Yesterday, on August 27th, was the first anniversary of this blog! One year is of course a ridiculously short period of time and I doubt that anybody remembers her first anniversary. Figuratively, this blog is still an infant. However, one year - the first year - is still a significant period with profound development and growth. Including this short post, this blog featured 74 articles in its first year (a little over 1.4 per week) and according to Google it obtained more than 7600 page views (although I am not certain what this exactly means because different tools report different numbers). By a very large margin, the majority of visitors came from the USA, followed by Switzerland and Germany. Although this blog is mainly about photography, and in particular about photographs that I have taken myself, the two most popular posts were about "other" artist. The most visited text was the "my treasures" post on Ueli Lüthi, which was followed by the similar post on Rudolf Mirer. I am glad that these two contributions about artists that I like were appreciated.

The first candle (is a match in this case).
 

Most important for me was the fact that I enjoyed launching and maintaining this blog and that it attracted visitors with very little advertisement. One of the only forms of advertisement that I did was to register Florian's blog at Photoblogs, where quite a few people found it and commented from time to time (thank you!). I have even realized just now that this blog is listed by two Photoblog members in their blog lists (Landlicht and Trompe-l'oeil), which is very kind indeed (thank you very much!). The texts that I enjoyed writing the most were those of the "my photo treasures" series. Except for one case, every photographer that I asked allowed to show one of his photographs (thank you very much!) and my inquiry sometimes resulted in short "e-mail conversations", which was nice.
In contrast to this blog, the demons from the social media abyss such as Twitter, Google+, Flickr or  Facebook (which I do not use at all) do not suit me well. I have no time and energy to also engage in media that require constant attention and I am also far too deliberate for such spontaneous "chat". A blog is a medium that I like me much better! Therefore, I am glad to go about the second year of Florian's blog and hope that I will manage to regularly write and continually attract readers and visitors from far and close. If you have a comment, suggestion or question for "my" second year, please let me know!

I thank everybody for visiting and hope that you enjoy!

Florian.

The fourth Light & shadow composition to document my quest for interesting photographs right in front of our entry door! If you are interested in variations on this theme have a look at the light teeth, staircase light stripes or staircase light and shadow from earlier posts.

I have discovered the much acclaimed photography of Cole Thompson a while ago and have been following his blog ever since. Cole Thompson is a sophisticated black and white fine art photographer and a master of long exposure photography. For example, have a look at the impressive captures of The Ghosts of Auschwitz-Birkenau: Regular visitors at this memorial of horror have been turned into ghosts by long exposure times. The photographs are also presented in a YouTube clip and Cole Thomson tells the story of this portfolio in writing here (you have to scroll down quite a bit). If you like such beautiful but also reflective and weighty photographs you may also want to look at the Portrait of Breast Cancer. 
However, most of Cole Thomson's photographs do not include humans and feature visions and compositions from man-made or natural environments. A wonderful example is the symmetry and unexpected beauty of ceiling lamps when looking at them straight up. I also particularly like the Dunes of Nude and Harbinger portfolios and last but not least the Fountainhead album, which is an ingenious collection of photographs of distorted reflections of sky scrapers on ferrotype plates.  The procedure is explained in an interesting interview of Cole Thompson that is worth being read. The name of the portfolio is borrowed from the novel The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, which apparently was an influential book for Cole Thompson and similarly so for myself. 

Photograph © Cole Thompson. The Fountainhead No. 4 - Minneapolis, MN - 2010.
 

In general, I like the careful and thoughtful composition and development as well as  the diversity of themes in the photography of Cole Thompson. It is a perfect example for the value of themes or series! By looking at these portfolios (many photographs can also be enjoyed on YouTube) and while thinking about what to write I have come to the conclusion that collections of photographs with a coherent theme add authenticity to the photographer and her or his vision. In addition, the photography of Cole Thompson may appear so authentic because it is a work of passion - Cole Thompson purposefully decided not to pursue a career in photography but to photograph out of love, meaning as an amateur. Last but not least and on a personal note, I can very well relate to the writing and "photosophy" (maybe even philosophy) of Cole Thompson, which is of course not necessary in order to appreciate a photograph but nevertheless worthy of mentioning (you can learn more about Cole Thompson in further interviews here, here or here). 

I hope you enjoy!

Florian.

The third Light & shadow composition from our staircase (light teeth and light stripes were the previous ones).