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The new class action lawsuit claims that the plaintiffs suffer from at least one of these diseases with an estimated value figure attached to the settlement of over $100 million. Any kind of physical damage as a consequence of an assault, carelessness or an accident can also be classified as a personal harm, and you can file a case to recover damages from the person who is responsible for it. Many dog attacks will require several plastic surgeries which unfortunately almost demands assistance with the insurance companies. This is the primary reason less dramatic injury cases are not resolved in the interest of the injured party, and rightfully deserved compensation is not received. If you hand over your case to an experienced catastrophic injury lawyer, Denver, you won't have to worry about a thing.
Approximately two weeks after a freak catastrophic Southern Nevada wrongful death accident at the construction site of the third irrigation tunnel from Lake Mead to Las Vegas, the Silver State's Occupational Safety & Health Admin. (Items such as bags, price tags, price guns and signage really add up. She has had his work published across a huge range of different platforms and media. Therefore, enabling them to avoid rushing to the courts all the time. If you have the time to learn about credit repair and such, I strongly advice going with the DIY (do-it-yourself) credit repair route.
If you follow these steps and cooperate with your personal injury lawyer you would eventually become successful with your goal to receive compensation. There are many companies that offer low cost insurance policies to protect your business and your bottom line. 33, and then all the expenses of the case are deducted from your $66,666. Auto accidents account for the vast majority of visits to the many emergency rooms across the United States. Even medical students who know they'll be earning six-digit salaries admit that it's a shock to see those kind of numbers on a bill, which in their case is for student loans.
This can be photos, video footage, or objects related to the violation. They refer to situations when people suffer catastrophic injuries as a result of medical malpractice or by reason of others' negligence. Furthermore, many sports come with an inherent and accepted risk that bodily harm could potentially occur. In response to Kenneth Krause's television interview Thursday night, Jennifer ' a true lady in every sense of the word — offered the following statement: "I saw the interview today during which Kenneth Krause apologized. You can also get his books on Washington auto accidents for free by clicking on the preceding link.
So, consider these expenses: medical expert: $8,000; court reporter: $4,000; copying, postage, and "miscellaneous" (which can mean pizza for the office staff to stay and work late putting your case together) $500; court costs for litigation $1,700. While this article is highly informative it is in no way guaranteed to be complete, correct or up to date. These cases also include issues like wrong medication, poor sanitation or neglectful action of a nurse. If it was to disappear it may be the start of the end of scrums and no one wants to see a rugby league scrum in union, do they. The first G159 tire case to be resolved in a public trial resulted in one of the largest verdicts in Pasco County, Florida.
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- Sealed cheeses have a 2 month "use by" date. Once opened, use within 2-3 weeks.
- If you have leftover cheese – wrap portion in waxed paper and store in food container – keep refrigerated.
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As I promised in my previous post, I've analyzed whether the average investor can use mutual funds to produce market beating returns. You have to understand that most individual investors will rely on the advice of an investment advisor, whether through a bank or insurance company, to purchase their retirement mutual funds. Both my experience and the evidence presented in the previous post show that investment advisors are good at 2 things: chasing past performance and failing to pick winning funds.
So if it were 2004 and I were listening to an advisor, s/he might suggest I invest in one of the top 10 funds in each asset class based on the last 3 years performance. This of course assumes this advisor has at their disposal the whole universe of Canadian mutual funds, which would be a very rare thing indeed. Most advisors, particularly those at banks, sell only their company's mutual funds. That goes for insurance companies as well. If you deal with an investment house like Edward Jones, they have a slightly broader offering, but not the whole universe. In fact, to access all the funds I researched, you'd have to be with a high price broker or use an online discount broker. You'll see why that would make no sense though because you'd be better off just using the very small and easy to understand universe of index funds.
Here's my methodology. I analyzed the rolling 3-year returns of mutual funds in the following 4 asset classes: Canadian equity, US equity, international equity, and Canadian fixed income. I used the data at FundLibrary for this purpose. I then identified the top 10 mutual funds in each rolling 3-year period. For the period starting 2004 (3-year average of 2003, 2002, 2001), I looked at the rank of the top 10 funds for the 10-year return ending 2010. For the top 10 funds in the 10-year return, I looked at where they ranked back in 2004. So I'm looking for 2 things here. If you invested in the top performers in 2004, did they end up performing big over 10 years? Also, looking at the top 10 funds based on 10 year performance, would there have been a way for you to easily identify them back in 2004?
The main conclusion from my research is that playing the mutual fund game is like rolling at the craps table. For example, of all the asset classes, the exact average ranking of the top 10 funds is 5.5. What is the average ranking in the 10-year performance measure? 16.33. The whole group as an average moves down 11 ranks. But when you look at the distribution of the rankings you see how much of a mess it is. While they start from 1-10 in 2004, they end up ranging anywhere from 1-72 on 10-year return. And it's no different when you look in reverse.
The top 10 funds based on 10-year performance, if past performance is a true predictor of future performance, should have been very easy to pick out among the universe of funds in 2004. While the top 10 over 10-years are by necessity ranked 1-10, they started out ranked anywhere from 1-88. Not quite as bad odds as the lottery but worse than some casino games.
But what if you just invested in the top funds based on highest 3-year performance? I did as such using GlobeInvestorGold. I made a hypothetical portfolio with equal weighting for each of the aforementioned asset classes. I invested $10 000 each year for 8 years. In the end, I had a personal rate of return of 1.71% per year, or a dollar growth of $5797.
I then created a similar portfolio but using only low cost TD e-series Index Funds mimicking the same asset classes. The result? 2.12% per year, or a dollar growth of $7275.
Now you might be saying, what's 0.5%? Well, over a 40-year investment span investing $10000 per year, it'll cost you about $53 000. And, the above projection significantly underestimates the underperformance of the actively managed approach for a few reasons.
1. Investment advisors often convince investors to sell and buy frequently in order to churn up commissions. This increases fees and reduces returns.
2. As documented in John Bogle's book mentioned in my previous post, most investors (and their advisors for that matter) don't have the discipline to stay on cruise control. Trying to time the market and chase performance always leads to diminished returns.
3. The projection above used No-Load funds when possible because the database seemed to have more data for them. Most of the time, if individuals are purchasing these funds through investment advisors, whether they know it or not, they are either paying a front-end load (pay a % fee when buying the fund) a back-end load (pay when you sell) or a deferred-sales charge. This would reduce returns further.
4. The top performing funds in many cases had fairly high initial investments so are unavailable to many individual investors.
5. I'm willing to bet MOST Canadians get their mutual funds through one of the big banks. There were a remarkably small amount of top performing mutual funds sold by the big banks. If I did a separate study showing just funds offered by those banks, it would not be pretty.
6. A good portion of the top performing funds were index funds. They actually skewed the performance higher. If I were to remove them, it would push the cumulative returns lower. I decided not to for 2 reasons. 1, I was tired of looking at data. 2, realistically, those funds are part of the pool from which an investor has to choose. Unlikely an advisor would recommend them, but you never know. Stranger things have happened.
7. Finally, survivor bias. By definition, all the funds I looked at still exist today. That means they are at least semi-respectable at performing or they would have been sacked. In John Bogle's similar study to mine, of 350 or so funds that started out the study, roughly 75% of them ceased to exist by the end of the study. But in hindsight, I can't include their performance because the data to which I have access no longer lists them. Their presence would significantly skew the returns downward. The other notable finding from my research is how few mutual funds on offer in each asset class even have 10 years of data under their belt. That's because the industry has to keep coming up with new and improved funds to draw in investors.
The final obvious conclusion from this little experiment is, even if you assume none of 1-7 to be true, and the performance difference is only 0.5%, the fact that there is a performance difference at all in favor of passive investing should put the whole argument to rest. And I repeat: I literally spend 5 minutes of my time each month managing my e-Series index portfolio. No meetings with investment advisors. No sales pitches for tied-in insurance products. I have asset diversification and low cost investing all in one package. Plus, every comparison I've ever run on my investments against those recommended to me by investment advisors have come out in my favor. (And yes, some of those comparisons have run from the time the investor made the recommendation, not looking in hindsight.) And no, it's not something of which only I'm capable. All you need is a little bit of knowledge, some patience, and some discipline when the market starts doing funky stuff.
As a final note, given how terrible the investment climate has been since I started investing in 2007, one would think my portfolio should be in the red. Well, it's nothing to write home about, but it is sitting at a respectable 2.8% per year. The total market has seen a decline over that same period. However, my superior performance is clearly due to dollar cost averaging. If you simply look at $10000 invested in November 2006 in index funds versus the theoretical market, the market is up 1.90% (this "market" being 25:25:25:25 as above) while the indexing is down 1.26%. How powerful then that simply investing a set amount of money at regular time intervals can increase my annualized return from a negative to a positive? Don't try and time the market. Let the ups and downs fall where they may.
There you go. Average is within your grasp. And you don't need a financial planner to get there. You may need one for other financial matters, but most certainly not for the majority of your retirement investing. And if and when you do need one, stick with a fee-only planner. You work hard for your money, so why should you be so quick to hand it over to someone else to take care of that knows little more about investing than what you can read in books?
Educate yourself. It's honestly not that hard. Just subscribe to MoneySense Magazine and you'll be set. Seriously. I've done a lot more reading than just that but for most people MoneySense will completely enlighten you and help you take control of your financial future.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
R.I.P. Active Fund Management
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Pair this book truck with a 30"H or 40"H Stevens book return to ensure the safe landing of all your returned books. The unique design cushions books as they fall, preventing damage and reducing noise. Fully mobile, it allows librarians to easily wheel it to a sorting area, or directly to the library floor so they can place books where they belong.
This book truck is constructed of laminate and has a depressible lift mechanism to cushion books as they come through the return, and to save your back during check-in. It features four swivel casters for easy mobility, and has PVC edging to avoid dings, dents and scrapes.
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"Vaishnavas' Interest: Selfishness or Not?" Srila Goswami Maharaja. 5 January, 2018. Gupta Govardhan
Q: Why the interest of Vaishnava community can not be considered as extended selfishness?
Q: If the truth is dynamic, can we say that it is unstable and what is truth today might not be truth tomorrow?
"The secret to understand Krishna is to appreciate, to sing the glories of His devotees."
"Pastimes of Krishna, vilas, they are flickering. But it's a feature, not a bug."
"The attempt in Krishna consciousness yields substance. The lamentation for lacking qualification yields substance."
"Why does He like stealing? — A taste is sweeter. — Parakiya: one that belongs to another."


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A primary goal placed before a dungeon master (DM) is finding ways to connect players emotionally to the group's Dungeons & Dragons game; after all, while it may be exciting to defeat a statistically superior foe in combat, such an event can be made even more meaningful if the player secures an "emotional victory" at the same time.
For the purposes of this post, the best way to define "emotional victory" is through example. Years ago, this writer ran his D&D group through the classic D&D module, Night's Dark Terror. The module led the party in an ongoing struggle against a slaving operation known as the Iron Ring, and against one of the ring's agents in particular: the yellow-robed wizard, Golthar. While the module provided several opportunities for the party to cross swords with Golthar and his subordinates, the wizard always managed to escape as the heroes were securing victory, typically delivering an insult or two toward the party's fighter during the escape. After letting the wizard slip through their grasp a couple of times, the players – espeically the fellow who played the fighter – became obsessed with the idea of capturing or killing him. When Golthar was slain near the end of the adventure, some of the players were eager to see what treasure or information the wizard carried. The player who ran the insulted fighter had no interest in such things; when asked why, he responded, "Who cares what he's carrying? I just killed Golthar! I'm going to Disneyland!"
Clearly, the victory over Golthar meant more to the player than treasure and experience points. It was so memorable, in fact, that the Disneyland quote found a permanent home on our D&D Quote Sheet. Continue reading


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Creating Project Groups
Project Groups are a great way to keep the project list on your dashboard organized, especially when you're a member of many projects. To get started with Project Groups, follow the steps below.
Please note: Project Groups are available for MeisterTask Pro users only. You can find out more about MeisterTask's Pro plan here.
How to set up Project Groups:
Go to your MeisterTask dashboard. On the left-hand side, below your project list, you'll see three small white dots. Click there, and a small pop-up will appear, offering the chance to import projects, or to Create a Project Group. Click on the latter.
Name your Project Group and click on Create (but don't worry, you can always rename Groups later on).
Just like moving documents into folders on a desktop, projects can then be dragged and dropped into their relevant Project Group, via the three little lines to the left-hand side of the project title.
To delete or rename a Project Group, hover over its name until the little arrow appears next to it. Click on the arrow and select the desired action from the dropdown menu.
Note: If you delete a specific Project Group, the projects inside will be moved to the bottom of your unsorted Project list.
To hide or show a Project Group, hover over its name until the respective option appears next to it.


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|A somewhat eroded tufa dome.
Here I've stopped at a partly eroded tufa mound located north-northeast of the junction of U.S. 95 and I-80 (map and location below). It's fairly easy to reach with an SUV or other 4WD vehicle.
|View of the tufa mound looking northward toward the low hills of the Trinity Range.
|Another view, this time with more of the basaltic-looking hills in the background.
|Closeup of some the tufa structures, looking in toward a small crevice.
|Tufa covered by bright orange lichen on the north-facing side.
|Looking south toward the U.S. 95–I-80 junction, and 95 beyond that going south toward Fallon.
Embedding this map directly from Scribble Maps (see original map here); didn't work, so I imported the "scribble" to Google Maps.
To get to this particular tufa dome (there are many in the general area between a few miles east of Nightingale Hot Springs and Toulon), take I-80 exit 83 from either the eastbound or westbound lane. If going west, turn right nearly immediately (at a location known as Trinity, now with former buildings gone), and follow a paved road to the north-northwest. If going east on I-80, turn left from the off-ramp onto highway 95, go under the I-80 underpass, follow the road as it curves to the east, and turn left on the same paved road just before entering the on-ramp loop for Reno and points west.
Drive about 0.3 miles on the paved road until you reach a power line access road, a dirt road that may not be appropriate for cars. Turn right, taking this road for about 0.7 miles, including a deviation from the power line itself, where the original road is at least partly washed out. You will then reach just the right sand wash road, which will take you up to the tufa dome (and beyond to a small prospect). I can't say for sure that the turn I marked into the wash road is exact; look for tracks heading in the right direction.
Careful examination of a Google Maps or Google Earth view of the area will reveal another road that comes in from the west just uphill from the tufa dome. I have no idea whether this road will work as an access route, but it will (or would?) go past a couple other domes.
While there, note the several Lake Lahontan shorelines and the desert pavement.


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Apologies for the discontinuity in the blog. Have not fou8nd wi-fi possibilities across North Africa until tonight, in Bengazi, east Libya.
Police Story
Some way into France, we found the po0lice waiting for the convoy as we passed through a toll booth. They directed us off to the side of the road. The captain in charge was all business, polite but unsmiling, speaking a clipped French or, as necessary, a clipped English. He directed his unsmiling subordinates in a curt, military tone. Once our paperwork was checked, he waived us on with the same cold civility.
As I drove through a Spanish toll station, I saw two motorcycle policemen waiving at me energetically, so I pulled in towards them, at which their waiving became frantic. What had I done? What was I supposed to do? Coming close, I saw they were only waiving, not frowning, applauding the convoy towards Gaza.
Staying overnight in Algiceras, we took a van into Gibraltar to have supper. At the quaint border crossing, we were stopped by a British policeman, He looked at the signs on our van and said, 'So you;re taking supplies into Gaza.' We said yes, we were. The policeman said, 'Those people really don't need it, you know. They pretend to be poorer than they really are.'


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I'm sure that you know that I have some Google Adsense ads on this site. I don't use them too much here because I don't want them to be too obtrusive, but I figure if the couple of dollars that they provide a month will pay for this site's hosting then I'm at least not losing money. Google says that I cannot tell you to click on them, but I will say that when I visit the sites of other bloggers and I see an ad that looks like something I might be interested in I will click through.
In building the WhatIWantMost site, though, I have made liberal use of several types of advertising as you can see from the screenshot below:
In addition to the ads that you can see in the screenshot, the site makes use of a lot of other advertising opportunities as well: Amazon affiliation, Ebay affiliation, Shopping.com affiliation (later), and I think that is it for now. However, there are other advertising channels that I'd like to consider like direct sponsors and other affiliates like JobBurner. I've learned over the last few weeks that there is only so much screen real estate available and if I don't want to turn the site into a giant billboard, which I do not, I'm going to have to invest some time into coming up with some alternatives. For the www.asp.net site we use a tool called BanManPro and while it works well I don't want to invest that kind of money just yet.
Rather than add more ad placements to the site to support the additional opportunities, I'd like to have something in place that would rotate displaying Adsense ads and other ads in the small number of placements that I've already defined.
To accomplish this goal I could take a couple of different approaches: invest in BanManPro or a similar tool, write some controls that would do it for the WIWM site, build my own ad system or possibly take some hybrid approach. It would be nice if I could come up with a way to just drop some javascript in place similar to how Google Adsense works. I've already indicated that I can't afford an expensive solution right now so unless I find a much cheaper solution than BanManPro then that option is not going to work. I think the simplest solution for the WIWM most site would be to just build a couple of user controls that could display the various ads randomly or using some weighted approach. However, doing so would end up creating a solution that worked for just that site. It wouldn't work for this site - for instance perhaps I'd like to randomly display ads for the WIWM site or JobBurner on this site in place of my Adsense ads. I'd end up having to copy a bunch of code to get it working in both places.
I think that my first pass at a solution will be to create a server control, maybe similar to the AdRotator control (or perhaps even using and extending the AdRotator control) that gets its configuration from an XML file. This would allow it to be portable and usable on any of my sites. This first step wouldn't allow for centralized management, but it would be a decent first step. The natural extension would be to then build a service that the controls could use that would allow centralized management and reporting. Alternately the service could support drop-in javascript references to it in addition to the distributed controls (which would probably just generate the javascript references anyway). The benefit of using the controls would be that on a per site (or per instance) basis you could choose to use the service or display your own Adsense or other ads in rotation with ads from the service.
We used to have a pretty good home-built ASP banner ad system that I used on previous incarnations of this site and the DiggerSolutions site that included some good management, tracking and reporting. I wonder if I can't just take a pass at converting that.
I'll have to do some more research in this arena to make sure that I don't build something that already exists. Hmmm, the BanManPro system is starting to sound better :)
UPDATED - 3/6 5:08 PM: It looks like Jeremy Schoemaker, a popular blogger, created something like I was describing with his ShoeMoney Advertising Network. It basically just serves as a passthrough to aggregate your different ad networks to provide ad rotation, a simple implementation interface and centralized management.


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Over 100 of the UK's leading development and faith organisations came together yesterday to launch anti-hunger campaign If at Somerset House. The campaign aims to generate as much noise as possible so leaders are compelled to act.
The main message is anti-hunger yet the campaign also focuses on the underlying causes of hunger, like tax avoidance, land grabs and lack of transparency over investments in poor countries.
A 3D projection onto Somerset House, which brought the issues to life, was presented by Lauren Lavern who introduced influential guest speakers such as Bill Nighy, Olympic athlete Mark Foster and Harry Potter's Bonnie Wright. Ms Wright spoke strongly for her generation stating that:
We are avid social network goers with the power to utilise the internet. Looking at we and we together can change something.
NGOs including Oxfam, Save the Children and Christian Aid are among the many others helping to inspire the public to lobby Prime Minister David Cameron and decision makers at this year's G8 summit in June, when it is hosted in Northern Ireland. The campaign hopes to follow the precedent of the Make Poverty History 2005 campaign.
Words and photo by Selina Orrell


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There's an inherent trust issue with business in Sri Lanka. To be more precise with the relationship between seller and buyer. This in turn leads to huge frustration and the want to kill each other in whenever the opportunity presents itself.
Perhaps it is the result of colonialism; back then the Brits were the businessmen and Sri Lankans were the customers and they more often than not fucked the customers. Sometimes literally but mostly figuratively. Or maybe it was the presence of the the lefties who continually influenced most of the governments after Independence. Or else it's just the way we Sri Lankans are. I'm not really sure why. But whichever the reason is, the general public has an unfavorable attitude towards business. Often business is considered as unethical or immoral. If not at least not as good as the government. Business is perceived as some sort of evil entity who's out there to get you. That it's only purpose of existence is to trick you and get every cent out of your pocket. Hardly is a business seen as something that's out there to provide you some good or service and get money for it. General conscience is they will only give you some cheap stuff and get a shitload of money out of you. It always is evil.
On the other hand, not many businessmen, ranging from street vendors to multinational companies, are doing things to improve this either. Customer is often treated as a piece of shit. They are seen as cheap people who always rant about high prices, irresponsible and are looking to use every small opportunity available to make it so that the companies will lose something. You need to scream to get the attention of the Kadey Mudalali. Sri Lankan Airlines think that customers are at their mercy and that they can do whatever they please whenever they please. Dialog seems to think So what if we lose one customer? There are so many more! Only the other day I found out that they allocate phone numbers which were not in use for a few years to new customers even without letting the previous owners know about it. Taking your customers for granted much?
Simply neither party trusts the other. That is exactly what you don't want to happen in a healthy relationship. Compare this to that of a country like Japan. Well probably it is a little unfair comparing it to Japan, for Japan is one of the oddest countries in the world anyway. Nowhere else in the world is this relationship stronger than in Japan. But the truth of the matter is that is why they are so good at business. Companies genuinely try to offer customers something worth their every penny, and in turn the customers are ready to trust the companies to do their job well. Services are even better than goods if that's possible. I was at the dentist a few days back and it was close to 8 p.m. when we were finished. She prescribed me some meds and took the trouble to call the nearby pharmacy to ask them to not close it until I go there. That's even without me asking her to do so. Wonderful things is that it's not a surprise but the norm. Trains arrive in time, and in rare cases they don't people are ready to accept it for it is truly rare. If you go to Starbucks to buy a coffee but is sold out, cutie at the counter will apologize to you with a face similar to what she would use if she accidentally spilled the only remaining bottle of medicine in the world that would cure my terminal wife who's lying in her deathbed.
Really, if you want to be a customer, you want to be a customer in Japan. If not for anything else, just to see that face.


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During "UFC Tonight" earlier this week, Daniel Cormier and Kenny Florian offered up their thoughts on the main and co-main event for UFC Fight Night 104.
Daniel Cormier on Dennis Bermudez vs. The Korean Zombie: "Dennis Bermudez has been active and has a win over the current interim champion Max Holloway. He's gotten comfortable with his striking and wrestling, and is ready to move up in the division. For Bermudez, he's got to piece it all together, like he did against Clay Guida. There are no tune-up fights for The Korean Zombie."
Kenny Florian on The Korean Zombie's return: "The Korean Zombie is very aggressive and is a whirlwind of technique. He gets submissions from front headlocks, which is a good counter to the wrestling of Bermudez. The Korean Zombie is so dangerous. I think Dennis has to be patient with this fight. The longer he's on the mat rolling with The Korean Zombie, the more susceptible to submissions he is."
Cormier on Bermudez's keys to victory: "He has to utilize feints, get in boxing range and land the takedown, but be aware of his limbs and neck because of Zombie's submissions."
Florian on The Korean Zombie's keys to victory: "He's got to maintain forward pressure, win the scrambles and look for the submissions."
Both Cormier and Florian pick The Korean Zombie to win. Florian on how: "It's hard to get a gauge how much The Korean Zombie has progressed with his training since he's been gone. I think he's been keeping up and he'll wait for a mistake from Dennis and get a submission."


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1. Did you have a favorite blanket or toy as a kid? If so, do you still have it?
I had a stuffed bunny rabbit that my grandpa got me when I was younger and having my appendix out. I slept with it every night... every night until my terror of a dog chewed it up into nothing. I don't have that dog anymore, I sold him, mostly because he chewed up everything in sight.
2. Do you dream in color?
Yes. I used to have the most vivid dreams. They have slowed down a lot. Someone told me that I was dreaming so much because I was too warm while sleeping. I stopped using an electric blanket, and the dreams stopped too. I'm not always sure that's a good thing, I had some pretty great dreams.
3. How tall are you? Do you wish you were shorter or taller?
Honestly, I'm not entirely sure. I'm somewhere between 5'10" and 5'11", but I usually tell people that I'm 5'9". 5'9" sounds like a fairly "normal" height, and my hubby is 5'8" and I don't want to sound all that much taller than him.
4. If you could have anyone's (celeb or other) voice as the guide on your GPS, who would it be?
Tori Spelling, but only if she threw in some of the hilarious things that she says now and then... I love her!
5. Do you return your shopping cart to the corral or leave it wherever in the parking lot?
I always return them, I can't stand it when other people just leave them in the parking lot. Seriously? It's not that far, and it's probably my car that it's going to hit when I goes trekking across the parking lot with no one to navigate.
Alright, that about sums it up... head on over and check out Mama M's!


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Inline Nonclustered IndexesIndex, SQL Server, SQL Server Indexes
One of the new features that I just recently learned about in SQL Server 2014 is the ability to create nonclustered indexes on a table inline with the creation of the table. This is handy in a couple of ways.
First it makes it so that all the indexes get created with the table so if there's a problem you don't have to figure out which indexes were created and which ones weren't. If the table is there all the indexes are there.
Second it helps greatly with caching of tempdb tables (which I talked about recently) as you can now create the indexes at the same time as the table so the temp table can be cached.
As for the syntax it's pretty straight forward. Below is a sample table with a couple of indexes, one created on the column c2 and one created on C1 and C2. Now sadly include columns aren't supported with inline indexes, but hopefully that'll show up in a future version of SQL Server.
CREATE TABLE MyTable
(c1 int,
c2 int index IX_c2,
INDEX IX_c1_c2 (C1, c2))
If you have created objects in MySQL before this syntax should look pretty familiar because it's basically the same one supported by MySQL so this should help people move applications from MySQL to SQL Server.
Recommended reading from mrdenny for November 20, 2015SQL Server
This week I've found some great things for you to read. These are a few of my favorites that I've found this week.
Keep Your Data Lake from Turning Into a Swamp with Semantics
- What Data Science Means to Data Scientists
- Learn First or Use First?
- Machine Learning: How Can a Robot Apply for a Job?
- Post PASS Summit Resolutions
Hopefully you find these articles as useful as I did.
Don't forget to follow me on Twitter where my username is @mrdenny.
I Don't Want To Create Indexes Because It Will Slow Down My ApplicationIndexes, SQL Server, SQL Server Indexes
"I Don't Want To Create Indexes Because It Will Slow Down My Application."
I hear that argument all the time from software developers at clients when I tell them that we need to create indexes. This is usually followed up by "If we add indexes it will slow down the INSERT, UPDATE and DELETE statements." And yes it will, normally by nanoseconds at most. If you are building the next Twitter, or Facebook then yes having lots of Indexes will be a problem that you can measure. But small applications with hundreds or thousands of users will have such a small performance impact by having the indexes there that you'll never be able to measure the difference.
But with the indexes in place those slow queries which you have, which are typically the reason that I'm there in the first place, will go from seconds or minutes down to milliseconds. That's a good pain for an acceptable cost. The gain is a well performing application, the cost is an unperceivable performance difference on data change.
The reason that people are having this argument is because conference speakers (myself included) have apparently done too good of a job telling people about the cost of having indexes on their system without explaining why we still need indexes.
So to the software developers and architects of the world, indexes are good when they are needed and are being used. If I'm there telling you that we need to create a bunch of indexes then we need to create them (my record is a CREATE INDEX script that was 450,000 lines long as there were 1000 databases, one per customer). After we create them we'll remove any indexes which aren't being used anymore.
To the speakers who talk about indexes we need to explain not just the downsides of indexes but do a better job of explaining why we need to create indexes and what the real cost of not creating the needed indexes is.
The Dangers of Indexing Temp TablesData Tables, SQL Server, SQL Server tables, TempDB, Temporary files
Indexes are good, except when they aren't. Everything that you do in SQL Server has trade offs. Usually those tradeoffs are easy to see, unless they aren't.
Indexes are generally a good thing. They make performance of queries within the database engine go faster, often a lot faster. Indexes on temp tables are also usually a good thing, unless you built them incorrectly then as one client of mine just found out things can get very bad very quickly.
This client had just upgraded from SQL Server 2008 R2 to SQL Server 2014 and the Monday after we did the upgrade (the first full business day running on SQL Server 2014) things fell apart, fast. We saw huge amounts of locking and waits on tempdb. The waits were reported as PAGELATCH_IO waits, but the disks according to perfmon had a 1-2ms response time. So it was something happening in memory. All the sessions were locking on a specific page in tempdb, 2:1:128. I looked at the page with DBCC PAGE and found that it was part of sysobjvalues. This table is used in storing information about temporary objects.
With the help of a Microsoft developer who looked through some minidumps from the SQL Server he was able to identify the code pattern that was causing the problem. The root of the problem was that temp tables weren't being properly cached in the tempdb database. The reason for this is that the tables were being created without any indexes then a clustered index was being added to the temp table after the fact. In this case the code looked something like this:
CREATE TABLE #t1 (c1 int)
CREATE UNIQUE CLUSTERED INDEX I ON #t (c1) WITH IGNORE_DUP_KEY
INSERT INTO #t1 (c1) SELECT * FROM @Something
We were able to resolve the issue by removing the clustered index and making the column c1 a primary key, then doing a distinct insert into the table. Long term the developers are going to clean up the data within the .NET layer so that we know that distinct values are coming into the table so that we can remove the distinct. The new temporary code looks like this:
CREATE TABLE #t1 (c1 int primary key, c2 int, c2 int)
INSERT INTO #t1 (c1) SELECT DISTINCT c1 FROM @Something
Finding the problem code was pretty easy. The Microsoft developer was able to give me the names of a couple of stored procedures. The rest I was able to find by searching through sys.sql_modules looking for anything with "%WITH%IGNORE_DUP_KEY%" or "%CREATE%INDEX%" in the object code. After fixing these the system started performing MUCH, MUCH better.
Congrats to Our PASS Booth Prize WinnerIT conferences and events, SQL Server
We have done our raffle for the PASS 2015 Consultants Corner prize, which is a $1000 Amazon gift card. Our winner this year is …
David Sun from MasterCard.
(We actually did the drawing a few days ago, but being that David works for a large company there was a lot of checking to be done before this could be announced.)
Congrats David, I'm sure that the gift card will come in handy this year.
For those that came to see us at the PASS summit, we thank you for coming by and saying hello. If you didn't make it to the PASS Summit be sure to get signed up for our newsletter (which is about to startup again will some great technical information). You can check out the recordings of our PASS sessions on the PASS Website as soon as they are published, and don't forget to check out the Day 1 keynote which includes videos from by myself and Joey.
In Azure CApS MatTersAzure, PowerShell cmdlets, PowerShell Scripts, SQL Server, Windows Azure, Windows PowerShell
Recently I was doing some work for a client moving some vDisks from standard storage to premium storage. Overall it was a pretty easy migration to do, just requiring a little PowerShell to make it all happen.
The part that made it hard to get done is that the PowerShell parameters for file names on blob storage are case sensitive. This is a pain when the person who setup the virtual drives (not me) isn't consistent in how they setup the file names. In this case the three drives which I needed to move where named like this.
- sql1.vhd
- SQL2.vhd
- Sql3.vhd
This means that it takes some work and some careful looking to ensure that you have the case of each file correct so that the scripts actually work as planned. I got through it, but not without a decent of grumbling at my computer.
So when setting up drives for VMs in Azure, keep everything consistent. You'll thank me later.
My Experience Moving WordPress From @GoDaddy to @AzureAzure, SQL Server, Web hosting, Web hosting providers
Recently I got fed up with the lack of answers to my performance problems from GoDaddy with regard to the performance problems that had started randomly showing up that I decided to look into moving our website hosting from GoDaddy to Azure. As a partner we have a bunch of credits with Azure every month that we can use for production services, so we figured why not. And frankly the performance couldn't be any worse. Page load times with GoDaddy were 5+ seconds, and their answer was always the same; "just disable your plugins and theme and it works fine, so it must be a problem with the plugins and theme". Except that we had been using the exact same plugins and theme for months without issue.
I knew that moving all the various sites from GoDaddy would be a pain. We have 46 domain names which point to 13 different websites so getting everything over in a way which didn't impact the users was going to be a challenge.
Step 1 of the process was deciding if we should use Windows or Linux to host the sites. As every one of the sites is either PHP (like www.dcac.co) or just a static HTML file (like www.getazureposh.com) we opted for Linux VMs within Azure. For HA reasons we have two Linux VMs, both of which are A1 VMs. These machines are a single CPU core with 1.75 Gig of RAM. These two machines are behind an Azure load balancer so we've got HA. Now we've got basically the same CPU power and RAM in each VM that we had before (GoDaddy's site says that the plan we were on before had 1CPU and 1 Gig of RAM) so we've technically doubled our CPU power for total visitors, but a single user should see the same basic performance if it's a problem with the PHP code in the plugins and/or theme.
For the database server we'll be using MySQL so we stuck it on a Linux VM as well, with a backup database server using MySQL Replication to mirror the data within the database to the second VM.
Out next decision was where should we be putting these VMs. We opted for Central US as the bulk of our customers are based in the US, so we wanted to have the site centrally located to our users for quickest network access. Because this is Azure if we started to get a lot of customers in Europe (for example) I could simply drop some web servers in Europe and have them access the database servers here in the US (over a site to site VPN between the two Azure Data Centers) and pretty quickly and easily give the Europe users faster access to our website.
After that was all decided I built the VMs. Now being that I'm a little paranoid about security I closed all the firewall holes that Microsoft likes to leave open for new VMs except for http and https. So all the SSH ports got closed as I won't be accessing them via SSH from the outside as we already have VPN setup into our Windows Azure environment.
The next step was to get all the files for the sites (and the backups of the MySQL databases downloaded). That just to using wget and connecting to the GoDaddy FTP server. It took a while to download everything as some of the sites have a LOT of old junk laying around inside them. Once that was done, the databases were created and all the data for the databases was loaded in. Then Apache was configured along with all the configuration files for all the various websites.
Once that was done DNS was moved over and everything basically started working as expected. There were a couple of glitches with SSL which needed to be addressed. But that didn't really impact our users, just Joey and myself.
As for performance, everything is MUCH better today than it used to be. Our average CPU performance now that we are on the new machines in Azure is 1.4% with spikes up to 5%, and that's when I'm going through and patching all the sites with the newest WordPress build and the webpage response time is under a second based on just using the website where we were getting all sorts of timeouts before.
Now I've made it look like is was pretty easy, and for the most part it really was. Thankfully I was able to take my time and move site by site moving stuff, slowly getting each time moved across and making sure that each site was setup correctly before moving on to the next website.
Other than speed have I really noticed a big difference? Not really. Using the website is basically the same. The only really annoying thing is waiting for files to replicate between the two web servers as that only happens every 5 minutes (or just VPNing in and forcing them to sync when I want them to sync if I'm doing something specific. But as most everything that WordPress does is done within the database that isn't that big a deal.
The MERGE and large data setsSQL Server
Recently I was doing some work at a customer and they were having some performance problems with their ETL into their data warehouse (see I do know at least some BI). One of the steps which was taking a long time was a MERGE statement which was updating existing rows and inserting new rows.
The target table in this case has several hundred million rows, so it's a pretty good sized table.
It was a rather simple MERGE statement so we tried changing it from MERGE to separate UPDATE and INSERT commands because I remembered someone complaining at a conference about how performance went down when they started using MERGE.
So we changed the stored procedure and let the new version run the next morning. And boy was it a good decision. We reduced the run times of that step by about 50%. We changed another few MERGE statements which use large tables and got other great improvements, in one case reducing the run time of the job step by 75%. A heck of an improvement.
While the MERGE statement was easier to manage, the goal is to make the system run fast. We did that in this case, very nicely.
So the lesson here is that if you have large data sets that you are working with, MERGE isn't for you.
Recommended reading from mrdenny for October 16, 2015SQL Server
This week I've found some great things for you to read. These are a few of my favorites that I've found this week.
Getting data into Azure Blob Storage
Idera Intends to Buy Embarcadero Technologies
Repairing a replication subscriber
Is a heap larger than a clustered table?
Hopefully you find these articles as useful as I did.
Don't forget to follow me on Twitter where my username is @mrdenny.
Your PASS Speaker Idol 2015 Top 12 Are…SQL Server
The time has come. It's time to announce who the 12 people who will be competing for the glory that comes with beating down 11 of your #sqlfamily members in public. These 12 fine folks will be competing for the grand prize … a speaking spot at the PASS Summit 2016, and an awesome blog graphic that I'll be showing publically for the first time during the speaker idol sessions at PASS this year.
The 12 people who are competing (in no specific order) are:
- Luciano Caixeta Moreira
- Rob Volk
- Todd Kleinhans
- Ronald Dameron
- Amy Herold
- William Durkin
- Ginger Grant
- Bill Wolf
- Theresa Iserman
- Ed Watson
- Wes Springob
- David Maxwell
These twelve poor people will be competing and being judged at the SQL PASS summit in three groups, one on each day. On Friday afternoon the winner from each of the three sessions plus one runner up (selected by the judges) will compete for the prize. Our 12 contestants have been randomly placed into three groups which you'll find below.
On Wednesday (3:15pm – 4:30pm) we'll have:
- Todd Kleinhans
- William Durkin
- Ginger Grant
- Ed Watson
On Thursday (4:45pm – 6:00pm) we'll have:
- Rob Volk
- Amy Herold
- Bill Wolf
- Wes Springob
On Friday (2:00pm – 3:15pm) we'll have:
- Luciano Caixeta Moreira
- Ronald Dameron
- Theresa Iserman
- David Maxwell
Then the finals will be Friday at (3:30pm – 4:45pm).
I look forward to seeing everyone at the Speaker Idol sessions while we cheer on our 12 great competitors. Good luck to all 12 competitors.


text:
Meet my sweet baby owls, Lily and Kika. They adorn my tree to greet any body that comes for a visit, or just give my entry way a happy feeling!
The Owl In The Tree
I saw an owl
He sat in a tree.
He opened one eye
He winked at me.
These owls are easy to to make and measure approximately 4x4-1/2 inches. Supervise children when making these because the process includes an open flame of a candle.
Craft Cord~Cut into 1-1/2 inch pieces
Styrofoam balls~2-inch balls(2 for each owl)
Animal eyes~15mm
Leaf pin or modeling clay for beak
Candle for fusing
Glue gun
Small brush or toothbrush(not yours)
Helpful tool~stiletto (this is a sharp pointed tool you can find in a quilt shop or craft store, you can also use a toothpick
1. Use glue gun to glue 2 styrofoam balls together.
2.Cut craft cord into 1-1/2 inch pieces, start with 50.
3.Light a candle and hold end of cord piece in flame until it starts to melt, press into styrofoam ball it should sizzle. Cover all of the styrofoam, spacing about a little less than 1/4 inch.
4. Use the stiletto or toothpick to separate all the fibers of the cord. Once this is done, use small brush or toothbrush to fluff fibers to make it fluffy.
5. Push the post of the animal eyes in place, using the glue gun applying glue on the post helps secure them.
6. Trim owl to shape how you like.
7. Apply feathers with glue gun on sides.
8.Push leaf pin into head for beak. (I purchased these at Joann for $1) You can also make a small beak of modeling clay and paint it to color desired and glue it in place.
9.If you want to add detail you can use fabric paint.
Kika is embellished with fabric paint, and has a modeling clay beak.
|Glue 2 Styrofoam balls together
|Craft Cord
|Cut craft cord into 1-1/2 inch pieces
|Hold end of cord in flame until it starts to melt
|Press melted cord into styrofoam until it sizzles
|Separate fibers and fluff with brush


text:
Why You'll Love It
The world doesn't need another puff made from rice or corn. And one of the goals at our house is to eat more vegetables and fewer grains. So, we quietly went to work creating Grain Free Puffs made from root vegetables and peas. With organic coconut oil and a touch of sea salt, these are more than puffs. These are Puffs You Can Eat™. These are Jackson's Honest Grain Free Puffs.
About This Brand
Jackson's Honest
Shop The Brand
Throughout the day, grabbing a quick snack is something that almost all of us end up doing, although it can be very easy to overlook healthy food options when it comes to snacking. While fresh fruit is great option, sometimes you want to satisfy those crunchy or savory cravings, which is exactly what Jackson's Honest Potato Chips does! The history of Jackson's Honest Jackson's Honest Potato Chips is a newer player in the world of snacks and was started by a husband and wife team. The idea wasn't born from a desire to compete with huge sna
Cassava Flour, Organic Coconut Oil, Sweet Potato Flour, Yellow Pea Flour, Sea Salt.
Disclaimer: Information, statements, and reviews regarding products have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Results vary person to person, and there is no guarantee of specific results. Thrive Market assumes no liability for inaccuracies or misstatements about products.


text:
05524637 is referenced by 735 patents and cites 6 patents.
A system is provided for monitoring the physiological exertion of a user. One or more sensors are attached to the limbs of the user to measure the user's motion. The sensors can measure either the acceleration or the force on the limbs. The measured signal is transmitted to a monitor by a wireless transmitter, such as an infrared, acoustic or radio transmitter. The monitor determines and displays the level of physiological exertion of the user by a mathematical formula or a look up table based on the measured motion of the user. The system can also measure and display various other physiological parameters of the user, such as pulse rate, blood pressure, etc. The system includes an interactive video display with a branching video sequence. The rate of progress and the direction of the video sequence at each of the branching points are interactively controlled by the level of physiological exertion and the movements of the user. The system can also record and display the level of physiological exertion and other physiological parameters of the user over time to create a personal exercise log.


text:
.... And wakes up Tuesday morning feeling like it's Monday again. But it was worth it.
Last night I went to see Sigur Ros with my friend Amanda. She is a lovely and wonderful person who tolerated my Pathfinder geeking with commendable patience. She also has the most awesome hat in the world. It's like a tiny adorable knitted viking helmet with little nubby horns on it. I was a little jealous of the awesomeness.
The show was out in Burnaby, in a park, outdoors, and because BC is and always will be BC, it rained. The entire time. Well, maybe not the entire time, but for enough of it. We had a blanket to sit on, but the water on the ground went right through that, so I sat on my Bag of Holding (it actually is one: Thinkgeek Bag of Holding) and that kept my backside dryish - at least it did til the Bag got soaked through. Whoops.
I think I had a notebook in one pocket of the Bag too... I should check if that survived. Yeah....
There was one chick wrapped up in a tarp, and other people huddling under umbrellas and donning those cheap plastic ponchos you can get that look like you're wearing a garbage bag - oh, and there were actually people wearing garbage bags too. Gotta do what you gotta do, I guess.
It was also Hipster Central - but I guess, if you're going to see an obscure Icelandic post-rock band, you really shouldn't expect anything else. Oh, the beards and the plaid and the skinny jeans and boots and slouchy hats and scarves. And dear god, all the secondhand pot smoke you could possibly wish for. I'm sure if I'd have tapped on someone's shoulder they would have happily shared a joint with me, but I had no interest in such.
The music, of course, was fabulous. Jonsi Birgisson has a spectacular voice and an impressive set of lungs - he drew out one high note for at least three full minutes. The ethereal noises out of his guitar were glorious, but he absolutely destroyed the horsehair on his bow - and then he played so violently he flung it away behind him by accident on the last song, which amused me greatly.
They did one song where he actually sang the refrain into the guitar pickups - looks utterly idiotic, with your face covered by guitar, but sounds amazing. I haven't been a super major fan of them up to this point, but I may have to listen to them more often. They did do a couple songs I recognised - Glosoli, after the encore, and another one earlier that I can't remember the name of. I wish they could have done Fljotavik, but even without - and despite the rain - the concert was still very very good.
Thank you, Amanda, for bringing me.
The unfortunate part is that for the entirety, my phone was nowhere to be found, even though I was certain that it came with me. So I have no photos or video, even though I was fully planning on taking photos on my brother's behalf (the poor boy was incredibly jealous - he's a fan of obscure music of all sorts, and if it's in another language, even better!). I was mildly anxious for the whole length of the show, but it was not in my bag, not in my pockets, not under the blanket...
So we get back to the car, and it's just quietly sitting in the grass right next to the car, having been rained on, but not having been stolen, and (I hope) not having been permanently ruined. I checked if it would wake up, and it woke up just fine and behaved properly the whole ride home, but once I got it plugged into the charger before I went to bed it went a little sideways on me, and this morning it was still slightly erratic. So I left it home while I went to work, laying in a bowl of rice to dry out. Here's hoping it's okay.
So that was my evening. Today has been run-of-the-mill same-old work stuff - imaging computers, wiping computers (I think I wiped a dozen computers today; Friday, when I'm back at this office, I'll see if I can do eighteen), dealing with user issues. I'm getting better at finding my way around here, I think, which is good.
Also, last and sort of least, burnt my hand yesterday when I was making food to take along to the concert. Just a little burn, but it hurt.
That's it. Toodles!


text:
After Jason died, my husband, daughter and I had to drive by the crash site nearly every day on our way to wherever we were going – work, school, mall, etc. It was an incredibly difficult thing to do, an in-your-face reminder of the horrific event that happened at that very site.
In an effort to bring beauty into the darkness that spot represented, I bought daffodil and crocus bulbs and planted them on the side of the road – varieties of bright, yellow daffodils for Jason and purple crocuses for Alina. Alina loved the color purple, and bright, yellow flowers have always seemed to me to represent Jason's bright, sunshine-y spirit and kind heart. That first year, I planted bulbs among the remnants of shattered glass from the cars that collided there.
Crocuses and daffodils bloom early in the spring, very near to the anniversary date of Jason's and Alina's deaths. As March 3rd approached, I watched for the promise of spring, for those bulbs to push through the ground with hope and beauty.
I wish I could say that beautiful daffodils and crocuses thrived and came up each spring as a symbol of new life from the harshness of death, as symbol of the hope of spring after a dark winter, but they didn't. No matter how many times I planted the various bulbs or how much I tried to prepare that hard soil on the side of the road, they did not grow well or flourish. One year, though, a few plants pushed their way through the ground and the blooms actually opened on March 3rd. I gave it my best effort in trying to make beauty out of the ugliness.
My husband and I were out at the Biltmore Estate this past weekend, and I saw these flowers (in the picture above) – one little purple crocus looking up at a group of bright yellow daffodils. It reminded me of my efforts to bring the beauty of new life from the ugliness of death.
Jason loved to giving flowers to the people he cared about. When he was in the play "Our Town," he brought a rose to every girl who was in the show on the night of the final performance. He gave flowers to me, to Jenna, to his sweetheart. He gave daisies to a friend for her birthday. As a little boy, he would pick dandelions and bring them to me.
Jason loved the movie "You've Got Mail." When Joe Fox (Tom Hank's character) brings Kathleen Kelly (Meg Ryan's character) flowers when she was sick, he brought daisies and she said, "They're so friendly. Don't you think daisies are the friendliest flower?" Yes, they are friendly flowers, indeed. They remind me of my boy and the kindness of his heart.
Beautiful, friendly flowers remind me of you, my precious boy. I miss you. I love you.
© 2017 Rebecca R. Carney
All photographs are specifically owned by Rebecca R. Carney and may not be copied or saved without permission.


text:
SACRAMENTO, Calif. - A new assembly bill aims to put more money in farm workers pockets, but some farm workers fear it may actually reduce their earnings.
Assembly Bill 2757 is up for a vote this week. If passed it would require farmers to pay their workers overtime if they work 40 hours a week.
Under current law, farmers do not have to pay their workers overtime until they work over 60 hours a week or work over 10 hours a day.
"Our job is hard. It's not fair that I don't get overtime like everyone else," said Jose Sanchez, a farm worker and a member of labor rights group United Farm Workers.
Sanchez said he works more than 60 hours a week and has a tough time paying his bills. If passed, Assembly Bill 2757 would reduce overtime wage limits slowly. Starting in 2017 limits would be 55 hours a weeks and 9.5 hours per day. By 2020 overtime limits decrease to 40 hours a week and eight hours a day.
"Farmers like the machines. They are looking at the easiest way to pick the fruit," said farm worker Ralph Ochoa. He believes the Assembly bill will actually reduce his hours.
Right now, he gets paid for 60 hours a week with no overtime. Ochoa's boss told him he can't pay overtime. He fears his hours will drop from 60 hours a week to 40 hours.
"If you go out to the field and ask the people if they want to work 40 hours or 60 hours ... most people will say 60 hours," said Ochoa.
Many farmers are already using automated harvesters that do the work of 30 to 40 people. Sanchez said he knows some people may lose their job to machines but a majority of farm work must be done by humans. He believes if farm workers put in the overtime hours ... they should be paid for them.
"We need money for our families," said Sanchez.
Assembly Bill 2757 goes before the Appropriations Committee on Friday.


text:
Formento & Formento known for their romantic and stylish photographs that explore in -desaturated, cinematic scenes - themes of love, longing and the burden of memory. Their style reveals a fascination with mood and texture, and a sense of place figures prominently.
From America, Cuba, Mexico, India to Japan they blend fervent passion for photography and film with a lasting love for one another.
BJ Formento was born in Hawaii and grew up in the Philippines. After studying photography at the Academy of Arts and UC Berkeley , he moved to New York and worked with Mary Ellen Mark, Annie Leibovitz, Eugene Richards and Arnold Newman. Since 2001, he has shot for a host of publications and advertising clients while developing his art photography work.
Richeille Formento was born in London and attended the prestigious Central St. Martins College of Art before working as an art director in the fashion industry.
Formento & Formento entered the Fine Art scene in 2009 with their first series, Circumstance: American Beauty Down on Bruised Knees. Embarking on a road trip from New York to Los Angeles, the Formentos travelled through twenty‐five states, photographing the women they found along the way, often recruited the same day as the shoot. Referencing classic American paintings and cinema, Circumstance embodies the combined American visions of both BJ and Richeille. Capturing a country during uncertain times, their dramatically lit subjects are transformed into heroines and femme fatales caught in intense moments of emotion and reflection.
Formento & Formento known for their romantic and stylish photographs that explore in -desaturated, cinematic scenes - themes of love, longing and the burden of memory. Their style reveals a fascination with mood and texture, and a sense of place figures prominently. From America, Cuba, Mexico, India to Japan they blend fervent passion for photography and film with a lasting love for one another.
Their work has convoked a passionate following in a short time with representation and exhibitions that span the globe. From Robert Klein Gallery in Boston to Fahey Klein Gallery LA,
Bonhams NYC, Corso Como Gallery Milan. Permanent collections with International Center for Photography NYC, Currier Museum and Lewben Museum. More recent is their foray in filmmaking won them accolades at Cannes Film Festival 2016 and raising funds for International Rescue Committee with their short film "The Voyage" that drew thousands of people during Art Basel Miami Beach 2015. Vogue Italia, is a continuous supporter of their work, featuring them monthly on Vogue.it. In September 2013 the Formentos celebrated the release of their first art tome, Circumstance, published by YK Editions, accompanied by a short documentary on their work shown at the Pompidou Museum in Paris and their 2nd book published in 2015 entitled "Cinematic Chronicles". Their increased presence in the international art fair circuit includes Paris Photo, AIPAD, The Armory Show, Photo Shanghai, Art Silicon, Art Miami, Art Wynwood and Photo London.
Permanent Collections
2015 International Center for Photography NY Permanent Collection
2015 Lewben Museum, Poland Permanent Collection
2015 Currier Museum, New Hampshire Permanent Collection
2016 Photo Vogue Festival, Base Gallery Milano
2016 Art Basel Miami Beach Marcowicz Gallery Miami
2016 Soho House, Miami Feb 1- April 1 Solo Exhibition "She is Cuba"
2016 Parmigiani Gallery Feb 1- April 1 Solo Exhibition "Circumstance"
2015 Women's Club, Miami She is Cuba and Japan Diaries Solo Exhibition
2015 ABMB / Red Digital Cinema short film and photographs"The Voyage"
2015 Bonhams Auction, NYC
2015 Artnet nude Auction, NYC
2015 In Haus, NYC group exhibition for Midnightrun.org
2015 Photo London, Robert Klein Gallery
2015 Art Wynnwood, Miami Beach, Fl., VVFA Gallery
2014 Art Miami, Miami Beach, Fl. Booth Installation: She is Cuba and Japan Diaries
2014 Snap Gallery, Orlando, Florida
2014 Photo Shanghai, Fahey Klein Gallery
2014 Art Silicon, VVFA Gallery
2014 Fahey Klein Gallery Solo Exhibition, Los Angeles
2014 Robert Klein Gallery, Boston
2014 Robert Klein Gallery, AIPAD, New York
2014 L'Atelier Des Artistes, Paris
2014 Traffic Art Space, New York
2013 Art Basel, Single Artist Booth Presentation, VVFA/Traffic Art Space
2013 Photo Paris, Robert Klein Gallery
2013 Corso Como Gallery, Group Show Vogue Italia, Milan
2013 Traffic Art Space, New York
2013 Wonderground Gallery, New York
2013 Art Miami, Miami Beach, Fl. Booth Installation: Circumstance-American Beauty Down on Bruised Knees
2013 Pompidou Museum, Presentation of a Documentary on Formento + Formento
2012 Underground Gallery, Art Below, Queens Diamond Jubilee, London
2012 Corso Como Gallery, Group Show Vogue Italia 101 Photographs, Milan
2012 Solo Exhibition, Society Club Soho, London
2012 Awarded Vogue's New Exposure with Bottega Veneta and Red Camera
2012 Solo Exhibition, Salon Gallery, NYC
2012 Milk Gallery, US Vogue Group Show, NYC
2012 Togonon Gallery, San Francisco
2011 Photo District News Annual Winner
2011 Life Support Japan
2011 Yellowkorner Gallery, Germany
2010 Beers Lambert Gallery London
2010 Wall Space Gallery, Santa Barbara, California
2010 Beers Lambert Gallery, London
2010 Le Dumois Gallery, France
2010 Sakura Gallery, Tokyo
2010 Wall Space Gallery, Santa Barbara California
2007 Asian Art Museum, San Francisco
2006 Yerba Buena Gallery, San Francisco
2016 Cover and 52 page spread in Tartarus Magazine, NYC
2014 Schon! Japan Diaries Review
2014 Aesthetica Magazine, Issue 60 Aug/Sept She is Cuba feature story
2014 L'Oeil, American Beauty on Bruised Knees, Review
2014 American Photo, Through the Eyes of Global Nomads, Japan Diaries, Interview
2014 Juxtapose
2014 NORMAL Magazine, Cover and 28 pages
2013 Circumstance: American Beauty Down on Bruised Knees, Coffee Table Book
Pulished by YK Publishers.
2013 AMMO Magazine, Video Interview
2013 Aethetica Magazine, Frozen Narratives, cover story
2013 Surface Magazine, China
2013 Collecting Fine Art TeNeues
2013 Citizen K Magazine
2013 Hunger Magazine
2013 Ideal Magazine, Paris
2013 Version Femina Magazine, Paris
2013 Grazia Magazine, Milan
2013 Paris Match Magazine
2013 Be Magazine
2012 Photo District News Magazine
2012 Aesthetica Magazine
2012 Vogue Magazine (US)
2011 Female Persuasion Magazine
2011 Live Fast Magazine
2011 Photo District News Magazine
2011 Eyemazing Magazine
2011 Live Fast Magazine
2011 Female Persuasion Magazine
2011 Canteen Magazine
2010 Componere Magazine
2010 Picture Magazine
"As outside observers, the Formentos' stylized images explore the dichotomies that embody modern Japan— blurring the aesthetics between tradition and the ultra modern, fantasy and reality. The captivating tableaus exude a sense of tension, melancholy, and a quiet unease. Each image from Japan Diaries exists as if it were a still taken from a noir Japanese film, each solitary figure yearning for something unknown." — David Fahey
"In the Japan Diaries they arrived as outsiders, bringing with them rich impressions accumulated from Japanese art and cinema, but possessing keen fresh eyes hungry for the exotic aesthetic contrarieties of this ancient yet ultramodern culture. They move between traditional geisha looks and pop and punky fashions, between the rigorous formality of temples and the neon lit pop of commercial streets, between the serenity of Zen gardens and the tension of kinbaku or rope bondage, between ikebana and commercial packaging. In some scenes we experience a hint of the sort of sexual energy in the films of Nagisa Oshima, In the Realm of the Senses and Empire of Passion—but here there is no resolution, only an allure that inspires longing for something strange and unknown. Everywhere there are hints of what might link these images, but the movie only happens in your head and it can be different every time. Real life happens in motion like cinema. Dreams, bounded only by the imagination, begin in stills." —Glenn O'Brien
Aristotle Roufanis (b. 1983 Athens, Greece) is a London-based visual artist whose work focuses on patterns, textures and human interactions defined by the condition of urban life and architecture.
An active photographer since his early 20's, Aristotle Roufanis is a self-taught artist, who has mastered his medium through a series of rigorous photographic projects. Fascinated by how humans build the environments they live in, he has travelled the world extensively, creating images that combine meticulous digital editing with a very personal artistic vision.
In 2016 he has participated in Scope Art Fair Miami Beach and in Fotofever Paris with a solo show; in the same year, his summer exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts sold out before opening to the public. In September 2017, a photo from his "Alone Together" series has been shortlisted by MoMA curator Katerina Stathopoulou for Life Framer's Photography Award (Edition IV - OPEN CALL). In the same month, the "Alone Together" series has been selected by Behance curators for the Best of Behance online gallery.
Aristotle Roufanis' work is part of the Patrons of the Royal Academy's collections, as well as other private collections in London, Paris, Miami, New York, Athens and Mexico City. His work has been featured on international art & culture websites, as well as in printed publications around the world.
Ole Marius Joergensen (born 1976) is an artist with a background in film based in Asker, Norway.
He is best known for his meticulously staged cinematic photographs. With the use of theatrical light and vivid color juxtapositions, Ole Marius' work emphasizes the mystery and duality of rural life in the modern world.
A child of 80s rural Norway, he became fascinated with suburban America, like the popular narratives told on screen by Steven Spielberg and the storytelling of author Stephen King. Drawn to the descriptive narrative and quality of light, he found himself wanting to create his own stories.
Influenced by the work of the mid century painter Hopper and the directors Alfred Hitchcock, David Lynch, as well as 19th Century painting traditions of David Caspar Frederic, his work often depicts ordinary situations infused with a unique narrative that unlocks an unexpected mystery that feels both old and new.
The majority of Ole Marius work is shot in the sparsely populated areas of the northern regions of Norway and his artist studio in Asker.
In 2014 he debuted his first major series "No Superhero," an ode to one of his childhood heroes, and a playful series with dark undertones. Ole Marius views Superman as a metaphor for taking risks and the worry of failure. Each scene is depicted through a lens that captures childhood nostalgia with the hero as an ordinary man.
In 2015 Ole Marius debuted his work "Space Travels" which was his rediscovery of his native country. It was a narrative driven by the feeling of being trapped in a place and yearning for a new adventure that is out of reach.
"Vignettes of a Salesman" (2016) is a love letter to simpler times of Scandinavia in the 1950s and 1960s. This series follows the main protagonist on a silent, solitary journey and the complex emotions, from the dark to the eccentric, associated with a stranger's life unfulfilled.
Ole Marius' work has been exhibited widely in the United States, Asia, and Europe. His work can be found in private collections in Hong Kong, Stockholm, Oslo, London, Madrid and Berlin. His work has been featured on international art & culture websites, as well as in printed publications around the world.
He is currently working on a book of his work to be published in 2019.
There's something very American about Barry Cawston's photographs. It's odd, really, since none were taken in the US; instead they feature scenes from Italy, Cuba, Mexico, Brazil – even Bristol. Yet, be it in the contrasting colours of a Havana pool, the perfect clapboards of an Avonmouth cottage, or the crooked hat of a Tibetan cowboy, Cawston's images recall both the New World melancholy of Edward Hopper and the dazzling modernity of David Hockney's Berkeley days.
Cawston began his career in the early 1990s. With a degree in sociology and a diploma in photography, he freelanced while nurturing his interest in fine art. Winner of the Exeter Contemporary Open and the Chairman's Choice Award at the RWA Photographic Open, he worked with a friend Al Deane under the collective pseudonym Boris Baggs to photograph a series of English Heritage projects for their Buildings @ Risk Campaigns. Since then, he has opened the Drugstore Gallery in Axbridge, Somerset and exhibited around the world. Frequently, he says, admirers note the ghosts of painters past in his subjects: "It all began with the photo of the pool. I just stumbled across it after waking up one morning and thought: that is a photographic version of a Hockney painting. Had I been an hour later, or an hour earlier, it would have been totally different."
Though occasionally dabbling in digital photography, most of his work is done using a Wista Field camera, complete with hood, wooden tripod and bellows. "To an extent what I do is social documentation," he says. Often it's the picture or event that is in control not the photographer. I've experienced that many times."
- Alice-Azania Jarvis for the Independent Newspaper
Bratislava, Slovakia
Maria Svarbova was born in 1988; she currently lives in Slovakia. Despite studying restoration and archeology, her preferred artistic medium is photography. From 2010 to the present, the immediacy of Maria's photographic instinct continues to garner international acclaim and is setting new precedents in photographic expression. The recipient of several prestigious awards, her solo and group exhibitions have placed her among the vanguard of her contemporaries, attracting features in Vogue, Forbes, The Guardian, and publications around the world; her work is frequently in the limelight of social media. Maria's reputation also earned her a commission for a billboard-sized promotion on the massive Taipei 101 tower, in Taiwan.
Maria's distinctive style departs from traditional portraiture and focuses on experimentation with space, colour, and atmosphere. Taking an interest in Socialist era architecture and public spaces, Maria transforms each scene with a modern freshness that highlights the depth and range of her creative palette. The human body throughout her oeuvre is more or less a peripheral afterthought, often portrayed as aloof and demure rather than substantive. Carefully composed figures create thematic, dream-like scenes with ordinary objects. Her images hold a silent tension that hint at emergent possibilities under the lilt of clean and smooth surfaces.
There is often a sense of cool detachment and liminality in Maria's work. Routine actions such as exercise, doctor appointments, and domestic tasks are reframed with a visual purity that is soothing and symmetrical and at times reverberant with an ethereal stillness. The overall effect evokes a contemplative silence in an extended moment of promise and awareness—a quality difficult to achieve in the rapid pace of modern life. Maria's postmodern vision boldly articulates a dialog that compels the viewer to respond to the mystery, loneliness, and isolation of the human experience. Nevertheless, deeply embedded within the aqueous pastels, Maria's compositions hold to a celebratory elegance that transforms the viewer's gaze into an enduring reverence for life's simple beauty.
Multi-media artist Javiera Estrada was born in Mexico in 1981 and moved to the United States in 1989. Her childhood was heavily influenced by her training in classical piano and violin, which continues to inspire her aesthetic today. She attended Santa Monica College and received her Certificate of Photography in 2009 where she was the recipient of a grant for an award of excellence.
Estrada's broad scope of work is a reflection of memories that she has shaped into her reality. A seeker of the spiritual, Estrada believes that every piece of art created is a self-portrait, a physical expression of that inner nameless world our soul inhabits. Using photography as her main visual medium, the sound of the camera's click offers her the perfect confluence between the real and the ethereal. A multifarious artist, Estrada's creative expression encompasses traditional photography alongside mixed media. Her mixed media works are a comment on the natural cycle of decomposition and reflected through the deconstruction of the image.
Estrada has exhibited in numerous galleries and private collections internationally in the United States, Europe, and Asia. She is a 2015 finalist for the Emerging Focus Competition, as well as a 1st place showcase winner of Art Slant's 2014 Juried Exhibition. Estrada currently works and resides in Los Angeles.
Jacob is a self-taught photographer, art director, and graphic designer based in Wellington, New Zealand. He studied Visual Communication Design at Massey University, Wellington.
Jacob's work is inspired by the natural world around him, particularly his native New Zealand. His first major photographic inspiration came from New Zealand 'gothic' films that portrayed a darker side of the usually pristine and ever dominant New Zealand environment. This sense of isolation, silence, and unease within the landscape has translated into Jacob's work.
"These minimalist scenes with neutral colours, sometimes extinct in low-light, exhale a sacred nature where man is a mere figurehead" – Fisheye Magazine
Jacob carefully pieces his images together to create one single narrative. He says: "I have a simple, yet considered approach to photography. I find images/facts and sequence them to tell a story about the world around me. I like the interplay between images and how they give each other more meaning."
"In some way, Jacob's images are rather unsettling. They aren't just landscapes. They are something more. They show great nature, but also reflect upon man's footprint that grows inexorably ever greater. Whether this is of grave concern - or whether it is just an unnatural but natural evolution – is up to you" – Kontent
KaitemakoA series of images taken on a journey home. Kaitemako has reflective and dreamlike qualities, and a sense of unease amongst the everyday.
The OthersideA series of images taken on a journey across India. Moments of peace found amongst the chaos.
Ian Patrick O'Connor is a fine art photographer based in Miami Florida. He started his career as skateboard photographer in 2003 and later worked as a staff photographer for Skateboard Magazine and Adio Footwear. The five years spent with Adio led him to traveling to 15 different countries to shoot skateboard professionals, and helped define his photographic style.
In 2010 Ian relocated to Santiago de Chile, where he began shooting for a diverse client list in the fields of advertising, editorial, and fashion. During the five years of living in South America a body of personal work emerged that is propelling the next chapter as a visual artist using the medium of photography. He currently lives and works in Miami Florida USA.
Nic Gaunt, a native Brit from the English Midlands, views his photography as an exercise in window dressing. It is a tribute to his mother – a professional window dresser - who first showed him this way of "stimulation of the mind", as his mother referred to it.
Nic regards his lens as the 'window' through which the passer by gets exposed to his visual expressions - yet allows the viewer to continue the story.
The image is created in the viewfinder with post production refinement already in Nic's mind, to create a powerful and highly finished piece. Whilst not appearing that way, the image is strongly controlled and of ultimate importance to his work. Lighting being the key element combined with precisely arranged composition, creates the message.
Influenced by Helmut Newton's powerful and graphic images, Salvador Dali's 'playing with reality' or Bob Carlos Clark's 'Rubber & Latex' eroticism, Nic creates work that is both thought provoking while aesthetically stimulating to the viewer.
Nic undertook his Photographic degree at West Surrey College of Art and Design. This is where he met his mentor, photographer Brian Griffin who taught him the art of composing and messaging through one main visual.
After college, Nic spent many years in the London music industry working for the likes of EMI, Virgin, Chrysalis records and Ministry of Sound. He photographed the artists in preparation, in the studios and working on albums. Music like the visual arts are sensually stimulating with a strong but rather unconscious link to eroticism. Working with artists were formative for Nic's hard hitting yet dynamic style.
It became important during this period for him to be able to create one off images, which encapsulate a singular thought, whilst remaining powerful and captivating, reflecting Nic's core values. Like in of advertisement or "window dressing" - it is the meaning that stimulates the viewer – driving the direction – unconsciously.
Gaunt's unique works are ultimately a field of his own vision. He is keen that every image is created through a new thought, provoking another thought while not just manufactured to the same repetitive styles. He uses the subjects as a conduit to an end where the imagery often poses a surreal yet realistic overtone with an underlying sexual tension - leaving the fantasy to the viewer to spin the story further, provoking a forbidden thought.
During the London year's, Nic became more and more interested in contemporary arts and digital manipulation. He started to marry traditional photography with the abilities digital offers. In traditional photography as an art, everything is developed and manipulated in a darkroom. Nic uses digital manipulation as expansions of the darkroom.
While working on an entire series at a time, Nic is keen to develop and explore each idea individually first. Each frame leads to a continuation and forward looking to a new – therefore all frames within a series have a linkage in themselves and are linked to each other.
Filled with semiotic discourse and hidden rhetoric, Nic Gaunt's work is often a comment on today's society and its inner complexities. He continues to develop the idea of the images. They have a different way of expressing a similar thought within a context of style. It is the processing and depth of thought that holds them together and creates the sentence or story board, promoting inner strength and empowerment of the subject. "Created both in physical being as well as through the viewfinder, my aim is to create a finished piece that can stand alone and yet work within a series. The body is a perfect form through which emotion may be perceived, evoking a responsive thought or desire in the onlooker. The use of light, colour and form enhances the experience."
Nic currently splits his time between Hong Kong and London, shooting for fashion magazines and advertising, whilst exhibiting his art worldwide.
Educated in Italy where she lives and works as a photographer.
Her approach to photography and its development was almost entirely self-taught.
Awarded at IPA, at the Sony World Photography Awards, at Px3, at LifeFramer and at "The Uncanny " Contest Gregory Crewdson and PhotoVogue.
One of her works is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art MACS Sicily.
She has exhibited internationally with group shows in London and in Italy and her work has been featured in the Huffington Post De, Musée Magazine, Aesthetica Magazine, Plastik, Trendland, Art Sheep, Iris, Fubiz, Ignant, HungerTv, Fondazione, Pitti discovery, Rai news , Einaudi, Lens Culture amongst many others.
Floria González, Mexico City DF Mexico.
Floria González, was born in Monterrey on July 20, 1980, NL, moving to Acuña Coahuila in 1983, moved to Mexico City at age 16 where he lives and works. She studied photography and film in Mexico City and in San Antonio, TX. In 2003 she starts working forming two ways; one inside photography and commercial video and the other in art.
Always carefully building the sets for her work, colors, textures, costumes and characters, either in the studio or on location. She first makes a storyboard, a drawing, a watercolor or an acrylic painting of the photography or video being made, where she creates the concept and the aesthetics of the piece and series.
The main theme of her work is the human; the dark side, their fears, traumas and doubts. Questions what is believed to be right to get to the root of the issue and start from scratch with a contemporary vision of spirituality and science.
Always starts and ends a series with the idea that everything is energy, there is no separation and that what is creating is just an idea in her mind and the collective mind, which all are stories created by this great mind; it can be personal, fiction or based on close people. And in the end, all is fiction.
She has participated in solo and group exhibitions in places like Mexico City, Museo Carrillo Gil, projects White Spider, Monterrey, Acapulco, New York, Austin, TX, Los Angeles, Miami, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Colombia, Berlin, Italy and Singapore.
She is the creator and director of Floto Studio, a production
house that makes projects like video, photography and advertising videos for Distroller, Sony Music, Universal Music, with artists like Leonel García, Natalia Lafourcade, Torreblanca, Carla Morrison, Kaay, Andrea Balency, Jorge Drexler, Kevin Johansen, Quique Rangel among others. She made a documentary for Alondra de la Parra in Tokyo and now is making visuals for Chula the Clown.
Vancouver BC Canada
Fang Tong graduated from the Fine Arts Institute of Shanghai University and studied in France. She has had a successful career in painting, sculpture, design and other art fields. In recent years, she has focused on photography, and she has been awarded several major international photography awards. She has been published in VOGUE and other major domestic and foreign magazines. The photo 'Swimming Pool' won first prize in the Nikon International Photography Competition Category C in 2015. She was commissioned by Sony in 2013 as one of 20 photographers around the world to represent Sony's camera phone. Fang Tong is a freelance photographer based in Vancouver, BC.
Fang Tong is a cinematic style photographer, as a spectator of life. Her works are embedded with an implied narrative, which is left to the viewer to resolve over time with their own imagination. Reflecting her background in classical art, the photography is carefully planned to control the frame and the expression of details, giving her work an ethos of a painter. As a bystander, Fang Tong captures the potential that photography can embody pieces with an eternal quality, thereby creating a slightly fictional world that resembles reality but transcends consciousness. Fang Tong's passion is for her work to border on the surreal, yet hold back enough to keep it firmly in the real world. Her photos provoke audiences to create a narrative out of cinematic pictures. There may be no clearly defined story behind the scene, but there is a strong mood and atmosphere throughout the whole image. The imaginary world is strangely familiar while the narrative arc takes audiences on a hyper-visual ride through people's subconsciousness. She nurtures the balance between the real and the surreal that pulls her audiences into the world she created, but she also allows the audience to discover their own answers.
Bart Ramakers (1963) photographs picturesque scenes that reflect on the "human condition". He mixes fragments of myths and legends, gospels and fairy tales, operas and film classics to new stories, in a quest for what (still) makes sense, as a modern photographing Diogenes on the debris of the Occident. Cheerfully anachronistic and archetypal, because the human condition is eternal and unchanging.
Bart Ramakers grew up at the banks of the river Meuse, in the shadow of the Van Eyck brothers. From childhood he drew, etched and painted, inspired by the Flemish Masters, by historical stories, baroque and romantic music and opera. His photographic tableaux usually descend from classical myths, legends and stories. They tell (from a contemporary perspective) myths of beauty and power, passion and betrayal, sensuality and brutality, life and death, often with a slightly ironic, sarcastic or humorous touch. The male / female relationships are often reversed, and Christian morality of suffering and redemption is replaced by enjoying an optimistic and generous love. Not suffering will save the world, but love, according to his version of the Last Supper (Agnus Dei, 2014). References to art history, film and literature are abundant in his work.His work was among others exhibited at B • Art Ghent 2013, FotoFever Paris 2014, "One Big Family" (Alden Biesen, 2015), "Sweet 18" in Castle d'Ursel (2015) and was discussed recently in detail in the leading Parisian magazine "Normal". In 2016 he presented his "Divine
Comedy" in the Schipperskapel Bruges. In the pipeline are Eurantica (Brussels North) and a participation in "The beauty of the Beast" (Castle d'Ursel, Hingene).
In situ projects:- The Apotheosis of Flore, the Notelaer Hingene (2014)- Strangers in the Night, Hotel Le Berger Brussels (2014) - In Bluebeard's Castle, Hof ter Linden, Edegem (2015) publications:- In Illo Tempore- Trouble in Paradise- Calendar "A Divine Comedy"
Shinji Ichikawa is a self-taught photographer based in Izumo city, Shimane Prefecture Japan where he runs his own photography studio.
As a child Shinji's home was also a photography studio, and he grew up from a very young age in an environment surrounded by photography. His first camera was his grandfather's Mamiya Flex which he carried everywhere with him.
A graduate of Tokyo Visual Arts, he first spent two years as an assistant in a commercial photography studio, after which he went on to work as a photographer's assistant.
Since then he has continued to produce his own works through self-reflection and self-contemplation. His work, which is solely shot in color, reflects his interests in expressing the contradictions of society, and the direction we as humans are taking in this curious world.
"My interest is search for essence of existence or things and an attempt to discover the essence of that "something" so different from the everyday life. It is also a way of stimulating and provoking new perspectives in those who view it"
Inspired by subjective art photograph, surrealist artists René Magritte and Giorgio de Chirico and is directly influenced by the work of Japanese Photographer Shoji Ueda. Like Ueda, Shinji captures the surreal world that humans inhabit, and like Ueda he is inspired by the landscapes of southwest Japan.
Amongst the various prizes he has won for his work, Shinji was awarded the Best of Show at the 2011 International Photography Awards, and also won the New Talent of the Year Award at the Moscow International Foto Awards in 2014. His work has also been featured in Dodho Magazine.
Austrian-born Sylvie Blum started a career in modeling prior taking the helm as a photographer. She grew up in Germany. Throughout her life, she has been traveling the world.Asia, Africa, Australia, the middle East, Europe,South America and the US.
As a child she already knew that she wanted to become an artist.
Her interest in art, fashion, architecture, design, pop art, music, movie making and photography became lifelong passions.
During her school days she started modeling and became a well known art and fashion model.
In 1991 she met legendary artist and photographer Guenter Blum and became his favorite model and muse…and in 1995 his wife. He was her mentor and teacher.
Sylvie learned everything about lighting, composition, darkroom techniques and photography from him.
Sylvie also worked with other international known photographers such as Helmut Newton, Jeanloup Sieff, Jan Saudek, Andreas Bitesnich and many more…
Sylvie took care of Guenter Blum through a terminal illness until his death in 1997.Heart-broken and devastated from the loss, she left their shared atelier in the German countryside. She moved to an old factory building, which she changed into a photo studio and started working on several photographic projects.
In the following years Sylvie published several art books and her work became international known.
In 2005 she got married for a second time in Las Vegas and relocated to California.
Today she lives and works in Los Angeles in her WhiteBox studio.
In 2011 her book "Naked Beauty" was published by teNeues and distributed worldwide.
Her show Naked Beauty opened in May 2012 together with iconic photographer Herb Ritts at the Fahey Klein Gallery Los Angeles.


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Okay ladies - looking for some ideas here. I just finally put my goals in writing today and tried to come up with some rewards to go with each. It's hard for me to do because if I want something bad enough, I just do it, KWIM? So, the new clothes when I hit certain sizes are easy - what good would a size 14 do me now! And a dinner/date - we don't do those often so that'd be good. And I never get my hair done (trying to grow it out now, so a trim or even a highlight would be fun later on)
What do you use as rewards???
This is my list - but I'm up for improvement!
200lbs - new outfit (Via mom [;)] )
185lbs - dinner/date
170lbs - get hair done
155lbs - dinner/date
140lbs - get hair done
(that's where I've stopped - I'll be MORE than happy with that weight and extatic should I get even lower, but it is actually the highest possible "normal" weight for my height)
size 18 - dinner out/date (darned close to this one)
size 16 - some dressy clothes (have khakis, etc already)
size 14 - new clothes
size 12 - new clothes
run 1 mile -
run 2 miles - new shoes
run 3 miles - new workout clothes
first 5K race -massage!
Then after all those are met - either TTC or a dog...LOL [;)] j/k - kinda
Catherine, Moderator
DH Britton
Emma, March 2003- 37 wks PIH & Oligo
Lara, July 2004 -38 wks PIH & gallbladder fun
goals and REWARDS!
This forum includes topics that don't fit neatly in other areas. Also home to our Weight Loss Buddies support group.
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