Bernskiold Media

Taking easter off…

International holidays are coming up and I have decided to take the easter off here to refresh and relax. After being down with a cold this week I feel I could use a bit of refreshment time and also some time to catch up on other things that I have had to put on hold. Now there will be a little easter weekend website tip appearing with things to keep you busy with on Saturday but now, with no further ado, I am taking easter off! I very much hope you’ll have a nice easter, eat a lot of candy and generally have a great time!

See you back on Monday!

No-Blog Wednesday

Okay gang, there’s a plethora of reasons to why there is no post today. First off I’m having problems accessing the site from my home network and I’m therefore writing this on my iPhone.

I’ve also been having a ton of things this week in terms of projects and school tests and have had a hard time to make the posting.

So, I’m going to go with the theme of Monday and take today “off” and work on new posts.

Ps: I am downloading iphone 3.0 from the developer connection and will be posting a review come next week!

No Blog Wednesday

I’m taking the advice a bunch of my buddies who tells me I could use a day off sometime. Therefore, I’m taking today off the blogging (as I also have the day off school) and focusing on getting some other things done. Check back here tomorrow for more cool things!

Instead of blogging today though, I’m sharing with you this photo as well as inviting you over to my newly redesigned photo portfolio website!

Summing up the year of 2008

Here I’m sitting again, at the last day of the year trying to remember everything that has happened this year. It’s really been an eventful year for me and I remember last year when writing this, it’d been a rough year looking to clear up… I just wish that would’ve been true. This year continued to be rough for me personally but I am happy to say that it is all working out now at the end of the year. It takes a lot of stress of me and allows me to focus on other things!

My life has been busier all time and with the start of a new school period more and more is demanded but I do feel that I’m in the right place, much more so than earlier years.

Before I go any further, I want to direct a very special thank you to perhaps the best friend one could ever have. It’s been a year with a lot of up and downs and it’s a lot thanks to your friendship that this year is ending as good as it is. I’m so grateful to have you as my friend.

There are also other people that I want to thank of course! I want to direct a thank you to the entire community over at the National Association of Photoshop Professionals forums. You guys are all awesome and it’s great knowing you all. A special thank you there goes out to Elizabeth Gast (or Firgs) for your concern for me and your constant nagging to get me to take more time off, always wanting my best. I do listen more than you think I also want to direct a thank you to David Zarzecki. You’re a great person, always nice to talk to and a rock on bouncing ideas and stuff on.

Before closing the thanks and heading to the business, a final thanks goes to my family and everyone that has not been mentioned here but do deserve to be here as well. You all know who you are! A general thanks also goes to all you readers of the site! It’s because of you I’m doing it and you make it just more fun to do as well!

If we move onto business stuff, XLD Studios has been going strong all year not feeling the financial crisis much at all, it seems to go strong into the coming year as well now and I hope for that to continue. As for news, there are a lot of new things coming on that front very soon and I’m very excited to be able to tell them in due course in the beginning of the New Year.

At this site, I feel that perhaps the most has happened over the year. The approach of the site has very much shifted and become a lot more focused on articles, tutorials and the general teaching of media as well. This is a focus I’m very happy with and going to be continuing with news coming this winter that is going to be pretty awesome (I can’t tell you anything about it yet though). Right now before the end of the year I’ve been happy enough to announce a very new feature column every month that Elizabeth Gast (from Design by Firgs) and I are doing, it’s going to be really fun and great.

This year saw the unfortunate event that I had to quit doing the Creative Suite Tips and Tricks podcast. I don’t know what will happen to it this year, but right now I just don’t have the time to keep it going but instead want to focus on other things with the sites and companies.

Before I finish this post I hope that you’ve had a happy holiday season so far and that you will get a very happy and prosperous new year. May this year be filled with success and joy, despite the rough times that we are in. I truly hope that everything will come together this new year. The last thing of this year that I want to do here, is to wish you all a happy new year!
/Erik
 

Thursday Bits and Bobs

It’s Christmas season which currently means that there are a lot to do as always and being mid-week, it’s only more and more to work on.

• Today I’m sending to a first an article on "20 signs that you don’t want that web design project". It’s a great lead in to a topic I’m going to be writing about tomorrow about clients.
   
• Adobe has announced that they have to lay off 600 jobs worldwide because of sales not going as well as expected.

Last thing today I do want to ask you if you have any tips and tricks on event photography. I’m shooting and videofilming my schools christmas party with dance and performances and I obviously want it to be as good as possible. If you have any tips to send this way, I welcome them and will definitely include them (with credit) in an article that I’m going to do after it about the experience.

Special No-Blog Friday

I know there haven’t been much blogging this week and today isn’t going to be any differnt I’m afraid. It’s the busiest time of the season for me both with school and work and this week we had a bunch of big tests which has equaled no-blogging. I’m taking this evening off for some "de-stressing" and some relaxing and I do plan on posting some goodies tomorrow, Sunday and through the rest of the week coming.

To all my US readers, you could see this as Thanksgiving and Black Friday off (even though we don’t have it here) but despite that we don’t have it, I’m going say a thanks to all of you readers who make it really fun to blog and for reading of course!

By the way, for anyone curious, today’s test was maths so if you find me speaking in equations and functions today, you know why

End of the week 46 updates

What has been.

Last week had perhaps a little lack in the blogging and I really hope to be able to catch up a bit again this week. Last week had some pretty large things in it for me, including a flute concert yesterday that did go really well. As we are approaching the holiday seasons it means extra work in all places for me. More and more design work to do, more tutorials I want to get out there and there are certainly a lot more news being released that I want to blog about. As if that weren’t enough, teachers don’t give you a break with tests either.

What’s coming up!

For the coming week, I have a few goodies lined up, including not just one but two product reviews. The first being of Scott Kelby’s Digital Photography Book Volume 2 that I finally decided to check out. My second review will be coming later this week and will be of a laptop bag that I got delivered late last week. It’s called the Brenthaven ProLite III bag and so far, I’m liking it a lot but I do really need a bit more time with it to give a good review.

I’m planning to write up a tutorial or two during this week as well as things are smoothing out in my planning and I’m trying to make room for all that I need to do and create a good, better and new planning scheme for myself!

To end today.

On that note, I believe that was recapping what happened over last week and if anything, this weekend has allowed me some relaxing but some good working hours to get some projects moving and some finished. Look forward to a great coming week as we are approaching the holiday season really quickly.

Speaking of the holiday season, check out my Holiday Gadget Gift Guide that I released last week for some major hints on what you could wish for or get for others in a lot of price classes. The great thing with the guide, and the sole purpose why I am doing it, is to recommend the stuff that I actually use and like and not just things I think "looks good". I get asked this quite a lot so for the third year in a row, I’m doing my gift guide and if I may say so myself, it’s looking very cool this year.

A fun photography project in school!

Usually when I begin a new grade section (like I’ve done this year) with a whole new class, it usually spreads pretty fast that I’m a designer and photographer, this time being no exception. i actually got the mission from the computer person at the school to take photos of events and the general school life. Now of course I couldn’t really pass up this oppotunity for several reasons. The first reason is definitely because I can go around with my camera all day and take photos (yes, even during lesson time). Also, it’s fun to document, not only the school but our class as well. It’s going to be awesome to have when we in three years graduate.

So, two days ago, someone came with the brilliant idea. We have an outdoor cap knitted out of wool, that’s kinda become our "class cap" (everyone loves it). So the brilliant idea was simple, we put everyone in the class, one-by-one, up against a wall of our classroom (the wall-part was my photographic idea) and take a photo of each and every one, wearing the hat. We got some really good results and we are going to be putting those up as 20×30 prints in our classroom, with a name badge on each.

Now why am I telling you this? Well, really to inspire. There are a lot of cool things that can be done with a camera, from the day-to-day environment that you’re in. Yes, I’m a landscape and nature shooter, but I find I’m loving to shoot people as well (hence this and my studio shoot this weekend). So far from this project (given that I’ve had a camera with me for two days) I’ve even gotten to shoot long jumping in our PE lesson. Apart from the fun it’ll be to have all of these shots later on, it’s super fun for me (the photographer). So get out there, in your normal working environment, with a camera and think creatively, if not just for a couple of days! Oh, and at the top is me in my capshot

Where I’m at all day..

So I told you a couple of nights ago that I wasn’t posting because I was pretty busy with organ activities all days this week. So I was standing and waiting on a little break then and I wanted to share the place I was at. The photo below is the main entrance…

Reason for blog silence

It’s really been blog silence here since Wednesday and I have a very good reason. I’m at an organ camp thing all days which is quite like nine in the morning to ten or eleven in the evening, so I really am a bit too tired to post then. Today I’m squeezing this in from my iPhone on the go (which really is squeezing by the way) but I’ll be back on Monday!