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Heinrich Hoffman is best known for the many photographs that he took of Adolf Hitler. Born on September 2nd 1885, Hoffmann took a prolific amount of photos during the Nazi German era. Hoffman is certainly an individual who filled up many sdxc cards in his time. Hoffmann also wrote a large amount of books on Hitler such as ‘Hitler in Italy’, ‘Hitler befreit Sudetenland’, and ‘Hitler in seiner Heimat’. Shortly before the Second World War broke out, Hoffmann published his final book titled ‘Das Antlitz des Fuhrers’.

On May 10th 1945, Hoffmann was arrested by the Americans before being tried and sentenced to four years in prison for Nazi profiteering. On May 31st 1950, Hoffmann was released from prison and settled in Epfach, a small village in the Munich area where he died at the age of 72, seven years later. In dying, Hoffmann left his widow Erna behind who went on to live there with the former silent-movie actress Wera Engels. The son of Hitler’s foreign press officer recently said in a documentary entitled ‘Fatal Attraction Of Hitler’ that: “He had that ability which is needed to make people stop thinking critically and just emote.”

I just moved into a new flat, and spent an hour today trying unsuccessfully to put up posters. Posters! The kind that require blutack, and yet even that was too much for my pathetic DIY skills. In the end, my flatmates came in to sort them for me, and we also went to IKEA and bought some of the shelves that stand alone, so there's no hammering required. Definitely the safest option, but slightly saddening given my childhood ambition to be Bob the Builder. The flatmates have made me swear never to apply for any construction jobs, so I'll look on Adizar.co.uk to find something more suited to me. I quite like the look of teaching, so maybe there's hope yet! They've also got part-time jobs and bar work listed, so I know I'll be able to pay my way through my teacher training and be able to buy a pre-furnished flat at the end of it!

Appreciate the led gu10 bulbs you have access to as it has recently emerged that one quarter of the world’s population lives without any access to electricity or modern fuels in general.

The United Nations Development Programme released statistics revealing 1.5 billion people live without any electric power. An estimated 79% of people in the Third World (which comprises the world’s 50 poorest nations) have no access to modern fuels, such as natural gas, propane, or kerosene. These nations rely upon charcoal or wood as their principal sources of energy which is detrimental to their health and is also inefficient. To raise billions out of poverty, these nations must be provided with electricity.

These populations without energy are mostly concentrated in southern Asia and Africa. Some of the statistics truly do shock. In eleven African countries, 90% of the population has no electricity, and in six of these, (Burundi, Chad, Central African Republic, Liberia, Rwanda, and Sierra Leone) just 3 to 5% of the population has access to electric power.

Doing the amount of photography that I do I have quickly realised that using the standard cell batteries does not really fit and in the long run can often end up costing me a lot of money. Sure many cameras including my SLR come along with a recharable battery pack, but some of the smaller and more retro traditional items that I use don’t. Things like the attachable flash are the same.
I therefore opt for a recharable attachment most of the time. I have experimented with quite a few different brands in my time but perhaps the most reliable that I have come across so far is the Ansmann , it does the job quickly, lasts a long time before you have to get either a new charger or batteries and most importantly it’s safe. For someone that constantly has the thing on the go I have never once had it suffer from over heating. Something that I can’t say the same for with other brands that I have used.

They often say that New York is the city that never sleeps but for me it’s Tokyo. Tokyo is a constant bustle of both contemporary culture and effigies from a time gone by. A city that manages a rare match of futuristic extravagance and decadence while still giving a nod towards tradition.
For me the concrete neon jungle of Tokyo is truly beautiful and a complete measure of what 20th Century industrialism and then consumerism was capable of at it’s peak. Like no other city that I have visited. Just stunning.
Image: tokview