Worlwide photowalk 09 – Behind the scene in Amsterdam

Today, I’ve joined this worldwide event in Amsterdam. It was led by Hans Schachtschabel as last year. For me, it was my first participation. I liked the idea of meeting together to take pictures and that everywhere in the world at the same time. Unfortunately, the weather was not that good here in Amsterdam. It was kind of rainy and though rain can be a nice unusual subject, it has dissuaded many photographers. So the group was quite small but still the atmosphere really nice. Here are some picture of this day :

A big thanks to Scott Kelby for this wonderful idea and to our lead Hans…
… and that warps up this very short post !
I’ll join next year for sure, maybe in a different city to discover even more new things and people.

Hope to see you next year ! :p

Ps : Check out my result of this day on my FlickR.

4-week free photography course !

I’d like to share with a nice initiative from CreativeTechs Tips. They just announced yesterday on their blig that they will organize 4 free webinars around photography. The program is as follow :

July 15: Week 1 – Overview. Life of a World Traveling Photographer.
July 22: Week 2 – Your Camera.
July 29: Week 3 – Your Technique.
Aug 5: Week 4 – Composition Secrets.

And here the following starting time according to your location :

2PM – Eastern (New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Florida)
1PM – Central (Chicago, Minneapolis, Dallas)
12PM – Mountain (Denver)
11AM – Pacific (Seattle, Los Angeles)
10AM – Alaska
8AM – Hawaii
7PM – London, Dublin, Algiers, Lagos
8PM – Amsterdam, Paris, Oslo, Prague, Zagreb
9PM – Athens, Jerusalem, Cairo, Kyiv
10PM – Moscow, Dubai
11PM – Tashkent
Midnight – Islamabad
1AM Tuesday – Bangkok, Hanoi, Jakarta
2AM Tuesday – Hong Kong, Beijing, Perth
3AM Tuesday – Tokyo, Seoul
4AM Tuesday – Melbourne, Sydney
5AM Tuesday – Vladivostok
6AM Tuesday – Auckland

Needless to say I already enrolled myself. If you want to join the move follow this link. You just have to enter some basic information (First name, Last name and email address) and confirm your email (you know using this automatic email with the link you have to click in it). Login and password for the session follow later on. If they attract enough people, it means they will release more webinars in the future about InDesign, Illustrator, Fireworks, Dreamweaver, and other Adobe products. So spread the news !

First afternoon at the FOAM

Well, first able, for those who don’t know the signification of FOAM, it stands for FOtografiemuseum AMsterdam. So, if you are living in the Netherlands or are passing by and are interested in photography, this place should interest you. They have only non-permanent exhibitions and they’re changing them quite often. The good thing is that they have every time 4 completely different exhibitions. It can be about an artist or a theme. I like that variety, as you can discover different styles in one visit.

You can subscribe for 34€ a year to the foam club which give free access to the museum. There are also other advantages that you can check over here.

I took my subscription recently and today I’ve decided to take advantage of the grey and cold dutch weather and go check the FOAM for the first time. Below, a quick overview of this afternoon :

The first exhibition on the ground floor is “Avenue Patrice Lumumba” by the South African photographer Guy Tillim. This is some photographs out of the book of the same name published earlier in 2008. The photographs are mainly architectural and depict the emergence of the modernism after the Congo won its independence.

The exhibition is nicely arranged. There are two rooms with large size framed photographs and an extra room on a half-floor with some 24×32 that make a long strip all over the walls. This second part is over the decay of Johannesburg.

More pictures here.

The FOAM also have a nice garden where you can enjoy the sun if there is any. At least, you can drink some nice lemonade or have an ice cream for 1€ and take a fresh breath before moving further. Unfortunately the garden is open only once a year (every third week-end of June) and I was lucky enough to have chosen by coincidence this time to visit the museum. As compensation, here is a picture of the garden.

Continuing my tour, I went upstairs to see the exhibition “Marks of Honour “. This is a photobook exhibition. A couple of photographers are presenting the most inspiring photobooks to them. You can see some photographs out of the book and the books themselves are arranged on table so you can leaf through. Also, you have some screens where someone is leafing through the book for you. I thought it was a nice idea for lazy people like me. That’s a very friendly exhibition where you can sit and read books or just look at the framed pictures. Your choice.

Next, is an exhibition over the italian photagrapher Massimo Italia
. Massimo is making pictures of crowded beaches and enlarges them to create huge panorama. Very colorful over saturated photographs.

And the last exposition is the one from a dutch photographer Emilie Hudig, “Control”. This is a documentary about her struggle again cancer. You’ll see very intimate pictures of her every day life fight against her sickness. Very moving and unusual exhibition. You can check more pictures on her website. Mine are only about the room where the photos are exposed. It takes place in the library of the FOAM which is a very nice and quiet room that fit well the theme of the photographs. Be prepare to be stirred up !

In conclusion, there are a lot to discover at the FOAM. The museum is very friendly. You can also take a drink at the nice cafe (check the cafe blog here) where you can as well borrow books and magazines about photography. They have nice lemonade with 14 different taste! (I took concumber which definitely taste like melon). Next time you don’t know what to do around Amsterdam, don’t hesitate to spend some time there. And if you are dutch resident interested by photography, I strongly advise you to take the FOAM club subscription !

Thank you Chase !

I should have done that since way too long. Well “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s” ‘ ”he” said, so here am I : I’ve started to take a picture a day with my mobile after Chase Jarvis did it (probably some of you knew already). His belief that photography is something that can be done everyday, everywhere helped me to really want starting as a photographer.

My way in this world is just started and there are probably many more excitements to come for me. But one thing for sure, doing  this daily picture helped me to want  looking around even more, to want observing the world, paying attention to humdrum scene and trying to find in them interesting pictures.  I strongly believe that this simple exercise helped me already and will continue to help me seing better pictures, noticing details here and there, renewing my eyes and keeping my motivation up on a daily base.

Simple exercise but yet someone had to think about it … Thank you Chase !

Ps :If you don’t know Chase Jarvis yet, I urge to check his blog right here.

Day 50 : A misundersting day

That’s not what you think it is !

About the “daily mobile thoughts” categorie

I’m trying to take a shot every day with my HTC touch. I try to look for shape, contrast and other things that amuse me. It is a good way to keep observing the world around.

I’m trying also to figure out what might be the potential of a mobile photo. Besides the low quality, mobiles pictures are a new link to our world, a new way of observing it and also a new way to approach and capture things and people.

It can have some surprisingly nice results, or sometimes not …

Introducing myself

Well, that’s probably another blogs among thousands and thousands of  other blogs. Nothing very original to say I must admit. I’m also probably another ”artist” among thousand of thousand artists.

Never mind, I’ll take the risk to bore you with all this. Hopefully some of you might like it, but at least I have fun and it makes me busy on evenings and week-ends.

What am I doing on these evenings ? I’m trying to create pictures. I’m interested by any ways of creating pictures. I like to learn and discover new techniques.

Mainly, you’ll find here photos, videos and also some drawings.

I’m very curious about the link between creating something and the impact of the music you are listening to doing it.

I think you don’t take the same pictures when you are listening to “suite for strings No1″ by Beethoven, or when you’re listening to the last album of  “The Flaming lips” or just nothing. I don’t have any theory about that, but I like be surrounded by music when I’m working on pictures and in my life more generally.

I’ll stop here for now and will try to keep this blog updated starting today.