01 July 2012

The Day We stop Using Facebook

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As all living organisms start dying the moment they are born also a social network as facebook does that. A human body produces new cells and old cells are dying simultaneously. In the beginning there are more new cells produced than old cells are dying. Somewhere along the road more cells die than new cells are produced and eventually the body dies. Depending on how a human body lives this process can be delayed or accelerated. The same happens with facebook and any other social media, but facebook might accelerate the cell dying process, if it continues it’s current strategy.
You might remember the days when a “like” was still a “like” and when your post was shown on the stream of all your friends and fans and not only the ones fb choose. These were the times when more new cells were produced than old cells died, in fb terms when the member growth and activity was huge. Then came the moment that the organism facebook got contaminated by the good life. Investors and big money got involved and a “like” ended being a “like”. It was the moment that the “like” was everywhere. When you have a complaint, you can “like” it, you can “like” your own profile and you can “like” the shoes you saw in the online shop. An overkill of “like”s and it’s even chosen for you what you have to like, because facebook controls what you see in your stream and to which online shop you are directed. To stay with the human body and cells, let’s call it a tumor had nestled in the organism. A tumor needs food. He eats cells. Facebook is now a public company and all the investors need to get fed. One of the things to come is the cooperation of facebook with online marketing companies who place cookies when somebody visits a website for red shoes. By visiting the website for red shoes facebook gets the information that you were looking for the red shoes on this website and you will receive adverts on your facebook profile from that very red shoe company. For how long will facebook members tolerate that? Will they stand up just like they did with the change of the contact email address in the fb account?
It is an
interesting process to observe and learn and it applies to all organisms like companies, human bodies, organizations and social networks. Facebook is just like a great example case study that provides insights in when a body turns into dying more than producing new cells with the very interesting question when it will die as an organism, or will it not? Medicine does great things nowadays. They can almost reverse everything or at least delay natural processes to a great extend. Let’s see and learn.

Ute Sonnenberg, www.rohoyachui.com

Simple and Easy World Language Images

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There have been many attempts to find a world language everyone is speaking to make communication easy around the world. But none could really make it, because they were again words and grammar and spelling and our mind got already enough to digest every day. Will images be the solution and the future world language? Or maybe they are already. When we want to tell the family how our holiday was we post pictures onto the social networks and all our friends around the world will understand too that we had a great holiday, although they do not speak Spanish or French or Chinese.
Imagine a future scenario. School children have all access to the Internet and learn math through online platforms together with all children anywhere in the world. They communicate through images and teachers in the classrooms guide them through the process of learning in their own traditional language. They grow up bilingual, their traditional language and the “image language”, which actually nobody has to learn; it’s already there. It could be that they all wear
Google Augmented Glasses and just look at a formula or an object and a whole bunch of children from China, Kenya, America and Portugal try together to solve the math problem. Or somebody wants to share what bothers him/her and does that with an image. Somebody else 10,000 km away sees the image and answers back with an image as consolation and support. The first person looks at it and is touched to tears, happy and grateful, sending back a thank you image. All without words, grammar and spelling, it’s all in the picture. We just need to use it consciously as a communication tool and not only for great travel offers, but for essential human communication to conquer globalization and growth. It’s time for innovation and it looks like the people are ready for it, only the technology needs to catch up.
Happy chatting or will we call it imaging?

Ute Sonnenberg, www.rohoyachui.com

Early Birds get the Best Photos

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When photographing outdoors we rely on the natural light and how it changes during the course of the day. The light just after sunrise is probably the most beautiful light a photographer can work with. It is warm, soft, gentle, promising, with still a whole day ahead, clean, innocent and pristine. In this light every subject from the model to the lion looks innocent, warm, gentle and lovable. Nothing has spoilt their beauty yet, the beauty of the light and the subject. Further in the day the light becomes harsh or dull, depending on the weather, contrasts are missing and subjects are over or underexposed. It’s hard working to get something look good. Towards sunset the light makes another major change. As if it wants to get rid of all what has happened during the day it’s cleaning and softening itself to be calm and gentle before setting for the night.
The hour just after sunrise and the hour just before sunset are called the golden hour. They are the best time for photographers. For those who find it difficult to get up early the light before sunset will be fine, but the best light is the light in the early morning. It’s hard to say why, but it might be the promise of a day to come what makes the light the better one and it will reflect in the images as well.
Choose your light and shoot away.
Happy shooting early birds.

Ute Sonnenberg, www.rohoaychui.com

How to Photograph Successfully Birds

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What is a typical bird photo? An empty branch or a piece of blue sky. They are so incredibly fast that it is so hard to get them nicely in the picture.
First things first. Put your camera away and observe the birds, any birds. Learn about their behavior. When are they doing things, how are they doing things, what is an indication for a following movement, how does a bird show that he will take off.
Next. Get a feeling for the birds. Spend time with them to sense when they are calm and relaxed and when they are restless, anxious or stressed. That will influence their behavior and the way you can photograph them.
Then get your camera and practice. Sit with the birds in your garden or in the park and photograph them. Don’t think about composition or light; just photograph any bird that comes along. By doing that you will bring your observations together with the actual process of photographing and this synergy will result in great bird photos.
So in essence: observation, sensing, practicing.
Enjoy these great animals. Happy snapping.

Ute Sonnenberg, www.rohoyachui.com

Move the Photographer for the Eye Catching Moment

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Sometimes on family occasions someone gets the idea, we need to take a photo. Everybody has to come together and stand in front of the house or any other great background the idea person choose. Then the group has to move to the left or right, people have to switch positions and move again, because now the light has changed. These can be a very annoying photo shoot everyone just wants to get over with. But what about moving the photographer? The photographer is only one person to move. And by moving the photographer new angles will come up with new light situations and probably more interesting photos. Interesting enough the photographer tends to stand still, nailed to the ground and wondering why the photo wouldn’t work instead of changing his/her position. That happens not only with family photos. It’s the same with buildings, wildlife, holiday photos, actually with all sorts of photos we take. Sometimes something caught our eye and we want to capture exactly that, but the light has changed until we got our camera ready or somebody walked into the composition. We definitely have to move to get anything out of it then. So it probably boils down to being fast enough to avoid moving the photographer around. But maybe only in these eye catching situations. With the family photo it might be, because nothing had caught our eye yet and by positioning the people we try to create an eye catching situation or with famous buildings we think we need to photograph them, although they do not catch our eye yet.
That means in essence that the photographer is in the absolute right position when something catches his/her eye and doesn’t need to move, shouldn’t move at all. If there is no eye catching moment, the photographer has to move until he/she experiences and eye catching moment with the subject and then they can stop moving and start shooting.

Happy eye catching.

Ute Sonnenberg, www.rohoyachui.com