Funny, very funny a couple of days ago I flipping though my old blogs and I ran into a blog of me from a year ago about using Photoshop and I saw my answer “NO” and nowadays I can say that the only sure thing in life is change, because now I have to answer that with “YES”.

Many times I have been asked already wether I use Photoshop or not. Ok people I do use Photoshop on every single picture I post, publish or send out. Why ? Because I use RAW as my file-format and when you use RAW as your format you have to develop your picture in some way. Why ? Because using RAW means that your image is just an average image. You have to work on the dynamic range, high lights, low lights, sharpness. So you have to use a photo-editor to get your images out there.

So I use Photoshop because that gives me the best selectiontools and the mechanismes to automate my processing. I am a hug fan of the method of Guy Gowan, this rally made my life so much easier and better.

And do I remove things from my images, well it depends. It depends on what kind of end-goal I have with my image. If I have  more creative end-goal Photoshop is like my painting box, I use every thing I have in the box to get there and it is fun to do that. Like a painter I carefully select my tools and make my painting. This are mostly the pictures I my on my own and my landscapes as well. Because I like to show the atmosphere I saw at that moment, it is recreating the feeling and my memory of that moment. Much of the work I do for clients is more based on facts and I use Photoshop to develop my pictures and make them web-ready. By using the Guy Gowan method I save so much time that I am always very thankful that I found his way of working. I love the way he looks at images and besides that Guy is a great guy to work with and learn from. These kind of pictures go mostly un-retouched to my customer. So it is very important that my base material is 100% ok and that is where I like to put my time in. Really take some time to go to his website and learn about how he addresses problems as color cleaning, sharping etc …. it will be worth to spend some time in researching this

It is a little longer then a year ago that I became fulltime photographer. Not longer networks, routers or switches form my daily challenge, but exposure, light, prints and planning started to become my daily challenges. I can tell you that was a hugh difference and completely changed my life. What happened well I will tell you …….

To be honest, yes I dreamed about it, but it was something for the future. To become a photographer, maybe some day in the future, so dreamed about it but let it go aswell. The funny things is that when you let something go it will come back on your track without putting any effort to it. It is like holding on to sand, the harder you squeeze the more difficult it is to hold on to it. Sure it sounded great to me, but the moment wasn’t there for me, at least that was what I thought. But faster then I realized the moment was there. A moment that you get into a flow and completely turn your life around. And honestly it scared the ….. out of me. I had to learn to trust my feelings and go on and it brought me a lot.

Running your own business is something different then advice others how to do that. I had been the best sailor on shore for far to long. To long I had been shouting from shore “yes you can sail, I know you can, don’t be afraid” Now I have to run my own shop and I am very happy with my businesspartner. We both realize that we are stronger together and see the benefits of working together.

Besides this I really noticed a lot of personal growth as well this year. Like a good pathologist (they always find the true after things happend) I often think, wow I wished I known this before and act upon it years ago. But then I realize as well that it wasn’t my moment yet, laugh about that fact, accept this and come back to the moment. Many I could manage away in-company or at a client I have to face now and deal with them myself. And yes sometimes things hit and I often I think “wow is this me ??” But during the last year my businesspartner and I became in a good flow and we are now working on a beautiful business which makes it possible for the both us to realize our dreams. The beautiful thing of running my own shop is that I got time to work in social projects like the Weird Science Academy and Eindhoven in Dialoog, both beautiful projects which bring me a lot and they make it possible for me to give a lot back. I met some of the most beautiful and warm people in those projects.

So it has been a rocky way the last year, but I am blessed that I was able to experience this. They say that life starts at 40, well I really experienced it to the max, great ) My thing for this year, grow, experience and make more time for beautiful thing. Some people say that dreams can’t become true, well they do, experienced it myself. Meanwhile I keep on dreaming……….

In my last blog I wrote about the place where we have our office. This morning while arriving at the Strijp S Area it was gorgeous. It had been snowing on Friday and at the time I arrived this morning the sun was just coming out and the light was great and warm and I was stunned by the combination of the warm light and the cold snow…what I can say convince your self.

Everyday when I drive to the place where our office is, I pass along the old Natlab. This is a old Philips place where they invented many great things (like the CD, CDi etc). During this summer they used it to show movies in a drive-inn like theater. I really love what they did to the building and the whole place because they show that you really recycle old buildings for bright new ideas. The place has a lot of history and you can feel the energy on the spot. I always imagine how it was back in the days that scientists where brainstorming there and bright ideas where collected.

During one of the many conversations I had this summer with one of my dearest friends we came up on a great idea, why don’t we re-use the new advertisement in a creative idea. So when she drove home from a projectmeeting while passing this spot, she called me that the moment was right and I felt the same thing. So I grabbed the camera of Niek and ran outside and shot some pictures.

This is the idea: Please feel free to download the last picture and re-use it to show what your imagination is. It can be anything, feel free to show us your dream. This can be whatever !!! So edit the picture and make it yours. Then when ready please send it back to me (on bart@bartteunis.nl) and I will show these on this Blog. I really hope that we can collect as many dreams as possible………. 

How to download picture #6: you can click the rightmouse button a choose open this link in a new tab or browser window to open the page in a new browser window or Tab and then again click the rightmouse button and choose for save the picture as ….

Feel free to download this picture and show us your imagination

Time is a weird thing, sometimes I think that I have enough, other days it seems to slip out of my hands. Sometimes I need it. I spend the last half year on a search. A search that brought me back home. I spend a lot of time researching what I love the most in photography and it brought me back home. Back to my roots and back to the thing I love the most.

I spend time in researching different fields of photography and a couple weeks back when I finally planned some time for myself I found it back again. It seems that the first love I had with my camera is still the strongest and I found myself back again in the fields on a very early morning. Just before sunrise I was out there and it brought the peaceful and calm feeling I missed so long. It is like the book “the Alchemist” this story is about a guy that looked for his dreams and discovered that his dream was closer to home then he ever thought.

It gave me a good insight in myself and my work, so back again to where I ever started. I can see it back in my work and really planning more time for myself in the morning hours. It is hard describe, the feeling I have when I am out there, a spiritual feeling of being part of the universe and I am always very grateful that I am allowed to be there.

So my intention is to go out there and make my own work back again. Just because I see that this is my thing so to say, hope you guys will come back and enjoy my work as much I do making it.

with love Bart

It has been awhile since I was able to write a blog and boy it has been so busy. Anyway I placed my photo’s at the local library last week and it was a hell of a job. The problem was that the foamboard I used was actually a little to light for the system they use. But mom helped me to fix it and now is everything hanging perfectly and good. Besides I was pretty lucky since the lady from the library called me on Thursday that there was more room to hang photo. Wow another eight more was a bit to much of the good thing. Lucky enough I was allowed to hang some of my landscape and cityscape work there, which is my personal favorite. I haven’t been there since the opening but heard from mom (she keeps an eye on the photo’s) that people already singed my guestbook and even that people want me to contact them for work …..well I am planning a visit tomorrow so who knows and I will see….

Of course I took some pictures before I left.