Spring is coming and it’s time for a new year full of fresh photography. To take our enjoyment to the next level we will also get some fresh gear for our cameras. For steady shots a light-weight tripod, for smooth time-lapse captures a digital-timer cable trigger and last but not least the ultimate portable camera-dolly.

1) light-weight tripod: Manfrotto MA 055XPROB Pro

light-weight 2,4kg (5,2 pounds) with all features like a professional tripod + the ability to get 10cm (0,3 feet) above the ground. Great for macro shots! We will love it.

manufacturers website: www.manfrotto.com

(the tripod in this video is the smaller brother of the 055XPROB, but nearly the same)

2) light-weight fluid video head: Manfrotto 701HDV Pro Fluid Video mini head

A tripod without a (good) head won’t do its job. I think there’s no need for explanation about this

manufacturers website: www.manfrotto.com

3) digital-timer cable trigger: Phottix Tr-90

We already own this little digital helper and I have to say: although it’s a no-name product, it does its job very well. You just have to set the duration between the releases and the shooting-quantity to get some really good time-lapse captures

manufacturers website: www.phottix.com

4) portable camera-dolly: Glidetrack Shooter

“The Glidetrack Shooter is the world’s first camera slider, that doubles up as a shoulder support. Glidetrack Shooter is perfect for the new breed of DSLR’s that can shoot video i.e. Canon 5d, 7d, Nikon D90, D3s etc.”

manufacturers website: www.glidetrack.com

We are in love with the publisher Taschen. Since we own more and more books from them (Decorative Art 60s, Japanese Art Now!, and so on..) we regulary look on their site for new money-sucking offers we can’t deny.

Our next investiment definitely will be this two books:

1) Guidelines for Online Success

> more infos on here.
> amazon for dollars: here.

2) The Internet Case Study Book

> more infos on here.
> amazon for dollars: here.

both are available in german and english (check out both links for the € and $ version. The second book is pre-orderable.)

So, the Takara Tomy Rocobos are finally here.
It is amazing how they work with two simple commands (either clapping or pressing the button on their heads).

The describtion of how to treat a Rocobo was very vague, so it took us quite some time to understand what to do.
But have a look yourself:

This is the claim of this year´s Young Lions competition.
So tonight we will spend our time thinking about what idea to choose for the print ad.
Right now there are about seven different ideas and still more coming up.
Let´s hope that we will get at least a little bit of sleep.
I am so very tired. Snooooooze…

Now, some of us might have noticed, others not, but there have been huge discussions and zillions of blog entries
about the London Fashion Week and the designer Mark Fast.

What has he done? Fast decided to use three models who wear size 12 and 14 (Eur 42 and 46) on the catwalk.
If you are interested in the details, read here.

Of course most of the fashion world held its breath, they shook their head and mumbled how
this will be the downfall of the whole business. This is mostly, because they feel betrayed.
How come that they all searched for this exclusiveness, these ultra-thin, nowhere else to be found models?
The whole collection is said to look different, when presented on “totally perfect” bodies.
And Mark Fast proved them wrong.
Yes, of course, he could have been rebelious and taken really chubby girls. Or have ALL of the models wear bigger sizes.
But that was not the point. What we can see is, that the girls looked fabulous.
Good makeup artists are half the battle. Re-thinking works in small steps.

So why am I telling you all of this?
I want to show you, that you already are exclusive. So many of us struggle with the way we look, not realizing, that we
actually already are, what we want to be. Losing weight is not going to make anyone of us prettier.
Most diets are far from healthy, just reducing calories and so reducing your production of serotonin, transforming you into Grumpy.
It is all about self-acceptance. If you are loving yourself, you start to shine and you will be the sun for everybody else.
And my oh my, everybody loves the sun.
Now, I don´t want to sound like some cheap guru. But be nice to yourself.
You always are your own example of how you want to be treated. If you are mean to yourself, everybody will follow.
Don´t let it happen. Don´t let the mirror be your enemy. It does nothing good to you.
You don´t have to worry about looks and outer appereance, if you have “the shine”.
More about this soon!

Have a beautiful day!

We the tweemees have the glamorous advantage of living next to a japanese food supplies store.
Since I decided that my new passion would be learning japanese (yeah, please laugh at me and my genki-des-ka),
I walk in there at least once a week, looking for something little and fun and then try to bring up all my guts to have
a japanese conversation about how much I´d have to pay and wishing them a nice day.
I haven´t made it yet. Too nervous and all discouraged when the shop assistant talks to me in german before I have even started my attempt.

I love japanese products. Little illustrations everywhere, everything talks or has a face.

So as we stumbled upon the pancake package, that showed a smiling bowl with smirking eggs and happy flour, I wanted it,
no matter how it tasted or despite the fact that the content was mere flour, sugar and baking powder.
Gimme that laughing pancake!

Making them was very easy, just pour one medium egg, 100 ccl milk and one sachet of the powder into a (hopefully smiling) bowl
and mix it up.

Then heat a pan (without oil), take a ladle and put the mixture into the pan.

Wait for about 20-30 seconds, then turn it around.
After another 15-20 seconds take it out and try to eat it as hot as you can with some chocolate cream or honey or syrup on it.

Om nom nom!

Soon to be found in the tweemee house are things for our playground.

First comes Takara Tomy´s Air Guitar Pro.

Ok, so for you pro musicians out there: I know, there is no point having this, when you can play guitar.

Or?  I say: my fingers are too short to play an F-chord and the experience of strumming with my head
or going maniac in the living room with air guitar just seems worth a try.
I can´t wait to destroy my bed, jumping berserk to Foo Fighters.
“YEAAAH, DON´T LET IT GO TO WASTE. I LOVE IT BUT I HATE THE TASTE!!!”
*strumm strumm strumm crash bed broke*

To distract me from losing our sleeping place (“Honey, look, I just HAD to do this!
And btw, YOU were the one who ordered the guitar in the fist palce!” ) we got ourselves two new digital pets.
You all for sure remember the Tamagotchi? And the Furby?
We found the inbetween! The Rocobo! (not Robocop, we have no intend to get ourselves blown up!)

The sad thing about the Tamagotchi back then was, that it was trapped in its egg.
You could not interact with it because you could not touch it. The Tamagotchi was mere pixels.
I liked it when I was a child, but I think I will enjoy this much more.
The Rocobo moves!

And the Furby? Simply annoying.

it would certainly be around autum this year. Like in september. Why?
Dude, check this out, it is far to good to be true:
http://www.giftshow.co.jp/english/70tigs/

The 70th Gift Show?! How come we´ve been missing this for so long?
A gift show. Nothing else but pleasant little (and big) things to charm you and others.
So you think this is about pens and rubbers?
Meeeeeep. Wrong.

I think we should all take a trip.
First work 3 years to afford the flight and the gift stuff, but then…
How about you?

Tomorrow I will be at the metalab (www.metalab.at) , pimping up the bike of a friend and preparing it for spring.
In general you can find Ms. Baltazar´s Laboratory every second thursday and it is especially and ONLY FOR GIRLS!!!
http://www.mzbaltazarslaboratory.org/blogDE/

There are things to be learned, like laser cutting, silk screen printing, processing or anything else that you are interested in.
You wanna join up with me? Plz contact!

I found some really inspiring photographers the last days and I would love to share them with you

Della Bass
She’s an Australian photographer and lives in New York. She mainly shoots fashion and some travel and portraiture. Her work is full of color and life, I love it!
www.dellabass.com

Norbert Kniat
a Vienna based fashion photographer for international clients.
www.kniat.de -  (website done by myfriendfromberlin.com. also interesting inspirations there )

Anders Bergh
has been working as independent photographer since 1993, with his own studio in Copenhagen. He also worked with several international brands and advertising agencies. I really love his style and cleanliness. Hard contrasts, full HDR power – check it out yourself at:
bergh.dk

Lyndon Wade
is a NYC based commercial photographer, who shoots for world’s most famous ad agencies. Great colors & compositions ideas!
lyndonwade.com

A little shop in the 3rd district of Vienna with lots of accessoires, gifts and well-designed home-stuff. We got in touch with the people there and took some photos of some products with our macro lens. The lightning was low (like in every store) but enough for some good shots:

[View with PicLens]

if you want to get in touch with this lovely two-person crew check out:
www.samtundsonders.co.at

I think my head will explode.
Last night was a horror. We put Koko outside of her cage as usually, everything surrounded by little colorful fences to protect her, but she was so curious about what was going on outside, that nothing could catch her attention.
No food, no towers of towels and books to crawl upon. Not even rucola.

So after a while we decided to put her onto our bed.
Koko was excited! How grand the world can be! But the fast little gnome made her way across our barriers and all of a sudden was under the bed. But there was no need for panic, as Koko is not scared at all and did not use the bed as her hiding place.
Luckily she is also not interested in gnawing on wires or anything. After a while I caught her and put her back into her cage, but that little incident seemed to make things even worse. She behaved a little berserk, gnawing on the bars all the time.
All through the night, it was no stoping her. I used a little spray bottle filled with water to keep her from any further harm (it can´t be good if she hurts her nose and teeth all the time), but no way.
Next try was to lube the bars with ordinary mustard. Still nothing.
At about 7 A.M. I came to the point where I used chili paste. Finally peace. Koko did not even try another attempt, she must have smelled that this substance has to be really HOT!

So she shuffled off, making her bed and letting me have my well-deserved sleep.
Oh please don´t do this again…

This is my brother. Quite cute, huh?

Well, he started drawing Mangas a few days ago, and I have to say I am very impressed by the outcome.
He is 11 years old and if he goes on like this, he will beat me by 18 for sure.

Have a look!

“Hey, you know what? Let´s have an art trade! I pick out one of my pictures and you send me one of yours!”
So that was basically the idea that came up on one of the art chats on Jared´s ning site.
If you know me from facebook, you probably have seen some of his comments on my wall.
He is an artist, a teacher and a philosopher, appart from being very funny and open-hearted.
Check him out here:

http://www.jaredknight.com/
http://twitter.com/jaredknightcom
http://www.youtube.com/user/jaredknightcom
http://www.etsy.com/shop/jaredknight
http://jaredknight.ning.com/ (here you can find his classes!)

So, what about the trade?
I wanted to make a customized illustration, that showed him as my favourite animal: a cat.
It is a mixture between outer appereance (the glasses and the eyecolor) and inner appereance
(the lotusheart and the water lilly).

I found his painting yesterday, stuffed into my mailbox by the mailman. How thoughtful!
It was packed in bubble wrap and as I teared it off, white bits of the canvas showed.
“Holy shit, I ruined it!” I thought, but actually that was part of the painting! (Or Jared? Did I really mess it up? *lol*)

As I flipped it around, I read the name “Internal”, which I think is very suitable, for the colors mostly show black, purple and blue (the latter two being the colors of creativity). Quite interesting also is the fact, that some kind of silhoutte shows on the right, where the color is missing.
(But that is just the human desire to see something in every abstract painting.)
I also like some red points showing through, like something deeper and passionate luring through the darkness.
The composition alltogether is very fiery and driving, like some sandstorm of emotions.

So, what do you think? Comments!!!!

This is a painting I made today for a friend of mine, as she will move into her new flat next week.
It is about 1m x 1m (or 40inches x 40 inches). Used materials are color pigments, acryl and water color.
The colors are soft and her facial expressions are knowing, wise and lush.
Just as I imagine a Buddha to be. I want her to look after my friend and give comfort in hard times.
My boyfriend (who knows her aswell) added some signs at the side.