I should be a Maxim photographer!

I was impressed with the way the pictures of my 2 Spanish friends turned out.

Goes to show that with a nice location, 2 beautiful women in small pieces of cloth, and some spontaneity  generally get you good photographs!

Muchas gracias to these wonderful ladies for patronising me and giving me a first "fashion shoot:".  

Pix have been removed, but can be found on my social networking site.





My Turkey travelbook is completed!

I have not had much time to travel due to work commitments, and since i got hooked onto photography, I thought it would be good to start on a second travelbook (a book of my travels!), finally... after about 4 months of compiling, editing and procrastination, my Turkey travelbook is completed, and even up for sale!

The link to its preview is available here:

Türkiye by bentse | Make Your Own Book

Enjoy!

Or better yet, buy a copy!

ben

Extra post!

This was something I contributed to a local fish forum (Petfrd.com):

___________

Hi all

as requested by Cloud79, i thought i'd post some pics taken (throughout Europe) during my 1.5 years working in Norway.

I did read a thread in another forum before, about how some of us fish forummers had gotten so deep into our hobby we would always look into a body of water (puddle, canal, lake, pond etc) for fishes, and realised i had "developed" into one of those guys... Even as my passion for the hobby died down a couple of years ago, subconsciously i still did this peering into lakes and canals, and even bothered to snap a few pictures of the life present.

As such, instead of boring you guys with pics of great landscapes, i scoured my collection of pictures and found those "fish-related" ones. Unfortunately not all of them belong to live fish, I thought it'd be nice to show how people in different parts of the world love their fishes.

enjoy!


Trout eye in aquarium around Hardanger, Norway


Dried fish head, Nusford, Lofoten Islands, Norway


Fish drying for export, Lofoten Islands, Norway


Christmas cod and sei, caught in Tofte, Norway


Fish in lake, around 7deg Celsius, Otta, Norway


Fish found in Polarium, an arctic aquarium, Tromso, Norway


Fish found in Polarium, an arctic aquarium, Tromso, Norway


Fish in a stream close to Rheinfall, Switzerland


Fish market in Fethiye, Turkey.
Just buy your fish, and have it grilled at a next-door restaurant.nice!


Fishes feeding on bread in Bohinj, Slovenia


Pile of fishes found along the coastal town of Nida, Lithuania


Finally, how the Dutch love it... herring, Schiphol airport, Netherlands

cheers!

ben

How I lost my camera

I was at an internet cafe in Sarajevo, Bosnia on 20 June'09, to use up my last 15 minutes of credit. I had been there earlier in the morning and used up my first 45 minutes of internet time.

Where I lost my camera

The guy at the cafe told me the internet was not working due to the rain. This was not surprising, as my host had also told me the same thing the night before. I was just about to leave when I heard the sound of Winning Eleven being played on the PlayStation 3 upstairs, so I thought I'd join the people upstairs for a game whilst waiting for the internet to come up again, since I had done my sightseeing already, and I was also hoping to see how good Bosnian kids were at the game.
On the second level of the internet cafe were 3 kids playing. They were not really kids actually, more like 16-18 years old, dressed like any teenager would. They charged me EUR1 to play a game with them, to which I thought whatever.. and just joined in the fun.

War roses - mortar scars commemorating the mortar shell victims

I placed my camera (in its bag) and bag on the same counter as the TV. It was 2m away from me, 45 deg to my left and within view. Like this:

As the game went on, 1 kid came from the left and asked me questions about where I was staying etc, distracting me from the game, and focus from my camera, whilethe 3rd kid SWAPPED my camera for an old antique soviet camera AND a rock.

After the game (which I lost to a dubious penalty), I asked for a rematch which the kids agreed to, for free. But within 2 minutes of the rematch, they suddenly said they had to rush off and ran down the stairs.After another 2 min I thought it was strange to leave their cigarettes behind, so i did a check on my camera bag, and noted the swap had been done.

The kids had obviously gone by then.

SUCKY...

My host family, who did everything they could to console me

What I lost:

• damn decent camera
• Trust in foreign children

Lessons learnt:

• Locals always blame the gypsies
• Bad locals exist (I believe the kids were not gypsies)
• It is wise to back up your photos every couple of days
• When on holiday, take life easy. I felt much better the following day and carried on my travels
• You cannot outwit/understand organised crime alone
• The soviet camera is not worth more than SGD30

Getting photography assistance

I'm not a cam-whore, but on occassion I do like my face in the picture.

Unfortunately, ever since I got my DSLR, my expectations of my pictures have increased significantly, in proportion to the quality of pictures produced.

This experience happened in Essouira, Morocco.

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves:

The problem

I am unable to take a decent self-portrait with my DSLR due to its bulk and weight. This is what I could manage, which does not capture the background which I wanted.

The Solution

Due to my limitations, I engaged the help of a local who was there with his girlfriend, admiring the amazing view of the sea. I described how I wanted to frame the picture in as simple english as possible. I even took a picture of him to set as an example:

My friendly assistant

The Frustration

However, after 3 attempts, the best he could muster was the below picture, which had the walls which I had hoped could be hidden. I thanked him for his efforts, got his email address, and promised to send him the picture I had taken for him (which I did send subsequently).

not quite what I wanted

The Perseverence and the End Result

And in my stubbornness, I placed my faith in another photographer, this time a fellow tourist, possibly from the US. After a brief description and 2 attempts, I got what I wished for:

Satisfaction at last!

G&* damn DSLRs!!! They take away the joys of photography at times!