Germany: Island of Föhr - Day 1

Click here (or on the above photo) for a gallery of images from the first day on the island of Föhr in the North Sea. Geotagging is active for most images, but unfortunately I forgot to take the GPS tracker out of the car for the ferry ride and so those photos are not tagged. Wonderful and relaxing is how one can describe life on this little island. It really is far less hectic feeling than the other areas of Germany we visited, although Bavaria had a similar feel to it. The wonderful thatch roof houses are great subjects to photograph as well!

We have been lucky with the weather although a big thunder storm just rolled through and I'm not sure if the weather will recover later this evening still. I will incorporate today's images into a future gallery, unless I end up shooting a ton more later, although again, that seems unlikely at the moment.

Germany: Days 4-6 - Zugspitze & Alpspitze

A small stone church partway down from the Zugspitze summit

Here is a link to the gallery with images from our two full days in Bavaria, visiting the highest point in Germany, the Zugspitze (2962 meters) and the neighbouring Alpspitze. Technically we never did reach the Alpspitze (2628 meters), rather we were at about 2100 meters at the viewpoint, so a long way from the actual summit. Click on the image for the gallery too...

Germany: Zugspitze Time-Lapse

Zugspitze Timelapse from Mike Mander on Vimeo.

Short time-lapse movie I hacked together, with the first sequence from my hotel room in Grainau and then the next day from the top of Germany's Zugspitze at 2960 meters (9700 feet), the highest point in the country.

Music clip from the song Reaktion by Carbon Based Lifeforms.

Germany: The Abbey at Ottobeuren

Well, this is actually day 7 already, and we just got back from the Alps. On the way back to Reutlingen, we took a slight detour to see the Benedictine Abbey at Ottobeuren. I have a fast, free and reliable Internet connection and decided to post a gallery of images from today, out of sequence but I wanted to get something else up before hitting the sack. Tomorrow afternoon (for me), I will follow up with a gallery of pictures from the Alps, specifically the Zugspitze, the highest point in Germany at 2960 metres, and also the Alpenspitze... plus a few I took at a Bavarian folk fest. For lots of photos inside the extraordinary abbey, you can either click here for the image gallery, or on the above photo.

For a preview of what the next image gallery will contain, here is one shot I took of the main Zugspitze building after climbing to the actual highest point. The weather in the Alps was absolutely perfect for taking photos - I have been very lucky on this trip so far...

Germany: Days 2 & 3

For a quick gallery of images from days 2 & 3 here in Germany (yesterday and the day before for me), click on the above image, or click here. No time for much in the way of explanation or reporting. Suffice to say the beer, coffee and food is great over here! Driving is generally a blast. People over here sure know how to get around quickly and if they are slower, they get out of the way fast! I had no Internet yesterday and I am not sure how the next few days will go, but I will update the blog when I can. That's it for today, now it's off to the German Alps...

Germany: Day 1

Typical German countryside as seen from Burg Hohenzollern

Greetings from Deutschland! Well, despite being severely jet-lagged and fatigued, I thought I had better post something before hitting the sack. I was up for nearly 35 hours yesterday (flight day), and after only 6 hours of sleep last night, today was still tiring.

Before I get into the photos, I wanted to mention that a massive stroke of luck delivered a small shipment of Panasonic's new autofocus Leica branded 25mm f/1.4 Summilux DG lenses to Beau Photo on Friday, my last day at work before flying to Germany on Saturday. Although the shipment caused my bank account to get lighter yet again, once I decided to take one of the lenses and shot some tests with it, I was ecstatic that I was able to secure one before my trip. Many of the photos following were taken with it. And yes, there are more available in stock at Beau Photo now! If you are a Micro-Four-Thirds shooter, this lens definitely deserves a look!

August 2011: New Canon Rebates

Wow, check out that $200 instant rebate on the 5D Mark II! We actually have inventory at the moment as well (bodies and kits), so don't miss out on this great offer, or on some of the others either...

Lizard Woman

(click image for full gallery)

Amazing makeup and prosthetic work by Lisa Bradley! A makeup job that was inspired by some lizard photos I had taken in Death Valley a few years back. The lovely model is Emily Backman.

Calling this a "makeup job" though, doesn't even begin to hint at the tremendous amount of work Lisa did, not only in applying the prosthetics and makeup to Emily on the day of the shoot, but also in the months of preparation, creating the prosthetic moulds and casting all the many small ridges, bony protrusions, horns and spikes. Emily started having the makeup applied at 5am, which took many hours to complete. Then she and Lisa spent the day at a makeup trade show and finally in the evening, after 7:30pm, we did a very quick shoot for about an hour and a half and a couple of different locations. Emily still had an amazing amount of energy at the end of the day, even after wearing this outfit for over 12 hours.

The images were all shot with my EOS-7D and any additional lighting was simply supplied by one or two 430 EXII flashes on radio slaves. No light diffusers were used as I wanted dramatic shadows to really bring out the amazing texture on these prosthetics.

X100: We have one in stock...

[Update: It's gone now...]

For the first time since Fujifilm started shipping the X100, we are actually caught up on pre-orders and have one in stock, ready and waiting for the next lucky customer who wants one! I have put it in our showcase, so I don't expect it will last too long.

We also have genuine Fujifilm NP-95 batteries in stock. However we are not yet caught up on the hood/filter-ring kits unfortunately, nor the premium leather cases...