Waking up today couldn’t be any better. Besides finding my beautiful girlfriend lying next to me and our cat probably somewhere near there’s also a new edition of the Coggles Supplement waiting for me on my iPad.

This time short surfing documentary called Dark Side of the Lens really did it for me. Giving me that boost of energy to get my focus back in the right direction.

Dark Side of the Lens is a short video documentary by Mickey Smith. It’s about the hard life of the silent workhorses of the surfing world. The ones who provide us all those stunning images and videos. The mood of the shots with spoken words as their chaperon are poetry of the finest kind. Intense and inspiring. Must see!

Web developer Matt Wisniewski is also a pretty nifty image manipulator. Matt Wisniewski’s photo collages combine vintage and contemporary photography to make beautiful and surreal portraits.

I like looking at his mixed media collages for a couple minutes. Especially his Landscape series. To me it seems that the images are trying to tell stories that doesn’t have to match the idea you might get by looking at the image that is projected. Art of the non resembling kind.

Go see.

New for the Spring 2012 Vans Vault collection is the Vans Vault 106 Vulc LX. In all his simpleness this seems like a pair I would like to have.

The 106 Vulx LX is available in China Blue, Olive Night and Plaza Taupe and features super lightweight canvas, metal eyelets, leather laces and white vulcsoles.

Expect to see the 106 Vulc LX at select Vans Vault retailers like End, Hanon or Oki-Ni not too long from now.

This post shows once more how beautiful and even magical photography can be. Japanese photographer Tsuneaki Hiramatsu discovered a field and a forest aglow in a strange green light. That’s when he found out it were thousands of fireflies illuminating the place and the trees beyond.

Luckily, Tsuneaki had his camera with him, set up his gear and shot some wonderful long exposure photos containing the fireflies creating this symphonie of light.

Go see.

After months of speculation, Leica has officially announced its latest compact camera, the X2. Not quite sure as spectacular as the M9 but this one seems quite nifty.

Reminiscent of the traditional M-Design, the Leica X2 camera features an effective resolution of 16.1 megapixels and the newly developed APS-C CMOS sensor. The camera also sports a Leica Elmarit 1:2.8/24 mm ASPH lens (35mm effective) alongside a simple interface, a new autofocus with extremely precise and virtually silent focusing, manual adjustment capabilities and a connection for a high resolution electronic viewfinder for expansion.

Available in Silver and Black. More info can be found here.

Julia Pott, part of the collective Treat Studios, is a British illustrator and animator living in Brooklyn. The artists statement notes Julia employs awkward animated characters to act out her inner confusions.

I really like her drawings as I found myself scrolling through her Flickr for a bit longer than I usually do, browsing through someone’s work.

You’ve probably seen her work around somewhere since she have done projects for numerous well known clients such as MTV, Etsy, J. Crew and Bat for Lashes. If not, I’m happy to introduce her work to you.

It feels like a while I put some of my own analog photography work online. The wait is over.

I recently had a roll developed with photos from different events. The opening of Minishop Confetti, Len with her Beatrice Valenzuela Botin shoes, the Oranjebitter Rotterdam pre party. I would like to put some of them in the spotlight. A mix of analog photos shot in April 2012.

These were shot with a Leica M3 camera, 50mm Summicron lens and Ilford XP2 400 film. Scanned with an Epson Perfection V500 scanner.

Have a look.

True thoughtful, passionate, and progressive, James Chororos is a 28 year old architect, designer, and freelance photographer with a stunning portfolio.

His work is nostalgic but contemporary, he is always attempting to uncover the unique characteristics of an everyday moment or fragment in time. His statement: ‘I hope that my images express the personal sentiment that I discover in the places and experiences that I photograph.’

You really would like to pay a visit to his Tumblr. It gives me that feeling to get my pack and head into the wild.

Get ready to be blown away.  

Have a look at this amazing collab from Brooklyn between The Hill-Side and Outlier. They teamed up and one thing led to another resulting in a spring collaboration.

The Hill-Side gave their “ocean print” and Outlier did it up in a lightly insulated soft core vest, perfect for spring. The vest is made of lightweight 80 gram Primaloft insulation lined with 18.8 micron Superfine merino wool which keeps you comfortable and good looking. Sounds like a very nice piece. Available in a blue or red color way.

At the moment only Hickoree’s Hard Goods still have them in stock.

Stockholm-based Our Legacy, known for their use of relaxed cuts, premium fabrics and tremendous eye for colour and prints, recently released their Splash collection. The Swedish duo, Cristopher Nying and Jockum Hallin, have been working in tandem with art director Tony Cederteg to create their highly anticipated SS12 capsule collection, entitled ‘Splash’.

The Splash collection melds bold, nature-inspired printed and patterned fabrics with some of the brand’s most popular silhouettes and sit perfectly alongside the Our Legacy mainline collection.

The first pieces are dropping and are available at your favorite shop such as End Clothing, OKI-NI and Très Bien Shop.

Not the Bliss you might expect on this site but this is a very exciting photography project. Hanke Arkenbout asked me to participate in a photography project she initiated called Bliss.

Bliss is a magazine that features photographers from all around the globe with the same sort of feeling in their photos.

Bliss wants to give readers a more personal view at the photographers by interviewing them, giving them the opportunity to tell a bit more about themselves than the basic information. Each in there very own way. And yes…there will be lots of lovely photos!

Leonid Tishkov is an artist from Russia and sure knows how to grab my attention with his Private Moon work. Together with photographer Boris Bendikov they started the Private Moon project which is a series of visually stunning photos.

They traveled the world with their Private Moon The Arctic, New Zealand Taiwan and other places which can be seen as the  contemporary version of Pierrot walks around the world with his mobile star which he placed in dark landscapes.

Go see and read more about the journey of Private Moon.

Oh this is sweet. Another great addition to the portfolio section. Minishop Confetti has it’s website up and running. Besides the website I also did the product photography as well as a couple mood photos to be used for the header.

Lenneke Kooijman from Lennebelle and A Little Hamster got the opportunity to run a pop-up shop for 6 weeks in Rotterdam. She wanted to create online promotion for it. A dedicated website with online shop to be able to continue the business after those 6 weeks.

Visit Minishop Confetti for the grand tour and get ready to fall in love with the great products from various designers it’s offering.

Want to know more about the project? Visit my portfolio section.

Friday! Time to get those weekend engines started. Here’s a new Tumblr Photography Photo Bliss set to get you in the right mood.

Photo Bliss is a handpicked selection of inspiring photos found on Tumblr and other places.  Click on the photo to re-direct to the Cloud Cuckoo Tumblr post to reach to the source of the photo.

Here’s Photo Bliss no. 25 with the finest Tumblr photos which recently came across my Tumblr Dashboard.

Enjoy it.

Here’s a post to support a local. Ron van der Ende is a sculptor living in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. He is specialized in wall mounted bas-reliefs constructed from found wood. The original color and texture of the wood is utilized to form a gripping and realistic mosaic. The realism is further enhanced by the perspective built into the relief. Ron van der Ende uses his method to conjure up dark industrial and space age imagery.

His work is really mind blowing. Such great detail, so stunning.

Wonder what it looks like? Go see.