…who still haven’t visited PostSecret, this is a little nudge to remind you that you should. I look forward to new secrets every Sunday to make me laugh, think or rest assured that I am not alone. This one made me laugh…

The energy I have spent over the years trying out photo websites and communities online that gather together creative people with the hopes of promoting new ideas, selling art, offering assistance and everything else under the sun hasn’t made me any money but it, on some occasions, has been worth the effort. Flickr would probably take the cake for most awesome online community but there have been other worthwhile ventures as well.

Tonight I stumbled across a new find called the Creative Index and it looks like an interesting (and new) take on the topic. Perhaps I can capitalize on my unique location to find some new opportunities for my free time…

It would appear as though I am “IT”. Whoever says sitting in front of a computer is solitary and unsocial clearly never sat in front of mine. My friend in cyberspace, Emily at WellPutRunOnSentence, has tagged me and I will dutifully (and happily) oblige. The rules seem simple enough:

* link to the person that tagged you
* post the rules on your blog (done and done)
* share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself
* tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs
* let each random person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog

As for the six unimportant habits, quirks or things about me….well, I feel like I share this kind of stuff all the time so it’s no so easy to dig up new things but I will try.

1. I wont “pet your fuzz,” “accept your venus fly trap,” or “poke you back” on facebook but i will, apparently, respond to an internet chain letter if you send me one. I only found this out today.
2. I swear like a fucking truck driver
3. I sing to my cats when I feed them breakfast (and other times)
4. I can spend unusually large amounts of time in front of a computer
5. I wake up happy
6. I found it way harder to rattle off 6 random things about myself than I could have possibly imagined

As for the lucky (or not) 6 that can now can now consider themselves “IT,” my fellow friends in blogging, I am going to tag this talented and interesting posse and see what gives:

SarahG. at BrownPaperandString
Joe at TheFullCatastrophe
Sean at spLYNDEd
Robin at InHerOwnWrite
Arianna at UtopianSlumps
Liz at AbstractTheDay

I received an email recently asking if I would agree to an interview for a “Member Spotlight” Feature on Expressions, a community of talented photobloggers that I am member of. Humbled and happy for the opportunity, I agreed and what follows are some excerpts from that interview. To read the feature in it’s entirety, click here.

“Beana crosses many genres; and is probably best-known for her performance photography such as the photo we featured last month of Pete Doherty (Babyshambles).

She’s a photographer’s photographer with a great style and always a pleasure to see at Expressions.

Beana has been on our ‘must feature’ list for a time. She didn’t know that until late yesterday. The reason we are featuring her today is Pete Doherty is suddenly in the news. Her photo of him is way better than others we’ve seen at news sites today.

Her photos are not always pin sharp and steady, even though she’s a bit of an equipment enthusiast she’s a photographer who thinks that the photo is often the situation not the sharpness.

Read on and enjoy…”

Click Here for the Interview

“Beana Bern is already published. We think you’ll be seeing a lot more of this photographer with opinions and talent.

We like the fact that although she is Austria-based her photos do not scream ‘Tyrolean’ like a travel book, instead they tell about her life and personality.

She must have a great gym membership (or a private chiropractor) to deal with all that gear she carries to a paying gig. “

What a pleasure to be asked to share in this way! I am honored that Jon and Lorissa sought me out and am humbled and grateful for the kind words and support. And as for the gym membership and chiropractor, I wish :)

“Bad Apple” By: Jeff Canham

i couldn’t resist…how awesome is this?

Yet again, my obsession with flickr pays off…

Im sure that one of these days I will write the love letter to flickr that is in my heart but today is not that day. Instead, today I am going to share with you only the tidbit that was waiting in my inbox when i woke up this morning. It would seem that ’somebody’ stumbled across my archive of vienna photos and ’somebody’ saw one they liked and ’somebody’ published that photo in the 4th Edition of Schmaps Vienna Guide.

Now, this is not a big deal. These are free guides made using a billion peoples photos but, nevertheless, now they are using mine too. In the life and grind of an aspiring photographer, having another published credit on your resume never hurts.

I hadn’t heard of these guides prior to this little gift but have decided to test drive one in Milan this weekend.

Now I am off to Innsbruck to pick up a repaired camera, buy a train ticket and drink some coffee. Hooray for saturday.

p.s. I took my own advice and thought, at least, 6 impossible things this morning. One of which being that I will see Vietnam in 2008…

In the latter part of 2003 my life felt insane. I decided that the best thing I could do with all of my nervous energy and spinning thoughts was to record them. I began my first blog around then and it ended as quickly as it began, with a posted apologie to a friend and a hasty all-out deletion.

The enjoyment I gleaned from publishing my thoughts for everyone, or no one, to see was clear and, though I failed with my first attempt, I immediately tried again. My friend Jamie once told me that I am nothing if not persistent and I would tend to agree with him. From late 2003 until sometime around the end of 2006 I tried between 7-10 different attempts at blogging. If you think it’s hard to read all the crap I write about, try writing it :) Seriously, it’s no easy feat to figure out a way to make something interesting and personal and relevant without being totally self-indulgent, insensitive of people’s privacy or a liar.

Some of those attempts focused on the technological aspect and had little or nothing to do with content. I learned html, php and some other misclellaneous coding but it didn’t really stick and nobody, including me, gave a shit about what I was saying. Other attempts were ‘themed’ where I thought I would provide some kind of service…like pooling craft info or cool design sites. As it turns out, my interests were either too self-absorbed or too varied to stick with that model and though the ancient 2craft site still lives and breathes on blogspot, it is dusty and old.

Finally, in late 2006 I realized that this forum, this medium, is not about providing a service or divulging my deepest, darkest secrets but it is a spot to record my careful days in a way that makes it fun for me to reflect. Whether or not anybody would be interested was not taken into consideration. It was a natural progression to find a way to include my photography and artistic endeavors and to design a “skin” that could stretch and grow with my changing perspective and aesthetic. I am the kind of person who could rearrange her apartment every Quarter and have fun doing it so easy-change was a requirement.

The end result of this experience is BeanaBernPhotography.com. A quilt, if you will, of a My-Expression photoblog that I use as my portfolio, a pro Flickr account that serves as both my digital backup and photo community, my storefront on Imagekind and, this page you are reading now, my WordPress blog. It has been 5 years in the making with countless detours, reruns and do-overs in between but it is built and, today marks the one year anniversary. Happy Birthday, 2beanornot2bean!

Just as a little trivia, I’ll tell you some fun stats about this here blog:

• On the busiest day, I saw over 150 hits. This happened because I posted a photo of Elijah Wood that I shot at a Heloise & the Savoire Faire show and some freaky fan site found it. In fact, they will probably find this post too and I’ll get lots of traffic from weird Frodo fans(no offense, Frodo fans)
• On average, I have 25 readers a day, 250 a week and about 800 per month. A small percentage of those (about 25%) actually click the links to my photo albums or my links. About half of those visitors are “regulars” though none of them have signed my guestbook.
• In general, people who visit my blog stay here anywhere from 30 seconds to 10 minutes. Not bad in the scheme of internet ADD, I think.
• There are no advertisements or sponsored links anywhere in any of my websites. All the links you see to the right were put there by me…go ahead, click on one or two of them and perhaps you find something interesting. I visit all of the sites linked there regularly.
• Photography, space invader and travel have been the 3 biggest criteria that have channeled people from google to me. Occasionally there are really weird ’search terms’ that land people here….here are just a few from today
  • “i love butter”
  • “poster junkie”
  • “japanese touriste”
  • “fritzens sex fashingsumzug”
  • “futzed”
  • “bansky tramp l’oiel”
  • “dr seuss secret art”

This may be about as interesting to you as, well, something that isn’t interesting but I figured that I would commemorate a year of consistent blogging since, for me, it is a small, but significant achievement. While I’m on the subject, I want to give kudos to all those people, whom I know and whom I don’t, who put themselves out there and share their perspective. It isn’t easy and sometimes it isn’t all that rewarding but it is good and I appreciate it, so thank you. Keep on bloggin’ on….

p.s. speaking of anniversaries, this week i also began my 8th year with Swarovski… wow.

So I am both humbled and excited to share the news that my friend Chris, over at RunawayDinosaur, has asked little ol’ me to contribute to his new and exciting blog as a feature photographer and column writer. Seems he’s been enjoying my photos from a distance and now has a forum where it makes sense to share them. His blog is a perfect combination of geeky-tech and music news which appeals to most of my interests.

See The Music…will be a regular feature on RunawayDinosaur and I invite you to swing by to hear me geek out about my cameras, share my rock and roll adventures, offer my input on tricks to organizing your digital archives…basically the same sweet mix of art and geek that you are used to from me by now.

Congrats to Chris on pooling together what looks to be an interesting cast of characters talking about an interesting specturm of topics!! I am looking forward to participating.

Stay tuned!! Next week See the Music will offer insight to last week’s Arcade Fire show in Munich.

found this link today on abstract the day…

Humans by Mike Mills with all of the motion and anxiety and transience i feel with impending moves, graduation and the fear that goes along with reaching a goal that at one point seemed insurmountable some practical insight is to, “admit that i am groping in the dark, overwhelmed by the consequences of my acts and that at every moment I am faced with outcomes I did not intend” it brings me comfort in a strange way that…and the part about trying not to anthropomorphize the animals I know….check it out

why is it that with 7 years of fire escapes under my belt and no grillin’ that i find this 3 months before i’m moving?

i’m not a big e-card sender though i’ve been known to receive a few now and again.  like a trip to the card store, it can take a long time to find exactly the right sentiment for an occasion and that’s why i usually make my own cards….well, i stumbled across someecards.com and found so many cards that i could see myself sending that i had to laugh.  you’ll probably laugh too.  check it out.