last saturday I was part of a group of bloggers that attended a brand workshop for the smart car brand, or plainly SMART. this being my first event like this I wasn’t really sure what to expect, but I was looking forward to it non the less as it was clear that we would get the possibility to have a drive with the new and coming smart for two electric drive.

electric cars, besides being the new black and environmentally more aware and all, are just a good concept for me as a gearhead. as for the electric smart for two check out the video a bit further below. the event itself was held in a part of the quite famous zeche zollverein in essen, germany and was very nicely and well organized and prepared.

I always like to meet knew and interesting people and not only was that the case, they were all very friendly and nice. bloggers and “smart” guys alike.  a few familiar faces in the form of malte christensen aka kopfbunt, markus reuter aka roitsch and alexander olma form the iphoneblog were there also, which obviously made it an even more fun event.

it is always nice to see big companies go with the times and evolve not only their products, but also the way they handle things with the public. bloggers being taken more seriously, is a big step in my opinion and shows that the company makes an effort. sure there are always different sides to a story. big companies can’t just bring change internally from one day to the other, but also is it important to push for it as much as possible in my opinion.

smart seems to have understood. and obviously not only this one level. I am not a fan of hybrid cars, as I think they are a waste of effort and money, as they just calm your conscience and don’t really do much. electric cars on the other hand have a much better starting point. as I already said the environmental side of the electric cars is for me personally a nice side effect, also that they are so silent and how that alone could change the living quality of wherever we live. much more interesting to me though is the way they drive, they do not shift and just go… on and on. sure there are limits. in speed, distance and maybe even versatility, but that is a point we can only see in time while using them long term. the ride in the smart for two electric drive was a very smooth one and with no need to shift and no shifting sensation driving became a more relaxing experience. it might be just me, but I think this could be a very important factor also. making traffic safer… well besides the point that a lot of people have regarding the silence of the electric car. you could obviously give the cars artificial engine sounds, but I think if the awareness of the people shifts a bit, that wont be necessary and we could actually enjoy a more silent surrounding.

after the electric drive I took a regular smart for two out for a spin. the organizes had laid out a nice route for us around essen and set it already up in the navigation system of the car, so we basically went for a little sightseeing tour which ended in the smart division of car tuner brabus.

the drive was very nice and I am actually impressed by this little car. I would not go so far and say it is a car for long drives but within a limited area like a city etc. it might be the perfect car for a lot of people. the only grudge I have with the non electric version of the car really is the transmission though. I understand that this type of transmission is a bit easier and all, but a full automatic transmission or a full manual would make a better experience for me. the shifting is now smooth enough most of the time to really enjoy it too much. and I would and could shit much more smoothly with a stickshift. and so does the automatic transmission in most other cars I drove so far in my life.

also do I think that a manual transmission should be an option for the higher performance models by smart and brabus as the transmission really cant keep up with the higher power and will make a real sporty experience not possible. just imagine how much fun you could have with one of these on a racetrack if it just had a manual transmission. it also pushes a bit over the front tires if driven a bit faster in the corners, but the understeer could be managed with a bit of tweaking I am sure. oh and that just happened with the brabus for me.

brabus does and excellent job in tuning the smart and besides the great quality they offer a seemingly endless variety of options. quite literally. ideas and options you would normally just know from car companies like bentley etc. and I say bentley and not brabus as you can order any kind of modification at any of your smart dealers directly. the smart brand, under the mercedes house, has an official cooperation with the smart division of brabus exactly for that. the example they brought up was you could bring your favorite handbag with you and they would match the cars interior and or exterior color to it, but it goes much further than that. and the best part is that the prices for all that are in relation to the smarts own regular price, so you wont end up paying 100k for a car that just cost you 15.000.-€.

and here are we at a point I wasn’t aware about. the smarts starting price is here in germany at 9.990.- euros, which is very ok for the car. another and even more important thing I did not know and that smart really needs to communicate more is that the smart for two really is a very safe car. the tridion “safety cell” really is the main point here and it has a crash zone and all the things you want and get very high safety ratings. I really didn’t know that. and most people I know did not either.

either way, I had a wonderful day, learned a lot about the smart for two, its electric brother and the company that surprised me in a very positive way. and really, if the transmission was a bit different on the non electrical models, I might be quite tempted to get one for the city.

one also very good thing we were presented with was the car2go project that started in ulm, germany and is now testing in austin, texas. its nice carsharing idea and system unlike any of the others out there and I can really see it take off. check out the site for more infos. I hope they come to cologne at some point soon.

thanks to the organizers and all the great people I met there and had great talks with! till the next time we meet.

teymur.

today I met up with two buddies of mine, ben and torsten, to go over a few things lining up the future and we took the chance of hanging together to check out the bmx masters last day here in cologne.

well shooting from the sidelines with a lot of people around you doesn’t give you a lot of options to play around, but I am still very happy about the outcome for a spontaneous visit there.

I should have could have upped my ISO actually a bit as ben did, to get some higher shutter speeds as I shot in aperture priority and some of the action is a tad too blurry maybe, but hey there hopefully is a next time.

and make sure to check out bens photos over at his flickr stream also!!!

ll the best,

teymur.

here we have a post that was planned to be out a lot earlier, the shoot too place before my south africa trip. well… rather later than never, right? this was also the first shoot with my model svitlana in a very very long time. if you don’t remember her anymore check out the according flickr set and enjoy

Also joining this time was my very talented buddy frank keller, who I originally met on the joe mcnally workshop in venice last year.

we hadn’t seen each other in ages and decided to shoot together again.

shooting with another photographer has a lot of advantages, as long as you get along well of course. especially when you don’t have any assistants or other help, it is great as you can help out each other, fix a light here, get a lens there and most importantly get some advice if you get stuck, creatively or technically.

I know it is quite unusual of me uploading and posting all the photos at once, but I want to make a point, so bear with me a bit.

As I started looking for a location to shoot I had some images in my mind that I wanted to get, but as we didn’t plan everything to the smallest detail I had to improvise on or two things in my mind. which isn’t a bad thing or so, but I got thrown off a bit, as I didn’t get exactly to where I wanted with the photos in the woods. afterwards I remembered joe mcnally saying once that you better adjust the display on the back of your camera, not to be surprised afterwards. well well… at least now this sticks to my mind

anyway on location I was quite ok with the photos, but somehow, when it was time for the second set to shoot I had some ideas and got shooting, they turned out to my satisfaction for sure, but my buddy frank came up with a very wonderful idea which resulted in my most favorite photos of that day!

I am not as satisfied with the ones between the trees, as I had a more dreamy look in my head which I apparently could not replicate. I think I should have used a few more flashes for lighting the background also and setting some accents. well… next time I’ll try to pull a drew gardner

and by far these next ones are the best shots in my opinion and that thanks to frank! thank you mate!

we shot all our photos with franks new elinchrom ranger quadras he just recently acquired. a very impressive pack. the very small sized heads and battery pack have some immense power and versatility. and the coolest of all they are compatible with the regular elinchrom skyports and all their lightformers.

hope you enjoy this post and please let me know what you think. for a few more shots check out my flickr stream. also make sure to check out franks site and portfolio!

also enjoy the video!

have a great weekend,

teymur.

you guys for sure remember when I mentioned that the manfrotto school of xcellence started with the live webinars with joe mcnally and bill frakes. if you missed them or want to watch them again just head over here and enjoy! there is also a great webinar from june about monitor calibration you might want to check out.

anyway, the school site has much more to offer. from photographer experiences to tutorials and so much more. I for example published my experiences of my trip to south africa with kodak and street photography also with a more technical background.

Also the redbull illume site noticed the start of the manfrotto school of xcellence site and dedicated a post to it, alsomentioning me and the street photogrpahy post, which makes me very happy

As some of you might have noticed I went on a little trip to Italy the week before last for a few days and got back last week tuesday. The original plan was to drive down to Bassano Italy at some point and say hi to my buddy Marco at Manfrotto HQ and have some talk and take a tour and all. luckily for me Marco offered me to join him, a team of Manfrotto engineers and BILL FRAKES to Siena for the horse race.

There wasn’t really too much to think about this offer from my side obviously, just a bit of quick planing and pushing my timetable around and i was set to go go.

What to pack for a trip like this? Well… I took everything… besides my Elinchrom flashes and just because I dont have a battery pack for those right now. and like this I could fit everything in the boot of my car. light stands, tripods, diffusors, reflectors, skylites, hotshoe flashes, lightformers, gafferstape, clamps, multitool, flashlights, cameras of course and so on and so on.

Did I take a bit too much? yip! did it hurt? no! it actually was quite good, as I could help out with some stuff that was missing as Bill Frakes and his partner in crime and assistant Laura Heald were in the unfortunate position to miss an equipment bag. you gotta love the airlines and airports! Bill and Laura actually form Straw Hat Visuals which you should check out.

I might get back on the airport thing later, as I am always uncomfortable flying with my gear if its not a vacation. actually even then.

To get back to the beginning of the trip I was lucky enough to take off a day early so I don’t have to drive all 1.200 km in one day. So I thought it might be nice to drive over the Gotthard pass and maybe look for a small hotel or any sleeping possibility up there.

The road were mostly free, the weather good, and getting to the foot of the pass was breathtaking as always. Unfortunately I didn’t get to the pass early enough to have a lot of sunshine left and as it was a bit hazy, so I couldn’t get the shots I actually wanted and as I had not found a hotel on top of the pass the night shooting was not a real option either. Ah well, a good reason to go back one day.

I spend the evening and some of the next day in Ascona and around Lago Maggiore. Which was very nice, as I love love love these narrow roads around the lake and the whole scenery. That said I didn’t shoot too much, but a few shots from on the lake.

I also shot a lot of video which I will upload at a later date.

From Ascona I left for Bassano on the next morning. I love the Ticino Region of Switzerland and it is always a blast driving into italy from there. Especially if you avoid the bigger roads and just go with the flow so to speak. I didn’t do that this time as the day ahead would be a long one.

The drive was smooth and I arrived in Bassano a few hours later. which was actually a bit later as I thought as I apparently can’t tell the difference between miles and kilometers.

Very cool feeling getting to Manfrotto HQ and being introduced to everyone and spending some time there. Funny enough I didn’t take one photo as long as I was there and I have no clue why… well… next time maybe.

After being introduced to the rest of the team that was hitting the road with us, we started packing the car and plan how and when to pick up bill and laura at the airport later that day. Paolo, Fabio and Antonio where a great team to go on a trip like this and it was a great pleasure meeting them.

Getting to the airport later we met up with Bill and Laura which also was a great pleasure meeting them. The airline had somehow managed to loose 3 of their bags. 3 equipment bags did not make it form Amsterdam to Bologna and maybe two would make it two Florence though, so we split and hoped. Marco and I arrived late in the evening at hour hotel in Tuscany with no bag, but the others had gotten two of the missing ones.

Tuscany… WOW. I’ve been to italy before, but never to Tuscany and maaaaaaan did I miss something. Even at night with the moon shining down it was a blast. and as we had this wonderful old cathedral right next to our place I had to get my camera out and try one thing that shem compion told me about on the south africa trip. do nighttime long exposure shots rather with a shorter shutter speed and high ISO than the other way around as I have done so many times. to me this was a new concept andI am delighted with the results. I still need to improve and get more experience with this technique, but as for it was that late and me that tired I am pleased with the results. and just to reassure you guys… it is PITCH DARK NIGHT!!!

I used ISO 3200 on my D3 mostly with shutter speeds between 10 to 20 seconds each. with the great low light capabilities of the d3 (and I can only imagine how these would have come out with a D3s) you get a wonderful effect and see far more stars than you would when shooting at ISO 200 for example. and you can prevent star trails with this method much easier if you want to. were the shots a bit grainy? sure, but it first of all didn’t bother me too much and with the great noise reduction in lightroom 3, even that is no biggie anymore.

It was a lot of fun and I really need to find another nice place to go to, where no lights (from a city or other) are anywhere close and do this again. Here I obviously had the cathedral also in the shots and inside there were the illuminated emergency exit signs that lit up the whole structure. It wasn’t too bad, but I would have liked to see the outcome without them. Paolo was nice enough to accompany me so I didn’t completely die of fear when that giant toad decided to materialize in front of us and then disappear into the night.

the next morning we started at 5:30 towards siena with a little breakfast stop. our little 3 car track went through the wonderful scenery of tuscany to the beautiful city of siena.

I had the great honor and was so delighted to help out a little throughout the day and at the main event with some shots from inside the crowd a bit of video etc. but until then which was about 12 hours away we started to get a feel for the location, Bill and Laura scouted their positions and we still had to find two places for an amazing, actually two, pieces of photography related technology. The Gitzo Athena. Click the link and check out the video. In short it is a motorized head that takes I think all sizes of DSLRs and can be programed or operated in real time via a computer. A very impressive device.

It was a great day in so many regards, though the blazing sun really got me to my knees from time to time. if you ever travel around Italy and Tuscany make sure to visit Siena.

As for the Palio di Siena, the main event itself, is hard to describe. It all starts with a great parade that went on for a quite long time I just mention it as the sun cooked us beyond well done. The race on the other hand was so much shorter than I would have thought and actually short. Short and very intense. Not only for the riders themselves, but also for their fans, friends and families. A lot of emotions got stirred up and judging by the reddish colored gooie stuff on the pavement.

After the race the winner (rider and horse) plus all his following and probably others (judging by the sheer size) went over to the cathedral for a blessing and celebrating. Eating, drinking and partying began as we started to pack up and drive back to our hotel. After dinner and a few bottles of nice italian wine we went to bed.

I spend the following two days in Bassano, enjoying the great hospitality of my friend marco and his wonderful wife.

And on Monday it was time to head back to Germany after staying in at Manfrotto HQ for a few hours. What a great and intense trip, getting to know some wonderful people and enjoying every single minute of it.

Oh and Laura and Bill have just posted their great post over at their Blog, so make sure to check that one out also!

I hope you enjoy the photos and my endless writing and I wish you a great day!

teymur.

a few weeks ago a buddy of mine asked whether I have the time to shoot a friend of his, that is visiting cologne. even though a bit short notice I was very happy too and was able to organize on of my fav makeup artists, sandra.

click on more for the rest of the story and the other photos.

I had something specific in mind from the day I talked to katja on the phone. in that regard I am not 100% satisfied with the outcome, but as the photos standing for themselves I think thy came out pretty good.

the shoot was not too long and the weather kept changing, which made it a bit difficult in some situations to keep the exposure and everything right.

strobist info:

for these 3 photos I used one sb-900 through a lastolite ezybox on a avenger c-stand on camera right always pointing straight at the model. the height was always pointed at her center! I could have used a bit bigger softbox, but hey

and here the video that my buddy detlev was kind enough to record while we shot!

enjoy and let me know what you think. also you can direkt all you inquires to shoot with katja to her directly on the sedcard at the modelkartei. and I need to mention that she was a trooper, as it was quite cold out side that day, but she did not complain or need any unnecessary breaks.

thats it for today.

all the best,

teymur.

as you might have guessed… I am BACK!!!

and as I am back and in the middle of my everyday chaos again I have a little bit of time to reflect on the past south africa trip. as you might or might not have noticed I was very lucky to be sent by kodak to south africa while the 2010 fifa worldcup is on to capture the memorable moments the people experience along the way.

I have written about how I disagree with the media hysteria talking about how dangerous south africa is and how unfair and dangerous that itself is, so I wont go into it too much, but only wondering how the fifa was not able to control this. they control nearly everything about this worldcup, so this makes me wonder.

click on more for the whole story and the video.

I am very thankful to kodak for sending me to south africa, letting me experience all the wonderful energy and moment and most importantly… meet the wonderful people that I met along the way and was able to spend time with.

from the people I only spent a few minutes with to the guys from the team we only ha a few hours with or the others I spent days with.

of course there is madlen from kodak, who was the driving force behind this whole operation and who did a wonderful job. and I am very happy she joined our journey as it was a lot o fun!

then there was alfred, who was our local kodak hero. he took so good care of us in joburg, with his happy and caring way. especially impressive was seeing him in his traditional maasai clothing. I am looking forwad meeting you again at photokina mate

tiny was our second driver and guide in joburg who had the unfortunate case of extreme road rage, where a group of crazy chicks started hitting on her, because they couldn’t pass here on the street as fast as they wanted… poor her. I hope you are alright tiny.

junior is a buddy of alfred, who was just visiting and got caught in our craziness great meeting you sir!

another guy I had not enough time to spend with was alessio. I met with him in amsterdam already as we were on the same flight, but overall we just had a bit of time in joburg to hang out together. gladly he lives kinda close by and this gives me a good excuse to visit wonderful milan

also in joburg I had the pleasure of meeting young designer AJ. very fun and fresh british lad, sorry ’bout that mate. I’ll be in london soon enough I hope, so we can see how everything worked out for the british team…

it is a shame I do not have a photo of sergio who is our man from the US, but I certainly failed to get one of him. our meeting was even more brief, but hopefully we can change that at another time.

at the breakfast of my first “real” day in joburg the wonderful and inspiring shelton introduced himself. and I was lucky enough to have him with me in durban! its very seldom you meet a guy this much fun with interesting stories, photographic knowledge and ability and all the means to share all this. PLUS the amazing bonus of a great voice and musical talent. I think we still have a karaoke duett to attend to sir! it really is a shame you live this far away.

and last but not least another wonderful member of the team and I am very happy about that he was with us in durban also is shem! southafrican wildlife and nature photographer. and what a wonderful one. I am very very impressed by his work. and of course by him. a great guy, so open and friendly, just being him. again.. why do you live so faaaar away? I will come back to south africa either way and surely take part in one of your tours.

it really was a pleasure meeting you guys and I can’t wait until we meet again! and if you ever come anywhere close to cologne, please let me know!

besides our team we met so many other people, even if just briefly and while walking by, they still had an impact on me while roaming through joburg and durban.

and then there where the lions

the zebras

the giraffe

the gazelles

the fans

the turtles

the rays

the sharks and other fish

the birds

and the man, the myth…

well of course there is no photo of the myth… he wouldn’t be a myth if there were photo books about him now, right?

and here now finally the kinda raw video. I unfortunately seem to have misplaced some of my other footage, but it still is quite long, so excuse the poor storytelling in this, but enjoy the impressions even more!

again thanks you all sooooooo very much for a wonderful and great time. and to everyone ever thinking about it… YES GO VISIT SOUTH AFRICA and enjoy the time!

all the best,

teymur.

it really is over already… for us at least.

it is time to leave beautiful south africa. well the geeky photographers and travel junkies that we are, decided to go for another walk through durban city ad maybe the beachfront.

what can I tell you. it was a great walk where we met even greater and more interesting people as we could have ever imagined. I wont write too much today as I am quite tired, but also because I am writing on a longer blog post for the coming days were I want to put all my thoughts and feeling about this trip into. I hope enjoy the shots and please let me know your thoughts on them!

we are coming to the end of our journey. as sad as it is and as fast as it went by, we have to face the fact that tomorrow, well today (wednesday) most of us will start their journeys back home. what a ride.

it is 01:37 in the morning right now, so I will keep it short as we have planned another city photowalk planned for the morning, but rest assured that I will write a post with more detail as soon as I am back home. right now I am just now very thankful for this trip, the people I met and the great talks we had.

enjoy the photos of today!

teymur.

GERMAN:

hey leute, eine sache die ich total vergessen habe und euch noch unbedingt mitteilen wollte:

kodak war so nett für euch einen 30%igen nachlass auf den PULSE bilderrahmen, die SLICE und die Z950 kameras zu geben. einfach zum deutschen kodak onlinestore und beim bezahlen dann den code ICEDSOUL eingeben!

viel spaß damit und einen wunderschönen tag,

teymur.

ENGLISH:

hey guys, there is one thing that slipped my mind that I wanted to tell you is that the guys at kodak were so kind to provide a voucher for you. with that you will get 30% off when you buy a PULSE picture frame, a SLICE pocket camera or the Z950 zoom camera.

just head over to the kodak online store for your country and enter the code ICEDSOUL at checkout. to find the online shop just go to your countries kodak website and in the top left corner will be a link to the online shop.

enjoy and have a wonderful day,

teymur.

I know a lot of you where waiting for a post yesterday, but I hope you were ok with the posterous posts I did from the stadium, as I fell asleep importing the photos from my D3 at night.

and we were out and about all day today, so time was a bit limited for editing. I still hope you enjoy and have the patience to go through all of them, as this is a huuuuuge upload.

yesterday was the big day here for madlen, shelton and me. the match germany vs. australia was on and we had some extremly cool tickets!

well let me start with the beginning of the day actually… you guys are still in joburg with me, so I will continue from there. after a rather quick breakfast and not too much sleep, I packed up and and headed for the airport with shelton after saying bye to the other bloggers. all would have been good and easy if there wasn’t the thing about weight… well… no, not mine. this time at least .

south african airline has very strict and very different rules for the luggage you are allowed to take with you, its weight and all. and it differs quite a bit from what I was allowed on my klm flight from amsterdam. what I do not understand is, that when you come from an international flight with a certain amount of luggage, how are you supposed to make it go away or become less when switching to a national flight while traveling… well… a lot of discussions, missing my first flight and about 50 euros later I was at the gate waiting for the next flight to durban.

everything went well from there on and I even met some german soccer royalty at the airport. from oliver kahn to gerhard mayer vorfelder. poor oliver kahn getting harassed by fans wanting to take millions of photos and so on.

finally at the hotel shelton and I relaxed a bit until madlen arrived and it was time for the big match. it started to get more and more packed the closer we got to the stadium and I was surprised to see so many german fans. funny enough there were a lot of non german, german fans, if you know what I mean.

as far as I can say everyone behaved well, the security guys were awesomely friendly everything went smoothly.

our seats were as I already mentioned aaaaamazing! as you can probably see in my photos we were really close and right in the middle. I had my 70-200mm nikkor lens with me, just to give you a little idea.

by the way… I HATE VUVUZELAS!!! just sayin’.

the atmosphere in the stadium was so intoxicating and wonderful. we had quite a lot of aussies around us, well plus shelton, and obviously they were not too happy about the result and all, but still friendly all the way and up for a joke here and there.

not too bore you too much with my words, I will leave you with the photos of the match now. oh maybe just to mention that former german coach berti vogts was sitting right behind us.

today then we went for a bit of a photowalk at the durban beach front. to my surprise we immediately came across a skatepark with a lot of guys on bmx bikes and skateboards. well, being the photographers that we are, we went for it like a bunch of kittens that just discovered a ball of wool.

talked to a few of the guys after a while and really got into it, planning some ideas of ours and them. it really went well if I might say and I hope you enjoy the outcome as I do.

being a bit sweaty and tired and having spent about two hours in the skate park we went for a few cool drinks and a snack.

stumbling over a zulu dance group another shoot was about to happen.

what a great day… actually two great and extremely memorable days in south africa! my first ever soccer match live in a huge stadium and it is the first german match at the 2010 worldcup. well it doesn’t get much better than that… oh wait… it actually does! meeting and being able to spend time with these amazing people I have met on this trip is just unbeatable. this goes out to you guys! madlen, shelton and shem!

good luck and good night!

teymur.

well well,

our first day in johannesburg, south africa is coming to an end and I am sitting here with madlen from kodak and we are importing, editing and uploading photos. maybe… if I don’t fall asleep while doing this I will actually get to some video editing!

I had a great day with actually one my dreams becoming reality! we started the day with obviously with a nice and long breakfast where we got to meet the rest of our kodak team…

…which actually was only one guy. an aussie photographer called shelton muller. the rest of our team was formed by obviously madlen nikolaus, italian journalist and blogger alessio bau, south african photogrpaher shem compion and his girlfriend and last but not least our british graphics designer AJ. we also had our wonderful guides alfred, tiny and junior with us, who were a blast to hang out with and get to know.

and very cool and surprisingly alfred turned up in his full massai warrior outfit! very very cool!

so alfred had suggested to take us to lion park kinda close by so that we get at least a little bit of the african wilderness while we are here, so we went. I was looking forward to it, as one the one hand I love animals, even though it was a park/zoo environment, and on the other hand the only possibility to get this close to these amazing animals for some time. for me at least

and how cool and fun it was. these wonderful animals where very relaxed, lying around and chilling in the warm sun, not really caring too much about us passing by in our cars, taking pictures and all. actually one of them was so attracted by our car that it first started licking it, then eating it… which was quite strange… here some photos for now and I will surely add the video later.

I never had the possibility to be so close to these wonderful animals, so it was quite a nice experience and now I am very very sure, that I have to come back to africa and go for a proper safari at some point. and I will for sure do this with shem as he is the go to guy as it seems. he organizes and guides workshop and safaris and even is bringing out a great book with everything you need to know about wildlife photography in south africa.

anyway, we had a blast and it got topped off at the lion cubs petting zoo I know.. very cheezy, but I always had the wish to cuttle with some real wildcat cubs, so this was just haven. they were so sweet and playful, well… the ones not being asleep at least. a very nice experience for sure.

one our way back to town our two cars unfortunately got separated and we in the first car did not notice that our friends in the other car had quite some trouble in between. another car packed with four women apparently was not satisfied with the speed our friends were driving and got so crazy about it, that they stopped infront of them, got out, opened the drives door and started hitting poor tiny and getting here keys from her. abolutley CRAZY! luckly the situation got resolved kinda quickly and with no real harm done, but allesio, madlen, junior and tiny were clearly shaken by this and rightfully so.

after that we went for a few well deserved drinks and snacks. its funny how on the one hand johannesburg is so different from what I have seen so far from the world and then again so similar. I wish I had a bit more time here and maybe more knowledge about what you can do where and when and all. next time!

we decided a little late to head for a mall as some of us needed a few things we forgot to bring and then go for dinner. the shops were already closed so I hope we will find everything we are looking for tomorrow when we get to durban. the dinner was very very nice, I had some nice beef kebab with rice and some extremely delicious and creamy humus before that complimented with a nice and classic rusty nail!

so much for now, I hope you enjoy this post and the photos and make sure to let me know!

I will get to edit some of the video footage now and then off to bed as we are being picked up at 8:30 in the morning already for the airport. I am very much looking forward to durban.

its a shame though we wont meet our american team member sergio anymore, at least not on this trip.

sleep well and take care,

teymur.

oh and here some leftovers from yesterday!

as some of you already know I was very lucky to win a contest with kodak that now at this very moment actually takes me to south africa…

I will be blogging and posting photos and videos as much as I can throughout this whole week. to make sure you do not miss anything I would recommend you keep visiting my blog here, but also my posterous site at http://icedsoul.posterous.com/, my twitter account @icedsoul and of course my flickr accounts at http://www.flickr.com/photos/icedsoul/ (my main account) and http://www.flickr.com/photos/teymur17/ (for my secondary account) just to be sure. all the RSS feeds should be working fine.

I am actually quite tired right now as I am awake about 21 hours now and sitting around here at the airport for a few hours isn’t really helping might get some more coffee…

I will be traveling to johannesburg via amsterdam and stay there for the next 2 days and the move on to wonderful durban.

if you have any photo related request or questions let me know, also if you are in the area and want to meet up, do not hesitate and send me an email.

I really would like to promise that the videos I take and make will be up within the time I am traveling, but from experience of previous trips it might be to time consuming, especially the rendering and uploading and I might need at least a little bit of sleep in between, but smaller pieces of video will make it through for sure… raw and uncut probably… you know the drill by now I guess.

all the best for now,

teymur.

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and the last batch of this mist set for you on this wonderful and sunny monday.

hope you enjoy!

let me know,

teymur.

—

strobist info:

one nikon sb-900 through a lastolite ezy-box from above the camera and to the left, pointing right down on the model.

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yes!!! it is misti again! 

click on more for the other photos.

I think this part of the photos might be my fav. misti was a blast to work with. just a shame she lives in paris and me in cologne.



—

strobist info:

one nikon sb-900 through a lastolite ezy-box from above the camera and to the left, pointing right down on the model.

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its been quite some time, but I still hope you enjoy this little photo post of misti!

enjoy and let me know what you think!

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as the iPad got its international launch today and my buddy ben put up a great series of iPad wallpapers on his blog, which you certainly should check out, I decided to follow his lead and prepare some of my work for you…. INCLUUUUDING… a little troopies365 surprise!!!

all photos are in a square format with a size of 1024 on each side, so that you can change from landscape to portrait mode without the background image zooming or so. also all the wallpapers are under a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Creative Commons license (as most of my work in general). if you are not sure what that means check out this http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/.

hope you enjoy it and let me know what you think!

all the best,

teymur.

as some of you noticed I haven’t posted any ombies52 photos or videos in the past 2 weeks. here a explanation why and how its going to continue.



this post is going to be in german only, as there are more than enough ipad app tips and reviews in english and the german ipad launch is right ahead this week. hope you understand that I dont have the time to write it in both languages.

all the best,

teymur.

so, dann fangen wir mal an mit der kleinen ipad tip runde. am kommenden mittwoch ist es endlich soweit und das apple ipad wird offiziell in deutschland verkauft werden, und wahrscheinlich auch jetzt schon ausverkauft sein.

da wollte ich euch einen kleinen überblick über die top 25 apps geben die ich in den letzten wochen so benutzt habe und denke das sie es wert sind erwähnt zu werden.

click on more for the whole post.

als kleinen bonus vorweg möchte ich aus zwei gründen mit seesmic für das iphone anfangen. auf der einen seite gefällt mir die ausführung und die ideen des apps sehr gut und es wirkt einfach was frischer und knackiger als z.b. tweetdeck für das iphone, welches ich bisher viel benutzt habe und was mir wirklich sehr sehr wichtig ist und bisher der einzige twitter client ist bei dem mir das aufgefallen ist, seesmic (itunes link) bietet eineevernote export funktion.

wer evernote nicht kennt, es ist im grunde genommen eine webclipping und notizen app, welches mittlerweile für jede plattform gibt. evernote ist sehr umfangreich und man kann es auf viele verschiedene arten nutzen.

und bisher fand ich es immer relativ umständlich wenn man einen tweet speichern oder einen link daraus für später aufheben wollte, da man grade z.b. unterwegs war und/oder die verbindung nicht so richtig will. mit seesmic kann man nun individuelle tweets einfach an evernote schicken, welches dann automatisch mit dem evernote server synchronisiert und man später dann alles nachlesen kann.

das nur mal so am rande

was mich zum ersten app für das ipad, aber auch dem iphone, mac os, windows etc. etc. bringt…

EVERNOTE – gratis (itunes link):

wie schon erwähnt einspitzen app/service, den ich täglich nutze. mit der zeit hat sich die art und weise wie ich evernote benutze verändert, aber nicht die häufigkeit. um schnell text aus einer seite zu kopieren, oder eine adresse in die cloud zu schicken um sie dann mobil abzurufen oder für recherche zwecke. definitiv einen blick wert und besonders sinnvoll in kombination mit dem iphone und desktop app.

DROPBOX – gratis (itunes link):

wer dropbox schon kennt, dem muss ich nichts mehr darüber erzählen und für alle anderen… dropbox ist eine service der es einem erlaubt daten jeder art zwischen verschiedenen plattformen und geräten zu sychronisieren. ein weiterer vorteil auf dem ipad (und auch dem iphone) ist, das man vom ipad nicht unterstützte formate wie PDFlesen kann und direkt weiterschicken kann.

sowohl der service (bis zu einem bestimmten daten volumen), als auch die apps sind gratis.

PAGES (leider noch kein itunes link):

die apple eigene textverarbeitung für das ipad. bin sehr begeistert. gut es hat limitationen, aber ich könnte mir vorstellen, das sich dort noch etwas tut mit der zeit. die weiteren iwork apps habe ich bisher nichts getestet, da ich keine direkte verwendung für sie hatte.

1PASSWORD PRO – 11,99€ (itunes link):

1password ist ein spitzen programm,welches ich schon ziemlich lang auf meinem mac benutze und seit einiger zeit auch meinem iphone, die app ist zum glück auf iphone und ipad verwendbar. 1password speichert passwörter von webseiten, seriennummern von programmen und andere wichtige informationen. was 1password so schön macht, ist die möglichkeit via klick im browser entweder via button oder dem kontextmenü sich in seiten einzuloggen ohne die login daten eintippen zu müssen. es macht vieles einfach und sicherer und mit der app hat man alle seine wichtigen informationen immer sicher dabei.

PHOTOGENE – 1,59€ (itunes link):

photogene ist eine günstiges und einfaches möglichkeit fotos die man auf dem ipad hat zu bearbeiten, dazu bietet es alle grundlegenden einstellungsmöglichkeiten. im moment glaube ich die interessanteste möglichkeit, bis vielleicht mal etwas wie lightroom für das ipad kommt.



SKETCHBOOK – 5,99€(itunes link):

sketchbook ist ein sehr umfangreiches zeichenprogramm, das viele möglichkeiten bietet, die ich bisher so nciht gesehen habe, wenn ihr gerne zeichnet und malt, solltet ihr mal einen blick drauf werfen.

iELECTRIBE – 7,99€ (itunes link):

der bekannte korg synthesizer für einen (jetzt aufgepasst) appel und ein ei. ich bin kein musiker, aber doch macht es riesigen spaß eigene beats auf dieser app zu kreiren und damit rumzuspielen. es wird glaube ich umso cooler in verbindung mit anderen soundquellen.

iBOOK – gratis (leider noch kein itunes link):

die standart buchapp für das ipad. ich bin mir nicht sicher wie es beim deutschlandstart mit der app aussieht, aber sobald sie verfügbar ist, sehe ich da großen nutzen. ich habe mir einpaar freie bücher über meinen us account besorgt und finde die handhabung echt schön.

KINDLE - gratis (itunes link):

quasi dass selbe wie die ibook app, nur von amazon. besonders praktisch für leute, die schon ein kindle haben oder ggf das gewünschte buch bei apple nicht finden. es synchronisiert auch schön die die stellen in den büchern an denen man grade liest zwischen den geräten, was ich besonders praktisch finde.

COMICS – gratis (itunes link):

eine super app mit einem riesigen angebotan us comics. ob da noch ein angebot mit euro comics oder deutschen ausgaben kommt weiss ich leider nicht, aber echte comic fans lesen ja eh lieber die orginal ausgaben.

IMDB – gratis (itunes link):

eine spitzen app zur internet movie database. wer wie ich viel filme und serien schaut, kennt imdb schon und nutzt es wohl auch immer wieder. die app ist sehr schön gemacht und gefällt mir besser als die seite.

NEY YORK TIME EDITOR’S CHOICE - gratis (itunes link):

gut als konzept und bis sich auf dem magazin- und zeitungsmarkt mal was mehr tut.

USA TODAY – gratis (itunes link):

ähnlich wie die NYT apps, aber hier werden glaube ich die nachrichten nicht so gefiltert. aufjedenfall einen blick wert.

COOL HUNTING – gratis (itunes link):

cool hunting ist eine tolle seite, die immer auf der suche nach den neusten und tollsten ideen und produkten ist. sehr auf kust, design und kultur spezialisiert, lifern sie immer tolle artikel und diese app rundet alles ab. auch hier gefällt mir die app besser als die seite selbst.

FLIGHT CONTROL HD – 3,99€ (itunes link):

ein unglaublich fesselndes spiel, welches jeden cent wert ist.

EPICURIOUS – gratis (itunes link):

tolle rezepte von der seite epicurious.com

PINBALL HD – 2,39€ (itunes link):

ich hatte lange kein flipper mehr gespielt, aber mit pinball hd kommt der spaß daran ganz schnell wieder. es gibt im moment drei verschiedene “geräte” zur auswahl, welche auch recht abwechslungsreich sind.

ANGRY BIRDS HD – 3,99€ (itunes link):

selten ein spiel mit einem so hohen suchtfaktor gespielt. SEHR EMPFEHLENSWERT!

SCRABBLE – 7,99€ (itunes link):

der spieleklassiker (hier die screenshots der US version). was soll ich zu scrabble sagen, außer das es viel spaß macht und besonders cool ist, wenn man die kostenlose iphone app dazu nutzt mit mehreren zu spielen.

BBC NEWS – gratis (itunes link):

sehr gut gemachte news app mit dem bonus feature gleichzeitig den bbc news audio stream hören zu können.

MASHABLE – gratis (itunes link):

auch hier gefällt mir die app besser als die seite selbst. sehr gut gemacht.

ZINIO (leider noch kein itunes link):

leider hab ich grade festgestellt, dases die zinioapp im deutschen appstore noch nicht gibt, aber ich hoffe das ändert sich, denn die seite gibt es schon auf deutsch. zinio bietet eine große auswahl an magazinen in diegitaler form an, wie z.b. national geographics im jahrenabo für unter 15 dollar glaube ich. und es sind glücklicherweise nicht nur konvertierte pdfs (zumindest im falle der natgeo). es werden kleine video interviews mit den fotografen und bildergallerien und detail ansichten von karten und ähnlichem angeboten.

NEWSRACK – 3,99€ (itunes link):

der im moment beste rss feed reader auf dem ipad, besonder tolles feature für mich der sync mit dem googlereader und die möglichkeit sachen an instapaper zu schicken.

INSTAPAPER – 3,99€ (itunes link):

instapaper ist eine sehr praktischer service, bei dem man via klick im browser seiten für ein späteres lesen speichern kann. wenn der text einfahc mal zu lang ist und man zuviel zutun hat um ihn direkt zu lesen einfach ein klick und die seite ist gespeichert. und mit der ipad app kann man nach einem sync dann einfach wann immer, wo immer weiterlesen wenn man die zeit dazu hat.

ich hoffe euch hat dieser schnelle überblick gefallenund weitergeholfen, wennihrnoch fragen oder anmerkungen habt, lasst es mich wissern.

alles gute,

teymur.



here you go

click on more for all the photos.

the second part of the bed scene with jacky.
5 photos with to set to moderate. you hav to login to have a look at them.

you will find the previous photos here.

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strobist ino: one elinchrome style rx 600 with a fairly large octa slightly camera right, high up facing down on the model.

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I wanted to make this test of the kodak playsport for some time now, but didn’t get to it and then the water in my parents little pond got kinda… well not clear and its been like this for a week nearly.

as you can see you are still able to see the fishes and the quality is wonderful. the camera has a lot of movement as I had it attached with its band to a stick basically, so I couldn’t control the camera as good as I wanted.

on the next run I will have a better “rig” for that for sure, but in this quick test the kodak playsport performed very well.

let me know what you think and I will filming another test soon, hopefully.

all the best,
teymur.

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please click on more for the whole batch of photos…

yesterday night was the night of the museums (nacht der museen) in düsseldorf, germany. where you buy one ticket and will be able to go into all participating museums all night (till 2 a.m.).
fun event.

also with a great performance by ZEE!

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enjoy and let me know what you think.

for the whole story just click on more…

“after a week of walking, spying and figuring out a way to get in, we just sat down have a little drink and hell broke loose…

we knew that there was still electricity in the building and also the fence was
charged, but this just got a whole lot freakier than I thought it ever could be… turrets coming out of the ground, spotlights, and drones flooding the whole area.

we were lucky… very lucky, got away just as the bullets started flying our direction. and the really weird part I was getting too… and I would bet on my dead wives grave… I save at least 5 human beings in full riot gear running around behind the fence!

so WHAT is this crap?! the holyman and I need to gear up and get back there… with a better plan, we did not expect this, but next time we wont get caught hands in our pockets. if there are still people alive, with food, water, electricity and weapons, I want answers. and A LOT of them!”

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just in case you wonder… this is my new photo project I started. here you’ll find a video that explains it a bit more… CLICK and here the weeks you maybe have missed already WEEK I, WEEK II, WEEK III, WEEK IV, WEEK V, WEEK VI, WEEK VII, WEEK VIII, WEEK IX, WEEK X, WEEK XI, WEEK XII, WEEK XIII, WEEK XIV, WEEK XV, WEEK XVI and WEEK XVII.

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strobist info:
one nikon sb900 with a honl grid on camera left facing my face directly. then two more sb900s behind the glass door facing upwards with red gels velcroed on. all set to TTL. the ones in the back were at +3 EV and the one for my face at +1 if I am not mistaken.

—

the video will be hopefully up the coming week.

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enjoy and let me know what you think.

look familiar?

click on more for all the shots…
I am sure you all remember jacky (and this, this and this).

here is the next batch of photos we took back in november last year.

I sometimes wish I had more time on some shoots, but I guess this is the nature of it all. and to be honest a little pressure ain’t to bad, as I can get lost in details if I ponder and wander too long.

well this was supposed to be a quick post only, so enjoy and let me know what you think!

—

strobist ino: one elinchrome style rx 600 with a fairly large octa slightly camera right, high up facing down on the model.

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here just a quick post with photos from my latest visit to the nordschleife.

click on more for the rest of the photos.

I think I will spend more time there from now on. as it is a lot of fun and you have the great scenery around the whole track which is a nice bonus.

this time I went there as the industry pool was testing so you see some coveres up mules

let me know what you think.