I have been using the Mind Shift Rotation Backpack for two years now and I have to say that I am very impressed. This backpack allows me to have significantly better access to my camera without making compromises in terms of comfort and long distance hiking.
Being out with the kids very often, I can carry my gear, get to my camera quickly without dismounting the whole backpack and still have some room left for cookies and other bribery stuff you need to keep the little ones in the mood for just another shot. It has some clever solutions for tripod transportation, compartments for the small stuff and is an overall well designed piece of equipment.
In terms of usability – this one is the most used of my camera bags. It makes me make more photographs and gives quicker access to the camera, especially when you are hiking and need to carry more than just your equipment.
Category: Uncategorized
The Magic of The Print
The displays of our Computers and TVs have gone through an incredible evolution. In recent years, we have been confronted with advanced technology to present our work – tablets with high resolution displays as colourful, sharp and shiny as we could wish for.
I remember – years ago – when I bought my first digital camera and asked the vendor, if the resolution would be sufficient to compete with my work that I have done on slides at that time. The reply was:
Sure- but how would you like to present that resolution?
There was no equipment available to do that. The TV sets or beamers of that time simply could not compete with the capability of slide projectors.
That was years ago, today the answer to my question would certainly have been a different one. We now have those tools. Like me, I am writing this blogpost on an iPad mini. I can switch to my Lightroom mobile app and go through my lates favourite pictur s with ease and speed. I can even include them in this post with just some clicks and you – assuming you have an equally advanced tool and screen available – could be part of the show.
With this technology, there seems to be no (logic) need for prints anymore to share your pictures.
And yet – I have the strong need to print my work and have the pictures shown and displayed in a frame. Why is that?
The print – once it is mounted to the wall – unfolds the magic of its own. I find myself looking at those prints quite often and longer than I do on my iPad. They are always there, like friends reminding me of the process that as required to get them there in the first place. They have a different presence in my life than their virtual brothers and sisters. It is their physicality that makes them special.
The texture of the paper, their size, their tonality, the way we explore them. They resonate much stronger once they are printed. than they would on the computer screen.
This is why I believe I will never stop printing. This magic is by far too seductive, especially when you get a whole body of work together, mounted on a wall like a small exhibition. Prints are simply beautiful.
Growth
Life is about growing. We never stay the same person, but change constantly as does our environment. We live on change, you could even say that change is one of the major factors that drive us through life. For example: we can not directly detect temperatures, all we can detect is the withdrawal or the input of energy through our skin. If you would give an ice cold coin to someone on a hot day, that person in the first moment can not say if the coin is hot or cold, for that reason he might drop it not to get burned. We can only detect the temperature change.
Same is with our artist life or our skills. We will never approach to an end, we will constantly change (grow). And for that reason we need to be open to what is out there and might influence us. We are never finished, there is no static end shape of ours. And that is why our photography will constantly develop, too. The possibilities are unlimited. We might get to the same point twice and make very different pictures in different light and a different vision.
I find this very encouraging. There is always something new around the corner, and that is us.
Life is a draft.
Digital Life
We say that we have a digital life. Scientifically this is non- sense. Digital is just 1-0 or 0-1. Everything around me is very much analogue. With digital we chop reality into peaces of 1s and 0s one of the arguments I remember is that there is no “loss”, even if you copy the data a 1000 times.
But isn’t there the biggest loss right in the beginning, when we first transformed reality into these tiny peaces? Don’t we loose if we think we can not loose? We only have one capability to hear and only one capability to see. Digital did not change that. We are analogue beings. And that is all that we have to be. We can distinguish a lot of sounds if we learn to listen intently. If we do not listen intently, because digital allows us to listen more and quicker – then we are loosing a lot of quality.
Digital life should not be our way to live. We need to understand that only when we are aware of our capabilities to see or to listen to the full, we will gain quality in our live, a lot more than digital will ever be able to offer.
Small Things
Sometimes even the small things can make interesting pictures — it is just about to see them. The good news is that everyone is drawn to different things to see. There is an infinite number of expressions to explore.
Print of Today
This picture was made near the Altenberger Dom during a small hike my family and me did back in 2012. The transformation to monochrome was a good choice – I especially like the structure that is much better visible when seen in monochrome.