robvisual - photography

Back in the days I thought I was just too afraid of not being a commercial photographer. But do we always need to turn our passion into a paid job? Yesterday I had a little conversation with a workmate. She works at the lounge area and is taking care of the coffee machine and meals served. She told me about her talent to refurbish old furniture to turn them into little treasures. She showed me some photos and I was blown away by her skills and creativity. The first question I asked her was: "why don't you start a busines?" and she responded: "maybe I outsell my passion and it becomes just ordinary work with too much pressure". Is it okay to think that way? Is she just afraid of starting a business? I don't think so. There is not one way to do things and we live in a world where nearly everything has a certain value in terms of money. You can easily outsell your whole passion and get sucked into a business thing that will leave you unsatisfied and stuffed w...

Sometimes it seems that art is like a club you can join to boost your fame. But when you meet other artists, most of them are working on their own. They get some inspiration from other people and can be a part of a collective (think of an actor) but most of the times they follow their inner voice sucking in the outer world as a kind of inspiration. So ask yourself, what is your motor behind your kind of art? Do you want to be a part of a collective or do you just want to join a club to call yourself an artist. If  you have to pass the bouncers and if you desire to be part of a certain collective it may force you to do things that lead away from your inner path. Does this thing drive you or are you the driver in the front seat? Is this really the thing you wanted to do as you started with your projects? Is art like the Berghain in Berlin you want to get into? Do you depend on that? I remember when I first started to upload my photos to flickr twelve years ago. I tried to ge...

Yesterday I told my Fuji dealer (a real shop! support them!) that they should put me on the list for a black model. I own a X100S and I don't regret the long wait. I started with the X100 back in the days and this camera was just too sluggish and painfully slow. I had the great opportunity to trade it for a X100S that is slightly better with the brilliant Trans-X-sensor. As the X100T came out I was not convinced to buy this camera because the only major things that have changed were the OVF (pip) and the in camera WiFi. Too less for a change. The implementation of CDAF and PDAF (auto focus methods) in the X100S and X100T was poor, even in bright light they are inaccurate and slow. So I decided to wait for a model that at least keeps up with the XT1. And now the gap is closed and the new X100F supports the same auto focus system like the XPRO2 what is great because I love to use the OVF on my XPRO2 and it works great. The new button placement and the ISO dial are a good evoluti...

What is creativity? Can we do something out of nothing? No. We can only create things based on other things that inspired us. In a modern sense you would say that you remix things. Remember the science fiction stories you read in a book. Fictional stuff about different planets and different species. But if you think a bit deeper you will realize that most of the things are not new. They are just remixed from things we already know. Even electricity and light (flashes) were always there. We just found a way to generate, store and use them in a different way. With photography it is the same thing. We are just remixing the things we see. We can be inspired by music, literature, nature, paintings and many of the other million influences, but at the end it was already there. You just apply a new angle of view, your personal taste to the whole picture. Sometimes it is good to think about this philosophical side of creativity and realize how important inspiration is for us. It is not imp...