Please indulge me writing down some thoughts here... I think it is important to elaborate a bit about pixel peeping, it's one of those new verbs brought to us by the digital photography revolution, and it has a profound impact on photography these days.

According to online dictionaries pixel peeping is the act of examination of digital imaging with maximum scrutiny often down to the very individual pixel level.

A benign statement in itself, but as I hinted in the title I think it has a profound impact on how a new generation of digital photographers now looks at their images. And also how a whole industry is actually taking advantage of it to their economic benefit! Let me explain:

In the old days the only way images were seen was on the paper they were printed on, or on the wall where the dia positive was projected, this was the case at least for most amateur photographers. So you ended up in fact with a complete overview of the picture and as such the images were also judged.
Digital photography in combination with computers and software changed all that. Now it is possible to zoom in to the individual pixel of the 24 million that are present in the file from a high-end camera. It has changed the way we view and judge images now profoundly: when examining a photograph I have not encountered a single person who does not use the magnifying glass, at least to zoom in to 100%. 
There is a whole group of "technophobe-photo-enthusiasts" out there populating the Internet photo community sites and fora who love testing and comparing different equipment by the technical quality of the images made with it at the pixel level, in the process the actual image itself is not that important anymore. Things like chromatic aberration, noise artifacts, pixel sharpness etc has become so important at these pixel levels, while viewing the picture as a whole they are completely unimportant. When browsing these fora, you get the feeling it's not about photography itself at all anymore, it's about technology.

It's also a great way for manufacturers to sell more camera's and other equipment! How do they do this? Simple: by playing along with the technology hypes in a handy way. Take a look at how many different camera models they now produce, the differences between subsequent models are mostly not that earth shattering. But they feed on the eagerness of those who lust after the best equipment they can get. Pixel peeping plays an extremely important role in this: by having the ability to examine at 100% you can see the improvements at the pixel level from the newer vs the older camera. In all fairness though when you take 2 identical pictures and look at them as a whole there is in most cases no difference at all to be seen. You have to go into zoom mode to start detecting differences... and thus the craving for the newer machine becomes a reality. So it has become much easier for the manufacturers to introduce new equipment multiple times a year, each time with marginal [sometimes bigger] improvements and continue to... sell and sell.
If the only way to look at our images would be the paper print from the olden days, there would be no compelling reason to buy new equipment, the images would still look practically the same using the 6-year old camera. Put the image on a 24-30 inch monitor though and you get a whole different story: whip out that wallet and buy the latest and greatest because look at these differences!!!

Now for the manufacturers it's also a double edged sword. Remember the case when Canon introduced the new 5DMarkII and on all those pixel peeping forums 100% crop images popped up showing what looked like a defect in the rendering of the image next to very bright spots -> you got a black spot... This is a 21Mpixel camera, so when viewing the image in it's own this hardly showed, if it did at all [and also only in certain circumstances] but that was it, the message was out and the fora and bulletin boards were full of it and more and more examples cropped up. I bet Canon would have cursed those pixel peeping Tom's at that moment

The whole pixel peeping tendency is also fueled by the magazines of course [online and in print] by their frequent "battle of the camera" articles where they put different manufacturers head to head. Of course documented with the imperative 100% crops from all contenders... look at how these pixels differ from camera to camera. Of course it would be pointless to show the complete image in print because there would not be much comparing to do. 

I personally welcome the extremely high granularity in which we can alter and fine tune our images now using the digital darkroom techniques. But at the same time I grew to dislike the "push" in the market for getting newer equipment all the time, something that only became possible at this level now that everyone is looking with a giant digital magnifying glass at their [and each other's] images.

A few months ago we organized a trip to South-East Germany to shoot some Urbex locations during a long weekend. We had several sites planned and because of the total distance we needed to keep more or less a tight schedule. It's not the ideal circumstance for a shoot IMO, I'm rather not bound by timing limits and rather see how it goes on the spot. But in this case we needed to make some compromise.

Our first stop was the Zeche Hugo, an abandoned mine which attracted me because it has a special Locker room system where the mine workers hoisted their clothes and shoes up to the ceiling inside small metal cages. Until now I had not had the opportunity to photograph such contraptions so off we went. Because of the timing constraints we just shot the locker and went off to the next location. From what I could gather from the rest of the building, there was not much interesting stuff anyway that I hadn't already seen in other mines and factories.

Next we went to Panacolor studio's, which is the name it is known by in the Urbex community. However right after entrance we were greeted by another 'party-of-5' of Dutch photographers. The studio is not that huge with small corridors and little editing rooms. So it was immediately way too crowded for my taste, sometimes having to wait in ones footsteps not to ruin the other guys shot. The 'abandoned' aspect was also a little lost, something I like in order to shoot in a different way. So to cut it short, it was a bit of a bummer but some nice keepers emerged anyway. We went back out pretty quickly because we needed to go to the next stop while the light was still good.

Arrival at Villa Victoria-Stift. Don't ask me where the name comes from, I have no clue. Tried to find some back ground on the place via my pall google, but didn't find much. I did manage to digg up an image from the time when it was used as a Sanatorium for children. Took mostly some HDR images which turned out pretty nice I think. Upon exit we were welcomed by a short and heavy rain-storm, good test for the camera bags. Not for us, we were all dressed in t-shirt :-p

After that straight to the hotel, already in the neighborhood for the next stop: a fun family day-out in Volklinger Hutte, a former [huge] steel factory, now converted to publicly accessible industrial museum. Not much "find the entrance" stuff here but I care about the picures and Volklingen Hutte certainly has much to offer here. It was a bright and sunny day, turned quite hot as well. So I left most of the heavy equipment like the Manfrotto tripod in the car and caried only my new belt bag without the top part. If you take your time to look carefully around for nice shots you might spend a whole day and more at this place, it is that huge. It is even safe to bring the kids along, give them a taste of what other places I go out shooting but which are way too dangerous for them to join!

So all in all we had a fun trip, good food and drinks along the way! Also check out the snapsshots in "urbex in action". They're one of the last images.

Here is a recommendation for a website to visit often if you are interested in history, photography and black and white in particular:
Shorpy. On this site they continuously make hi-res scans of very, very old photographs. Most of them taken at the turn of the last century. So we are talking about images almost 100 years in age!
Here is what I found astonishing:

• apparently these old shoeboxes with coatless glass lenses in front made damn good and sharp pictures.
• some of these images have an immens feel of depth in them... and remember that these ppl did not have photoshop to play with!
• look at the following image for instance... sharp, good contrast etc. AND it dates back to 1921. Think someone will be able to read our DVD within a 100 years? I consider myself lucky if it’s even readable in 5!

I know the site has not been updated lately. Past year I have been very busy with a lot of other things, including for the biggest part my day job. Therefore one of my new years resolutions is to get more stuff online.
At the moment I have many pictures still lying around on my hdd platters. Time to get them dusted of and put online wouldn't you say?
In the meantime, my best wishes to all who's reading this.

Proof that Beringen Coalmine is a dangerous place to wander about... I guess we don't need it anymore. Over time more and more news bulletins mention people falling through ceilings etc... whether they be urbex photographers or just plain old copper thieves.

I would like to take this opportunity to mention a photographer who's work I adore. Bruce Percy is a photographer living in Scotland. He is mostly interested in nature photography, well living in Scotland who wouldn't? One day when going through his online portfolio I stumbled upon what looked like a urban shoot! The Mavisbank House had been abandoned many years before and it reminded me a bit of Chateau Neufcour. Although it's not really his style he was enamoured by the place and decided to do an essay on it. He's not the person interested to go inside these kind of buildings but the beauty and purity of decay and the way the building becomes one with its surroundings over time is depicted well in his own style.
Sometimes I forget how the outside is equally important as the inside... The Mavisbank House
also take a look at his other astonishing work.

[This image is copyrighted by Brucy Percy ©1989-2007]

I recently found out by reading a book from Friedl' Lesage that famous Flemish defence Litigator Jef Vermassen has his office in a restaurated part of the castle [well a separated 'portiers huis' actually but it was part of the castle domain. Jef Vermassen is an art lover and he mentions he doesn't want to be around the office the day they start with the official destruction. We all can sympathise with that can't we?

Just a tidbit for those of you who didn't know...

As you can see I've decided to change the layout of the website (again). I need to change things quite a lot, in order to keep them fresh, clean or whatever other explanation there is for my constant need to changing things. This time I have opted for a kind of retro look using more subdued colours and tints, creating a kind of a classic old negative-photo-sticky book. Hope you like it, either way this allowed me to integrate the design of the journal blog you're now looking at with the rest of the site.

I'm enjoying a short holliday for the moment, hey it's the season for it right! So I will have some extra time to finish on some photographic work I had lying around here in the cupboard. I'm looking forward to putting some new stuff online during these days. Be sure to check out the site during the upcoming days and weeks for regular updates. You can always subscribe to my RSS feed as well to quickly see if something new is waiting for you

In the meantime I whish you all a Merry Christmas and of course already my best whishes for the next year. I hope for this year we can all elevate our level of thinking and emotions so we can eradicate as much violence and negative energy out there is the world. It's all just a matter of critical mass of positive thinking basically. I'll hope for that to happen this year... Cheers.

In Belgium we have some nice cemeteries and also a some very big ones. Het Schoonselhof in Antwerpen is one of the biggest in Europe [I believe there is a bigger one in the north of Germany, but I forgot the name].
This cemetery is visited not only by the people visiting deceiced relatives and friends but also photographers. I have been there a few times since it's in the neighborhood and everytime I see someone wielding a camera while running around the "old" section.

The old section is the nicest in my opinions because it has very old graves dating back to the years 18xx. People who were buried at that time usualy were rich and/or famous and their graves are decarated by beautiful old sculptures or they simply have a big tombe.

I've decided to get creative on this with my camera and the results will come online soon in a separate gallery. The idea came from a trip we made to shoot EDF in France. On the voyage home we passed what looked like a cemetery with some old graves in a small village and decided to take a look and from there on...