I’ve been printed! Not literally, but pictures I took and retouched got printed in a local (big) malls magazine. At this point, thanks so much to Ragno and the whole MeRox crew. As you can see on the picture, there’s a makeup tutorial on it. I didn’t layout the page, but did the retouch on the pictures with the model and I shot the product pictures. It was quite a moment to see this actually laying around in stores and so on. The first time in my life, somebody printed my creative work. (How creative photo retouch and product photography is, is up for discussion) Anyhow I’m a little proud about getting on the paper.

Here is one of the guys that keeps me going. He and his style are quite destined to encourage and admire. Who once in a while visits deviantART probably knows him, he’s almost an icon there. Enough of the sweet-talk let’s get a picture of who I am talking about: On letting go… by *jaimeibarra on deviantART

The layer of reality & intimacy in the photos we created was undeniable. You simply cannot fake that…and it was exactly this that I fell in love with. This was myintroduction to photography. I quickly became addicted to having a muse. To photograph someone I love…and someone that loves me. It is a powerfully-addicting drug, believe me.

Muses can be taken as life dividing chapters in his life, as far as I’ve seen. The emotional and often nude or semi-nude pictures carry moods, moments through their colourful and unique style. What stands out through his website and his galleries is the pure dedication to his medium and the time he takes to explain what his works mean to him. Experience both in a technical and also the stories that he puts in relation with them. His comments on his works, especially on the personal ones are a mixture between a little behind the scenes and a lot of honest journal writing. To see more of his pictures I can, apart from his portfolio, his deviantART gallery. You probably need to sign up to dA because of their mature content policy. Here a couple of pieces I especially like:

Escape by *jaimeibarra on deviantART

Sin Pausa by *jaimeibarra on deviantART

Lucy in Disguise by *jaimeibarra on deviantART

Seek by *jaimeibarra on deviantART
Last but not least, a little self-interview with frequently asked questions from Lauren Calaway and Jaime Ibarra:

(This is me, still wearing the make-up from the shooting today, had to put a little goth element in it ;))

Today I slept over a little and we were doing HTML basics, so I skipped my class and went straight to my photoshoot for my first assignment in my design class. I’m very thankful that Xenia gave me a hand and took the photos for me. Afterwards of course the post-work, melting the photographies together using layer masks and adding the elements for the rest of the cover. I’m getting along with Photoshop pretty well, but it’s a little hard to get along with the keybindings, that differ a lot from the GIMP.

Click the image to see them full-size on deviantART:

As you can see on the image above, it’s shot in the rain, but how do you protect your loved camera in this shitty weather? How do you keep drops on your lense from ruining your pictures or forcing you to spend hours retouching them?

What you will need is a UV-Filter (like the hama you see here) fitting your lense. I bought one for my EOS 18-55mm Kit lense which has a 58mm diameter. UV-Filters are extremely handy for protecting your lense from dust, rain or other fluids, plus they are a lot easier to keep clean. You have to watch out for more reflections though. The prize of this one was about 13€, so it’s one of the cheap ones, but will do quite well. The second thing you need is a package of cleaning wipes for glasses, you probably know them if you wear glasses yourself. They are fairly cheap, so just stop by your local supermarket and see what they have.With your UV-Filter attached, out in the rain, you just wipe off drops with the cleaning wipes, it will dry in seconds! That is because of the chemicals used, leaving no marks behind.
Important: Don’t ever do that to your lense! You’ll risk scratching it or harming the coating!

About the rest of the camera: most DSLR bodies don’t bother much when they get a few drops of water, check your manual for further details.

After shooting, put your camera back into your bag, clean it later, if necessary. My camera bag isn’t waterproof, but it’s thick enough to keep the rain out for a good amount of time. In case of unplanned, longer stays in wet weather or really heavy rain, I keep a small plastic bag in there, I can pull over, which keeps it dry.
As you can see, this equiptment is very low budget (my camera bag was about 20€) so I guess it’s worth trying.
Thank you all for reading and I hope you can benefit a little from my experience