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DSC08276 , originally uploaded by QuakkauQ . Hi internets. Just writing to introduce you to the newest "moderator" for the Camera Toss Group on flickr. Jens Ludwig aka QuakkauQ , hailing from Germany, has been a long time member and you've seen his excellent images all over this blog. Now he's joined David Hull aka mtnrockdhh to help keep the photo pool on topic and help ease new members into the idea of Camera Tossing. The photo in this post was created by Jens and shared with the group yesterday. Very fitting for an introduction post I thought. Jens also maintains his own site/domain about camera tossing, www.cameratossing.de , where he posts some of his photos and experiments, news, yet ANOTHER Camera Tossing, HOWTO , and hosts an invited 'friend's gallery' for other camera tossers he knows well. Jens is also the instigator of a collaborative project we are introducing to the community. I'll post more on that topic very soon. ;-)

I guess one of the behaviors of the new genre of subscriber/reader driven content and publishing in the magazine industry is the inevitability of covering the same topic more than once. ;-) JPG Magazine , which did a story (including interviews) on Camera Tossing in it's formative youth ( Issue 6 ), has pushed another Camera Toss article amusingly titled Get Fresh With Us: "Toss Your Camera" in Issue 16 . Apparently JPG thinks seconds are fresher than firsts? This one however takes the form of a very brief photo challenge posed to it's readers/photographers online, and a selection of voted/edited picks of the result. Basically it's the magazine version of my "Pool Picks" postings except with JPG contributers being the "pool", and without really providing any instructive context, history, or origins for the readers and contributors. Ironically there was a user contributed howto article on the subject linked from the challenge pages, b...

These days, the US Dollar isn't really worth that much. I am not even sure you can get most newspapers for under a dollar. My last trip to the laundry mat certainly didn't qualify. And I'll DEFINITELY notice it during the pending currency conversions to the Euro and the Pound. But the difference of a dollar is another story entirely. WOMWorld was trying to send me my 'Urbanista Kit' which included spare Nokia N82s, batteries, rapid-charger, keyboard, SIMS, and other goodies for the upcoming trip. I got a call day before yesterday from FedEx Trade Network that it was stuck in US Customs due to missing paperwork. With two days before my departure date there was quite a scramble to fax documents and make corrections. One of those items of paperwork I was responsible for. This was a piece of red tape, providing my Tax ID or Social Security number, and only required when the total value of the international shipment is 2000.00 USD or greater. Guess what value WO...

Fone frow 1 , originally uploaded by birdlouise . As demonstrated by Bird Louise with this camera toss photograph posted to our community gallery on flickr . Interestingly the distortion achieved with this simple interaction of the sensor and motion resembles the very popular digital transform manipulation referred to as micro planets , typically achieved with panoramic techniques and coordinate re-mappings. But seen here produced entirely in camera! But boy is the sentiment accurate. Just under 3 days before my departure to Europe on the Nokia Urbanista Diaries project and today I was informed by FedEx that my necessary hardware gear (N82 model phones, SIMs, etc etc) being shipped from London is now stuck in US Customs due to paperwork errors. What else could go wrong? Well we have yet to reconcile the nature of a photo license agreement with Nokia for the project! Hmmm what else. Ohh the fact I don't own a credit card thusly no Hotel accommodations beyond the ...

I am constantly shocked by our shrinking world, technology and communication techniques being much responsible for this shrinking, but also the ease at which we can just hop around the world such as this upcoming trip for the Nokia Urbanista Diaries . But you know what, it was smaller than I thought! This recently came to my attention via a close friend Jason, who enjoys using his academic login to search for random things in Google Scholar . Sitting at the cafe he thought it would be fun to search for "Camera Toss" to see if there have been any mentions of it in academic literature. There had, exactly one relevant entry. If things keep up there will surely be more but it's WHO was responsible for the publication of that ONE, and how random and coincidental it seemed that really caused me to sit back and marvel at the way these things pan out. The mention came in the form of a documented interview response in an academic research paper/thesis on journaling and mobile ...

I choose the inputs to the process but I don't choose the combinations, they happen randomly. So that's a different idea for what an artist does. It's also a different idea therefore for what a viewer does. If the viewer is aware that their experience of the thing is unique and not necessarily the same as the artist's experience, I think that puts them in a different position as well. --- Brian Eno Glad to have Brian Eno as a spokesman for Camera Toss . Just kidding of course... but substitute "viewer" for "participant" in that paragraph and he might as well have been! Either his the words perfectly describe part of the way I feel about all this. Here's a camera toss by Right Brain where the inputs are some deck chairs and a porch facade Day Toss , originally uploaded by Right Brain .

A confluence of events has caused me to reflect on the idea of "community stewardship". As I posted yesterday , JPG Magazine , which had it's roots as a entirely community driven publication... decided to re-write it's history from the top down in hopes, one can only imagine, to appeal to a broader commercial market. This, among other factors, triggered the departure of the two founders, Derek and Heather . When this news broke, the community reacted strongly in support of the founders, whom many have known personally via interviews and communication since JPG's inception (including myself ). Currently on flickr , a search for the tag "jpgmag" or "jpgmagazine" reveals pages and pages of screenshots exactly like the one I posted yesterday. Community members saying their goodbyes to the publication and deleting accounts. I don't think this will destroy JPG magazine, but it will certainly feel the aftershocks. Matthew Haughey of metafi...

Goodbye JPG Magazine , originally uploaded by clickykbd . If there is one lesson in community driven publishing by corporate interests... that is that you not act in ways to upset the community. A nice magazine, but I was there for the community. Reasons for this decision: powazek.com/posts/534 www.hchamp.com/other/archives/001173.html on metafilter too

It is about time I devote some more attention to this blog... although really really inactive of late... that hasn't stopped all the camera tossing from proceeding at a steady clip. The reason for the inactivity is I've been distracted by work, life, and traditional photography for a while. Been shooting alot of b&w film myself and got my own daily photo-blog up and running for sharing some of it. I'm even on the verge of purchasing a darkroom setup I found on craigslist last week. But don't fear... I haven't forsaken the art of throwing my cheaper cameras... and have reason to do so again. It has been many months for me personally but you should see some new ones soon. I have a few announcements i'll be posting to this blog soon, and I should have some new photo pool pics up by the end of the day. Thank you everyone who has commented inquiring as to the inactivity... I'm still here... and Camera Toss, as a concept, is alive and well! But as with...

Installment 1 Originally uploaded by nicolai_g I've been thinking of starting a recurring blog/thread topic on the evolution of camera tossing... ongoing of course. Camera Toss as we know it is over a year old now and it actually has had some noticable evolutions. We've seen lots of things turn up that register as "new" yet still within the theme of this group over the last year. So for our first installment, here's one that showed up in the pool . Nicolai 's and one other are the first examples I encountered of folks trying Pin-hole camera tossing. Pinholes tend to be long exposure by default... but capturing something during a thrown pinhole can be quite tricky. In the case of the photo above... the SUN was the only light source bright enough to register during a "multiple toss multiple catch" experiment. Besides a pinhole ( flickr group ), it also happened to be cross-processed ( flickr group ) on expired ( flickr group ) 120 medium forma...

Happy Day Originally uploaded by eastofnorth . The Camera Toss Blog would like to extend it's warmest congratulations to _nod and eastofnorth for their recent marriage! I came to know both of them because they were early adopters in the camera toss community on flickr . In fact, that is exactly how they met! Who says throwing you camera can't possible accomplish anything worthwhile. Not to sound all cliche, but throwing cameras helped to make the best thing of all things in the world... Love. And a camera toss selection to suit the theme... And an interesting asside, both eastofnorth and _nod have created camera-tossed heart shapes, found via a tag search on flickr . Coincidence? I think perhaps not... And finally... being single myself. Watching all your friends up and get married can be a tad depressing... someone pass me the booze. ;-) Photo credits (left to right, top to bottom)... Eastofnorth 's wedding guest Rainer, ... Valentinian , marce_garal , El Ray...

©2006 Aaron Johnson. Included with Permission. The author/artist of the photography-centric web comic What The Duck sent me a note via this blog a couple days ago to share this relevant comic. I'm not sure how many of the camera tossing enthusiasts out there have had to visit the repair counter yet, but I am sure this was the experience they had if they did so. Fans of web comics and photography should definitely check out his strip. I read the archive and enjoyed it. Aaron has at least one new fan. Apologies for the lack of postings lately... have a few things to share and will get around to that shortly, also the photo pool is long overdue for a highlights posting... For now, here's some photo-pool spotlights: Originally uploaded by yeadon_eric . Originally uploaded by davespilbrow . Originally uploaded by El Ray .

Just a posting to say I've been way behind on keeping up with this blog, and the developments in the Camera Toss community due to my exhibition in Hamburg, Germany... and the travelling I've been doing on the side. I just wanted to say, after having reviewed the photo pool finally for some new pool picks postings, I'm very impressed with the work of the community of late. Several people have latched onto the idea and taken it in some very new directions. I'll be attempting to highlight some of this work in the coming postings. I have a week to rest in Wien (Vienna) before returning to the gallery and eventually home to Austin. If you include press coverage of the exhibition, our "in the press" side-bar element is also extremely dated now. It seems like I couldn't walk without stepping on a journalists toes! Keep inspiring and exploring new worlds! Ryan Gallagher

echoes Originally uploaded by mappamundi . mappamundi shared this in the camera toss photo pool recently and it is an excellent example of something I have been meaning to expound on a little... ...of aesthetics and physics Are there aesthetics that almost every human can appreciate? Certainly many believe so. A good example is the "Golden Ratio" and how it crops up everywhere in nature and man made design (see Golden Ratio Aesthetics and Golden Ratio on Wikipedia ). Personally I believe we do have some pre defined sense of aesthetics that relates to how our world looks and behaves. We have individual higher aesthetics beyond that, but there seems to be some base which we start from. It's a natural sense, something we have aquired just by existing and absorbing our world. Physics, including the physics of a thrown object, seem to me to fall firmly inside that realm. And when that flying object is capable of recording that motion visually... the result is capabl...

Cameratoss: It Can Be Done... Originally uploaded by eastofnorth . If this is "skill-less" photography, as is often claimed by skeptics, why is there so much room for practicing! Eastofnorth enjoys spiral results, but is stuck working with a camera that has an off center lens, making spirals much more difficult. But it can be done! A useful exercise, if you are interested in learning the arieal properties of your camera, try doing alot of practice with a single pin-point light source. The motion you achieve will be cleanly illustrated allowing you to hone your skills using the feedback from pervious attempts. Besides practicing your throws and learning the effects of different exposure lengths, the minimal results can often be quite striking!

Mentioned I was behind blogging developments, so attempting to catch up with a large post. Several people have sets I want to announce. Also, Camera Toss itself is evolving and finding where it fits in the realms of art, photography, documentary, and the universe? FIRSTLY, NEW PHOTO SETS! A Matt Groening Tribute Series by _nod Aaaaaaaaa Originally uploaded by _nod . Originally uploaded by _nod ( 31 images total ) view as a slideshow _Nod is really good at making sure we keep a whimsical perspective on all this. Being a Matt Groening, Simpsons, and Futurama fan myself, this set had me ROLLING in laughter as I watched the slideshow . TV's and computer monitors make an infinitely variable subject for this technique, as you can control what images they display. Great for tributes such as this. And with just a fling of his camera, _nod has transformed the static images on the television into wonderful popular culture art! It's even appealing to me, despite the fact I ha...

photographer threesome Originally uploaded by clickykbd . Just wanted to point out that alot of us enjoy normal photography too. Considering this blog actually has traffic, I'm going to try to take time every now and then to point out some of their more outstanding work as I come across it. The one above was a recent photo of mine, one I consider my best of late. Although she hasn't thrown her camera a whole lot, eastofnorth has been a very present personality from the get go! Here is a particularly lovely one from her: Field of Grey Originally uploaded by eastofnorth .

Some humor, although scary humor about all this camera tossing. I never thought it would come to this but it has. When I started all this I was taking pictures with a camera that I paid nothing for and was worth even less. But the images like this it produced inspired many others... complexity of the simple Originally uploaded by clickykbd . For the record, NEVER did I suggest it would be a good idea to throw your several hundred dollar digital SLR, but many have... fumble Originally uploaded by _Nod . And in our constant quest to find objects worthy of throwing our camera "at", some of us have perhaps gone a little too far. The basic idea of camera tossing is relatively risky, but some subjects should just plain be off limits. Such as a priceless Tiffany's lamp for example... Rainbowtoss Originally uploaded by laughtonb . Yes, I've watched antique's roadshow (and find it strangely fascinating). If I had one of those I'd retire young, take lots of pictu...