Some time ago, Simon walked over to my desk to have a bit of a chat on our favourite subject. We work at the same office, doing totally different jobs, but share the same passion for photography. One of our colleagues sitting close to us, overheard our conversation about our endless search for new potential models. Mostly casting our net among the people working for our company or the staff at the hotel Simon stays in. It was not long before Jan Jaap Pape popped up his head and indicated that he wouldn't mind taking part in one of our photo experiences (as we now like to call them). We took note of his request, but Simon and I had our sights on a topic that did not need a male model right now. Several weeks later, we were considering the darkening evenings and what we could do inside to fill the winter months.  Then it came to us, Jan Jaap, black & white a noir style experience.  The next step was only to ask him if he was still game, and he was with the bonus and challenge of his brother too. 

Word of mouth is a great thing when you can get it and a sign you're doing a great job. A couple of weeks ago we got notified that Raziye would like to do a photoshoot with us after hearing about the Bouman Sutcliffe experience from a previous model. Raziye is a colleague of us and works for the same engineering company as we do. Simon didn't know Raziye, but I did. So, after Simon came to me, telling me that we had a new model, we walked to Raziye to introduce her to Simon and have a quick chat. We explained that the most important thing for us was that she was happy with the arrangements concerning the shoot. The date, type of shoot, type of location, etc.etc.
After about a week of planning, the three of us drove to Amersfoort's city centre for the shoot.

Exactly one month ago, Simon and I were drinking a beer at a pub helping a fellow photographer out, giving him advice for his upcoming (first) wedding assignment later that week (he managed to do a great job by the way). When we had no more advice to give, we turned to our next 'concern'. Our lack of models this autumn. Simon said he couldn't believe I didn't know any potential models. With so many people working around me, there certainly had to be at least one that had a spark within her. One that had to translate into amazing imagery. I thought for a moment and came up with a name of a colleague who certainly had that spark within her. I suggested: "Kerusha".

A couple of weeks ago I saw a Petapixel article about  a photographer called Alireza Rostami. This photographer modified a Zenit MC Zenitar 50mm f/2 lens and created some extraordinary images. He did this by taking apart this lens and flipping one of the lens elements the other way around. Some were amazed by the results, others thought they looked awful. I really liked some of his images and was itching to try it for myself. As this lens is very cheap (I bought one for around 40 euros), I didn't worry too much about messing up the assembly or not liking my results. 

Being an admin of one of the best en most fun Facebook groups that exists on this planet (okay I'm a bit biased ;-)) I get to opportunity to try out lenses made by the Meike company, which they very kindly provide us with, so we can use them for our traveling lens project. In this project selected members of our group (the Micro Four Nerds Facebook group) get the opportunity to try out (Meike) lenses. This time Meike send us the Meike 85mm f/2.8 macro lens. Here are my experiences with this lens.