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.

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.

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.  

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.

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.

Last Friday was the opening of Minishop Confetti on the Meent 133 in Rotterdam. Minishop Confetti is a temporary pop-up shop in the center of Rotterdam. The shop has various handmade products (scarfs, bowls, jewellery, clothing and more) from different designers such as Iefke de Roos, Twinklebird, Lennebelle, Miga de Pan, Mae Engelgeer, Mari(e), Elke van den Berg and others.

It was a lovely evening with very nice people. I shot some photos with my Leica to document this event. However, I still have some exposures left on my roll so I can’t show you those right now. What I can show are a couple digital photos of the shop interior I took this weekend.

Alberto Seveso is an illustration and photography artist from Milan, Italy. His work is well known for various projects. His latest project called ‘A Due Colori’ really blowed up on the internet last week.

Just by looking at these photos makes you wonder if it’s some kind of scary beast from the deep. But in fact it’s Ink captured underwater in a very nice way.

See the photos in the full post to see what I mean.

Yeah! The Analog Photo Collective had it’s first meetup of this year. A big welcome to Erik Richters and Mario Sol who joined the APC meetup for the first time. Hope you enjoyed it.

This meetup was organized by Hanke. She picked the Rotterdam market and wanted us to capture the romance of this place where thousands stroll to buy fresh products and find bargains. Funny because we had the same program in mind for the 1st APC edition but that one got a bit wet.

Although we did shoot this time. I don’t think we really captured it’s romantic side. At least I didn’t managed to. The place is very photogenic but it’s so hard to capture those moments. The moment they are in front of you and the next they’re vanished. It’s a constant moving scene.

Photo Bliss is a recurring set of awesome photos found on Tumblr.

Tumbr is my daily retreat from common things. It’s a great joy to scroll through my Tumblr dashboard. I’m posting Photo Blisses for a bit over a year now and they are gaining more and more attention which certainly is a very nice thing.

Here’s photo set no.24. Enjoy!

Nice goodie in the mail. Frisco Store was kind enough to add some goodies to my latest Vans Vault order.

The package also featured a Twelve postcards set by Greg Hunt. Greg Hunt is a photographer / filmmaker who is known for his work in the skate scene. He teamed up with Vans Syndicate for this Twelve postcards project.

Makes me want to shoot more film to be able to pull this one off myself one day. Oh well, who can I send a postcard?

Berlin, a city which is getting nicer with each visit. This city trip was my Christmas gift from Len. She bought me a flight ticket, booked me a bed in the nice Michelberger Hotel and also wanted to accompany me for that weekend.

First thing we did was to arrange ourselves some bikes. After that we went straight into Kreuzberg to explore the Oranienstrasse and Hamburgerstrasse area. Great contemporary concept shops like Voo and lots of spots to hang out and enjoy a drink or two. That evening we just had to stop by Das Hotel, a bar you would like to have in your home town. Yet, things aren’t alike in your home town. People might not be as friendly, creative and accessible like those in Berlin. We completely are in love with Berlin.

Last but certainly not least on our menu. A mini trekking in Parque Nacional Torres del Paine in Chile.

To get there we had a 6 hour bus trip starting from El Calafate to get to this amazing piece of nature.  Torres del Paine is a national park encompassing mountains, a glacier, a lake, and river-rich areas in southern Chilean Patagonia.

We were quite lucky to even get to Torres del Paine. The place suffered from a devastating fire a couple weeks prior to our visit. Affecting most of the areas around Lake Pehoé and the western areas around Lake Sarmiento. Cordillera del Paine, the park’s centerpiece which features the famous W trekking circuit wasn’t affected.