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Hello world, my name is Martin and I live in Bonn, Germany.

I make my living as a online marketing manager and SEO. If there is time left, I like taking photos. Chances are good I take disproportionally more shots when on vacation. Sometimes, however, I find time to play around with Photoshop and try to be creative in post production.

Over the years, I have used many different cameras. I think I started with a plastic compact camera in primary school. Later, I was so lucky to be allowed to use my mother's Leica M2. She has always loved this very special camera and still, after so many years, looking at what she got out of this optician's masterpiece with the 35, 50 and 90mm lenses is simply unbelievable. I should also mention that I grew up in the town where the Leica is built.
Even later, I used my father's Praktica L series, the pride and joy of the GDR by that time and in fact one of the few things they could sell in the West.
Getting frustrated about the poor quality of even more plastic compact cameras, I bought my first SLR at age 18. It was a Canon EOS 1000, not even a 1000F, thus without a built-in flash. I bought a Tamron 100-300mm (which I still use today), a Sigma 28-80mm, filters, flash etc. -I must have gotten infected.
As the digital revolution had been underway for some time, I dropped the plan to buy an EOS 50E and bought a Powershot S30 instead.
Roughly 5000 shots later, I returned to SLR but added a "D": the EOS 350D. I love this piece although it does not get tired showing me all the things I apparently don't know about photography. ;)

Photography is a hobby for me, nothing more and nothing less.

Most of the pictures you will find in my photoblog are (relatively) unchangend, thus straight from the camera with no further processing. If I photoshopped them or used some other technique to make them look a little more special, I will mention this in the description. I have become a big fan of Lightroom and the creative possibilities of RAW development. Most of the newer pictures were taken in RAW and processed in Lightroom.

I should not forget dropping a line on copyright and stuff. We all know that this very medium we are publishing in is so much open source, that it would be sheer stupidity to look after every bit of code. Because I got inspired a lot by other photobloggers in the past and adopted parts of their work creatively when setting up this new design, I won't mind anybody making use of my code as long as I don't see a plagiat of my page. Most importantly, do not steal my artwork, that is my logo, my headings, and my photographs. Thanks. And in case you are not sure whether I am consent with your definition of "creative adaptation", just send me an email: feedback [AT] traumdieb.com