In any town, big or small, it is possible to have Pecha Kucha Night. There are currently 522 cities participating in the event, with over 2000 nights already organized. And what’s fantastic about it, anyone can participate.

I took part in quite a few Pecha Kucha Nights already, both in my hometown Koszalin and in Oslo. One time I prepared a presentation about street photography and other times just came to watch. I’m amazed by all the enthusiasm and creativity surrounding the night.

In my town people organize the event themselves, in different places. On the streets, in pubs or galleries. It took place in The Homeless Gallery that was organized in an old, abandoned building. Other time they even closed the main street creating a pedestrian zone where the stage was set up.

Volunteers prepare the space, organize the equipment and gather people. In Koszalin they even cleaned up an unused backyard between old tenement houses in town’s center, recreating a beautiful space everyone forgot about. People need to engage themselves to make it happen—that’s why Pecha Kucha is so unique.

20 Reasons why You should go to Pecha Kucha

1. You will meet some really strange people
2. You will rest from your computer
3. You will learn what people in your surroundings do
4. You will learn a thing or two
5. You will broaden you perspective
6. For 7 minutes You will enter someone’s own world
7. You will improve your mood
8. You will forget about your daily duties
9. You will see beautiful things
10. You will be amazed
11. You will see more possibilities
12. You will feel the urge for change
13. You will come up with a new idea
14. You will find motivation to start up
15. You will learn how to prepare a good presentation
16. You will learn how to sell yourself and your idea
17. People will learn about your idea, business or dream
18. You will find like-minded people
19. You will meet potential customers or recipients of your project
20. You may find your second half

Check it out yourself

Pecha Kucha draws it’s name from the Japanese term for the sound of “chit chat.” It has a very simple but distinct presentation method: 20 images in 20 seconds. This way presentations are concise and they move at a rapid pace. They never get boring and the tempo encourages people to tackle their topic in a creative way. Sharing ideas has never been more fun.

Below two presentations from the Pecha Kucha archives.

Be up to date

Pecha Kucha Night Koszalin on Facebook
Pecha Kucha Night Oslo on Facebook
Find a event near you.

Conclusion

When you have some spare time in the evening, and Pecha Kucha happen to be near you, give it a try. Your head will be spinning with ideas, I guarantee.

Even if Pecha Kucha hasn’t yet come nearby, why not organizing it yourself? You can check the requirements on the official website, it’s easier than you think!

Do you participate in Pecha Kucha Night? What other offline creative events do you know?

If you’ve got a room—and I’m pretty sure you do—you can prepare it for one of the coolest, yet simplest weekend projects. Camera obscura is easy to make: choose a window, darken it with thick curtains or black foil and make a hole in it. You don’t even have to cut it, just prepare a black cardboard, cut a round hole in it and stick it to the window.

Then all you need is to seal the curtains so they don’t shine through, turn around and be amazed. It’s fascinating how such a simple thing can create a beautiful image all over your wall.

No wonder people were intrigued with camera obscura for ages and used it in numerous ways. I remember how I was amazed with the idea when I read how Edvard Munch used a more portable version to make sketches for his paintings.

And it still impresses me that the very same method can be used in creating beautiful art also today. And through the years it did not loose it’s value.

How about you? Let me know what you think about camera obscura or simply choose your answer:

1. I’ve done it
2. I plan to
3. Not interested

PS: More than one answer can be correct.

One of the places that I like to visit regularly, even if I can be there just for a moment, is Sognsvann lake in Oslo. It’s a beautiful place, especially in the winter, perfect for a short walk or a longer trip in the forest.

Throughout the year you can meet there many people who look for a little rest—most often very active one. In the summer it’s a place for a barbecue and picnic. Many people run on the path around the Sognsvann, other swim in the lake, ride a bike or go roller skating. Sunbathing is also very popular although keep in mind that summer is a bit shorter in Oslo than Western Europe.

In the winter, when the lake freezes, it’s surface begins to have a new kind of life. Ski trails show up crossing the lake from every side. Of course, paths that run around the lake are even more popular now than in the summer. Norwegians are well known for their passion for cross-country skiing and you can really experience that around the Sognsvann lake.

Cross-country skiing on Sognsvann

Sognsvann is perfect for outdoor activities—it is fully adapted for use by man and yet it’s not being degraded. It is also a marvelous place for landscape photography as the views are beautiful—the lake, mountains and forests, they all work together in a quiet harmony that is so unique for Norway.

How do you like it? Would you like to go for some cross-country skiing?

I’ve recently come upon a link on my twitter feed from Zack Arias. The tweet said:

I heart Kai RT @fstoppers: [Video] Become a Professional Photographer in One Week (or not) fstoppers.com/?p=24954

— Zack Arias (@zarias) February 20, 2012

At first it didn’t catch my eye, but the next day I couldn’t stop thinking if they really nailed it—training a rookie into a professional photographer in just a week? Crazy at first thought, or is it?

I came into the photography when the digital was already well popular, but it wasn’t taken for granted. But ever since I remember, everyone around talked about cameras, and much less often about actual photos. Since then, we’ve witnessed a crazy technological development, cameras getting smaller and more intuitive. The manufacturers have been pushing the pixel craze harder and harder. And as cameras became ubiquitous, everyone can be called a photographer.

Kai Man Wong from the online photography channel DigitalRev TV made quite a point with his video. However, what struck me most was not the fact that (spoiler alert) they couldn’t teach an ordinary young guy into a pro over a week. That was quite obvious for me. What did strike me, was that they got the idea that it could be possible.

More and more people have awesome cameras nowadays, just because they can afford then, not because they need them. And let’s be honest, most people would do better photos with a point and shoot camera than a DSLR. As Zack Arias mentioned in his article on medium format, sometimes those paying for photos own better gear than those getting paid to create them.

What do you think?

Is the future of photography in the hands of every other guy or gal with a camera? Or (as Kai has proven) the equipment and photographic lingo is way not enough?

The guy with dreadlocks

A while back I had a chance to take some photos of my friend Kuba, a very open-minded and unusual person. He is a guy who simply can’t walk by unnoticed. Since I remember, he’s been growing his, now over a meter long, dreadlocks. You can check them out below.

For the photo-shoot, I decided to use my ordinary white-background set-up and spice it up a bit by moving the main light from side to side. For the close-up portrait at the bottom, I used similar set-up to the one from my Week 5 self-portrait and mixed it with the ideas we developed during Sessions for Friends.

While reviewing photos from our session, I discovered that they remarkably well illustrate a notion that I have been thinking about for a while now—the feeling of being overwhelmed by the amount of information that surrounds us.

Do you feel entangled in too much information?

Too much information can lead us to callousness—we stop caring about things around us. We feel that most of them are meaningless. Do I need that billboard on the wall? Do I care about the adverts in the sidebar? Do I have to see the same and the same slogans all around?

Simultaneously, living is such world gives us many possibilities. We have the whole world at our fingertips. In one moment we can read local news and then take part in an online event initiated on another continent.

But all those possibilities force us to make decisions. What should we choose? Or rather how can we choose those that are most valuable to us? Some people content themselves with newspapers or radio, other can’t imagine a day without Internet. And other can’t imagine a day without Facebook.

In some way, social media came for a rescue allowing as to create our little, customized worlds of information and to help us communicate and share. But isn’t it true that our walls and news feeds are a mess? It leads us to another decisions on which pieces of information to choose. Which articles, posts, videos are significant? Too much information indeed.

The rise of curated media

Many of us feel overwhelmed by information, and that can be one of the reasons for the growing numbers of websites that allow users to sort and rank information. Those looking for only the most essential stories will be grateful for this new trend of media curation.

In curated media, users themselves can decide which news or articles are important for them. This way, other readers can check major headlines at once and read most useful stories. In addition, like minded people and tribe leaders can share most valuable information for their niches.

For those of you not familiar with the idea of tribes, there is an excellent free ebook by Seth Godin where he answers many tribe-related questions. In my opinion, curated media make it even easier to be a part of a tribe.

Recently we could see the rise of many new services which let people curate information. Websites such as Quora or StumbleUpon have been here for a while. Newer ones like Scoop.it! or Inbound.org allow us to search and follow information that is most valuable to us. What we basically do there is share what we feel is important and let others do the same. However, differently from social media that have mostly open and endless streams, they create certain capabilities to allow users curate that information.

Which path do you prefer?

By curated media you will learn what is the most important for the community. You will know what song is on top, but you probably know it from Facebook already. But none else besides you knows what is really valuable for you.

I know Kuba deals with it quite well, so I’m curious what ways to deal with the overwhelming information you’ve got. Share in the comments.

Interview with Magdalena Wierzbowiecka

Marcin: When did you first become interested in design and illustrations? How did it happen?

Magdalena: I surely won’t be too original saying that always, but it’s actually since I remember that art has been close to me in different forms. I’m sure that thanks to my parents, who cultivated my interests since I was a child, I begun consciously directing my path into things connected with art. Studies, people full of ideas and joy of life, it all allowed and still allows me to develop my interests around it, and even more clarify its scope, which makes it even closer to me.

The Dreams workshop

Marcin: Where do you draw your inspiration from?

Magdalena: For me, inspiration can come from everything, both what surrounds me, and what I feel: love, joy, cracked pavement, damp patch on the wall, people on the street, on the bus, the seasons and so on. And it’s not important to accurately calculate all elements because we get inspired by many more things that, unconsciously, we omit somewhere along the way. We are obsessed with a creative frenzy, thinking that we are already confident of our idea. Sometimes, behind those seemingly simple things is the best resolution for our implementations. I think that being an observer is a very important feature so we can discover what waits to be discovered and see anew something that we meet on our daily path.

The Puffy Sheep

Marcin: How did you come up with an idea for the series of children’s books The (Little) Pearls of Wisdom? What tools did you use to create them?

Magdalena: At the beginning there was… the text, which came up really naturally and quite quickly, with no major dilemmas, headache or questions: why do I really create this? Only afterwards did the idea come up to create illustrations to the piece and compose a children book that turned out to be my thesis project.

After the studies I managed to establish cooperation with a publisher that wanted not only The Puffy Sheep [ed: the first book] but also 2 other books that would create a publishing series. I called them The (Little) Pearls of Wisdom. Texts are minimalistic and have educational nature—hence the name for the series—and at the end of each book there are interactive tasks that refer to the content.

It was my first adventure in creating my very own book where from the beginning to the end I could plan its every detail. When it comes to technique, I always combine traditional tools and then I use the possibilities of a computer using photographs of my works.

One of illustrations to Julian Tuwim’s texts

Marcin: Do you meet with incomprehension of your art, or you workflow? How do you deal with critique?

Magdalena: I assume that if we like doing something, we should just go forward, and critique should only (if it’s valuable, wise and constructive) affect our further development. In fact, criticism is a very subjective thing, and its usually a point of view of one person who is guided by their experience, knowledge or taste. Having that in mind, it’s good to find the golden mean in this case so that we don’t get on high horse or walking around disheartened, because then we won’t be able to see what we have to do.

Marcin: Much of your work begins on a computer screen, but at the same time the end products are printed books, maps, posters or even whole rooms covered with your illustrations. Are you dreaming of any new ways of using your art? Any particular products or spaces?

Magdalena: I would really like to combine modern elements with things that already existed and people would gladly come back to and rediscover. I’m interested in the way that art engages in a dialog and draws us into a ‘game’ in which we want to be involved. Such interaction and direct contact with the recipient, e.g. in a public space, is something very valuable and genuine as it touches the spontaneity of our reactions.

I have many ideas waiting for implementation, but sometimes even a month of time can change the way we want to provide the same values. So the process between the planning and the execution can take a long time. I’m sure my next project will be a book that focuses on our senses and develops them through play. But until it is ready, there is nothing to see, feel or talk about.

…from a stain of spilled paint the entire picture is formed.

Marcin: What was the most crazy (or unusual) project that you accomplished?

Magdalena: Certainly, each of illustrator workshops with children that I conduct is just such a project. I always try to make workshops topics only a small guideline to encourage children’s vivid imagination. When the creative frenzy begins and every possible material in reach of small hands attack the whiteness of a clean paper, I can only support them and try to keep their so changeable enthusiasm of the small impatient. We are not limited in technique—usually it’s mixed because you can find basically everything on illustrations: plasticine, yarn, pasta, newspapers and of course some traditional work tools like paint or crayons.

I sometimes show that unintentional paint patch or crooked line are not a reason to lament but one of the best effects. When all works are ready, we begin the computer post-processing where everyone can have a further impact on the final result—here I begin to play for good. Some works change almost entirely, others only slightly, however, always with the approval of young authors. If someone wouldn’t be happy with the result—we work as required. For each illustration, we create a text, which is sometimes fun to tears or comes close to abstraction.

These workshops show us adults how much we want to get closer to the world of a child, and children (ironically) try to mimic the reality as faithfully as they can. It is the children from whom we can learn a lot, especially the joy and sincerity.

When we think that nothing can surprise us and our imagination stopped at the border “not proper for adults,” it turns out that from a stain of spilled paint the entire picture is formed, dogs are conquering the outer space, goldfish grant wishes and dreams become reality. All you need to do is to get drawn into that magical world and everything becomes easier.

Marcin: Thank you for your thoughts.

I would like to add that Magdalena is a designer of my new logo and helped a lot with websites design. As you can see she not only inspires her students and children, but also me, and, I hope, she will inspire you as well.

You can find more from Magdalena Wierzbowiecka on her Illustrations and Graphics website.

I’ve passed along this graffiti many times. It’s slogan decorates probably thousand walls around the world, yet here it seems especially striking. If you ever wondered on Housmanns gate in Oslo, you must have noticed it.

In every city in the world besides those most known spots, there are mysterious corners which create city’s unique atmosphere. Suburbs, old districts, long not renovated buildings are often enriched with street art. Locals are often very familiar with it as every day they go by it in a hurry.

Today I would like to share with you a few examples of street art in Oslo.

Kindergarten’s wall

The not so boring space

Street art can diversify the boring space or send an important message. It’s not surprising that many cities show off their most interesting graffiti and allow them near main roads or representative places.

But let’s not forget not everything can be art. Scribbling on newly renovated buildings is far from beautiful. However, towns which let organized groups of artists paint on old or abandoned places can be very surprised with amazing results.

Oslo is very open-minded when it comes to street art. There is plenty of space for graffiti and murals while there are very few wild scribbles. It’s very different from many places I’ve seen before. Although I’ve lived here for a while, I still discover more and more of them. And that is a real joy.

A rural perspective

Graffiti in Oslo is fairly popular, however, it is not the only place where it flourishes. Norwegian street art got out of cities and hit many places around the country. The Lofoten archipelago can be a great example, where a couple painters begun animating abandoned houses in rural areas. The project is called “Living Decay: fairy tales in the middle of nowhere.” It features some amazing graffiti, check out the video below.

What do you think about such form of art? Is it an important part of our surroundings?

Every time I come back to my home town, I become more and more aware of it’s locality. Koszalin isn’t big but there are plenty of people who want to make cool things, either for creative reasons or just for fun.

I recently guested DJ Pyteck, a co-founder of a “Baltic Waves” project which aims to promote good club music in the area. He plays deep, tech house and more of electronic genres.

We met at my home where I prepared a quick photo set. A backdrop plus some stands is all you really need to make clean, studio photos. A few strobes come in handy too.

Set-up

For our main shots I used a simple, 3-strobe set-up, with two lighting the background. I used silver reflective umbrellas to even out the light and get a bit smoother shadows on the talent. They are cheap and easy to transport—a good choice when you want to travel light. Transparent ones are also great, especially when you want very soft light, but they are a pain to control in tight spaces.

The key light was high over the talent and I moved it from frame to frame to try different moods.

Even creating a custom desk for the session is not a big deal. You can make one out of a keyboard stand, a long plank and some white material. If you don’t have a keyboard stand around, you can also use desk trestles.

Getting into the club

While the pure white can give an ethereal feel that is very cool on it’s own, I decided to try a few club-like photos as well. Theatrical color gels can change the mood of a photograph instantly.

First I used almost the same 3-light set as with the black and white shots. I took off the umbrella from the left back strobe and aimed it at the talent. Then I put a red gel on it, and dark blue ones on other strobes. I didn’t even need to move them much.

You can see well here that so small change as 3 gels and turning around a strobe can change things dramatically.

For the last shot I used a single strobe from the right. I wanted to get harsh shadows and so I pointed it directly at the talent without an umbrella. This made the mood even more club.

It’s cool to work with people who are passionate about the thing they do. It’s also a breeze to let them do what they love and photograph them in the process. A really fun experience.

The beginnings

While creating an impression, what is important to me is that little glimpse of the scene which only I can see. Ever since I first grabbed a camera, I wanted to capture those tiny moments of life. I tried many times with mixed results. My first more thoughtful attempt was Reconstructing my Mind project where I photographed transitory reflections of light in water.

After finishing that project, I looked for new ways of capturing an impression with a camera. One day, during a walk in a forest, I noticed that tall trees have a very distinct feeling if looked cursorily or rapidly over them.

This gave an idea to try doing the same I did with my eyes, using a camera.

Impression no. 5

I created the photograph at the top long after the no. 4 in the Aker Brygge district of Oslo. I decided to name my impressions with numbers as it has quite a long history among painters. Plus I find it very adequate for their form.

As I mentioned, my initial inspiration were trees. Their shape—at least some of them—made them especially interesting from human eyes perspective. We see quite wide with them but at any moment only look at certain points. When we look quickly along a long shape, it blurs and loses it’s details.

When I came to Oslo, I was struck with amazing architecture. There was Aker Brygge, National Opera, old tenement houses and many more. First I wanted to photograph them in their full beauty. But when I got to know them, I begun seeing them differently. The association with the long shapes of trees came quite recently.

Since I begun capturing impressions, I more and more often happen to look at the surroundings in a different way. Architecture can become less distinct and more abstract if looked rapidly. This way, even in the most familiar area, I can find something new and curious. And that’s how I find my impressions.

Not thinking about your gear

Walking around with a 2kg brick doesn’t belong to the most subtle experiences. That’s why the less you need to think about that Brick, the better.

We all know possible ways of wearing a camera:

• over a neck – the tourist style,
• on an arm – the reporter style,
• in a hand – the sports style,
• on a tripod – the landscape style,
• in a bag – the hobbyist style.

For a long time, while using an ordinary strap, I used a combination of hand and arm styles. The later usually while waling a longer distance. I have to admit it was rather depressing. I was either thinking about that slowly slipping strap or the weigh of a camera. And I’m not using the heaviest one…

I searched the interwebs for some better solution and , while there were a few I liked, when I saw Black Rapid, I knew that’s the one for me. After finally getting one, it completely changed my experience. It’s sturdy, secure and easily adjustable.

No more thinking about the a strap, now I just put it on and can wear it whole day with no hassle.

The speed is important

My street photography days taught me a lot about using a camera fast. That is why I often walked around with it in my hand – ready to take that photo. If I had a camera on my arm, it was usually too late.

Nowadays, my camera hangs freely near my hip, and whenever I feel like taking a picture, I just do. Like if the camera was in my hand all the time. That’s how easy and smooth it is. It just doesn’t get in the way.

Let’s be honest, there are others

I’m not implying that Black Rapid is the only company that made it right. Although they definitely were one of the first. There are a few interesting alternatives like this one from Think Tank that many reporters rely on.

But if you ever feel that the strap you are currently using gets in your way, I can easily recommend you the RS-7 from Black rapid that I’m using. Plus I really like their instructional videos, they were what sold me. Check the RS-7 one below.

And what methods of wearing a camera do you prefer?