30 September 2012

Take a Dose Steve Jobs and You are Ready to Change the World

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Yes, he is not with us anymore, at least not in person, but his spirit is here and ready to give us the push we might need to continue with our photographic journey, changing the world or whatever other creative passion is leading us.

Need a dose “Steve Jobs” today? Here some treatment proposals

Quotes:

Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. (Steve Jobs)

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. (Steve Jobs)

The only way to do great work is to love what you do. (Steve Jobs)


Videos:

Steve Jobs Stanford Commencement Speech 2005

Steve Jobs and Bill Gates at D5 Conference

Steve Jobs talks about the Crazy Ones- who think different



Better? Enjoy moving forward.


Ute Sonnenberg for
www.rohoyachui.com

While Talking about Photo Books - The Ai Weiwei Photo Book "Becoming"

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The blog post on Monday was about sought after limited edition photo books and today Mutual Art announced the Ai Weiei artwork “Becoming”, a limited edition photo book with images taken by this amazing Chinese artist. The price is in line with the other books, USD 10,500 per copy.

Read more about this doubtless amazing artwork
here.


But there also nice new things to do with photography that cost nothing or close to nothing. The iPhone app
Mixel allows you to make great collages of your images and to send them as real postcards to your friends and family. The app is for free, only the stamp will make some costs.

Photography really does offer fun for all budgets and that makes it such a great art form to enjoy.

Happy snapping, mixing and sending!

Ute Sonnenberg for
www.rohoyachui.com

Neil Gaiman's 8 Rules of Writing Translated to Photography

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Neil Garmain’s 8 Rules of Writing were published in The Guardian in the winter of 2010 and they have a lot of analogy potential for photography.


Here some proposals for photography translations:

1 –
Write (Gaiman)

Photograph

2 -
Put one word after another. Find the right word, put it down. (Gaiman)

Keep shooting away. Connect with the moment, follow the light and shoot away.


3 -
Finish what you're writing. Whatever you have to do to finish it, finish it. (Gaiman)

The moment you think this would be a great shot, it will be a great shot, take the shot and don’t think I can shoot it later, it won’t come back.


4 -
Put it aside. Read it pretending you've never read it before. Show it to friends whose opinion you respect and who like the kind of thing that this is. (Gaiman)

When you feel tension while photographing or in post-production and you start moving restlessly on the spot, put your camera down or leave the computer for a while. Have a coffee and look at something different. Then come back and carry on. Your view will be fresh again.


5 -
Remember: when people tell you something's wrong or doesn't work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong. (Gaiman)

When you show your images to people expect that each of them will see something different and they are right, because each person has its own personality and point of view. Nonetheless their feedback always gives you insights and learning opportunities.


6 -
Fix it. Remember that, sooner or later, before it ever reaches perfection, you will have to let it go and move on and start to write the next thing. Perfection is like chasing the horizon. Keep moving. (Gaiman)

There is nothing like a perfect photo. And there is nothing like a photo everybody likes. Keep learning and growing in photography and your images will show an amazing process of working with light and composition.


7 -
Laugh at your own jokes. (Gaiman)

Relax and don’t be to hard on yourself.


8 -
The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you're allowed to do whatever you like. (That may be a rule for life as well as for writing. But it's definitely true for writing.) So write your story as it needs to be written. Write it ­honestly, and tell it as best you can. I'm not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter. (Gaiman)

Be genuine in your photography and photograph the way YOU photograph, however this is. Let your signature in photography evolve and embark on your own process of growth in this fantastic art.


Enjoy photography!
(P.S. feel free to come with your own translation!)


Ute Sonnenberg for www.rohoyachui.com



Steve Jobs on Intuition and what that means for us

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Intuition is a very powerful thing, more powerful than intellect, in my opinion. That's had a big impact on my work." Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs’ Apple products have always been products that allowed intuitional use. Tabs would be there where you naturally-intuitionally would be anyway with the cursor and the interface would show exactly what you need to follow your creative flow and nothing more or anything disturbing. They were all designed for intuitive use and that makes them feel so pleasant for us.

In other words, Steve Jobs’ Apple products are condensed intuition, just as form is condensed emptiness, according to Einstein.

Steve Jobs’ probably greatest strength was his intuition and his consciousness of the importance of intuition for our daily lives. By going the intuitive way, everything seems to fall into place, almost effortless. As soon as something counter-intuitive comes along we some kind of get stopped, distracted or disturbed in our process of creating something, from a business letter to a music project or photo book. Or just think about aperture in photography and its relation of f-stop numbers and aperture sizes. This is definitely counter-intuitive and many of us stumbled over it or still have difficulties with understanding it. Apple products never had such a counter-intuitive moment when using them. Using them was just pleasant.

But Steve Jobs is unfortunately not here anymore to continue the intuitive approach of the Apple products. Is there anybody who can within Apple? Interfaces have changed and counter-intuitive moments of disturbance occur when working with a Mac Book, easy features of daily use disappear and the design of some software hurts the eye.

The iPhone 5 is just out and the iPad mini is about to be announced. Are they steps away from Steve Jobs’ intuitive way of working or will a new intuitive mind carry on with the great work he has done? Let’s hope so. Otherwise an Apple will not be an Apple anymore and we might have to switch to Surface, because at the end we will always follow our intuition.

Let your intuition create your life and lets hope Apple will continue to support us in that.

Happy Apple using.


Ute Sonnenberg for
www.rohoyachui.com

Review Time: Photokina's New Cameras

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All big camera brands announced their new models at the Photokina and now the first reviews are available.

The most interesting reviews might be the ones on the full-frame entry level Nikon D600 and Canon D6, just good to have them to compare the two “similar” new camera models of the two big brands. Check out PetaPixel’s Hands on with the
Nikon D600 and Hands on with the Canon 6D.

Of a different league is the Leica M. Also here a
Hands on with the Leica M by PetaPixel to get to know her better before making a decision to buy one.

Also available so far the PetaPixel hands on review of the
Fujifilm X-E1, the Fujifilm XF1 and the Samsung Galaxy Camera.

Surely there will be more reviews coming during the following weeks and if you think about getting one of the new camera models, try to test them at your camera store before buying one. The camera needs to suit you and no review can tell how the camera will feel for you. Only you know, if a camera works for you and what you want to do in photography.
The new camera models are definitely an inspiration and make one wondering how
cameras will be in the future. Until future arrives lets enjoy what the present offers.

Happy testing!

Ute Sonnenberg for
www.rohoyachui.com

Travel Memories 2008: On Safari in Africa - Day 5

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It was a noisy morning. About 4.30 a.m. the Matatus started hooting and at 5 a.m. the mullah called for prayer. Waking up by city noises in the bush felt weird and suddenly the Nakuru National Park felt like a zoo to me, which is a pity, because it’s beautiful.
 
The group from the truck got up, packed and took off within 15 minutes. Amazing. We were not that fast, but off for the drive with packed breakfast at 6.30 a.m.
 
There is a road
going around the lake with just a few side roads. It’s an easy course and even school buses come and take the children out for a lovely day with the animals. And there were plenty. In the first place plenty of birds and specially flamingos, thousands along the shore. Our drive took us around the lake through a beautiful fever tree forest. Paul told me that there is one part of the shore where we can get close to the flamingos and we made our way to that spot. As we approached the shore we saw a hyena next to the road. She didn’t respond like a healthy animal usually does, being alert, keeping distance or even run off. This hyena must have been injured. She could hardly walk, her eyes were looking empty, she was behaving like in trance, focused to get to a hiding place, what we figured was a dip next to a drainage pipe, where she lied down, looking exhausted and stressed. We let her alone to avoid more stress for her (we actually didn’t know if it was a male or female, difficult to say with hyenas) and decided to come back later. I thought she was dying.
 
Just about a 100 meters from the hyena was this broad part of the shore with thousands of flamingos. Vehicles can get there very easily and the rest you can walk and this is actually the interesting part, because there were not only birds, but also rhino and buffalo. At this lake one can really forget very quickly that this is the bush and drop guard while busy with the tripod and focused on shooting birds in the most beautiful interaction and suddenly the photographer becomes an easy target for a buffalo. Nothing like that happened, but it crossed my mind and I kept an eye on the buffalo and rhino. Shooting the birds was awesome and the memory cards were filled quickly. We decided to drive a bit closer to the big mammals and had our breakfast between the rhino, buffalos, zebras, pelicans, flamingos and plenty of other bird species. This was also a good moment to set up office to upload the photos and check emails. Yes, check emails. I can’t imagine a more beautiful location for an office and thanks to the satellite technique nowadays this is possible.
 
For our afternoon game drive we started again our round trip around the lake and we were very lucky to see colobus monkeys. This is a rare sighting and they were just next to the road jumping in the trees. I actually got a couple of good shots to find out later that I lost them somewhere between uploading and backup. Again a lesson in staying focused and being careful all the time.
 
Our drive brought us to the dip where we left the hyena in the morning. We approached carefully and yes she was still there and for a moment I thought she was dead, but then she tried to lift her head. She was in a very bad shape. There were no visible injuries, so we assumed there could probably be internal bleedings, maybe a kick from a buffalo or something like that from interaction with another animal. There was nothing we could do. 

Ute Sonnenberg for
www.rohoyachui.com