About Esther
photographer, adventurous, confident, lively, internet savvy, trend watcher, gadget lover, pizza devourer.
Yes that’s right, upcoming September I’m going to West America for three whole weeks. I’m so excited! We booked a fly-drive holiday and are going to visit the amazing National Parks Yosemite, Zion, Bryce, Grand Canyon and a few other. Plus we’ll visit some great cities like San Francisco and Las Vegas.
For quite a long time now I wanted to go to West America. I’ve already been to the Eastern states and some in the middle but never to the lovely West.
I kept postponing this trip due to the expensive school holidays and I didn’t have anyone to go with. Last year in September I wanted to go with my boyfriend but we both were unemployed. This time I’m really going… With whom? My mom 
It’s been 7 years since I last visited the US. Since my first visit to my favorite country I never had such a long time period in between my visits.
This will be the route that we’ll be driving, starting from San Diego.
Friday 14th, the release date of the iPhone 4S, well atleast in a few selected countries which doesn’t include the Netherlands. The damn phone comes two weeks later here on October 28.
Well I woke up and my morning ritual consists of checking my mail, Twitter, Facebook, news and my favorite online blogs. So upon reading a post from MobileCowboys about waiting for the new iPhone I get excited. In that post the writer mentions that there are 5000 copies of the iPhone 4S at the Apple Store in CentrO Oberhausen.
I’m starting to think; 5000, that’s a lot. How many can they sell per hour? Thinking that it could be 300 per hour, there should be plenty.
Cuddling up in bed I kept thinking about it, sure the iPhones will come to the Netherlands in two weeks but if I could have one today, that would be totally awesome.
I got into the shower, packed my stuff and was determined to go to Oberhausen. The whole ride I was getting so excited. Arghh, traffic jam between Utrecht and Arnhem, no another one on the Deutsche autobahn. It’s past 3 p.m. and I arrived at the mall in Oberhausen. Enthusiastic as I am I parked my car and I’m walking fast paced towards the Apple Store. Apon arrival I see a boy and a girl standing in front of me talking to the Apple representative. I asked about the iPhone 4S. The representative tells me they sold out four hours ago. What, no, really? For that one second all my hopes are trembled, then the boy in front of me starts talking and shows me a ticket. The Apple representative tells me that it is a reservation ticked they passed out this morning for those in line. The boy asks me how much I would pay for it and I say €30, he says; no that’s to little, I want €60. I say €50 but he sticks with €60. Okay we have a deal, thinking that I have gone through all this trouble I’m not going to stop now. Plus he had a ticket for a white iPhone 4S 32GB. I only needed 16GB but extra storage doesn’t hurt. As we walk to the ATM machine he tells me about the huge line this morning. Wow, what he described, it sure was long. So I withdrew €60 and we exchanged the deal.
In the Apple Store I got my white and shiny iPhone and I’m so happy again. I think I got lucky that the boy wanted to sell his ticket. I didn’t see anyone else with tickets and he was there with his girlfriend thinking she would have one and he could wait. Guess I did get lucky with that.
I did stick around in the Apple Store for a while to set up my new device. I also looked around for cases but saw none that interested me. Around 4.30 p.m. I started my journey back to the Netherlands.
The next day I got a microsim and ordered two cool cases on eBay. Oh, and I’m also writing this text on my new playmate.
Oh and Yes, for the next two weeks I do feel very special
A strong sense of photography within Content Creation is about the part that photography plays within content creation and how its use can be optimized. During my graduation project at the full-service internet agent Mirabeau I looked at the value of content and how Mirabeau can response to the customers demand.
Besides copy and video, photography is an important part of content creation. The creation of content is fairly new within the internet industry and there wasn’t paid much notice to the use of photography within online concepts.
This research focuses on the influences of photography within online concepts. The most important parts that resulted from my research are the factors; branding, context, position style and resources. Every one of these five factors are necessary for a valuable photography assignment.
The results of this research has been linked to a photography application for the iPad; an interactive object that is easy to take along with interaction possibilities that were never possible on a PC. The Photography App helps the employees from Mirabeau to find the right type of photography for their project.
During my travels through Andalusia I encountered some lovely places that I would like to share with you.
During my graduation period at Mirabeau I was asked quite a few times to make photos of different types of events. They noticed my passion and love for photography and I offered my helping hand.
Below you find examples of a few cases:
ING
Product shots for the ING bank that shows their identifier.
Van Gogh Museum
Mirabeau entered a pitch for the Van Gogh Museum, a part of that pitch was an iPhone and iPad application. The makers of the app and myself went to the museum to show the prototype in action.
Luxaflex
Another pitch was for Luxaflex. Mirabeau wanted to show the possibilities of an iPad application where users could use the camera in the iPad 2 and see how the luxaflex would look in their own window. I made the photo as well as the image inside the iPad.
Vodafone
Vodafone launched a new website where they are offering a their new service: internet and TV together with the Logitech squeezebox. I made the photo selection for this website but I also made a few pictures of my own. Unfortunately Vodafone used the stock images that I choose but my photos would have worked as well.
Gerry McGovern
Gerry McGovern came to Mirabeau in Amsterdam to give a workshop about his new book ‘Top Task Management’. His lecture was very interesting; I was asked to make a few photos of the event.
Na vier jaar hard werken heb ik gister mijn diploma kunnen ophalen. Het feest begon om 1 uur ‘s middags met de nodige drankjes waarna we met groepen naar lokalen gingen. Samen met Matthijs, Rianne, Robbert, Sammy en Yoeri kreeg ik van Saskia een mooie speech over de afgelopen jaren. Het papiertje ondertekend; ja ik ben dus nu ingenieur E.M.C. Ruiterman en Bachelor of Communication & Multimedia Design.
Nu is het tijd om op zoek te gaan naar een leuke baan. Tijdens mijn afstuderen was de focus voornamelijk op content en fotografie, wellicht dat ik hiermee een toffe job kan vinden in Amsterdam.
Zorgportaal Rijnmond is an online portal where the different care institutions in the Rotterdam are represented. The previous portal didn’t deliver much information by itself but referred to other websites. This had to change into a portal where consumers and caregivers can get all the information that they needed.
The clients demand
An ICT solution where Zorgportaal is at the centre of information and where consumers can find relevant information and that bureaucracy will be minimized.
The result
A complete new portal for consumers and caregivers where they can log into their personal page.
Consumers have access to their core files, can view the calendar for appointments, find the contact details and a large database of diseases. The caregivers log into their daily schedule and also have an easy access to the core files of their patients.
Personal input
During this project I mainly was responsible for the interaction design and the user testing. For each page I made a detailed wireframe with an index of each function. From my wireframes the visual design was made. At the end of the project we tested the prototype among multiple target groups and made a few adjustments before presenting it to the client.
.
Whenever I see my nine year old niece she always asks me to make pictures of her. This time her little sister saw her laying on the grass and came laying next to her. The fun thing about this photo was that Estelle (the little one) was a bit angry at me because she couldn’t touch my stuff. I love the long face on her
For the class DesignThis the teachers thought of a new way to work on our assignments and share the process. At 12 o’clock sharp was the kick-off in the attic at Pieter de Hoochweg in Rotterdam. We all received yellow DareThis t-shirts and started working.
For my photography project I brought a model. After the kick-off we left the building and went straight to an industrial location to start shooting. Days before DareThis I was looking for an industrial location and my dads warehouse was the perfect place.
I asked my model Lesley to bring three different outfits; something comfortable, a dress and something colorful.
Lesley was great to work with, she tried different poses and I directed her where necessary. This was also the first time for me to work with a model.
My assignment for DesignThis is that I wanted to use strobist photography with the use of a model. Part of strobist photography is off-camera flash which was new to me.
After a great shoot I brought Lesley home and drove back to school to do some quick post production and show my best photos.
I received a lot of positive feedback, but now I had to make the next step to get even better before the end of the quarter.
The final result consists out of two photoshoots. One during DesignThis with the female model Lesley and the other at the end of the quarter with the male quarter Sebastian.
Lesley is an athlete and a dancer wherefore she knows how to use her body. It was a pleasure to work with her and got some nice results out of it.
Sebastian was a bit insecure about photographing outside. That’s why I went to the same location with him and try to get the best out of it. It was a bit harder to work with Sebastian but eventually it did give a few nice results.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
For my final product I shot 4 different stories with the same theme: FFFUUUU. FFFUUUU is the statement that you use when something bad happens to you. It’s F*ck, but that long that you never hear the last two letters.
I thought it would be fun to use FFFUUUUU as a theme and that every time the last frame has the same ending. Every time the 5 frames were set up the same;
1 Introduction
2 Story
3 Climax
4 Clue
5 FFFUUUUU
These are my final products:
