www.rutgerblom.com

Check out this young photographer’s work at http://www.icedsoul.de/. Teymur Madjderey from Germany is a very talented and diverse photographer and a true inspiration to me.

I recently came across a Dutch article explaining how to create an US iTunes account. It’s simple and I would like to share it with you.

With an US iTunes account you can download free apps that are only available in the US App Store. For instance the official Flickr app was initially only available in certain countries. I had it installed on my Swedish iPhone from day 1. Yesterday Adobe released Photoshop for iPhone which is only available in the US and Canadian App Store. I have it installed already.

So this is what you do:

1. Start iTunes. If you’re still logged in with another account log out first
2. Go to the start page of the iTunes Store and switch to the United States store
3. Important: Now go to the App Store and pick a free application like Remote
4. Don’t log in, instead choose to create a new account
5. Just go through the steps of creating a new account. At the point where you have to select a payment method you can choose none. This is option is only available if you chose a free application in step 3
6. Enter your information and USA address. You can easily find one on a hotel site or something
7. Finish the registration and wait for the activation mail from Apple.
8. After activation you can log in with your US account and start downloading free apps

That’s it. I hope you find it useful.

Personal friend and photographer Håkan Dahlström is showing off his great photos on this website/blog. Besides photos you will find interesting articles about photography. Make sure to check out: http://www.dahlstroms.com/

Two photographers, Annika and Tilman, specialized in publicity photography for the music industry as well as concert photography. Make sure you check out their website: http://blickwechsel.ch

This summer I’ve been upgrading my camera gear. It all started with the Canon EF 17-40mm 4L USM back in June. One month later I replaced my Canon EOS 400D with the Canon EOS 5D Mark II. Last week I received my new Domke F2 camera bag and yesterday I picked up the Canon EF 70-200mm 4L USM (picture) which more or less completes the upgrade. I now have the camera, the lenses and the range that I want even though I can think of at least one more lens.

Upgrading camera and lenses like this is expensive. Especially for an amateur like me. It’s not something I plan on doing every two years or so. I planned this upgrade months ago and of course had to sell my previous equipment. Is it worth it? I can’t say. For me it is, for you it might not. I think you’ve seen that I take my hobby very serious. I invest a lot of time in photography and I really enjoy doing so. I want to work under the best possible conditions and for me camera equipment is a part of that.

That said, expensive equipment by itself does not automatically produce and is certainly no guarantee for great productions. It is the person behind the camera who has to take care of that.