Experimenting at new levels

I have been experimenting around a lot in the past year. I have run into all kinds of limits when experimenting and where most of those experiments stopped, this one actually started off… The limit I’m referring to is not the most regular one: The rotation of the earth in space.

I wanted to capture startrails. Startrails are basically the same as trailing lights from a passing car at night. The only difference is that the trailing light is coming from about 7 million lightyears (or any random that makes it sound more dramatic) away and it takes about 15 minutes to actually spot movement.

I went out twice in one night just to shoot some pictures. Once, just to be sure I actually would be able to capture startrails and once for the money-shot. The result?

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Three sixty five! Three sixty fiiiive!!!

About a week ago Dorien was talking to me about her blog. We were talking about 365-days projects. Personally, I’d love to do one myself but shooting a decent picture every day? Not gonna happen. I can’t find the discipline to take a shot using my DSLR every day. Not to mention the time invested in preparing the shot, getting it right, getting to your computer and uploading the shot… That’s (at least) a one hour job every day! During one year…

So I was thinking about a way of getting the shot wherever I want, whenever I feel like it, and upload it right away… I figured using my iPhone and some photography apps might do the trick. About an hour later I uploaded my first shot. I really like the fact that it is instantaneous. I shoot, I process, I upload it to Flickr. *magic happens* Wordpress gets the latest picture from my set on Flickr and displays it in the sidebar. Done.
It only takes a few minutes a day and I’m pretty sure that next year in September I’ll have a cool collection of pictures (which I’m planning to use in my next big project )

You can see the latest picture in the sidebar. And because I like the process so much, let me share how the workflow is like on the right. (From left to right: I take a shot, I edit it a bit and then I polarize it (and add the tag of the day)).
If you like it, check out my Flickr set which is updated daily (duh)!

If you’re interested in what iPhone apps I’m using:

• Default camera app
• Vint Green (take a shot and immediatly have it developed into a vintage green version)
• TiltShiftGen (take a shot/open an existing picture and edit colors, vignette, blur (circle/tiltshift) (I love this one)
• Polarize (convert the image to a polaroid: frame and color correction)
• QuadCamera (get 4 shots one after each other into a single picture)
• CameraBag (take a shot/open an existing picture and add one of 9 effects)

If you got any cool suggestions or ideas: just let me know

I’m on fire!

(Luckily not in the litteral way… Allthough I ran into a few close calls…)
So what do you get when you mix up the following?

• Tennisballs
• A ladle
• Dry cord
• Lots of oil
• Fire
• A digital camera

You get to play fireball!

We had some great fun, and the result was pretty much what I expected from a first shot (yes, this is supposed to be the first of many fire-related experiments) at Fireballs and trails. If you like what you see, check out the complete set in my Flickr stream.

Eye of the fish!

Yeah, my creativity for a decent post title is really not helping me these days.
However: Luck is totally helping me out. People that know me a bit better might know I have been looking for a fisheye lens for quite some time now.

When I first started looking for one, I actually just went to the local store where they told me I’d have to cough up about 900€ for a decent lens. Later on I went to a MediaMarkt where The Experts were able to find a much cheaper lens! Starting at 850€, my dream was still very far away. Read the rest of this entry »