A while ago, Simon Pollock asked me to write a review of the Think Tank Photo Shape Shifter backpack for Digital Photography School.

I love the products of Think Tank Photo and was really curious about the design of this particular backpack. So suffice to say I was really looking forward to it.

It took a while for the bag to arrive (damn you, Dutch customs), but it was certainly worth the wait. What a great bag.

You can read the review over here. If you’ve got any questions about the bag, feel free to contact me. I’ll be monitoring the comments over at DPS too.

Review: Think Tank Photo Shape Shifter is a post from: Jeroen Berkenbosch - Blog

Happy new year guys! I hope all of your wishes and dreams may come true in this year.

I got out of bed early yesterday, to participate in @scotbaston’s New Year Sunrise Challenge. About 35 photographers from all over the globe got up early to photograph the rising sun. I really hate getting up early, so it was quite an accomplishment for me. Especially after barely four and a half hours of sleep.

The panorama (5x21mp photos, so the original file is really huge) above was one of the resulting shots. You can see my other image on Flickr. Check out the photos by other photographers over here.

New website

Anyway, I’m kind of proud to announce my new portfolio website! I’ve been designing this for a while now, and I thought it would be a good idea to release it on January the 1st. I know it’s January the 2nd right now, but it was actually released yesterday evening. So some people might have seen it already. It isn’t completely finished yet (I’ll be adding a ‘series’ page in a while), and the photos will be continuously updated, but most of it is pretty final.

If you’ve got any feedback on anything, I would appreciate it if you would let me know. Preferably by using the contact form, by DM on Twitter or by MSN.

Cheers!

A new year and a new website is a post from: Jeroen Berkenbosch - Blog

(c) AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti

In my short life, I’ve seen thousands of truly horrific photos. Lots of deaths, wounds, tears and blood. I’ve seen countless of suffering people and bodies ripped apart by explosives.

I don’t get shocked easily any more when watching photos or video footage of these horrors. Don’t think that I don’t care about these people, on the contrary, but most of the images just don’t send those cold shivers down my spine any more. Well, those shivers came back last night, after seeing one of the most shocking photo essays ever.

I just came home from babysitting my nephew when I saw a tweet by Israel based photographer Ilan Bresler. Ilan referred to a blogpost on Tampabay.com. I was really shocked when I saw them.

The essay consists of twelve portraits of young Pakistani women attacked by men throwing acid. Most of the women had several plastic surgeries, but their faces are still horribly mutilated. You can see the images for yourself over here. But be warned, the one I’ve posted above is probably the least horrific.

Thanks Ilan, for tweeting this link, and making the world a little bit better because of it. Even though it’s awful to see, people ought to know what’s happening in this world. And that is the power of (photo)journalism.

The less known side of terrorism is a post from: Jeroen Berkenbosch - Blog

To be honest, I’ve never heard of this magazine, which is quite a surprise to me, since I was under the impression that I knew most Dutch arty-farty magazines. I think it goes without saying that every photographer wants to know if, when, how and where their work will be published. But GUP obviously didn’t realize this.

Publisher Peter Bas Mensink posted the following comment on Ben Roberts’ blog.

“… This is a magazine born out of love for the medium and respect for the photographers. It’s not profitable and probably will never be. It’s a podium for photographers (read our statement on our website). For every category in the magazine we contact the photographers involved, however for bkmrks this proofed quite impossible. contacting ±15 photographers worldwide – every issue – is a very complicated thing. We’ll get photographers wanting a say in the text we write, wanting to supply us with their own text, diverting us to their gallery, who are on assignment abroad, not reachable etc. etc. etc. We work deadlines….”

The arguments Mensink makes, are pretty ridiculous in my opinion. Every photographer either has a simple contact form or a mailto-link on his or her website. It will only take a couple of minutes to send an email to a photographer, asking for permission to publish.

If, like the publisher comments, the photographer doesn’t respond before the deadline, just publish the photos of another photographer. I know that deadlines can sneak up on you, but important stuff like this shouldn’t suffer from deadlines.

EDIT: A few hours after my post, I received an email from Peter Bas Mensink, asking me to publish the rest of his comments. I don’t really see any reason for that to be honest (I’ve read them all, on Roberts’ blog anyway, and you can do the same if you wish), but I would like to add the following.

I obviously like magazines that are created for the love of photography, and I think it’s okay for a non-profit magazine to publish photos without paying the photographer. So for me, it isn’t about money at all, but just about common manners. I don’t know if Mensink is a photographer too, but I bet he would like to know if photos of him will be published.

“Contacting photographers is too complicated” is a post from: Jeroen Berkenbosch - Blog

Well, to make a long story short, after conversations with @Ilanbr, @Wahliaodotcom and @Ottimisvico (check out their work by the way, they’re each great in their own field), I decided to blog in English, as you might have guessed by now. However, English is obviously not my native language. So if you see me making any spelling errors, please tell me. I’m willing to learn. ;)

My main reason for this choice is reaching a wider audience. I’d like to attract an international audience due to the different (cultural) views and discussions that may come of it.

Most photographers and photo enthusiasts here in Holland are interested in either party photography or fashion photography. Or both. And I’m not planning to write about that in the foreseeable future. There are a lot of people more qualified to write about that than I am.

What to expect?

To be completely honest, I’m not sure of that myself. I’ve had a blog before about photojournalism (an assignment for school) which mainly contained articles, columns and some interviews. I might decide to translate some of it in a later stage.

I do have some different things (including weekly/monthly returning themes) in mind, but I’m not sure if it’ll work. So you’ll just have to come back every now and then to check it out yourself! ;)

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First post! is a post from: Jeroen Berkenbosch - Blog