busy weekend

© Joselito Briones

it's summer and people are traveling. a friend, rene (photo above), visited us this weekend overnight. it was a short visit on a short notice so i wasn't able to prepare anything to do a shoot - he's modeled for me before - and anyway it was too hot i didn't feel like doing anything but stay in and sleep. he went out shopping with mati. another visitor last weekend was marcus from london and his boyfriend, who dropped by on their way to ibiza. tonight it's mike from singapore, who's currently doing his euro tour (he was in london and iceland, and passed by berlin on his way to poland). i took an iphone photo of us at the restaurant where we met (tony roma's - for the simple reason that it was right there at our meeting place - the marlene dietrich platz) but when i switched phones (the new iphone arrived finally! and no hassle from delivery guy this time) - the photos were lost. it was actually the first time i met mike, but we're in the same email list that regularly gives updates of what everybody's up to, so we've been corresponding for some time already.


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A change of color

From shooting to being shot. Frieder and the Habbekrats team filmed a commercial video for a special line of Asics shoes that changes color when exposed to the sun, and decided to include me in it. The video includes MTV Deutschland VJ Patrice (ex of pop/soul/rock diva Anastacia) - he's the one riding the bike.


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donath

© Joselito Briones

it's becoming our regular thing to do dinner at donath cafe trattoria on a weekend. we like the place a lot. it's good home-style italian food, no frou frou, nothing fancy, the crowd is not the pretentious type, and the staff is very friendly. that it's a couple of minutes walk from where we live is a plus :)

the owner was also very nice to let me do a stock shoot there with another photographer a few weeks ago (photo, above, is from that shoot).


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p.s. the people from tineye dropped me a thank you note note for what i said the other day. there's no goodie bag, but they were nice to allow me to invite some people (it's by invitation only for the meantime while still under development) who wants to try out their awesome image search engine. if you're curious to try it out, give me a holler and i'll send you an invite!

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floren gallery

© Floren Caintic

remember i once told you about floren putting up his own gallery in hong kong? it is now a reality. he calls it floren gallery, and recently held a successful group exhibit of filipino artists based in hong kong, called "alternatibo".

and the timing of this post? his birthday, of course :)

happy birthday rene!


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holy macaroni! batman, is that you?

© Joselito Briones

did the ikea thing (buy useless must-buy things, eat tasteless food) last weekend. just about everything was available in black. is black back? i didn't get the memo. even the gloves i usually buy for dishwashing are now available (only) in black. ok it's latex and it's matted, so not really shiny black but more like lead charcoal. either they've finally caught on to the emo thing, or they're riding the barack popularity wave. and seeing how popular ikea is, don't be surprised if you find black in just about every household you visit, at least in germany.

i ran out of the old tangerine-colored gloves last night so i tore open the new black pack (even giggled a little: black latex gloves, hi hi). lo and behold, i like it! now i know how batman feels when alfred is out running errands and he's got to do the dishes himself. of course after nearly dropping the plate i was washing i just snapped back into reality. the magic was gone. some wise guy once said it's not the mask, it's the process of transformation. that process ended abruptly, unfortunately.

home dining tip #12: get yourself proper pasta plates. even mediocre pasta tastes good in one. it makes the food look special. it makes the serving look less (you'll feel less guilty in gobbling the whole glob of whatever trash you put in it), and it gives you a feeling of "there's something special in the air" which is, sad to admit, the only time we ever go to a restaurant that uses this kind of plate. the one pictured above (really big and heavy) is from manufactum, one of my favorite shops in berlin.


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image search technology

© Joselito Briones

thanks to tineye's ubercool search technology, i've recently found more of my imges in use, including the front page of msn.com's swiss site (unfortunately already changed to a different photo):

cosmogirl.com
zigonet.com
openroad.tv
healthtalk.coom
hubpages.com
hoax-slayer.com
real-restaurant-recipes.com

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models, inc.

© Joselito Briones

am now totally sold on using professional models, not exclusively, of course. it's just so easy. it's difficult to take bad photos of them, they know how to love the camera, they come all groomed, and at least here in berlin, they come on time. :) one even came with a viktor & rolf goodie bag for me when he picked up his copy of the photos. how cool is that? :)

photo above is of david , whom i photographed a couple of weeks ago.

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