The relationship between the RIAA, Buma/Stemra, CISAC et al. and artists/authors

A few days ago I saw a picture on Facebook posted by Lester Chambers, a member of the Chambers Brothers, where he holds up a written sign with his story of dealing with record companies. If you have access to Facebook and his profile, you can see the picture at this link including all the comments on it.

Lester Chambers tells us the truth about record companies

Chambers’ story isn’t unique. As a matter of fact, what Chambers describes there happens more often than you probably think. Record companies routinely screw artists/authors in bad deals, as explained by the video below:

You would have thought that with all the lawsuits organizations such as the RIAA (Recording Industry Ass of America) et al. are filing against copyright infringements, that they would themselves make every effort to pay the artists/authors who they or their members represent. But nothing could be further from the truth.

If you do even a slight amount of research, you’ll quickly find that there are many artists who have filed lawsuits against their record companies because they never see the royalties that they’re supposed to receive. And like Chambers mentions, these are just the 1% of the artists who can afford to sue!! And we’re talking big names like Dr. Dre (VS Death Row Records), Peter Frampton (VS A&M Records), Kenny Rogers (VS EMI), Eminem (VS Universal Music Group), Courtney Love (VS Universal Music Group) and many more. If these organizations can screw over such big names, then no wonder the other 99% of the artists don’t stand a chance to ever get (all of) their royalties. And in the case of Courtney Love, for example:

Musicians like the Eagles’ Don Henley, through the Recording Artists Coalition, believe record labels routinely fail to pay them millions of dollars in royalties due to flawed accounting and arcane contract language. Love’s case also questioned a California law that says record companies may bind a musician to a contract for more than the seven-year maximum under current California statutes.

And from here:

After Love sued Vivendi Universal’s Universal Music Group last year to break her band’s contract, the widow of Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain complained about the “unconscionable and unlawful” business and accounting practices of the major record labels. Since then, dozens of stars have lined up to demand better contracts, health benefits and other reforms.

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To some musicians, Love’s settlement underscored how difficult it can be for them to take on the five major record conglomerates.

A few years ago when the RIAA was going after consumers for copyright violations, I had written a few posts on the subject. They were suing children and even dead people in an effort to go after piracy of their content and that of their members:

Death is no obstacle to feeling the long arm of the Recording Industry Ass. of America.

Lawyers representing several record companies have filed suit against an 83 year-old woman who died in December, claiming that she made more than 700 songs available on the internet.

“I believe that if music companies are going to set examples they need to do it to appropriate people and not dead people,” Robin Chianumba told AP. “I am pretty sure she is not going to leave Greenwood Memorial Park to attend the hearing.”   Gertrude Walton, who lived in Beckley, West Virginia hated computers, too, her daughter adds. An RIAA spokesperson said that it would try and dismiss the case.

However the RIAA’s embarrassment doesn’t end there. Chianumba said that she had sent a copy of her mother’s death certificate to record company lawyers in response to an initial warning letter, over a week before the suit was filed. In 2003 the RIAA sued a twelve year-old girl for copyright infringement. She’d harbored an MP3 file of her favorite TV show on her hard drive. Her working class parents in a housing project in New York were forced to pay two thousand dollars in a settlement.

And every time the RIAA claimed that they were doing this to protect the rights of the artists/authors. The RIAA filed many lawsuits and won many of them. But did the money they got from all of those lawsuits eventually reach the artists/authors that they were supposedly doing this for? If any of it did make it back to the artists, then it’s probably not a lot. You see, while the RIAA was happy to sue people and make money, they themselves don’t like to pay the money to the very artists/authors that they supposedly represent:

In the midst of their jury trial, the company behind the defunct LimeWire client and the RIAA settled their dispute out of court. Limewire will pay $105 million to compensate the major music labels for damages suffered. A moment of justice for the music industry, but not necessarily for the artists. The recouped money is destined for reinvestment in new anti-piracy efforts and will not be used to compensate any artists.

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Thus far the RIAA has not announced officially how the LimeWire settlement will be spent, but we don’t expect them to steer away from their previous course. This makes today’s decision on compensation a victory for the major labels, but certainly not one for musicians.

And this is how these organizations operate in this business. Here’s another example:

Then there’s the fact that Rogers wants his cut from the money Capitol has received in various lawsuits — those against Napster, Kazaa, AudioGalaxy, Grokster, BearShare and others. As we’ve noted in the past, the labels have bent over backwards to avoid paying out such money to the actual artists — but Rogers wants his piece:

Such lawsuits have resulted in Capitol Records receiving monies from entities such as Napster, Kazaa, Audiogalaxy, Grokster, BearShare, and others. Capitol Records has refused to provide Kenny Rogers with an accounting regarding the amounts actually received. A portion of the monies received by Capitol Records is attributable to the Masters and Kenny Rogers is entitled to that portion of Capitol Records‟ receipts. Capitol Records‟ refusal to account to and pay that money to Kenny Rogers has resulted in Kenny Rogers suffering direct financial harm in an amount that cannot be determined until Capitol Records provides a full, fair, and accurate accounting.

There are a few other charges as well, but those are the big ones. None of this, of course, is to say that it’s “ok” to infringe because the major labels are somehow “bad.” But it does show just how ridiculous it is if anyone assumes the majors represent the best interests of artists in any way.

And if you’re still not convinced, here’s more:

What should be a black and white conversation about respecting copyright is mired in the fact that the RIAA’s credibility has eroded as quickly as its control of the music industry. Or said another way, the RIAA has become part of the problem of protecting copyright due to its occasional less than honest approach to things.  You just can’t take what the RIAA says at face value as their agenda is not clear—is it to protect copyright or is it to protect the interests of its label members at any cost?

After all, this is the same organization that had the RIAA employee Mitch Glazer attempt to sneak language into a bill on Capitol Hill changing the definition of “work for hire,” depriving artists of their rights (there’s a great article about this in the Austin Chronicle).

Now add to this that as the RIAA demands that its label members’ copyrights be respected and properly compensated, its members have knowingly taken hundreds of millions of dollars of other peoples’ songwriter royalties over the past few years.  Knowingly taking money generated from the copyrights of others—aka “Black Box Money”—sounds eerily like stealing.

What’s clear to me is that the record companies and their organizations, such as the RIAA et al., couldn’t give a flying fuck about the rights of the artists/authors. What matters to these people is making as much money for themselves as possible at the expense of the artists/authors. They’re nothing more than parasites. They pretend to fight for the artists/authors, while in reality they are screwing over the very group that they’re supposedly fighting for.

Before any of the royalties ever reach the artists/authors most of it is being spent on “operational costs” which can include very high salaries. Such was the case for example with Buma/Stemra, the Dutch equivalent of the RIAA:

A board member of rights management company Buma/Stemra which represents composers and music publishers has stepped down amid allegations of corruption, the Volkskrant writes on Thursday.

Broadcaster Powned recorded a conversation between Jochem Gerrits and the lawyer of composer Melchior Rietveldt who claims the organisation owes him at least €1m in lost copyright fees.

Rietveldt wrote a piece of music for an anti-piracy ad which was widely distributed without his knowledge. In spite of numerous requests he was never paid for the reproduction of his music.

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This is not the first time Buma/Stemra has been accused of violating authors’ rights. Singer and composer Rob Bolland has a long drawn out conflict with the company for distributing his work – including In the army now – abroad without payment.

Bolland, who claims the company owes him €2.5m has been forcibly removed from the Buma/Stemra premises by the police on more than occasion.

…

Earlier this year, musicians Henk Westbroek and Hans Kosterman, who are also on the board, claimed there is a culture of secrecy and fear at the company. They also complained about the extravagant salaries paid out to some board members.

Notice how Mr. Rietveldt’s music, which was written for an anti-piracy ad, was then essentially pirated by the very same organization that claims to look after the rights of artists/authors like Mr. Rietveldt. You just can’t make this stuff up. And also take note of the fact that you have the exact same issues here with Buma/Stemra in the Netherlands, like you have with the RIAA in the USA with regards to refusing to pay out collected royalties! And the salaries the heads of these organizations award themselves are astronomical. In the case of Buma/Stemra you can read more about it here (Dutch):

Cees Vervoord, the former director of Buma / Stemra who left the organization in August 2010, was paid a salary of 379,000 euros for the first eight months of that year, including variable pay. The current director Hein van de Ree, who started on May 1, 2010, was paid 200 thousand euros for the remaining months of the year. Cees van Rij, Director of Legal Affairs, was paid 233,000 euros last year.

There simply cannot be any doubt about who these organizations really serve and whose rights they really protect.

And most of these organizations are united into one global organization called CISAC. From here:

Uniting worldwide creators, CISAC strongly asserts that they are the pilars of creative industries. If they are universally acknowledged for their contribution to world cultural landscape, their economic impact is often ignored.

The total amount of royalties collected by CISAC’s member societies, on their own national collection territories, amounted in 2010 to more than €7.5 billion. Despite the challenging environment (digital piracy, decline of CD sales, etc.), this represents an increase of 5.5% since 2009. CISAC members have strived to ensure that creators from around the world benefit from the ever-increasing popularity of their works and the development of new uses.

Pillars of the creative industry? If CISAC is anything like its members, I would describe them more as the fucking parasites of the creative industry. And keep the amount of €7.5 billion of collected royalties in 2010 in mind. From here:

To be able to carry out its missions, CISAC’s budget is based on the annual subscriptions of its members and the entry fees of new members. The subscription is based on a percentage of the gross royalties collected annually by a member society in the territories in which it operates.

So CISAC makes its money by confiscating a percentage of the royalties collected by its members that is supposed to go to the artists/authors. And in the case of the €7.5 billion collected in 2010, if they just confiscate 1% then they still have €75 million for just one year! What do they do with all of that money?? As you can see, this is a very lucrative business for these so called pillars of the creative industries. And ask yourself why they don’t publish on their website exactly what percentage of the royalties they confiscate.

What we have here is nothing but a pyramid scheme that is based on exploiting the artists/authors. You have all these record companies and labels in countries around the world, who pretend to value the rights of the artists/authors but are really screwing them over with really bad deals and stealing their royalties. And these record companies and labels are united in each country in organizations such as the RIAA, Buma/Stemra et al. (full member list can be downloaded here) who also burn up a huge amount of the royalties that’s supposed to go to the artists/authors in “operational costs.” And then all of these organizations in each country are again united into one global organization called CISAC, which also demands a percentage from the collected royalties that’s supposed to go to the artists/authors. Does it still surprise you that by the time the money finally reaches the artists/authors there’s nothing much left of it anymore? And do you still wonder why the CISAC supports all these member organizations in each country? It is in CISAC’s own selfish interest to support its members seeing as how they are positioned at the top of the pyramid to benefit from their members and the artists/authors as much as possible.

I don’t know about you, but these organizations don’t fool me. Knowing all of the above their purpose is very clear to me: Make easy money by exploiting artists/authors, all while pretending to fight for their interests.

While I am against these organizations, I am not against copyright laws and protecting the rights of creatives around the world. As a photographer, graphics designer and software developer, it wouldn’t make sense for me to be against copyright laws. I want the artists/authors to be able to benefit from their work as much as possible. But these organizations are not enabling them to do that. On the contrary, as you can clearly see they’re making it worse and are exploiting artists/authors.

The easiest way to realize that this is all a big scam to exploit artists/authors is to take note of the fact that in most cases these organizations don’t even know exactly whose work is being used at what time, and how much it is being used. For example, there are many instances where deals are made for the use of music for a flat monthly fee. Read this article for more on this. Now think about this: If these organizations don’t know, and don’t care, about whose work exactly is being used and how much, then how are they going to pay the artists/authors their fair share??? The answer to this question is very simple: They don’t care about actually paying the artists/authors; all they care about is making as much money as possible for themselves.

There should be a new system where artists/authors can get paid directly for their work, and where they are able to follow in real-time who’s buying/licensing their work and for what purposes. Can you still remember the MegaUpload controversy from a while back? Check this out:

The internet is up in arms over the federal crackdown of file-sharing website Megaupload, from irate blog posts to coordinated digital attacks on secure government servers. The move appeared to be a sort of governmental muscle flexing in the wake of the successful internet protest of SOPA and PIPA. But was there another reason? In the weeks before the crackdown, Megaupload was planning on launching a new music sharing website called Megabox that looked like it had the potential to completely transform music distribution, and even find a way to pay musicians in the process.

From TorrentFreak, via Digital Music News:

““UMG [Universal Music Group] knows that we are going to compete with them via our own music venture called Megabox.com, a site that will soon allow artists to sell their creations directly to consumers while allowing artists to keep 90 percent of earnings,” said MegaUpload founder Kim dotcom.

“We have a solution called the Megakey that will allow artists to earn income from users who download music for free,” Dotcom said. “Yes that’s right, we will pay artists even for free downloads.  The Megakey business model has been tested with over a million users and it works.”

This smacks a little of conspiracy theory, but there may be some truth to the timing. MegaUpload no doubt looked like a good target for FBI attention even before this new development,  considering it was prime hacker territory and its founder was living like a Colombian drug lord in New Zealand. But the timing seems a little serendipitous, especially since MegaUpload had even begun to acquire legitimate partners in the form of 7digital, Gracenote, Rovi and Amazon.

It’s no surprise to me that the Universal Music Group and similar organizations would be against a solution as proposed by MegaUpload. Such a solution would take control away from them and put it in the hands of the artists/authors. Not only that, but they wouldn’t be able to screw these artists/authors out of their royalties anymore. It would mean the end of their parasitic empire. And their parasitic empire is certainly coming to an end. What we’re seeing now are their desperate attempts to fight the change while even abusing the legal system to try and put a stop to it. But as more and more people start to wake up to the facts, and more and more artists/authors speak up, like Lester Chambers did, things are going to become a lot more difficult for them, and soon they’ll have no choice but to accept their faith.

suriname360 - Visit Suriname from the comfort of your own home!

After many months of hard work I today finally launched suriname360 - a website that features high resolution 360 degrees panoramas and interactive virtual tours of places in Suriname. I’ve had the idea for this website for a few years now but due to other priorities it wasn’t until March of this year that I could start working on this project. And I did so mostly in my free time while also working on other projects for clients of mine (after all, the bills don’t pay themselves ).

Most of the websites that promote tourism in Suriname focus too much on text and on information. But nothing is capable of attracting people more than nice and interesting visuals. People don’t like to read; they want to see and experience things. People remember 80% of what they see, and only 20% of what they read. So there was a need for a website promoting tourism to Suriname that focuses on strong visuals and the experience of visiting Suriname. And so with suriname360 I’m hoping that I’ve filled a gap and that the website will deliver a significant contribution to the development of the tourism industry in Suriname.

I’ve enjoyed working on this website and I hope you’ll enjoy viewing the content that’s available so far. I’ve invested a lot of time, money and other resources in this website and I’m hoping I’ll be able to continue to further develop this website in the future. There’s a lot more content coming up and I have a lot of very exciting (long term) plans for suriname360 that I hope to be able to share with you soon.

Visit the suriname360 website and take a look. A good place to start is the tour of the City of Paramaribo.

Shiny and Black

I launched a new design for my blog today after launching a re-design of my website weeks ago. Visually the new blog design matches more with my new website. I think this is a nice improvement on the older design while still using a similar layout. As usual I’ll still be doing some tweaking in the background in the coming days. Any feedback you have is very welcome, and if you notice issues or broken links, please let me know.

Timeless Stare

Today I launched my new website after spending almost 3.5 months working on it in my spare time. The previous site was launched in 2007, so a refresh was necessary. Along with some updated information about the services that I offer I have also updated all my portfolios and there’s a lot of new work to see. I’ve also finally written some more about my background and there are some testimonials from people I’ve worked with over the years to give you an idea of what it’s like to work with me. I’ve gotten feedback from clients in the past who mentioned that I had to “sell myself more” and talk more about my work. I could totally understand them, I’m not one to go out and promote myself or boast about my work. I find that very difficult to do, but at the same time I also realize that sometimes I have to act like a salesman in order to sell my services. So instead of me talking about my work, I choose to have some of my clients giving their opinion about their experiences in working with me.

I’m still doing a little tweaking in the background but the site is now essentially complete. In the near future, as time permits, I’ll also be updating my blog to match the design of my new website more closely. Head on over to take a look and if you have any feedback whatsoever, just leave a comment on this blog post.

Sad for Life

What exactly is the purpose of life? Why are we born and what are we supposed to be doing here on this planet and in this reality? Those are questions I’ve asked myself almost every day ever since my early childhood. And I still don’t have answers to those questions. It bothers me every day. What bothers me even more, is that I think it won’t ever be possible for me, or anyone else, to really find answers to those questions. At best it will always be a lot of guesswork.

The fact that I don’t really know what I’m doing here makes it difficult to live life. Difficult because it’s impossible to find a meaningful direction in life without answers to those questions. I look around me and I see people chasing after lovers, careers, money, fame, power and many other things that in the end don’t matter at all. Why not? Because when we die, we leave everything behind. All of it. So really, what is the use of constantly pursuing any of those things in life? What’s the use of constantly wanting to achieve more and more?

I look at the way society is structured, how there’s a small group of people who have everything they could want in life and indeed much more than they really need, and how at the same time there are many more people who struggle to make ends meet every day and who’re being denied a normal life. And I ask myself, what drives the wealthy to seek even more wealth? And will it ever be enough? Sometimes when I’m out I look at all the big houses people build, houses that could easily be home to 3 or 4 families, and I wonder why a single family of 4 needs all that space. And I hope you don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I begrudge these people, on the contrary, I wish the best for everyone. It’s just that I don’t understand their constant need for more often at the expense of others. It’s almost as if these people expect to have all that wealth forever and keep gathering even more of it. Don’t they realize that our time in this life is limited and that we can’t take anything with us in the end?

Another example is the never ending conflict between Israel and Palestine. Why can’t these people just get along? Why can’t we just acknowledge that all of us are entitled to certain things in life, in this case a home we can call our own, and just respect each other and live together? Why is this so difficult?

When it comes down to it, all we really need on this planet as human beings is food on the table every day and a roof over our heads. That’s basically all we really need to get us through our lives. After all these years, you would think that by now we’d all have figured this out already and have structured our societies in such a way where every human being on this planet could at the very least have access to those two things for his entire lifetime. But instead what we have is a constant struggle of people trying to have more than the other in order to stay on top in this system. Like crabs in a barrel. Everyone fighting for more and more, even if they have more than enough already, at the expense of others. As a result, we end up with a situation where the richest 1% of adults own 40% of global assets, where the richest 10% of adults own 85% of global assets, and where the bottom half of the adults own 1% of global wealth. Think about that for a moment. Then we go on asking ourselves why we’re dealing with so much crime. Nobody is born a criminal. Nobody really wants to be a criminal. Crime is just a symptom of our flawed society. When we create situations where a small group of people are hoarding all the resources on this planet, while a large group of people are struggling to survive every day (and in extreme cases are just outright being denied their basic rights), we shouldn’t act surprised when people start behaving in extreme ways in order to survive. And with this I’m not validating criminal behavior, but just saying that there’s a lot more to the problem and that we have to start looking at the root causes now instead of simply blaming the criminals while we fight the symptoms.

So when you know that in the end you’ll die and leave everything you have behind anyway, then what is it that ultimately matters in life? I think the only thing we can do in life that really matters is to help eachother and to make sure that everyone can live a good and comfortable life in complete freedom. And the only way we can achieve this is by realizing that the only thing that really matters in life is love. Just like David Icke wrote in his book: Infinite love is the only truth, everything else is illusion. And David Icke was certainly on to something. In the end all that you see around you doesn’t matter. As far as you are concerned it all gets left behind and disappears once you die. And death can come at any time. When that happens, all your wealth and all your successes will be worth absolutely nothing to you anymore. So why spend all your life gathering more and more of that for yourself? Instead, why not  spend your life gathering more and more for others who don’t have enough to live a comfortable life? Why not spend your life loving and caring for others? Like Albert Einstein once said: “Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value.” The only way you can really become a man of value in life, is by meaning something to others; by bringing value into the lives of others. And you can only do that by loving others. Infinite love is the only truth; nothing else matters in life. Imagine what the world might look like if all of us would realize this.

United Magazine June 2010 Edition

About two months ago I was hired again by Global Publishing to shoot pictures for a feature article in the upcoming edition of United magazine. Global Publishing is the publisher of United magazine.

The article is about three succesfull business women and the editor of the magazine, Edward Lee, was looking for some nice looking portraits of these women to go along with it. He also needed a group shot that could be used to open the article with. In the end the editor was so happy with the results that one of the pictures, the group shot, also ended up being used on the cover of the magazine. So this is my 3rd time on the cover of United Magazine. You can read here on my blog about the first and second times too.

The photoshoot took place at Leader’s Group Conference Room. During the photoshoot I had about 15 minutes per person, and 15 minutes for the group shot. I tried to get as many possible poses and settings with each one of them in the time I had. I also got to know the women a little during the photoshoot and tried to get a feel for their personalities, and in the end I chose a picture for each one of them that I think matched the most with their personalities. And from the feedback I got so far I think the pictures really do go along well with their personalities.

You can see the images that were used below:

United Magazine Group Shot

Portrait of Angela Yang for United Magazine

Portrait of Matchameryll Felter for United Magazine

Portrait of Rishma Ratan for United Magazine

For those of you who are interested in the gear used, I used two Canon EOS 40D bodies with the EF 35mm f/1.4 L and EF 85mm f/1.2 L II lenses from Canon. For the lighting I used a couple of Canon 580 EX II speedlights, sometimes with umbrella’s and mixed with the available light.

In addition to the images above, my images are also featured in ads from two other clients of mine who advertised in United. Below are those two ads:

Double page Ad for Nado Computers in United using one of my images of the Independence Square in Paramaribo, Suriname. One of the cool things about this image is that you can see the clouds forming a hand in the upper left corner. This was really there when the picture was taken and was not digitally added.

Ad for Tropical Gem Tours in United using an image of mine

The picture used in the ad for Tropical Gem Tours above was taken a while ago and if you’re interested you can read about it and see some more images taken during that photoshoot here.

Distant destinations

So we’ve entered a new year and undoubtedly most people are going to be posting their new year’s resolutions all over the Internet in the next couple of days. I too have been thinking about my life as it has progressed so far, mostly looking at what I’ve been doing wrong and what I’ve been doing right, what worked and what didn’t. I’ve also been looking at some of the posts I’ve written in the past here on my blog, and it occurred to me that I already have a pretty good formula for my approach to life in the new year and I think far beyond. I’m going to list those posts below, but for a detailed explanation click through to read every one of them to get the complete picture. You really have to read the details in order to really understand where I’m coming from.

1. Have absolutely nothing to lose in life.  If you have nothing to lose, you can only win. Stand for what you believe, have principles in life, value your integrity, make your own choices, be free and have some backbone. Make sure you have nothing to lose, because that’s the only way you’ll be able to really have all of those things. Read the details.
2. Listen to the voice inside your head. Our intuition is always there to provide guidance. Learn to isolate it from all the clutter and noise in life and then always listen to it. Read the details.
3. Learn from everyone. You can learn important and valuable things from almost anyone as long as you keep an open mind. The sooner you realize this, and really understand what this means, the sooner you’ll be able to benefit from it. Read the details.
4. Learn how to deal with being wrong. Constantly challenge yourself and/or allow yourself to be challenged by others to find out if you’re on the right track. If not, admit to it as soon as possible and change directions. It will only help you improve and grow much faster. Read the details.
5. See life for what it is. At its core life is a very painful and negative experience. The sooner you realize this, the better you’ll be able to deal with it. Understand what “happiness” is and reset your expectations accordingly. Read the details.
6. Focus on the negative things in life. Don’t fool yourself. Know what’s missing, what could be better and what’s wrong, and focus on those things! It will only make you a better person. Read the details.
7. Understand the world we live in. The world we live in is fundamentally flawed and evil and if you want to be a part of it, it will force you to support that. However indirectly it may be, while you may know it or not. The sooner you understand this, the sooner you’ll be able to deal with it. Read the details.
8. Be prepared to go crazy, but in reverse. You’re going to find out that things are not as they seem, not as you’ve been taught, and not as people want you to believe. In fact, quite often in life the “truth” is a lie and “lies” are true. Read the details.
9. Understand love and relationships.  If you look around you, it should be more than clear that what we’ve been taught about love, and the rules we’ve been told to live by only serve to frustrate our lives, hurt our relationships and make things more difficult for us. Find out what works: Read the details.
10. Watch your weight! I see people everywhere struggling to maintain a healthy weight. The solution is simple: Just follow Donk’s Diet. Read the details.

These are some of the concepts that have so far served me well in life. Upon looking back at the issues I’ve had in my life so far, I’ve noticed that most issues only started and/or got worse when I chose to neglect what I’ve just listed above. Perhaps this information might be useful to you as well in the new year, and hopefully beyond.

Loreena McKennitt

More than 10 years ago, a friend of mine introduced me to music by Loreena McKennitt (Wikipedia). I instantly fell in love with her music. The very first song by her that I heard back then was titled “The Mummer’s Dance” and to this day it is still one of my favorites. She has a very beautiful voice, and her music has a Celtic and Middle Eastern/Arabic feel to it, able to carry you away to another world in seconds.

Listening to her music is one thing, actually seeing her and her crew perform is even more amazing. I recently saw her recorded performance at the Alhambra (Spain) in 2006, which you can order here on Amazon on DVD, and it was an absolute joy watching it. Seeing all those musicians perform with so much joy using so many exotic instruments, and watching Loreena sing is just incredible. I can only imagine what it would be like to actually sit there in the audience watching it live.

If you want to see some clips of that performance, here are some of the songs on YouTube: All Souls Night, The Mummer’s Dance, The Bonny Swans.

I highly recommend Loreena McKennitt’s Nights from the Alhambra DVD.

Pamela Mangroelal, Miss India Suriname 2008

I’ve updated my photography and design portfolio yesterday, feel free to take a look. The image above was taken during the photoshoot I did with Pamela Mangroelal for United Magazine.

I noticed that the most recent posts here on my blog are almost all related to photography. Some new visitors of my blog think that this is a photography blog because of this, but it’s not. This is just my personal blog where I write about anything I am interested in. So don’t be surprised when you find many posts on other subjects appearing here in the future. Just take a look at my blog archives if you’re still not convinced.

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to do a photoshoot with a real live Rainforest Nymph for one of my clients. It isn’t very often that you get these kinds of opportunities considering the amount of luck that you must have to actually meet a nymph in person. We were talking about ideas for an ad we were working on for the next edition of Moksi Magazine (a magazine in Suriname) when we started talking about the idea of including a rainforest nymph. With no material available, it meant that we would have to go out and shoot one. The problem was that we had a deadline that was only a week away. And you don’t just go out and find yourself a rainforest nymph and ask to take pictures of her. It doesn’t work like that. They don’t show themselves very often and so it takes time, patience and a lot of luck.

So we started preparing for the photoshoot with very little time available, talking about the location, wardrobe, makeup, etc. I gave my ideas and told the client what I needed and they basically took care of it. I love working with such clients. The photoshoot took place at Zanderij I, which is some sort of outdoor recreational resort here in Suriname. We decided that we had to arrive there very early in the morning to be able to work with the early morning light. Sadly, this meant that I had to get up at 3am in the morning to get prepared, something that I really hate doing. Somehow I actually managed to wake up at that time. Not only that, I seemed to have managed to step out of bed too, which, quite frankly, is incredible.

We arrived at the location around 7am. I had the opportunity to work with Euvie Karijoredjo again, who did the makeup, hair and styling. Euvie did a wonderful job once again, and having someone like her on the team really makes a difference. While she was busy preparing the model, I went for a stroll in the area to find some nice locations for making pictures. The view was incredible when we first arrived. The early morning sunlight and the fog created a very nice mood in the forest. I don’t have pictures of when we first arrived, but I do have some taken a bit later. Here are some snaps of the location:

Notice the fog in the air top left

If this was the view outside of my house, I'd probably enjoy waking up early

Tell me you don't feel like walking down this path?

Euvie very busy with the model

Dressing the nymph

For this shoot I used a Canon EOS 40D body (the only good DSLR Canon makes at the moment – 50D has too much noise and banding, 5D2 can’t autofocus reliably, 1D3 has various issues) with the Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L USM lens (which is outstanding). I also used a couple of Canon 580 EX II flashes with Canon’s wireless flash functionality using one 580 EX II on the 40D as the master. The wireless flash functionality worked surprisingly well outdoors, but I had to maintain line of sight between the master and the slaves all the time which is a bit limiting at times. Here are some test shots I took to test the lighting where you can see the position of the flashes during certain shots:

A test shot where you can see the positioning of the lighting

Another test shot with slightly different positions for the lights

"Don't mind the lights, I'm just testing something..."

Time flew during the photoshoot. We started working at around 8am and when I asked later what time it was, it was already 12 ‘o clock. We took a short break and wrapped up at around 1:30pm. I believe I took close to 1000 pictures. Not all are usable ofcourse since there was a lot of experimenting during the photoshoot and many things we tried didn’t work out as well as we thought it would. But we got what we went for and the client is very satisfied, fortunately. Here are some of the results:

Um..yeah.. the butterfly was really there... (click for larger view)

Rainforest Nymph (click for larger view)

Taking a bath (click for larger view)

And a final note: The model was incredible. Very pleasant to work with, and she was constantly posing from 7am to 12pm apparently without getting tired.

The Bride

I’ve recently had the opportunity to photograph my first wedding, and I have to say right from the start that it was a very nice experience. I’ve covered various events before in the past, so I have experience with event photography, but I have been wanting to do a wedding for a while now. Being the official photographer on a wedding brings a lot of responsibility along with it. For one thing, you are tasked with capturing the important moments during the wedding, a very important event for the couple involved, and providing them with pictures that will enable them to relive the day for years to come. You’ll have to deliver images that will tell the story of their wedding day to their kids, grandkids and other family members as best as possible. If you mess up, in the worst case, they have nothing.

And I have to admit that these ideas did make me nervous before and during the wedding, but I think that in the end it was a successful first wedding. I certainly am satisfied with the feedback I’ve received so far from people, including the couple and their family. It was a very nice experience, I’ve learned a lot, and it is very hard work, not only during the actual wedding but more so during the post processing of the images after the wedding. When you go through this, you start to understand why wedding photographers charge so much for their work.

The Groom

Apart from the fact that this was my first time covering a wedding, the wedding itself was also special because it was the wedding of a cousin of mine, Vashist Sewgobind. I’ve known Vashist since early childhood, and we’ve essentially grown up together, sharing the same friends, going to the same schools, sitting in the same classes etc. During this time Vashist was actually more a friend to me than a cousin. And they say that as you grow up, your surroundings play an important role in shaping you into the person that you become. This is very true if I look at the influence Vashist had on my life. The three things that I do today for a living, namely Software Engineering, Design and Photography, are all things that I got involved with because of Vashist. It was Vashist who one day took me to a computer training center years ago, where he was working part-time, and got me interested in the personal computer and software development. I didn’t feel like going that day and wasn’t very interested, but he insisted I go with him and after a tour where he took the time to patiently explain things to me, got me hooked for life. Now I can’t even begin to imagine what my life would look like today had I not gone with him that day.

It was Vashist who got me interested in graphics design and computer generated animations when he again took the time to show me the possibilities on the personal computer. And finally, I only got interested in photography, after Vashist was emailing me pictures that he was taking with his new digital camera and showing me some clever tricks that he was performing on them using Photoshop.

So when he approached me a few months ago to cover his wedding, one of the most important moments in his life, there was only one answer I could give him.

The wedding was a traditional Hindu wedding, and one thing you’ll notice is that it was very colorful. The equipment I used mostly are two Canon EOS 40D bodies with the EF 85mm f/1.2 L USM lens, the EF 24mm f/1.4 L USM lens and the EF 50mm f/1.2 L USM lens. All very light sensitive lenses and I mainly used available light during photography, which is the way I prefer to shoot. Walking around constantly with two 40D bodies and heavy lenses attached around my neck wasn’t easy on my back. In total I captured about 1700 images, of which only about 850 made it through the editing process. My friend Jimmy accompanied me on this first wedding with his own camera, as a backup to make sure that if I messed up, the damage could be kept to a minimum.

Below is a gallery with sample pictures from the wedding (Adobe Flash Player required).

United Business & Lifestyle Magazine Cover for Jan/June 2009 Edition

The January/June 2009 edition of United Business & Lifestyle magazine is out in Suriname and the Netherlands, and for the second time my photography work is featured on the cover. I wrote about the previous time here.

The picture that was used this time is one from a shoot I did all the way back in August 2007 for Tropical Gem Tours. I had written about that shoot here. To me it’s great that after all this time the image still has enough potential to be selected for the cover of a magazine. And I think the client also appreciates the value they get out of my work even after one and a half year. The whole picture can be seen in my photography portfolio.

United Business & Lifestyle Magazine

In this same edition of United, there’s also an ad for Nado Computers featuring another picture of mine. You can see it in the image above on the right. This picture was taken in 2008 during sky diving practice by a group of Dutch sky divers who were visiting Suriname. A better version of this ad can be seen in my design portfolio.

United Business & Lifestyle Magazine

And finally there’s also an ad for the Vasilda construction company featuring a couple of my pictures. You can see that ad in the picture above on the right.

Last Sunday I went out photowalking with a friend of mine and at the end of the day, we stopped at the J.A. Wijdenbosch bridge (over the Suriname river in Suriname) to take some pictures of the sunset there. The view of the bridge and the view from the bridge can be really beautiful and dramatic at sunset. Standing at the top of the bridge during sunset is a very nice experience. I’ve been there a few times now, and so far every time the view is different, the colors in the sky are different, and depending on what equipment you use, you can capture a unique view every time as you’ll see from the images below.

Unfortunately when we arrived this time, the sun was already down behind the big clouds on the horizon. But that didn’t stop me from taking whatever pictures I could anyway. The following series of pictures were taken with a Canon EOS 40D camera, with either a EF 24mm f/1.4 L lens or a EF 70-200mm f/2.8 L IS lens attached.

The J.A. Wijdenbosch Bridge at sunset

The J.A. Wijdenbosch Bridge at sunset

Small panorama taken with the 70-200mm, consisting of 3 images. This telephoto lens compresses the bridge and makes it look shorter and larger.

The J.A. Wijdenbosch Bridge at sunset

Panorama of the J.A. Wijdenbosch Bridge with Paramaribo in the background (click for larger image)

Panorama of the J.A. Wijdenbosch Bridge with Paramaribo in the background (click for larger image)

Paramaribo from the J.A. Wijdenbosch Bridge

Pictures of me taken by my friend Jimmy. As you can see, I was shooting without a tripod thanks to the light sensitive EF 24mm f/1.4 L lens.

The following pictures were taken in March 2008 with a Canon EOS 40D camera and the EF 16-35mm f/2.8 L lens.

The J.A. Wijdenbosch bridge at sunset

Panorama of the J.A. Wijdenbosch Bridge at sunset (click for larger image)

The J.A. Wijdenbosch bridge at sunset

View of Paramaribo from the J.A. Wijdenbosch bridge at sunset

Panorama of the J.A. Wijdenbosch bridge at sunset (click for larger image)

My friend Jimmy taking a picture with his Nikon D200

Next time we’ll try to convince a beautiful model to go with us on the bridge for more interesting pictures since Jimmy and I are a bit tired of posing for eachother.

My Little Friend

Today is my 30th birthday, and the beginning of the new phase in my life. I didn’t plan on these changes myself, but it is a nice coincidence how things fall into place these days. Often people say things like “everything happens for a reason,” “nothing happens before its time,” and “when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” And I don’t really believe in those things, but I can certainly understand why people do.

Three years ago, when I turned 27, I wrote a post titled “There is no happiness in life.” And I read it again today, and I still think the same way. That’s why this day is a very normal day for me, I woke up and did the exact same things I usually do on Saturdays. And I have absolutely nothing planned, except for being by myself and review my life as it has progressed so far, something I always find interesting to do.

One thing I have seen so far, is that it is important to rely on my intuition. In those cases where I had neglected to listen to it, things clearly didn’t go very well. Intuition is basically your uplink to what David Icke calls “The Matrix” in his book “Infinite Love Is the Only Truth: Everything Else Is Illusion.” If you haven’t yet read that book, you should get it ASAP. David Icke comes closest to explaining life than anyone has ever done before in my opinion. When Albert Einstein said “The only real valuable thing is intuition,” he knew exactly what he was talking about. Christopher Reeve provided an even better explanation when he said: “I think we all have a little voice inside us that will guide us… if we shut out all the noise and clutter from our lives and listen to that voice, it will tell us the right thing to do.”

The key thing is that you have to be able to indeed shut out all the noise and clutter from your life and learn to listen to what that voice is saying. And it is not always easy to do this. You can’t let opinions of others or your own desires get in the way. You have to objectively listen. And when I say you have to listen to a voice in your head, I’m not saying you have to be crazy. The “voice inside you” is just another name for what others call “intuition” or your “gut feeling” etc. It is that something inside you that tells you what to do and provides guidance. You don’t know where it comes from, you don’t know why it makes you think certain things, you can’t explain it, but you just know. From Wikipedia:

Intuition is apparent ability to acquire knowledge without a clear inference or the use of reason. It is “the immediate apprehension of an object by the mind without the intervention of any reasoning process.” Intuition provides us with beliefs which we cannot necessarily justify.

You can’t justify it or reason about it, because it’s basically knowledge planted inside your head. And when others ask you why you think so, and to explain yourself, you usually can’t. Those beliefs come from somewhere else. David Icke explains in his book where they come from.

During most of my life I have relied on intuition, and it has served me well 100% of the time. And in those cases where I chose to ignore my intuition, things went bad. But even when things went bad, my intuition was still there providing guidance on how to get out of a bad situation.

So when Einstein said “The only real valuable thing is intuition,” he absolutely knew what he was talking about. And my guess is, he relied on his intuition most of the time and learned of its value from experience.

Dreams of the Past, Dreams of the Future

Today I’ve launched a new design for my blog which was long overdue. The new design matches better with my main website at www.kareldonk.com, which was launched in december last year. It took a while before I finally got some time to redo the design for my blog since I have been so busy with so many things, work and personal life. But things have changed, and it’s a nice coincidence that with the changes in my life, I can now also launch the new design.

I’m quite satisfied with it as it is now, though I might make some minor changes in the coming days. It certainly looks much cleaner and simpler than the previous 3 year old design in my opinion.

And as for the picture above, dreams come and go. With changes in life, dreams you may have had can move to the past to make place for new dreams for the future.

When it works, the Canon EF 50mm f1.2 L USM lens can produce some really excellent images. Why do I say “when it works”? Because this lens seems to have a problem with autofocus consistency, making it backfocus quite often. I have written about this problem before.

But I still find myself using it quite often because of the results I can get using it. The way I try to work around the focus inconsistency, is autofocusing two or three times on the subject before I take the picture. This doesn’t guarantee a sharp in focus image all the time, but I can live with it so far.

Below are some images I took using a Canon EOS 40D body with the Canon EF 50mm f1.2 L lens. The images are of a very special model, namely my daughter Sarah. What I love about this lens is the nice bokeh and dept of field effects that you can get with it.

50mm, f1.2, 1/250s, ISO 100
Sarah, six months later.

50mm, f1.2, 1/160s, ISO 400
This is how she looks when she just woke up. When I turn around I see her staring quietly at me like this, rolling over the pillows, trying to get to me.

50mm, f1.2, 1/400s, ISO 400
Here Sarah was explaining to me why she likes chocolate chip ice cream.

50mm, f1.2, 1/400s, ISO 400
I love this lens.

 
50mm, f1.2, 1/320s, ISO 400
Playing with curtains on my bed.

50mm, f1.2, 1/320s, ISO 400
Did I mention that I love this lens?

50mm, f1.2, 1/400s, ISO 400
“You’re taking pictures of me *again* ??”.

50mm, f1.2, 1/1600s, ISO 400
Walking outside playing with plants.

50mm, f1.2, 1/50s, ISO 100
Sooooo cute.

50mm, f1.2, 1/60s, ISO 100
This is how she looks when she’s just rolled around on my bed a few times pulling the sheets and throwing her toys around.

50mm, f1.2, 1/100s, ISO 100

50mm, f1.2, 1/1600s, ISO 100

50mm, f1.2, 1/200s, ISO 100
Doesn’t she look so cute and innocent here?

I have about 20GB of pictures of Sarah right now, and she’s only 7 months old. Ofcourse, I’m nowhere to be found on most of those pictures. The only place where I see myself in the pictures is in the reflection in Sarah’s eyes.

These pictures were all taken with available light only (so no flash), giving the pictures a more natural look. Once you start doing available light photography, you won’t go back to using a flash easily. This lens is very good for photography using available light only. Along with this lens, you should also check out the Canon EF 24mm f1.4 L, EF 35mm f1.4 L, EF 85mm f1.2 L and EF 135mm f2 L lenses. Expensive, but worth it.

If you’re from Canon, I understand if you initially almost get a heart attack to see another post on my blog about Canon, especially since my last few posts about Canon were not very positive. Yes, there’s a lot that Canon needs to work on, and I’m quite sure that after the 1D Mark III autofocus fiasco the shit hit the fan at Canon in Japan. If you thought that was an isolated incident, think again. It appears to be part of a structural quality control problem at Canon and I’ve written about it here a few times. And after the release of the Nikon D3/300 and recently D700, I have it on good authority that the entire DSLR division at Canon was taken to their equivalent of DEFCON 1. Various Canon managers and engineers were hand delivered messages by actual ninja’s, threatening with “serious consequences” if things don’t get better in the near future. So I have to say, I’m very interested to see what Canon releases later this year.

Anyway, back to the topic. Last weekend I took some pictures with my Canon EF 135mm F2.0 lens, and I have to say, this is an incredible lens. Many reviews around the Internet will tell you this lens is sharp, and boy is it sharp! Even wide open at f2. Colors and contrast are great, and bokeh is very nice and smooth. This is a great lens for portraits (easily isolate subjects from the background), candid photography (you can get subjects close from a distance) and even some sports. I’ve posted some samples below, just some snapshots of my family, and with most of these pictures, using the EOS 40D body (1.6x crop), I was able to stand 8-12 meters away and give them more than enough room to walk around, while still being able to get them close on the pictures and throwing the background out of focus.

My daughter Sarah. I bite her at least once every minute.
135mm, f2, 1/250s, ISO 100

Sarah with my dad.
135mm, f2, 1/250s, ISO 100

Sarah with my dad.
135mm, f5.6, 1/250s, ISO 100

Sarah grabs everything within range.
135mm, f2, 1/250s, ISO 100

Sarah with my dad.
135mm, f2, 1/200s, ISO 100

Sarah with my dad.
135mm, f2, 1/200s, ISO 100

Sarah with my dad.
135mm, f2, 1/250s, ISO 100

Sarah grabbing flowers.
135mm, f2, 1/320s, ISO 100

Below is a 100% crop of one of the pictures above. Converted from RAW, no sharpening applied. You can see the amount of detail and sharpness you can get with this lens starting at f2.

135mm, f2, 1/250s, ISO 100

As you can see, the stuff Canon sells is actually pretty good if you can get a good working copy. This lens is also great for low light work. Together with the 24mm f1.4, 35mm f1.4, 50mm f1.2 and 85mm f1.2 lenses from Canon, the 135mm f2 is a prime that can deliver some of the most beautiful images.

It was about time I did another photography update on my blog. About a week ago I had the opportunity to do another shoot with a model. Nothing too fancy, just a simple shoot for her portfolio. It was her first time modeling, and I think she has great potential. The shoot lasted for about 5 hours, including the time for me to set up my stuff on location and pack everything up again at the end. Below you can see a picture showing the setup that I used for all the images:

Two large softboxes, a hairlight, large sheets of white paper held together with duct tape, and a piece of black cloth. The shoot was done at Leaders Group Conference room, which became my studio for those 5 hours. An excellent location for a wide variety of reasons, very pleasant to work at. It’s also where I did a previous photoshoot. You can clearly see wineglasses in the image above, which is an indication that people were enjoying themselves.

Make-up and styling was done by Euvie Karijoredjo. I had previously worked with her on another photoshoot. She did a very nice job again, and in particular created some really juicy looking red lips for some of the images below. As a direct result, it wasn’t very easy for me to look at the model while operating my camera at the same time. But things worked out in the end. Below are a few pictures of Euvie working on the model. All these pictures were taken using the Canon EF 50mm f1.2L lens, which is one of my favourite lenses to use, shot using available light.

I recently completed an assignment for one of the directors of Torarica Group of Hotels. He wanted a picture of the building of each of the 3 hotels that they manage to put on one of the walls in his office. The only requirement he had was that the pictures had to be in black and white and I had to deliver them printed and framed at 50cmx70cm. So I went out a couple of days on location to walk around and try to find a creative way to take pictures of each of the 3 buildings in such a way that they could also fit together next to eachother. I took a lot of pictures with about 4 different ideas in my mind in 3 to 4 different sessions. The last session wasn’t planned, that day I just happened to look out the window and notice there was a clear blue sky, and I just went on location immediately to take some more pictures. All pictures were taken with a Canon EOS 40D body and the Canon 16-35mm f2.8 L II lens.

After I reviewed the pictures I sent a small number of them to the client explaining what I had in mind so he could make his own selection. I also offered a selection of my own as an example. He chose to go ahead with my selection of 3 pictures, one for each building:

Torarica

Royal Torarica

Eco Resort Inn

I chose to photograph a small part of each building that was unique and characteristic of that building, so that anyone who knew the buildings would recognize them as soon as they saw the pictures. I also tried to photograph them in the same angle and perspective, so that it would give an interesting effect when hanging them on the wall next to eachother:

This was not an easy assignment for me because it was not easy to come up with ideas that could work for all 3 buildings. Because the pictures would be hanging next to eachother, I also didn’t want them to look too different from eachother, and wanted them to share certain features so that it would be clear that they belong together, even though they’re very different from eachother when you look at the architecture. And in my opinion, they do look quite nice at 50cmx70cm. It’ll be interesting to see what others think in the next few days.

After a rather long while I was able to take some of my free time again last Sunday and spend it on an afternoon of photography. Together with Jimmy, a friend who I got to know not too long ago, I went out and strolled through Paramaribo armed with some of my Canon gear, namely two 40D bodies and the 16-35mm f2.8L II and 70-200mm f2.8 L IS lenses. Jimmy owns a Nikon D200 body, which looked very nice. The D200 feels a lot more comfortable in my hands, and I can only imagine this is also the case with the latest D300 and D3 bodies from Nikon.

Here are some of the first pictures I took during the photowalk:

Birds flying very low on the shore of the Suriname river. Both Jimmy and I had never seen this type of bird before so we went in for close-ups.

The above picture is a close-up of one of the birds. It was taken with the 70-200mm lens with the 40D body in AI Servo mode. With only 9 autofocus points on the 40D it wasn’t very easy to keep tracking the birds. The Nikon D300 has 51 focus points which is A LOT more than the 40D. Canon has a lot of work to do in this area.

Here’s a wide angle shot of a few boats on the river. The weather that day was really nice as you can see from the blue sky. And below is a close-up taken with the 70-200mm lens.

We went to a different spot later on and there we came across Joey. He’s the guy in black in the picture below looking very sad, almost like he’s about to cry. As Jimmy and I walked up to him, he immediately started to complain about the lack of strong winds and not being able to surf the way he wants to.

In the picture below Jimmy was trying to get a macro shot of Joey’s legs. Just kidding. Jimmy was focusing on something else, but it almost looks like he’s taking a picture of Joey’s legs. Not saying that he didn’t photograph Joey’s legs though.

After a while Joey decided to try surfing again, hoping for some strong winds. He still looked quite disappointed though. He stood up and dragged his surfing board and sail into the water. I captured a rather dramatic shot of the moment below.

Not long after that Joey was surfing away.

As he went further away from us, I captured the shot below.

Nearby, a couple was sitting in the shade of a palm tree, enjoying the view.

Below is a shot of Joey as he was approaching us again after a while.

From the shot below you can tell that it’s not very easy to lift up the sail after it falls on the water.

Meanwhile Jimmy and I had the privilege of meeting “Arturo” (real name Ertugrul Kilic), a photographer from Turkey. You can see him standing below with his Nikon D2Xs.

Arturo busy taking some shots of a surfer.

Jimmy and Arturo sitting together in the shade watching the surfers.

Later on Jimmy and I went to another spot where I took the pictures below.

Then we arrived at some location with a couple of hills as you can see on the picture below. I immediately thought of climbing on top of one and have Jimmy take a picture of me.

I took the picture below from the top of one of those hills while Jimmy was also taking a picture of me standing on top.

You can see me standing on the hill in the next picture which was taken by Jimmy.

As I was trying to come down from the hill, I was leaning on the side of the hill with my left hand, when all of a sudden I felt being bitten in my hand. When I looked, I saw a number of big red ants on my hand in full attack mode. In the next picture, you can see me blowing on my hand trying to get the ants off of it, with little result. As I was being attacked and furiously trying to get the ants off of my hand while not dropping my camera, Jimmy ran closer and yelled “If you just come tumbling down right now I might be able to get some really spectacular shots!” Later that night my hand was swollen and I could count at least 8 very small wounds the ants left behind. 

The next few shots were taken not too far from the hills.

I really liked the dirty industrial look of the scene above.

In the picture above you can see one of the entrances to the presidential palace in Paramaribo. It was already late in the afternoon when this picture was taken as you can see from the long shadows.

The white dot in the picture above between the palm trees is the moon. Below are a couple of shots of palm trees. It was very late in the afternoon and I loved the gold/orange highlights in the trees from the sunset.

This guy appears to be missing something.

As Jimmy and I walked through the city, I took some pictures of the old monumental buildings. You can again see the gold/orange light from the sunset against the buildings.

Below are some pictures of the sunset over the Suriname river with the J.A. Wijdenbosch bridge in the background and a very beautiful sky.

I love the pictures of the buildings below. You can see the sunset in the distance, and the gold/orange light hitting the buildings from the side. The perspective from the 16-35mm lens is interesting as well.

Finally, as it became very dark, Jimmy and I drove around town for a good spot to do some long exposure photography. The last two pictures below are two quick attempts at using long exposures at night. We didn’t spend much time doing this but the next time I’ll try to look for some interesting locations for this.

The whole photowalk lasted about 4 hours, and at the end I had about 600 pictures. Some of those pictures will make it into my online photo gallery in the next few days. I’m already looking forward to the next photowalk, which may take place as soon as the coming weekend.

Burdens of Life

Many people are of the opinion that life is beautiful. Most of them will even take the time to explain to you why they think life is beautiful when you tell them that you have a different opinion about it. They’ll start naming many different things that should be seen as proof that life is beautiful, while conveniently pretending that they don’t see all the cruelty that is taking place around them.

As you can no doubt imagine by now, I don’t think life is beautiful at all. In fact, I even wrote before that there is no happiness in life. I do believe that life can be, or could be, beautiful. But it’s not. There might be some nice moments in everyone’s life, but if you look at the overall picture, it just sucks. Badly. Just look at the way it always ends. Is there anything beautiful about that?

Isn’t it interesting that the first thing that babies do when they get born is that they start crying? If life was so beautiful, wouldn’t you expect babies to start laughing and smiling as soon as they enter the world? Shouldn’t they be happy about it? Why cry instead? Where does that come from? Most babies won’t smile until after they are at least a few weeks old. Why is that? They can’t smile for a few weeks, but are perfectly capable of crying from the moment they are born, and even do so quite frequently!

The reason why this is so, I believe, is because life is full of pain and sadness. The moment a baby gets born, he starts to cry most likely because he feels the hostility around him immediately and can perhaps even feel the sadness and pain that is to come. Maybe he even regrets being born and shows that by starting to cry as soon as he’s born.

The fact that babies are perfectly capable of crying from the moment they are born, and that most of them won’t show their first smile for a few weeks, also shows the nature of life. You get born being perfectly capable to feel pain and sorrow and to react to it, but it isn’t until weeks later when you start to learn how to smile. It’s almost as if the baby needs a few months to get used to the situation, and tries to make the best out of it in the end. It’s like after a few weeks of crying about the tragedy of being born in this world of pain, he starts to get an attitude of “hey, since I can’t do anything about this, I might as well get used to it and try to make the best out of it.”

And I can completely understand.

After all, it is what most people would do in any bad situation: try to make the best out of it. So even though life sucks, why not smile when the moment is there to smile once in a while?

That, however, doesn’t change the nature of life. It doesn’t change the fact that everything in this world seems to be based on the principle of pain and suffering. And it never will.

Back in October I did some photography for the next edition of United Business and Lifestyle Magazine. The launch of the 9th edition was last night, and it should be available next week in stores in Suriname and the Netherlands. Edward Lee, who is the editor and art director for the magazine asked me to do a photoshoot for the front cover. He already knew exactly what he wanted, made some concepts, came over to me and said “This is what I want, do it for me.” He wanted a model on the front cover, on a red background, with a James Bond type of pose, but without a gun, balancing a rotating gold coin on his finger.

To be able to get the exact tone of red that he wanted, we decided that we wouldn’t be using a red background, but just shoot on white and replace the background in post processing. In addition, the model would be posing without a coin on his finger, and that would also be added later in post processing. So I set up everything for the shoot, and when the model was ready, started taking shots with slight variations until I decided that I had enough shots that looked like what Edward wanted. That took about 5 minutes. Below are some examples:

If you look carefully, you can even see the duct tape on the background. So after those 5 minutes, I couldn’t believe I was done so quickly. It took about 30 minutes to set up the background and lighting, and it would take another 30 minutes after the shoot to pack everything up again. That was an hour of work for just 5 minutes? I decided to try some other poses as well just in case Edward needed more material. I told the model that I wanted to try another expression on his face, a little fun and mischievous, perhaps even a little arrogant, a feeling of “I’m there, I’ve made it, I’m rich, just look at me!” We tried a couple of variations with slight differences, of which you can see some examples below:

A few days after the shoot I delivered all pictures to Edward, and he started looking at all of them to make a decision on which one would make it to the front cover. With many pictures with slight variations, it wasn’t an easy task, and I was just glad I wasn’t the one having to make a decision. Finally it came down to 2 pictures, one with the original serious James Bond pose, and another one with the fun/mischievous expression. I started doing post processing on those two pictures, added the red background and the gold coin. Edward got the gold coin from the Central Bank of Suriname and I took pictures of it, which I then used as textures to render the rotating coin in 3D Studio Max to make it as realistic as possible. And then it finally came down to the two images below:

And a close-up of the coin:

Then I sat back comfortably in Edward’s office, and enjoyed the insightful discussion he had with his assistants about which one of the two pictures would make it to the front cover of the next United magazine. After a while the decision was made, and you can see a picture of the actual cover at the beginning of this post. The other picture would then be used in other parts of the magazine, of which you can see an example below:

I have more of my photography work in this edition, including the picture below, which I wrote about before:

Below is another article featuring my pictures, one of which is an approximately 200 degree panoramic image:

And then ads I did for Lenovo/NADO Computers and Tropical Gem Tours:

And finally, my own ad

If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you already know what I think of Windows Vista. And it’s not just me, but many others are dealing with issues with Windows Vista every day. If it’s not the defects in the software, then Microsoft just decides one day that a couple of thousand users are using illegal copies of Vista and puts their computer in reduced functionality mode – something that they can only attribute to their stupidity and are now trying to fix in the first service pack for Vista.

The last few weeks I’ve been dealing with another issue that seems to be widespread as well. As if Vista isn’t already very slow compared to Windows XP, for some reason, certain processes in Vista just like using lots of CPU time making it look like you’re running Vista on a Pentium CPU with 64MB of RAM. These processes, depending on the time of day, atmospheric pressure and possibly positions of planets in our galaxy, can be any one of “TrustedInstaller.exe”, “msnmsgr.exe”, “iexplore.exe”, “explorer.exe”, “msmpeng.exe”, “slsvc.exe” and “searchindexer.exe.” Sometimes, when I am not very lucky, I can even see two of the processes fighting eachother for available CPU time while my entire machine slows down. I’ve become used to running Vista with task manager open all the time to keep an eye on what’s going on when I suddenly can’t open a goddamn window without waiting 2 minutes. You think it’s just me? Just do a search on Google, and look at how many people are suffering! And these are just the people who write about it! When grandma can’t open a new email window at home in a reasonable amount of time, she’s not likely to know what’s going on, let alone post about it on the Internet.

I can get so furious about this. At this point I’m just waiting for Microsoft to release Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista next week, and hope for their sake that it will fix this issue among so many other issues. The entire industry is disappointed with Windows Vista, and they have good reason to be disappointed. Windows Vista is a lemon, it’s worse than Windows Me at this point. And all of this was to be expected. It should never have gotten released so quickly as so many, including me, have argued in the past. I can’t even begin to think of recommending Vista to anyone. Everything is just slower in Vista. If I didn’t have to reinstall loads of software, I’d have gone back to Windows XP in a split-second. If the service pack fails to address these issues, I am going back to Windows XP the next day.

I can’t imagine the support nightmare of running this OS in an enterprise environment. May god have mercy with the IT staff of companies that decide to switch to Vista.

My new website has just been launched at www.kareldonk.com. Feel free to take a look. It contains the latest information about the services I have to offer as well as updated portfolios. I’ve been working on the site in my spare time for about 2 months now, and it was about time I could finally have my own work-related website to direct potential customers to. Until recently, I didn’t even have my own businesscard. This also partly explains the lack of frequent updates on my blog for the last 2 months.

Any feedback that you may have is ofcourse very welcome.

Whether you’re a beginner, amateur or professional photographer, I’m sure you’ll find photographer Dan Heller’s website very useful. He has a wealth of very insightful and useful information on there in a series of articles about photography. He also has a blog which also contains some very good information on photography and the photography business. I highly recommend checking it out if you are into photography. Plus, I just ordered two of his books.

Last Sunday I had the great opportunity again to do a photoshoot for one of my clients involving a nice model. The last time I did a photoshoot involving models was a while ago, and you can read about that here. This latest shoot was a nice experience overall, learned a lot again. The only problem I had was waking up at 3am in the morning to get prepared and leave at 4:30am to get to the location where the photoshoot would take place. We wanted some shots early in the morning with the sunrise on the background so we had to be there before sunrise to set everything up and get the model ready.

I’ve added a small image of Ron Paul on the sidebar of my website, which links to Ron Paul’s 2008 presidential campaign website. The banner at the top of my website where a random picture is displayed everytime a page is loaded will also be displaying some Ron Paul images from time to time. With this, I’m just doing my part in promoting Ron Paul on the Internet. There’s already lots of information available on the Internet about Ron Paul, just do a search on Google or YouTube (lots of videos). Also check out his MySpace website.

It’s going to be interesting to see how far he’ll manage to take his campaign. He’s already targeting the right issues, has the courage to stay honest and just say what he thinks should be done. Let’s see how far his message will spread, and how many people are going to actually listen and make the right choice. If this article is an indication, there’s hope:

Paul received no less than 16 standing ovations during his hour-plus speech and question-and-answer session at the Summit Pointe Events Center. They started when he entered the room, continued when he re-entered after doing a quick TV interview and grew louder when he was formally introduced.

Thunderous applause also followed when he decried the Patriot Act (ovation No. 4), when he said America should never go to war without a declaration from Congress or because of a United Nations resolution (ovations No. 8 and 9), and when he attacked President Bush’s foreign policy and handling of the war in Iraq (ovations No. 11, 12 and 13).

…

“He’s got a chance,” said Richie Sprouse, 41, of Spartanburg. “I’m not going to say it’s not a long shot, but if Americans have any common sense, he’s got a chance.”

My thoughts exactly.

The picture above was taken at one of the many Boston Tea Party events that were organized a while back in the USA. Many people came out at those events to reject the official story of what happened on 9/11 as released in the 9/11 Commission Report.

In a previous post I mentioned that I finally managed to get a couple of documentaries on 9/11 broadcasted on TV in Suriname (check here for a list of titles). The 6th documentary in a series of 10 was broadcasted just a few hours ago, and the response so far continues to be very positive. People are calling me to tell me how glad they are that they are getting this information and I’m getting lots of compliments. Even the TV station that’s doing the broadcasting, Trishul, is getting positive feedback. People called in to tell them how glad they are that Trishul had the courage to air these documentaries while other TV stations were afraid. There was one report of a woman who went out to buy an outdoor TV antenna specifically so she could have a better reception of Trishul to be able to see the documentaries.

The documentaries started to air on May 18th, on every Friday and Saturday at 3pm, with re-runs just after midnight. It seems that a lot of people who are not able to watch the documentaries during the day at 3pm watch them at night, since I’m getting feedback in the form of text messages on my mobile phone at 2am in the morning. Almost everyone who gives feedback also asks where they can get these documentaries on DVD. From all the reactions I got so far I have to say that there is quite some demand for this kind of information.

So I looked at other possibilities of reaching people with this information, and I came up with the idea of talking to DVD rental shops and having them include these documentaries in their collection. Then I could simply advertise to people where the movies can be rented and people can then go out and rent the movies and watch them whenever they want. I went to talk to a few DVD rental shops about this, and they were very interested. Last week I spent a great deal of time preparing DVDs for all the 10 documentaries to distribute to these DVD rental shops. Below you can see the poster I designed and the DVD covers for the 10 documentaries in this series, which I called “The Truth behind 9/11″:

In the coming days I will be advertising the availability of these documentaries at DVD rental shops not only during the broadcast on Trishul, but also in local newspapers. Meanwhile I’m already looking at possible follow up events I can do.

After a long while of trying, the first two of a total of ten documentaries on the issues surrounding the attacks on September 11, 2001 in the USA have finally been aired on TV in Suriname. I wrote about my experiences with trying to get these documentaries aired here and here.

The documentaries are being broadcasted by a TV station called Trishul (channel 20) in Paramaribo, the capital of Suriname. You can find information about the broadcasting schedule and the documentaries here (the language is Dutch). On that website I also report the latest news and coverage of the documentaries in the local media. Promotion of these documentaries started last week in various local newspapers. I’ve been getting a lot of positive feedback ever since. I haven’t gotten a single negative remark so far. The only complaint people had was that the time at which the documentaries are being broadcasted (at 3:00pm) is not very convenient for them, since most people are still at work or are on the way home from work. Based on this feedback I arranged with Trishul to have the documentaries broadcasted again at midnight on the same day. That way some people still have a chance to watch them at night when they’re home, even though it’s quite late. Trishul could not offer me any better broadcasting times due to their busy programming schedule. The documentaries are being broadcasted on Friday and Saturday so it’s not that bad since most people don’t have to go to work the next day and can stay up late to watch them if they can’t watch them in the afternoon.

Unfortunately this is the best I could get so far, and instead of waiting I wanted to start getting the information out to people. Meanwhile I’m going to continue looking for better options at other TV stations. A lot of people also asked me if they can get the documentaries on DVD, so I arranged with Trishul to sell the documentaries on DVD to people who want to buy them. I’m also going to look at the possibility of having some local DVD rental stores rent the documentaries on DVD. Meanwhile I’ve been contacted by a TV station in another district, Nickerie, who are interested in broadcasting the documentaries for the people there. So I’ll also be looking at that possibility.

Based on the feedback I got so far, there’s a lot of interest for this kind of information. A lot of people have expressed how glad they are that someone is bringing this to their attention and making it available to them. Here in Suriname, most people do not have (good enough) access to the Internet and can’t get this material themselves. In addition, people don’t even know that it exists. Next Friday and Saturday, the really good info will start to air. I wonder what kind of feedback I’ll be getting…

Not too long ago I wrote about my efforts in trying to get a couple of documentaries about 9/11 broadcasted on TV in Suriname. In that post I went into details about my experiences with dealing with RTV, one of the local TV stations, and how the US Embassy in Suriname got involved and tried to intimidate RTV into not broadcasting the documentaries. As you will see when you read that post, the US Embassy succeeded in intimidating RTV enough for them to decide not to broadcast the movies because of the consequences it may have for them. Before that I had already successfully organized an event on 9/11, where I had screened all of the documentaries which I wanted RTV to broadcast.

After RTV said they couldn’t broadcast the documentaries, even though I was willing to pay for it and had sponsors lined up for it as well, I went on to the next TV station which was SKY TV. I found a company that was doing business with SKY willing to pay for the costs of broadcasting the documentaries on SKY. After about a month of waiting for SKY to finally make the time to talk about broadcasting the movies, they finally responded when the sponsor was getting a little angry and wanted to get things done faster. I had a meeting with Zurina Lallmohamed of SKY TV and the sponsor to talk about broadcasting the documentaries. At that meeting SKY agreed to broadcast the documentaries and a schedule was made and agreed upon. We would have started airing the documentaries the following week, but instead, I got a phone call from SKY the next day that they would not be able to air the documentaries. And the reason they gave was that they saw the material and found it to be too controversial, and were afraid they would get in trouble with the US Embassy. As far as I know, the US Embassy didn’t even talk to them about it, so this is even worse than RTV – they felt intimidated even before the US Embassy talked to them about it! They explained that they were afraid of getting boycotted by the US Embassy if they aired the movies because all their equipment comes from the USA and they do a lot of business with the USA. They also mentioned that they did agree with the content of the documentaries and knew they were taking a hypocritical position on the matter, but that they had no other choice.

After I kept insisting and calling up several people at SKY, including the director, about this, they said they could air the documentaries if I could get the US Embassy to participate with me in a debate about 9/11, which they would then organize and broadcast. According to them, they wanted to show that they are upholding journalistic ethics and were bringing both sides of the story to the public. But it was clear to me that they were essentially seeking the approval of the US Embassy, just like RTV did. I knew beforehand that the US Embassy would never agree to participate in a debate on 9/11, but I thought that if the US Embassy officially refused, SKY would have no choice but to go ahead and broadcast the documentaries. So I emailed Andy Utschig of the US Embassy in Suriname and asked him if they would want to participate in a debate with me on SKY TV about the issues surrounding 9/11. A day later he called me saying that “they could not participate in the debate because they did not want to give credence to the conspiracy theories.” I had ofcourse expected that answer, because the US Embassy wouldn’t be able to come up with any kind of argument against the content I was presenting that made sense, and any representative they sent would just make a fool out of him/herself on live TV if he/she would disagree with me. What this also shows is that given the opportunity for them to bring the other side of the story to people, as they pretended to require with RTV, they still refused, thus showing that their argument about journalistic ethics was just bullshit to scare RTV into not broadcasting the documentaries.

So I called SKY again, explaining to them that the US Embassy refused to participate, and then they said that in that case, they wouldn’t be able to broadcast the documentaries at all. They again went on to explain how afraid they are of the consequences if they do air the material (I’m not making this up). And keep in mind that I was willing to pay for the airtime and one of their own sponsors was willing to pay for it as well and was asking them to do it. It seems SKY would rather lose a good client and some business instead of making the US Embassy a little angry.

After SKY refused, I continued talking to SCCN about airing the documentaries. The director, Isfahany Nagessersingh, at first liked the idea of broadcasting the movies. During our first meeting, I explained to him what it was all about and he was willing to do it and seemed very enthousiastic about it mentioning how he “loved such controversial information.” I left a copy of the documentaries with him for screening purposes and during our second meeting, he told me that having seen the content, he didn’t think it was suitible to broadcast it on SCCN. So I asked why, and he went on to explain how he didn’t think viewers would be very interested in the material. I told him about the good feedback I was getting and how people kept asking me to see the documentaries, and that didn’t seem to change his mind. Then I suggested doing a poll in the local media to see if people would want SCCN to broadcast the documentaries. A bit surprised by my suggestion, he tried to talk his way out of it basically saying that it wouldn’t be neccessary because he was pretty sure his audience wouldn’t like it. Finally he came with the argument that at SCCN they only broadcasted entertainment (stuff like movies and music videos) and that the content in the documentaries wasn’t in line with their broadcasting policy. So that made me wonder why, if that was the case, he was so enthousiastic during our first meeting about broadasting the documentaries, because afterall, I had explained to him in details what they were about. Somewhere between our first and second meeting, he changed his mind about it. Not wanting to put too much pressure, I left it at that and continued to the next TV station.

I spoke to Henk Kamperveen, director at ABC TV about wanting to broadcast the documentaries and left him a copy for screening purposes. It took about 5 weeks before he was able to view some of the content, and after he did, he told me that ABC would not be able to broadcast the documentaries. When I asked why, he explained that “the documentaries expressed a certain point of view and that they wanted to be careful with what kind of material they broadcasted.” It seemed to me that ABC was just as afraid as the others, so I just accepted their answer and moved on.

I finally went to another TV station called Trishul, and they were interested to broadcast the documentaries. It appears that not too long ago, they had already aired a similar documentary on the various issues surrounding the events on 9/11. I made sure I explained to them in details what this is all about and left copies of the documentaries for them to have a look on the first meeting. At the second meeting they were still very much interested in broadcasting the documentaries after having screened the content, and so we went on to create the broadcasting schedule for the documentaries and talk about other details. If everything goes as planned, the first documentary will get aired on Friday May 18th. So I’m currently very busy preparing the material and getting the promotion of the documentaries started.

I continue to learn a lot from my experiences so far. It’s amazing how many of these companies who pretend to be independent and often very critical media start to shake in their boots when they come up against the US Embassy or other powerful people and organizations and refuse to talk about certain subjects. Who knows what else they don’t talk about while they pretend to report everything to the public and pretend to be very critical. In any case they’ve now been exposed, and I hope people find this information useful and get to know how independent some of the media in Suriname really are.

Update, May 14th: It’s important to note that the documentaries I’m talking about are listed in a previous post of mine, and that these documentaries are available for download all over the Internet. You’ll be able to find most, if not all of them, on Google Video. In addition, you can also buy most of them from various websites on the Internet. For example, “Terror Storm” is currently selling on Amazon.com.

I mention this because I want to make clear that even though these documentaries are accessible to anyone with an Internet connection, even in the USA, some TV stations are still too afraid to broadcast them. It’s just mind boggling.