Photocritic photography blog

Right, the winners for the competition have been picked! By deadline, there were 151 competition entries, and I used Random.org to pick the winners.

The winners are:

#2 - ryan97ou
#88 - Luís Brás
#120 - John Jimenez
#116 - Tim Norris
#98 - Aaron Snowden

I’ll e-mail you all as soon as to get your addresses so I can ship the books out to you. CONGRATULATIONS!

Original competition for posterity: Read the rest of the article »

Hi guys,

Sorry about the lack of updates recently, it’s been rather hectic in Haje-World recently: I’ve recently moved, and I’ve got a new job, so I’ve been a bit stacked with stuff to do. Finally, I haven’t got the internet sorted at home yet, so I’m typing this from an internet cafe with sticky keys, bad coffee and worse music.

Read the rest of the article »

If you want to get extremely close to insects, you may have to convince them to stop moving somehow.

Sadly I have yet to come across tranquilliser darts for bumblebees (if you know of any, post a comment!), so killing them is the only way to persuade them to sit still.

It sounds terribly barbaric, but it isn’t, really: If you make one of these jars correctly, you can kill insects quickly and painlessly. If you feel bad about it afterwards, you can always bury it in a tiny grave and sing it a song - make sure you get photos first, though! Read the rest of the article »

Even though it won’t go on sale for another couple of months, things are starting to happen really quickly now. I’ve finished most of my involvement of the book, and I’ve handed it over to the project-, copy- and technical editors, designers, and publishing boffins.

They never told me quite how much work it is to write a book on macro photography. It’s been a hell of a ride, and I’ve loved every second of it.

I was first contacted by the publishers on the 10th of August last year. Today, nearly six months later, I am sending the last files of the last chapter to the publisher. Read the rest of the article »

As some of you know, I’m currently writing a book about macro photography. As part of this, I’m writing an appendix on the commercial uses of macro, only to realise that I don’t know that many professions that use macro- and micro photography as part of their everyday life.

So… I’m turning to you, my faithful and lovely readers, to appeal to your wisdom. Can you think of any fields where macro photography is used regularly?

I’ve come up with the following:

• Forensics
• Research science
• Food photography
• Jewelry catalogues

… What else can you think of? Pretty please leave a comment — you can be anonymous if you want to!

Hi, my lovelies!

Well, the contracts have been signed, and I’m working my arse off on the photography book I am writing. It’s a tremendous honour and a fantastic challenge to be asked to write a book, but next to my 10-to-12-hour-a-day day-job and spending the rest of the time writing my book, there isn’t a lot of time for other things, including eating, sleeping, communicating with friends, or updating my Photocritic blog.

It’s a damn shame, because I do love this blog (hell, it’s the reason why I was asked to write the book in the first place, so it’s actually invaluable to my status quo), but there just isn’t a lot of time.

My deepest apologies. I expect to start getting a little bit more time as the book starts taking shape. Stay tuned - we’ll soon return to our regular scheduled programming. Oh, and no doubt I’ll be whoring out my book as well - it’s due to hit the book-shops in spring 2007. All I need to do now is to write the damn thing :)

Much love,

Haje Jan Kamps

Hi all,

A while ago, a publisher asked me if I wanted to write a book on a topic within Photography. I’m terribly excited and humbled, and I can’t wait to get started properly.

Of course, this means that I won’t have quite as much time to update Photocritic over the next couple of days, but I still hope to manage an update every third to fourth day or so :)

I’m hyped to shreds about this project! I will probably need a bit of help from some of you guys over time (Here’s your chance to have some photos published, perhaps?!), but I can’t divulge too much at this time - I haven’t even signed any contracts or anything yet, although I’m reasonably certain it is going though.

Stay tuned, as they say on radio. Perhaps I should say “stay bookmarked”, instead…

- Haje