.alexander
July '09 - falsalama
June '09 - micmojo
May '09 - orvaratli
April '09 - ArTeTeTra
March '09 - Tom Hoops
February '09 - Strobist Favourites
January '09 - Tommy Oshima

One for the iPhone users...

You may remember Chase from previous blog entries, and he continues to innovate with his latest application for the iPhone. I'll let Chase explain what its all about in his video above... you should porbably check out his blog for further details and also his new iPhone image sharing site at thebestcamera.com.

He's certainly not one for letting the grass grow under his feet !!

Dan Winters...

"People aren't gonna remember the things you do, there gonna remember how you made people feel..." says Dan Winters in his video where he describes his photographic process and the motivation behind both his work and approach to photography.

Its good to hear the emotional side behind photography and not just the technical chit-chat that we are endlessly bombarded with.... very refreshing indeed...

If you want to know more about him you can check out his web site here, and these articles at strobist and FLYP.

Chema Madoz...

Chema Madoz is a master of changing the ordinary into something sublime and unexpected... Just where does he come up with all his ideas... amazing..!

Holidays 2009

Look like the club members really enjoy holidays.... and REALLY enjoy showing off their photo's....

We had almost 50 images to go through in what was once again, a couple of hours of wonderful stories of holiday adventures, mixed in with a good smattering of photographical tips and techniques.

The members have once again travelled far and wide with a full range of photo's to be appreciated from landscapes to sunsets and travel reportage to the comical...

Above you see a wonderful sunset taken by Toni and below a contrasting image from Bjoern with sublime muted colours and tones...

We only have one more theme before its time to start putting together the book for this year... So I look forward to another high level of participation to close the year perfectly....

As always please go and check out the gallery, leave comments and give your thumbs up to all those photo's that you like...

This months featured photographer...

This months featured photographer is Lee Jeffries who goes under the flickr name of LJ.

His specialty, as you will see, is street portraiture that goes from being candid to heart wrenching.

I couldn't find too much out about him, but he has his own web site here and looks like he does a lot of charity work for the homeless as well.

Enjoy...

Previous featured photographers:
August '09 - alex.alexander
July '09 - falsalama
June '09 - micmojo
May '09 - orvaratli
April '09 - ArTeTeTra
March '09 - Tom Hoops
February '09 - Strobist Favourites
January '09 - Tommy Oshima

Zuckerman on Wisdom...

Andrew Zuckerman always looked up to his elders and identified them as the ones having answers to many of life's questions....

Using this as a motivation for a personal project... he travelled the globe to photograph and interview 50 significant personalities from the world of politics, art, religion, music, fashion, film and TV... all of whom are 65 years old or above.

The result is the book 'Wisdom' with an accompanying DVD documenting all those wise words on subjects as diverse as Love, Work, Environment, Conflict and of course... Wisdom...

There are some wonderful videos on his website for the book here... don't forget to look at the ones regarding 'the making of' as well just to see the enormity of the project he took upon himself and to get some insights into why he chose to shoot it the way he did and just how much equipment he needed to achieve the look of all the images.

.... and for more information on his other projects check out his personal website here...

zemotion....

Zhang Jingna (张晶娜 aka zemotion) is a 21 year old photographer from Singapore who has had a meteoric rise to fame after trying out photography only 3 years ago.

This former International Air rifle champion always liked the idea of becoming a photographer and in the same year as picking up a camera won the 'Singapore Master Photographer of the year 2007'...!

She has already worked for the likes of Mercedes Benz, Ogilvy & Mather, Pond's, Wacom, Architecture International, Harper's Bazaar, L'Officiel and Cleo.

Plus launching her photobook 'Something Beautiful' in 2008.

She is also very active on all the major photographic websites such as Flickr and deviantArt.... and even has time to run her own blog and personal website... which is really quite impressive..

Her work which is predominately fashion orientated shows a maturity beyond her years and includes many self portraits. The overall effect is very cinematic and the retouching all being done by herself as well.

It really is worth while checking out her images in further detail...

This months featured photographer...

This months is another anonymous photographer from Flickr, whose mastery with the Hasselblad 500 I find mesmerising along with his subject selection and shallow depth of field techniques....

Here is what he says in his flickr profile :

'What lenses or cameras do I use? Does it really matter?
Is it all about your creativity, skills, self expression, originality and ART?

It's more than just an idea to please your eye, isn't it?

Should your work reflect your personality and style?

What makes you wonder around in one spot for few hours on some rainy Wednesday with a hope of capturing an extraordinary person or moment?

What is the meaning of my photographic quest?'

Enjoy...

Previous featured photographers:
July '09 - falsalama
June '09 - micmojo
May '09 - orvaratli
April '09 - ArTeTeTra
March '09 - Tom Hoops
February '09 - Strobist Favourites
January '09 - Tommy Oshima

Wise words on pet portraiture...

The Five Biggest Photographers on the Internet...

Photo District News (PDN) have an interesting article where they attempted to identify 5 photographers that they think dominate the 5 most popular photographic platforms; those being blogging, Flickr, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.

They also tried to ensure that they were photographers only known for their online work.

Very interesting read and don't forget to look at the comments as well... personally I think the list is a little short at five and heavens know why facebook and twitter are considered to be photographic platforms..!......

.....and they should have looked at smugmug as well, for sure we would have got a mention.. ;-)

Anyway, take a look at the article here on the PDN website.

Clay Enos and Street Portraiture...

Above is an interesting video which would have come in handy while preparing for the 'People' theme recently.

Here we have Clay Enos showing how he sets up a street studio then invites passers by to have their picture taken.

You can see more of his work on his website here.

He's also the photographer behind all the images for the film 'Watchmen' by the way.

This months featured photographer...

This months featured photographer is falsalama, couldn't really find out a lot about him other than that he is an English photographic artist currently living in Tokyo.

However, what you will find in his Flickr stream is some absolutely stunning street and portrait photography...

Enjoy...

Previous featured photographers:
June '09 - micmojo
May '09 - orvaratli
April '09 - ArTeTeTra
March '09 - Tom Hoops
February '09 - Strobist Favourites
January '09 - Tommy Oshima

People...

A rather modest number of images and turnout for the clubs latest presentation.

Hardly suprising I suppose, what with the holiday season finally here, workshops popping up every day, recently launched satellites taking up our time and the list goes on.


In spite of this there was still a lot of discusion and a few surprises... go and check out a certain image from Alberto and see if you can work out what he has done... then check here and here to see if you guessed right.

I have pulled rank on this blog entry and included the picture of my son... well basically because I'm a proud Dad..

...and you'll also see Mar's wonderfully natural street portrait...

So then... time for a well earned rest for everyone and the 'Holidays 2009' theme will be back in September, where we get to show off all the fantastic things we are about to do over the holiday period...

But.... (there's always a but isn't there)... before you all disappear.. please do leave you comments and thumbs up...

Take care...

Fauna & Flora in Europe...

Came across this website Wild Wonders of Europe, where you can see some truly stunning nature images from all over Europe...

Spain is quite well represented as well... might come in handy for the 'Animal Kingdom' later on this year ??

Hasselblad Masters...

Always known for their excellence in the image making business, the top 100 finalists in the Hasselblad 2009 Masters Awards Competition have now been selected.

and...............

............this year the voting to determine the final 10 has been opened to the public....!

If you want to vote follow the link...

This months featured photographer...

This months featured photographer is micmojo, aka Jan Scholz. Born in Hamburg, Germany he now lives and works in Maastricht, Holland.

He started portrait and fashion photography in April 2006 as a spare time activity, as a creative counterweight to his job, which he still continues to do up to this day. He uses a wide variety of film camera's of different formats along with digital...

His imagery is beautifully crafted and considering he does this in his spare time, the level of excellence he has reached is extraordinary...

Inspiration for our next theme 'People' maybe...?

Previous featured photographers:
May '09 - orvaratli
April '09 - ArTeTeTra
March '09 - Tom Hoops
February '09 - Strobist Favourites
January '09 - Tommy Oshima