well well… I know this year wasn’t my big blogging year, but rest assured the is a lot planned for the next one. some changes to the blog, and also content wise. no need to panic though, I will keep posting most of the photos I take… as I did all year.
and I am glad to get all the feed from you guys. it really helps to pump me even more up. I love my work and I love the interaction. oh and for those who didn’t know it yet I also started posting to my posterous blog over at http://icedsoul.posterous.de, but thats a mostly offtopic (or rather photography unrelated) stuff. you might enjoy it anyway
now here we go with some photos I uploaded in the past few days of lucia.
very fashion oriented, but quite simple.
then yesterday I uploaded a photo of a new model I took when I was in southern germany a few weeks back. I teased her and the shoot in this post.
jacky. a fresh and beautiful model that was a lot of fun to shoot with. she was also full of energy and not to weary at any point. I also think this photo shows a nice new quality to my photos. a little step up I’d say, but I’ll let you be the judge of that.
as some of you might have noticed I was in paris the whole past week attending the leweb 09 conference and let me tell you it was a blast. I’ll get into details in a bit, but first I have to say that I fell in love with this city. no idea why paris never clicked with me before… and it actually doesn’t really matter because it did now. obviously not everything is gold that shines and for example I still don’t like the fact that you have to wait or search for a cab for at least 30-45 minutes , then again you have these wonderful small streets in the center of this huge city with these small beautiful shops that could just have popped out of a tim burton movie. as for the food you obviously have to be careful, but with a little research you can find some of the most amazing places for food, which I really miss in this amount here in cologne. and here I have to give some credit to the hotel I stayed at. until now hotel experiences in paris were very similar to london ones, as you either had to pay a lot of money to get something fairly decent or you would ask yourself what you were doing in a place like that and paying even money for it
well by chance and the power of google I found this amazing hotel called mama shelter. designed by phillipe starck and created by the guys that founded club med apparently. it is a very chic place, but not too posh. starck designed the place basically with stuff out of ikea and gave it his own, brilliant touch. nothing feels cheap, or somehow generic. the people are very friendly which also is not a common thing. the prices are very reasonable and the best part is that the hotel seems to have one of the best and also affordable restaurants in the city.
well besides all this, which was very cool, leweb was an amazing experience and made the whole trip as good as it was. it was my first leweb and first conference of this scale I would say. the organization by geraldine and loic le meur and their whole leweb team was very nice and I found that most people were very satisfied with the whole event. funny enough as apparently all people were complaining how cold it was last year and this year people complained about it being to warm… hello? take off your jacket maybe…
you can always tweak things on the organizational part and maybe the lunch part could have been a bit… well.. better portioned?! those piles of cheese and cold meats were maybe a bit… difficult to eat/transport without a proper plate and cutlery.
the speakers I saw were very cool and the program in general wasn’t all to shabby and I obviously couldn’t get to all the events, but what I saw and attended I liked. especially the speech by her majesty queen rania al abdullah of jordan was very imspiring and touching. also two of the most interesting people in general for me were tim ferris, chris pirillo and gary vaynerchuk, who really crushed it out there. and special thanks to gary for taking the time to talk to me as you were very busy and so many people wanted to talk to you.
but the most important part and the one I am most thankful for is that I got to meet up with some old friends, some even I didn’t know they were there, but also get to know some amazing, interesting, creative and stunningly friendly people. some where introduced to me through my friend andrea vascellari who himself is one of the coolest and nicest people in the world (besides being extremely good at what he does. and I know as we have worked together before), and others I met by accident or we “knew” each other via the web, like gonzague dambricourt. he is a well know tech blogger and consultant in france who is just about to start his own company. I followed him for quite a while now eventhough I speak no french and most of his tweets and blogposts are in french. well… in paris we finally met up and with him also I am amazed how very very nice and cool he was. meeting up and just having a great time.
then there were these two italians , where in the beginning I thought were a couple, but turned out to be good and old friends. livia iacolare and luca sartoni. first class bloggers, photographers, videographers, artists, strategists, writer, etc etc. (hope I didn’t get these wrong ) and just super nice and wonderful to be with. definitely worth checking them out!
I really can’t wait to meet you guys again and spend time with you as it was one of my greatest pleasures and an honor!!!
I really hope I haven’t forgotten anyone and if please forgive me as my head is quite full with all sorts of stuff that I better should not forget right now
besides mentioning all the cool people I met I am probably forgetting half the things I wanted to say, but hey… enough talk for a photography blog anyways right?! well well… below you’ll find 3 slideshows of all the pics I took in this week and by clicking on them you should get to my flickr stream if you want to leave any comments to fav them etc… or just comment below if you like.
and I’ll also add the pics of the models I shot with in paris as soon as possible. it might take a while as I still have some photos to go through and edit till I get to those, but here also a BIG thank you to misti and christine for two very cool shootings and can’t wait to shoot with you again…
I’ve been lazy on the blogging front… but it has been a very busy time and I tried to keep up the twittering at least which to a certain degree worked very well
then buckle up my friends and get ready for a long post… well… not phonebook long, but longer as I will include everything since the latest GF! test posts including the videos you apparently enjoyed…
I uploaded shots from some older shootings now with kathi, lili and lucia.
there are still quite a few parts of these shootings left and I will upload them over time. we had a lot of outfits to use and it made everything a tad more interesting, but also stressy as time somehow always presses.
after that I had not shot in quite some time as I was caught up editing a lot and also doing my client work. and one thing I am constantly spending my time on is planning shootings. as so many other photographers I have ideas floating around and through my head all the time and one thing I found is, that I will get stuck up with those if I don’t shoot them right away or if I do not find the time to do so write them down and maybe even draw them out briefly. this lets my min wander on and produce just more ideas… you might have noticed that I am not outputting that many ideas at the moment and thats because a lot of that is solely for my portfolio and for me to try stuff I haven’t yet. it is very important, but also needs the right time and preparation in most parts. in addition to that I have quite certain thoughts on many of these with what model or kind of model I want to shoot. this leads me to another problem of finding the right model and being able to get him/her for the project. sometimes its the money, sometimes the timing etc. etc… and I also need to get the projects in that pay the bills or even prepare for the jobs that prepare the bills.
well it’s all about balance I guess. and staying on course and calm as possible even when it gets rougher…
well after some time I decided to look for some model for a few things I wanted to test. and I did not want to go to the studios in our area. no idea why, but I am looking for an office/studio place of my own at the moment and so I set a little mini studio up in our living room. unfortunately one of the two models had to cancel, but luckily the second model was wonderful chloe which I adore for her wonderful work as a model and as a makeup artist.
you probably have seen these already, but if not I hope you enjoy them as I do. and they were recieved well also which makes me proud.
for these I also have one more set which I might actually upload tomorrow…
after that I had to go on a little trip to southern germany to also meet up with some potential customers and I thought I might also use the off time I have to organize some great models and do some shoots. especially as I had the possibility to reside in a few very nice hotels. unfortunately it was a bit short notice and I could “only” organize two shootings. I was very lucky! I had two wonderful and very experienced models who both were very nice, and easy to work with, besides being beautiful.
here I can only present you a little but wonderful teaser as I haven’t finished editing them yet. and I don’t want to spoil the surprise by telling you what we did. so enjoy the teaser and you will hopefully enjoy the stuff to come…
besides that I am working with a foundation, called stiftung kinderherz, that is raising money and helping children with cardiac defects. they work together with amazing doctors and surgeons that do amazing work to save so many kids. they organized an event a few days back where two classes of children were told a story and then would paint paintings that were somehow connected to the story they just heard. the paintings will be auctioned off later next year and the money will be used to upgrade the cardiac surgery department of the university hospital in aachen, germany. I hope I am not writing any nonsense here in english as I haven’t touched this subejct in english at all yet…
it was wonderful to see what amazing work these kids did in painting for a good cause and how determined they were to help all these kids out there.
the foundation also does a great work with the doctors and hostpitals together to also prep the parents on what to do and how to behave etc. when the child is born and after surgery. amazing and yet very touching matters. I will post again on this the latest when I am finished with the photos of the event.
and finally yesterday I went on a little trip to belgium with a friend who needed to buy and organize some stuff for his company and shops. I took a few snapshots along the way and decided that I have to go back to brussels for an extended photo tour. very nice and impressive city.
here you go… actually… no… not yet… sorry, but I warned you
I also created my first book on blurb. it is filled with my “from the floor”photos which you might remember from this blogpost. you can preview and order it from either clicking on the widget on the my blogs sidebar or following this link! I think you will enjoy it a lot. I am also very impressed with the quality of the books and I am prepping at least two other books at the moment. but for now go order one if you want and preview it on blurb and I will leave you with these impressions for the night
good nite all and thanks for all the support. spread the word!
and I obviously couldn’t get to all the events, but what I saw and attended I liked. especially the speech by her 
