Photo taken in Sundbyberg, Sunday the 9:th of December 2012
Focus on today – Quote
Category: Inspirational
Saarimner on Facebook
As an experiment I’ve set up a page on Facebook. The page will be a way to be noticed when there are new things published on this blog. It may also be a better way to share thoughts and ideas in a better way?
The link to the new page is http://www.facebook.com/saarimner
Welcome to visit
Feel-good – Take a moment and see the beauty of everyday life
When we watch the news it seems like the security cams just catches the bad guys.
This video is about the opposite…
Best wishes for this November Tuesday
Last days of autumn
I think Autumn has a special purpose in terms of reflection. The autumn isn’t always sunny, warm or cozy but it gives us time to breath and reflect. To stop, and listen to where we are, what we are, where we’re going and maybe serve as our yearly soul examination.
Soon the “bright white winter, the alpine season, the long walks in snow-season” will be here…
Changes
Some thoughts for a new week
“Keep your best wishes, close to your heart and watch what happens”
― Tony DeLiso
Monday is a special day, it’s almost like a mini 1:st of January. Every week I try to set some goals for myself. A goal might be a burden if you tell everyone what you have in mind, so I always try to keep them for myself. For me, this is a way to make sure that I’ve made some progress, and actually a way to make me feel better when I know that I either reached the goal, get closer to it, OR maybe the goal has changed for some certain fact that I didn’t know about before the week started. Anyway, the goal keeps me at focus and brings meaning to my actions.
The upcoming week is full of great activities even on evening time, Keane-concert tonight, Soccer game on Wednesday and a night at Magic Bar on Thursday, so I guess I’ll have to try to just enjoy every bit of the week to gain energy together with all the great people I will spend my time with.
I hope you all have a great start of the week.
Time Lapse of New York during Sandy
This is a great time-lapse of New York during the hard days when Sandy moved in over land. If you like photography I think you will enjoy the angles and composition in many of the scenes.
Best wishes to all of you that were in the middle of this storm.
Hope for a quick recovery to a normal situation
Open Shutter Experiment
This image was shot on a cold winter evening in Stockholm in December, almost a year ago. I think it was my third attempt, using my “walking technique with an open shutter”.
The image is taken on the pavement just outside Casino Cosmopol in Stockholm. If you look carefully you’ll discover a person moving against me.
A year from now you will wish you had started today
Some quotes for the weekend
“Remembering you are going to die, is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.” -Steve Jobs
“The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one.” –Elbert Hubbard
Spotify link: REO Speedwagon – Roll With The Changes
Happy weekend!
Busy woodcutter
This little story was sent to me by a friend of mine. I think it’s a really telling story of how things can turn out when you just go ahead with something, and never stops for a minute to reflect, train or think.
The photo is taken in a national park just outside Stockholm. This photo suffers a bit from Chromatic Aberration (look at the purple around the edges) which I will soon make a new blog post about, and how you can clean it up. Other than that I think the framing and composition in the photo went pretty well.
I hope you will have a good day
Busy
Once upon a time a very strong woodcutter ask for a job in a timber merchant, and he got it. The paid was really good and so were the work conditions. For that reason, the woodcutter was determined to do his best.
His boss gave him an axe and showed him the area where he was supposed to work.
The first day, the woodcutter brought 18 trees
“Congratulations,” the boss said. “Go on that way!”
Very motivated for the boss’ words, the woodcutter try harder the next day, but he only could bring 15 trees. The third day he try even harder, but he only could bring 10 trees.Day after day he was bringing less and less trees.
“I must be losing my strength”, the woodcutter thought. He went to the boss and apologized, saying that he could not understand what was going on.
“When was the last time you sharpened your axe?” the boss asked.
“Sharpen? I had no time to sharpen my axe. I have been very busy trying to cut trees…”
– Stephen Covey
Quote
If you can’t get someone out
of your head, maybe they are
supposed to be there
Open Shutter – one way to create “arty” images
During the last year I’ve experienced quite a lot with using an open shutter while walking with the camera hand-held. To be honest I’ve created many many bad photos while experimenting, but a few of them I’ve really enjoyed and for every day I learn a bit more when to use this technique, and when I shouldn’t.
One of the things I’ve learned is that composition will be even more important because I won’t be able to use depth of field as I would do on a normal photo. I think it’s also important to remember the lines, and where the eye will move along the photo when you’re using blurry techniques.
For those of you that aren’t so into the technical parts of photography, the shutter functionality is to open and let the light into the camera lens, and then close again. This will then create the image. For obvious reasons; the longer the shutter is open, the more light there will be on the camera lens.
With an open shutter in this case, I mean when the shutter is open many seconds.
If you’re using your iPhone for this purpose, I can recommend the app “SlowShutter”
This is an image I created last week while walking in the forest, that I think turned out pretty well. The shutter speed in this case was 3 seconds. What I really enjoy with these types of photos is that they can keep your imagination busy for a longer time than a normal photo. In short, I think they last a little bit longer.
Where your mind goes, your energy flows…
Isn’t it strange that sometimes the most ridiculously small task can feel like moving a mountain, but another really heavy one just feels like a swift? Some years back I had a CEO that always told me the quote in the subject of this post, because he was so sure, that if you’re not really enjoy your work you can’t be really good at it.
Of course there are many degrees of that saying, but I think it actually makes a lot of sense. This quote (in the picture) is almost the same one. But I think this quote is more focused on actually finding what we believe in, and through that find interest and energy, both in our professional life, as in our private dito.
I hope you all have a great Wednesday, a day that’s sometimes called “little Saturday”in Sweden.
Interview with Mark Zuckerberg at Startup School in 2011
This is an interview with Mark Zuckerberg that I think almost everyone should watch. The interview is made at Startup School in 2011 and he’s talking about risk taking, entrepreneurship, culture, how to grow your business, how you can achieve things as a group and so on.
It’s quite long but I think you might as well just listen to it along side any other things.
Some music to get the day moving
This is a song that was recommended to me from a close person, a while back. I really like the feeling, and what I think is sincerity in the song. The text is also noteworthy, and I think we all once in a while need to remind ourselves that all the days that are passing, is actually our wonderful life.
Take care! Hope you all have a great day!
Link to Spotify: Morcheeba – Enjoy The Ride
Hyperrealism – These are NOT pictures, they are drawings
Today I was introduced to a new form of art, Hyperrealism. To be frank I still find it hard to understand that these are drawings and not pictures. Among the most impressive things I’ve seen…
“Hyperrealism was born from the idea of photorealism, which are paintings based on photographs but created in a non-photographic medium.
Taking an average of between three and six weeks to produce, Cadden creates about seven pieces each year – which usually come in A1 or A0 sizes – and sell at galleries for up to £5,000 each.”
From Mail online
Amazing Kodachromes from Russia
Some days ago I came across this beautiful post of Kodachromes from second world war. While I truly is against all types of war, these photos are really amazing. Imagine taking those kind of pictures at that time. The sharpness, the lighting, the DoF and definitely no sign of auto focus or point and shot 🙂
At that time photography was truly a work of art and knowledge.
The description on the site is in Russia so I took the liberty to translate it to English. I hope that you enjoy these pics as much as I do. If you haven’t visited the site http://www.shorpy.com, don’t miss it if you’re into old photos.
“I often go to the site http://www.shorpy.com inspired color Kodahroma. The site is widely known for its archival photographs, so it is unlikely he will be opening for you. But now I wanted to make a selection chosen to hand was on the same page and in good quality. Perhaps you too would be interested. All images were made in 1940-1943. Signatures transfer did not, because what is bad and I’m afraid I can misquote. But in general, all so clear”
A letter to myself
Prewords: This will not be my most “manly” post in this blog, and I’ve reflected so much about if I should post it or not, and I guess if you aren’t or haven’t recently been in some kind of crisis these words may sound silly, but for me they’ve been extremely important so I decided to post them anyway and I sincerely hope that they can be of comfort to more than me.
Post: Last year I went through some hard times and I often reflected about how hard it was for those around me to know how to act. Should they call? Is it okay to laugh? Is it okay to ask how I feel and so on…
At the same time there was a battle inside me where thoughts like “Is it really okay to smile and be happy when I shouldn’t be?”, “Will I be this down and out forever”? So I decided to write some words to myself, to keep me on the straight line on the days when things were rough, to know that it’ll get better; and for the days when I felt that “Now I’ve passed this test”, some words to lessen the bounce when I bounced back and also give myself some slack to “just be”.
And if you are in the middle of some kind of crisis, remember that it’ll take time, It will never go over, but it will get easier and the days between when you feel weak will be more and more rare. So, hang in there, life’s beautiful, and things will change and you’ll soon laugh out loud for some ever reason that you won’t even know today.
I will also take this opportunity to thank all those around me, both friends, family and colleagues for the support on those days when things aren’t the best, and for sharing my laughs and craziness when things are up 🙂
Swedish version
The 3 symptoms of killing our dreams
This is the second time I’ll make a post with a reference to Paulo Coelho. The writer that never got The Nobel Prize, but definitely should have got it by now.
The article is from Paulo Coelho’s blog and it’s about how we sometimes just let our dreams vanish instead of keep chasing them.
I hope you find it interesting…
A true Christmas story
We’re approaching Christmas; a time when most of us will ask ourselves the question “was I a good person this year?”. There will also be a lot of “good” stories, and to be frank I love many of those stories, they aim at keeping us as good as we possibly can.
So, if you heard all the stories of Christmas before, you might know what will happen. With this story you won’t. It’s a true story with all parts of Christmas in it.
Hope you enjoy!
All great wo-/men are dreamers
Sunday evening and I will soon hit the bed. Before I do that I thought I’d share a great and inspiring Quote I came across earlier today. The quote is by Woodrow Wilson.
Hope that it can inspire some to a great week start
We grow great by dreams. All great wo-/men are dreamers. They see things in the soft haze of a spring day or in the red fire of a long winter’s evening. Some of us let these great dreams die, but others nourish and protect them; nurse them through bad days til they bring them to the sunshine and light which comes always to those who sincerely hope that their dreams will come true.
Motivation
“People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.”
Zig Ziglar
Talented young artist – a must see
This is a must see! The story is about Akiane Kramarik. After the jump you can follow her artistic development from age four and onward.
What an amazing talent!
New world record for most expensive Photo in a photo auction
This morning I read an article about the world’s most expensive photo sold in a photo auction, so far. The picture is taken by Andreas Gursky.
It’s a really great image, but is it really worth $4,338,500??
For more information on this, clich here!
Cinemagraphs
This technique looks really nice; a still shot with some movement in it. Images like this is called cinemagraphs and can in my opinion, if it’s done properly and made with some thoughts beforehand be really cool.
What’s your opinion? Have you tried this? Is it ruining the beauty of a still shot?
Here’s two examples:
Quote – Bern Williams
What a great view for a morning coffee – did you have a great earthrise this morning?
I saw an old pic from the moon today. At first it’s “just” Amazing because, well there’s the surface of the moon.. remarkable(!) …. but then, HEY… there’s the earth rising over the hill (!!), with all of us being just there; on that little “ball” in space.
I’ll keep my spirits high and hope that I’ll live to be able to see an “earthrise” someday.
Anyway, what an amazing shot this is!
We are literally speaking made of star dust
Today Sammi Naughton posted a great link on Facebook, and this is quite fascinating!
“Ultra fascinating discovery. Wow, my mind is racing… Forget all previous theories (love that about science!). Stars have now been shown to be able to create complex organic materials — and they are literally everywhere.
For theologians, apparently if you let there be light, that light has a few ideas of its own — that may be the catalyst of a profound series of events. 😉 Both science and religion can expect to be pondering for a while with this one.
We are made of stardust? Is the universe itself a living thing? Wow, this finding could mean that there is an almost infinite range of possible life, throughout the universe…”
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