I will take at least one picture every day for the next 365 days and post it to this blog. I do this in order to push my photography skills to the next level – I’m not sure if I can really make this happen for the whole 365 days but I’ll give my best…

So stay tuned for the first post that will most likely go online tomorrow or much later today…

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

I would be interested to see your comments on which one you like most….

1. Wait a sec…
We went to Lake Compounce near Hartford, CT and shortly before we left the park, the light for that kind of shot was perfect.

2. The Dark Side
I went to the Explorer’s Club in Manhattan to visit a presentation by photographer Rick Sammon that night. It was raining when I was on my way to Grand Central to catch the train to Stamford when I took that shot.

3. The Wetlands of Cape Cod or the day MJ died
It was a beautiful day in Hyannis, MA (Cape Cod) and I took this shot just before I headed back to the Hotel where I heard the news that Michael Jackson has died.

4. Shithouse
This is another picture from the Cape Cod trip and I took it from a whale-watching vessel while leaving the harbor. That roof of that house was really full of bird poo and those 4 seagull were standing there and looked like that were about to p…. again.

5. A bright Monu(ment)
It was a beautiful but very cold day in February when I took that shot of the Washington Monument.

6. …and there was light!
I took this picture at Mystic Harbor, CT inside the cord factory building. I really liked the side light and the bright spot at the end of the hallway.

7. Yellowwwwww
I think it’s pretty obvious where I took that photograph. I shot around a dozen images of that scene and this was the only one where the policewoman stood still while yellow cabs were passing. I was leaning against a traffic-light pole and thanks to the IS in the lens I was able to hand-hold it still despite the quite long exposure of 1/5 sec.

8. Drips from the topfloor
This is my first picture (and the only one so far) that made #1 on Flickr’s Explorer site. I was walking down broadway from 42nd to Washington Square Park when I noticed the great tones and I was sure that this would end up as a black and white.

9. Where is the ocean?
This is one of the first pictures I took when I got back to Switzerland in Summer 2009. It shows a yacht under construction that gets built in the middle of a corn-field. The owner plans to sail the world with it once finished.

10. View from Rigi Scheidegg towards Lake Lauerz and Mythen
One of my last shots of 2009 shows the area where I live. The light was great as was the clear air.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

DMU stands for “DeleteMe Uncensored” and is a very active Flickr group of amateur and professional photographers. The idea behind the group is that someone adds a picture to the group pool and other members vote on the photo with either “save” or “delete”. If an image reaches 10 save votes before 10 deletes, it gets added to “The Lightbox” – a pool of the finest pictures in Flickr.

That’s what this new magazine is made of – “Lightbox” pictures. The first issue covers interviews with the top contributors, a history of the DMU by Thomas Hawk, plus a Photo Essay about his $2 project and collection of the best black and white images – taken from the “Lightbox”, of course.

I would like to take the opportunity to thank the driving force behind the magazine: Ivan Makarov. Special thanks also go to Charlotte Reynolds who designed the magazine from scratch – you’re a master, Charlotte!

You can check the DMUMag.com website or go directly to the DMUMag section on our publishers website to place the order.

Unfortunately, Magcloud currently only ships to the USA, Canada and the UK. If you live in a different country and would be interested in getting a copy of the magazine, fill out the form on the contacts page and we will give our best to send you an issue.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

One of the pictures even made it to the front page of Flickr’s Explore and I thought I’m going to show the original version (Aperture calls it the Master) of that image just to show the capabilities of Aperture and its Plugins.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

Photos were edited with Apple Aperture 2 and/or Adobe Photoshop CS4.

I wanted to make that picture look like it was taken back in the days of the Civil War in the 19th century.

This was the original picture straight from the camera (RAW file conversion into JPG):

unedited version

I loaded it into Apple Aperture 2 and sent it to Nik Software’s Silver Efex Pro to convert it into a black and white image with added grain.

The next step was to add the scratches in Photoshop CS4 using the brush tool on a new layer (~75% Opacity). I found a few great brushes – just google for “scratch brush Photoshop” and you will get what you need.

The end result came out like this:

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

More pictures can be found on my Flickr Photostream.

Let me know what you think.

Above pictures were shot with a Canon 5D Mark II with a Sigma 100-300mm f4 lens.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite