5th Anniversary!

Believe it or not, this blog is now five years old.

For those who like numbers

- 5 years.- 780 posts (including this one).- 1,954 comments from the most awesome people.- An average of 13 posts per month.- I guess this means that I write a new post every 2.3 days.- Month with most posts: January 2009 (27 posts!)- Months with least number of posts: August 2006, December 2006 and February 2007 - with only 6 posts each.

For those who like pictures

I was wondering how I could post something special as part of the celebrations. As you can probably imagine, I didn't start photography at the point when I started blogging. So I want to take you all the way back to 2003 where it all started.2003 - borrowing a point 'n shoot from my roommateThat's right. No interest in photography whatsoever till the point where I found myself in Princeton, New Jersey. Till that point I have never been to New York City, and suddenly I was able to go there pretty much any time I liked. Like everybody else I was very impressed by the city. Actually, I was very impressed by everything that came with the experience of living abroad. My roommate back then (who also took the picture of me below) was nice enough to let me take his tiny little Nikon to New York. As soon as I had this camera in my hands I was on a mission.

This was one of the very first pictures I brought home. This is the point where I thought "this is so cool!"

Shortly later I bought my own compact camera. That was a Canon A70 with 3.2 Megapixels. Interestingly, I was totally happy with the capabilities of that camera and completely fine in my little tiny-camera-world. I simply experimented with everything it offered to me.2004 - trip to San FranciscoWhile roaming around in San Fran I more and more felt the urge for better equipment. It's the way the city looks with all its hills and cool buildings. It somehow invites you to try different compositions and angles. After one year with a compact camera, I suddenly felt limited with it. I was about to make the step from "seeing something interesting and photographing it" to "seeing something usual and make it look interesting". I often get mails from newbies asking me what equipment to buy. This always reminds me of 2004. My honest answer is: if you don't know what to buy, you probably don't really need anything. I suggest you upgrade your stuff when you are desperate for it. At that point you know what you need. Not sure if this counts for everybody, but it might. Most of 2004 I spent in Germany waiting to get accepted for a PhD program in Computer Science.

2005 - the big stepsIn 2005 I made the big step and got a "real" camera - a Canon 20D. After some abstinence, I also made the big step back to the US for my PhD research. So here I was: same guy, same place, but bigger ambitions. The pictures below belong to the very first ones I took with that new camera. At this point I can probably finish up this post. Pretty much everything that happened after you can find in this blog.Thank you guys for stopping by from time to time! I'll keep posting and hope to see you here again!