Sometimes several seemingly unrelated events and realities converge and conspire and cause us to change course.

For Japanese artist Kazuaki Kameyama, it was witnessing a stunning Hawaiian sunset, turning 40, and his admiration of Japanese painter Daigoro Yamashita, who sketched scenery wherever he went.

Trice inspired to follow his passion for fine art, Kazuaki-san gave up a career as a graphic designer and moved to the seaside town Shonan Shichirigahama in his home country Japan, where he felt he could paint “true sky” and “true ocean.” Working in acrylic and gouache, he sketched and painted daily.

Nearly eleven hundred days and eleven hundred works of art later, he was ready to exhibit. Realizing he could not display all his work on a wall surface, before his recent shows at Emon Photo Gallery in Hiroo, Tokyo, and Ginza Ito-Ya, Tokyo, he searched for an album that would suit the task.

The aim was to make a simple, beautiful and strong impact. The albums had to be well designed. I chose the Kolo Newport album … the cover windows allow me to title my work, and the quality of the albums protect my original art.

Kolo albums, in neutral colors, became an integral part of his exhibitions.

Visit Kazuaki-san's online gallery here.

- Ugo

“If thoughts can do that to water, imagine what our thoughts can do to us.”

There’s a lively discussion going on over at You Tube about a clip from the film, “What the Bleep Do We Know!?” which has gained a cult following in recent years.

Apparently this film has struck quite the quantum chord.

Can happy thoughts change water molecules? Uh … dunno … but, “for all the wonderful photos she will be taking,” that red Kolo Newport photo album that the barefoot performance artist gives to Marlee Matlin’s character (5 minutes, 40 seconds into this clip) could certainly affect her photo-presentation reality.

OK, so maybe we can travel backwards through time … maybe we can focus our way to more energy density … maybe positive thoughts can change the molecular structure of water.

But then again, what the bleep do we know?

To view the clip go here.

-Ugo

Aloha. I make a lot of panoramic albums with Kolo Newports because the cloth-hinged pages let them lie flat when opened. I put one print down across both pages of a two-page spread.

I make my own prints, and my paper of choice is Breathing Color “water color” paper coated with their Glamour coat and cloth tape on the back, as this lets you open and close the album without ruining the prints.

There is a crease at the fold of each print, but the prints are not ruined. Looks good.

I put the cloth binding tape, about 3” in width, on the back of the print. It’s self-gluing. I make a soft fold in the print to give it a little pre flex, and then coat with Glamour coat to both the front and back. I put glue tabs on the back, in the middle area of the print (to prevent the print from popping up in the center later, when you close the album or turn the pages). I add more glue further out, but not at the edges of the print.

I have had a bad summer cold and should have just stayed in bed, but started making these and just would not stop going.

More images of this project appear here.

Michael Gilbert will teach at the Photo Plus Masters of Light series in New York on October 25, 2008. For more info, go here.

- Ugo

An interesting idea from Hildi:

I was cleaning up my little boy’s room recently and forced myself to face the ever-growing pile of things I’ve simply been unable to part with... the “Tea” sweater friends had given him, his first baseball hat, a hideous deflated Mylar balloon that was his “first balloon.” This is a slippery slope of nostalgia hoarding -- I do not want to become some ephemeral pack rat...

…Then it dawned on me that I could save photos of stuff instead of the stuff itself.

So I photographed a bunch of his baby stuff and put the pictures in a lake Kolo Catalina and labeled it “Augie’s things” on the spine. A few treasures that I still couldn’t throw out, but were too bulky to keep in an album, are tucked in the Kolo Havana box.

- Ugo

From photographer Jules Bianchi:

The new Kolo Stripes are cool! I shoot weddings and I’m interested to see if brides and grooms would go for the stripes… the couple who got this album loved it. My favorite Kolo solid colors are ocean, lake, sage & chartreuse, but I think leaf/sky, & ruby/mandarin are my favorite stripe combos.

I also like the Kolo Newbury as a wedding album. Its smaller size has a sweetness to it that befits a wedding album. Sometimes the huge wedding albums can be a bit imposing, but this smaller photo album looks nice on a coffee table, and isn’t too many photos for the couple’s visitors to look through.

I am a big believer in the “less is more” philosophy. I don’t like a photo album to look too cluttered, so I usually show 3 or fewer photos per page, and only one photo on the first page. I don’t want the eye to bounce around too much — I want the viewer to relax and take in the story.

For more visit: www.julesbianchi.com

- Ugo