The other day I tried my hand at cross-processing some colour negative film in Tetenal Colortec E6. The results are remarkable! Looks like I’ve been back to 1952 for a bit.

I’ve tried it the other way round before (slide film in C-41), which also looks rather funky (or shall we say lomographic?)

So here they are, four panoramas shot with my Yellow Holga. Enjoy!

I’ve just has this great new idea for a brand new art project: Yeah Right!

Let me tell you all about it hot off the press:

There’s something very wrong with our society – most of it concerns stupid messages around town. We’re plastered with things like “go to Canada” or “watch this programme” or “this is the best thing ever”. Imagine the new movie poster for the Che Guevara movie by Stephen Soderbergh. “Soderbergh’s best film ever” it says on the top. Now imagine a sticker underneath it that says “YEAH RIGHT…”

You can apply this phrase to basically everything and give it a different meaning. People see the slogan, underneath it is the website, which then features a photo or a video of this piece (slogan and sticker, like a prove that it has happened, where and when).

We can make these stickers available for download so people can walk round town, apply the message and join in, then send us a picture of what they’ve done. It’s very Bansky, on a community level.

No doubt this will be very funny, but it will also deal with public property defamation. So no doubt there will be consequences, and even possibly fines to be paid. I need to research in what way I’d be liable if people put up a huge graffiti thing that I didn’t even do. I’m sure many will join in, but I must do the main bulk of it to get the ball rolling. Ideas? Comments? Let me av’em!

You have got to have a look at Justin Quinnell’s amazing Pinhole Photography. He takes pictures around the Bristol area, with exposure times of up to SIX MONTHS with absolutely fabulous results.

His work is featured in an upcoming movie called “The Brothers Bloom” starring Rachel Weisz as pinhole photographer.

Justin has plenty of tutorials on his site on how to “pinhole” and how to build your cameras too, so it’s well worth the visit.

Pinhole photography by Justin Quinnell.

Today’s creative project was a Business Card Layout for Oliver Spanuth.

I’ve made sure to keep in line with his website layout, again using Carrara Pro to create the 3D caustic glass letters. The backside is a picture of Oliver’s set, which he took on his Nokia mobile phone while shooting a video for San Glaser in front of an infinity cove. I added the comic-like background with Manga Studio EX. Here they are. Please keep in mind these include a 5mm bleed on all sides.

Every year, I find it helpful and exciting to look back at what has happened over the last 12 months and write it down. Here’s what 2008 has been like for me:

January 2008

We started off with our final ever trade show for Light Paintings. Although we didn’t have any new material to show, it seemed a good idea when we booked our stand in June 2007. Admittedly our heart wasn’t in it, but when Interiors Birmingham turned out to the THE WORST SHOW we’ve ever done, we knew we wouldn’t do it again. Literally no visitor traffic, which was due to the organisers having put us in the wrong hall! We found ourselves next to companies exhibiting blinds and curtain-rail-end-pieces. When we told them about this faux-pas, CMP wound’t have any of it, nor offer us a refund. Avoid CMP / United Business Media like the plague!

February to April 2008

I welcomed both Thomson Reuters as a new clients for my portfolio of Broadcast Work, as well as Al Jazeera English. In fact, the year started off well for broadcast work. I also became seriously interested in 3D Rendering and Animation, and buried my head deep in DAZ Studio, Carrara and Poser.

May 2008

Jeremy Bronnit’s Loft London is growing bigger and better, and I’m pleased to be working with him in this new venture. My job is to duplicate old 1″ tapes to Digi Beta, and revisit the eighties on Channel 4. Since I wasn’t in the country then, so watching countless hours of Countdown is a nice way to catch up. Nice! I also made the company and its managers look great with pictures for their website – check it out here.

June 2008

Julia and I are having a well deserved holiday in South Beach Miami for a couple of weeks. We invested into a new 18-200mm lens for one of the cameras, bought a second flash gun (a Canon EX 580 EX-II), and got a super tiny Casio Elixim pocket camera. We tried it all out at Starbuck’s at the top of Collins Avenue, while watching the busy film makers on the set of  Burn Notice (not sure if that’s reached the UK yet). What a great time we had!

On our last day, only hours before our plane was to take us back to London, we decided to start working on a project that I thought of many years ago, when I fist visited Miami: take pictures of all the Art Deco Beach Huts. This is work in progess, and we’ll definitely go back soon to collect some more. So far we’ve covered South Pointe all the way up to 13^th Street.

July 2008

The Book of Clouds is very well received by friends and colleagues, so Loft London decide to buy the first ever Limited Edition on Acrylic Diasec for their new floor. It’s a huge piece, 1000x1600mm, and it looks lovely! This is it:

August 2008

A new backlit installation of the ever so popular Light Painting STRIPES is installed at the new offices of Metage Capital on Berwick Street in London. Thanks to Michelle Frawley from Inspire Design to to put our picture forward, and to Maryam Valentin at Metage for choosing it!

September 2008

The month goes by with intense training at www.lynda.com, for software suites like Carrara, Poser and some in-depth Photoshop techniques (you can never know enough). I find it invigorating to broaden my horizon of knowledge. I also sold some expired medium format film for over £30 on eBay. WOW!

October 2008

Due to the success of The Book of Clouds and my passion for the project, I conceive a separate channel for moving time lapse clouds, hence www.cloud-tv.com is born. I found a great service called www.mogulus.com, which allows for streaming video footage, 24/7 – 7 days a week. To my surprise, the brain behing Mogulus is Max Hoat, who used to work at TWI/IMG, just like I do very regularly. Although we have never met, I feel Mogulus is the perfect choice for this marriage bewteen my broadcast skills and art. Cloud-TV “Piece of Sky” is scheduled for a DVD release later this year, so in my spare time I’m devoting my Premiere Editing Skills to it.

November 2008

Although having heard big things about it, I’ve not tired www.wordpress.com myself. Big deal, I think at first, it’s just another blogging system. But when I install it to turn Cloud-TV into an easy-to-update website, I’m in love with the project. The ease of use, the non-profit workflow behind it, and the huge amounts of free themes and plug-ins make it my web design tool of choice for many more projects to come. On a sadder note, Soundart announce they’ve ceased trading.

December 2008

Although the month isn’t over, I’ve already got www.oliverspanuth.com to show for it. Bringing my passion for 3D Logo and Webdesign together, WordPress is installed on Oliver’s server, and after only two afternoons of brainstorming between London and Bremen, his website and his legacy see the light of day. Oliver and I have known each other for over 20 years (see a Supersampler picture of him below), and I’m delighted to be his creative partner to bring him and his drum sound to the web. I’ve also conceived his Myspace Profile, essential for everyone these days. And on top of all that, the Cloud-TV DVD is still in production.

2008 has been an exciting ride, and I’m looking forward to 2009 for more fun and games!

When I started selling my pictures through eBay about 2 years ago, I was amazed at the amount of traffic it generated. I made sales into countries I had never even heard of, and inquiries for other projects started rolling in. In a nutshell, it was the best marketing tool we had for our work!

But since the introduction of a new pricing scheme in September 2008, things have taken a dramatic downturn for my products, which have been faily popular until then. I thought I’d share my experiences with you.

First of, a basic eBay Shop used to cost only £6. Having an eBay Shop is the only way to direct a customer to all eBay listings you’ve got going at any one time. That’s gone up to £14.99 – not that it makes sense, becasue the benefits haven’t changed a bit. The other two tears have also been increased in price, with the most expensive/front page exposure anchor shop now being a whopping £350 a month.

Listing prices have also changed: eBay claims they now offer a lower insertion fee per product to encourage sellers to list more for less money, cutting the up-front cost from 30-40p in my case to about 20p. On the other hand, they have now increased the so called final value fee, which is applicable if an item sells. So instead of 5%, it’s gone up to 10-15%%, depending on the listing category.

FIBRE SPACE - one of last year's most popular images with over 200 hits per listing, generates less than 20 this year

The final change that’s been introduced right in time for the Christmas sales period this year is eBay’s Search Feature. Traditionally, auctions and 3-10 day listings were promoted much better than the cheaper 30-day listing alternatively, which used to be available only to shop owners. You’d only see those latter listings at the bottom of the search page, if at all. The change made it possible for 30 day listings to appear in search results, but that’s not the whole story: if you’ve been voted to have bad customer service, or too high a price tag on your postage fees, your listings are now penalised to appear at the lower end of the search results (say page 35 instead of 1).

Although my account is in good standing, my feedback is healthy and I’m listing around 100 items at a time, since this new change my traffic has dropped dramatically. Previously, even on unsold products, about 40-50 people looked at each listing – now that’s gone down to 5-10. Needless to say, sales are down a lot, but somehow my monthly outgoing haven’t changed.

I’m afraid to say that although eBay has been good to me in the past, it’s no longer working to get my work out into the open. Other factors might be responsible for the reduction in sales on eBay for me. Possibilities are: 

• the overall econimic situation
• or maybe that I’ve reduced our exposure at exhibitions
• or the fact that there havent’ been many new recent additions to my portfolio of posters
• or that due to cheaper listings, there are more of them, meaning more competition and less fo the pie to go round

Whatever the reason, as a result, I will have to drastically reduce my listings on eBay from January as it’s no longer worth my while.

I’d be interested to hear about other eBay sellers’ experiences, and of course from eBay to evaluate how things are working out for them. Visit my eBay shop one last time before I’ll put it on ice: http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Jay-Versluis-Fine-Art (now defunct so don’t try).

As of today, we’re part of the every growing MYSPACE community.

If you’d like to be friends or get in touch, head over to www.myspace.com/jayversluis

We are pleased to announce our presence at next years Design Interiors at Stand C141 in Hall 5. The exhibition is part of Interiors Birmingham and promises to be a great showcase for our work.

As a result of your feedback, we now have Postcards and Posters available of selected images.

We introduced 6 postcard designs at Grand Designs Live, and have followed up today with 10 poster designs – all of which are available from our completely redesigned shop, featuring easier navigation, as well as a wider choice of products and images than ever before.

Check it out today!

We have just finished an extensive installation at Boydell Court, a prestigious penthouse development in St. John’s Wood.

Plaza Estates of Marble Arch had commissioned us to deliver two light boxes in their reception areas, as well as ten Acrylic Diasec images from our Book of Circles. The latter have been installed in the communal areas of the six prestigious new triplex penthouses, overlooking London’s West End.

For more information on the property, have a look at www.boydellcourt.co.uk.