do it.
make that mistake.
it might not be one after you try it.

talking w a friend that recently that relocated to berlin from elsewhere in germany + he passed along a few images + thoughts that got me thinking. to hear the inspiration that he’s found is one thing but to see it in snapshots is entirely another. having moved recently myself in a big way i can only second the notion that you really need to be around what you need, what you want to do. if that’s in the city so be it. if it’s in the country, good for you. if it’s on a far off mtn peak, even better.

not to say there aren’t good people + great ideas everywhere but your access to them or ability to relate to them does change with the environment around you. try it, you’ll see.

here’s a handful from the relatively new ‘hood.

have always had a fascination with this stuff. ripley’s believe it or not museum, that’s incredible, the guiness book of world records, mc escher. it all fits with me. as i dove deeper + deeper into photography i was always intrigued by the curiosities that i could discover. partly due to luck + partly due to a ton of time outside, particularly up in the mountains, shooting in the early am + late pm, i’ve been fortunate to have witnessed a few of my favorites.

spectre of the brocken

This 200 foot high shadow figure lurking about the misty mountaintops goes by various names, mountain specter for instance, in China it is called Buddha’s Light, and one would assume that somewhere, at some time, it must be have been called something along the lines of “The Holy Crapuolossus: Bowel Evacuator.” It is best known, however, as the Brockengespenst or Brocken Spectre, owing to the ideal conditions at The Brocken, a peak in the Harz Mountains in northern Germany, for its sudden appearance.

first saw this in a galen rowell book as he has a stunning example, one of the best i’ve ever seen. long documented by alpine climbers + explorers it essentially involves having the sun directly behind you + (this is the hard part) being above the clouds or something for a shadow to be cast upon, ie, steam, fog, etc. this is from early summer in the bridger range in south central montana.

fata morgana
if you’ve ever seen this it’s like seeing the aurora borealis for the first time, you never forget it. this is crazy science, especially if you’re riding a chairlift up a hill you know well + BAM, there’s everything upside down. without getting into the physics it’s a complex mirage formed by light bending through layers of very different temperature air, ie, super cold air in the alpine. here’s a great shot of the cabinet mtns in the northern montana rockies looking like something out of southern utah.

rolling shutter
seeing this all the time now thanks to the prevelence of camera phones (also with video – totally reminds me of a miyazaki movie). in a nutshell, most phone image scanners go from top left to bottom right so moving objects lean to the left. i’m not sure but i think that also why there’s the difference between the vertical shot running the prop vert while the horizontal shot runs it horizontal. essentially any electronic shutter camera, ie, not an slr like mechanical shutter, will produce this effect.

ton more out there too. this video from a merrell project a few years ago by our friends @ cabin46 has a slick little ditty @ 1:28.

strange sync of events as i was pondering this lately. the take above is from hugh macleod + there’s another slant via vietnam based shooter justin mott (not my high school friend) on his blog. personally i think it’s a fine line. we all have or should have a dedication to craft that sets that ahead of nearly everything else. as long we can collectively move that forward, each in their own personal evolution, then why not share. competition is healthy + in an ideal world we’d all be judged on the work with the money, etc out of the picture.

that doesn’t happen, never will. doesn’t mean that we can’t all be civilized. to echo a comment i read earlier, if you’re relying on “secrets” to make your stuff happen then you’ve got a pretty feeble base. i always think of it as those providing answers being ahead of anyone asking for them because they went through the discovery process. that’s a huge gap of knowledge + experience that can’t simply be shared.

talking about competition, it’s everywhere. something like 2200 entries for nikon’s latest event. if you’re into microscope photography here’s nikon’s 36th annual small world competition.

wrapped up a week of being inspired last week with students pursuing their passion for photography with a talk i give called my better is better then your better. it’s based on the nike / w+k ads from a few years back. the idea being that we’re all around to (a) be in business + (b) be creative. pursue passion, work hard + take pride in what you do. we should all be able to say “my better is better then your better” in some way, be it simply expressing our personal point of view or dominating what you do best. it’s not a put down towards others as much as it is a statement of belief in your self, your work + perhaps most importantly your efforts.

reading courtesy of ibooks on my flight home i was then caught by this piece off change this titled The Power of Passionate Creatives. the one thing among many that stood out for me was this,

Passion puts you ahead of the competition.

An interesting thing happens when we pursue our passions as our profession: We actually seek out more challenges. Rather than viewing them as sources of stress, we see them as opportunities to get better faster.
We want to push ourselves to the next level, and we get restless if we remain in the same place too long.
No matter what the area of work, some people are quite passionate about what they do. They can’t wait to get to work and test themselves. They love to drive their performance to new levels.
Increasingly, these are the people you will be competing with in the future.
We’ll say this a different way:
If you are not equally passionate about the work you do, you will undoubtedly get marginalized. The pressures will just be too overwhelming.

brilliant. kind of thing you intrinsically develop as a creative business owner but never put into place as an advantage. my better is better… in crazy synchronicity the piece even touches on my current book Matt Crawford’s Shop Class as Soulcraft where he argues that working with one’s hands can have deeply philosophical, even spiritual, meaning. if you haven’t, you should.

so here’s to creativity coming out your ears. this mind blowing trailer from life cycles, might help. it’s the best thing i’ve seen lately. pure inspiration. an ex pro rider friend relayed to me,

Holy ?!@#, I believe the standards for bike movies just went up a notch. Looks like a National Geo documentary merged with The Collective. Super rad.