iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Guy Sie @guysie.nl · 28/08/2026

I’ve made an adapter you can 3d print that lets you mount the 7.09” high-DPI epaper panel into an IKEA Rodalm frame. Still my favorite frame for epaper builds: www.thingiverse.com/thing:7401942

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Guy Sie @guysie.nl · 22/08/2026

Just for comparison, this is what the same image looked like when displayed on a regular 480x800px 7.3” Spectra6 display. The high DPI version really makes a lot of difference!

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Guy Sie @guysie.nl · 22/08/2026

I’m playing around with a new spectra6 e-paper panel and this one is FUN. It’s 7” but 1200x1600px - a much higher DPI than the normal spectra panels of this size. On the normal 480x800px panels I can see the rough dither pixelation - I really can’t see that on these.

A Sam & Max illustration displayed on a bare Spectra6 e-paper panel.

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Guy Sie @guysie.nl · 07/07/2026

Don’t know if this concept ever made it to the UK or if this is just a very Dutch thing, but in the NL hundreds of thousands of these books were sold over the years. He coined the term ‘omfietswijn’ - meaning a wine so bang-for-buck you’d cycle to a different supermarket for it.

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Guy Sie @guysie.nl · 20/06/2026

A user on Reddit shared some deep sleep battery life optimizations with me and I’ve been testing the difference on my E1003s, head to head. The results? When my original config emptied its battery, the optimized one still had 80% charge left. Really impressive!!!

A chart showing the battery level of two E1003 frames. The yellow line, following the original config, goes down from 100% to 0%. In that same timeframe, the blue line which follows the optimized config, goes down from 100% to 80%.

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Guy Sie @guysie.nl · 24/05/2026

The E1003 is special because it has a (relatively) high-DPI screen that can do shades of gray, as opposed to the normal pure black/pure white epaper screens. I have one hanging in my hallway and it regularly fools guests who think it's a real photo print!

A hallway wall with pictures frames hanging on it. One of the frames is the Seeed Studio reTerminal E1003 epaper screen in the stock aluminium black frame that Seeed bundles with it. The screen shows a black and white photo of the interior of a tower in Copenhagen, with the daylight from the windows lighting up the dark halls. The other picture frame in the image is a graphic design that repeats the Dutch term 'Houdoe', which is a colloquial way of saying bye in the province of Brabant.

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Guy Sie @guysie.nl · 24/05/2026

Got a blog up for one of my cleanest epaper projects at the moment. I use the @seeedstudio.com reTerminal E1003 epaper device with @esphome.io to make a digital photo frame that looks indistinguishable from a real black and white photo.

An IKEA picture frame that has been modified to hold a Seeed Studio reTerminal E1003 epaper screen. The screen shows an analog black and white photo of a woman standing in front of a white van that is covered in graffiti. This photo was taken in Berlin. The picture frame is sitting on a wooden media center, alongside other objects that sit on such furniture.

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Guy Sie @guysie.nl · 15/11/2025

The RÖDALM’s back is made out of cardboard and can easily be cut to provide access to the E1002’s buttons and USB-C charging port. This way, I probably never have to take the display out of the frame again. The frame’s metal tabs aren’t great, so let’s not bend them too often 😅

Rear view of a reTerminal E1002 e-ink display in an IKEA RÖDALM picture frame, with the frame’s cardboard back applied. Holes have been cut in the back at the top and at the lower left, which corresponds with the display’s control buttons and USB-C charging port locations.

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Guy Sie @guysie.nl · 15/11/2025

The mat the RÖDALM comes with does partly cover up the e-ink panel, so it’d be nice to create a custom mat that doesn’t block anything in the future. But out-of-the-box, it’s already pretty well aligned.

A reTerminal E1002 e-ink display in an IKEA RÖDALM picture frame, displaying a checkerboard 800x480 pixel test picture to show how much the frame’s mat is blocking of the display.

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Guy Sie @guysie.nl · 15/11/2025

The display’s case also looks more futuristic than artsy. But here’s the twist - the E1002 fits nicely inside a cheap IKEA RÖDALM 13x18cm frame! 🖼️ There’s some gaps, but they’re easily filled with some 3D-printed spacers.

Rear view of a reTerminal E1002 e-ink display sitting in an IKEA RÖDALM picture frame, with black 3D-printed spacers filling up the gaps between display and frame.

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Guy Sie @guysie.nl · 15/11/2025

By itself, the E1002 is a nicely cased Spectra6 e-ink panel with 800x480 resolution. That’s too low for photography, imho, as the e-ink requires dithering using the 6 colors it can do. This creates a pixelated effect that doesn’t look great on photos - but it’s fine for illustrations!

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Guy Sie @guysie.nl · 15/11/2025

I’ve started using the @seeedstudio.com reTerminal E1002 color e-ink display as a digital art frame! Runs on ESPHome and pulls images from my @home-assistant.io server 🥳 Quite pleased with it, more details in 🧵

A reTerminal E1002 e-ink display in an IKEA RÖDALM picture frame, displaying an AI-generated illustration of a woman’s face in tints of dark blue and orange, downloaded from Freepik.

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Guy Sie @guysie.nl · 22/10/2025

My e-ink addiction continues. After playing with Waveshare’s Photopainter panel, which has no wifi but only a microSD, I was excited to try this Seeed Reterminal 1002 frame. Same Spectra6 color e-ink panel but with an ESP32-S3 on the inside, so it has wifi and can run ESPHome!

A hand holding up a white Seeed Reterminal 1002 e-ink frame, showing a colorful illustration depicting houses in Amsterdam with some tulips in front. In the background a monitor can be seen showing the output from ESPHome, which created the firmware the frame runs on.

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Guy Sie @guysie.nl · 29/08/2025

Yes I love that! I’m taking this combination out to shoot on my next holiday trip - a 50mp medium format Hasselblad from 2020, with a ‘50s Leica 50mm/f2 lens. Love the idea of having 70 years older glass on the camera and getting amazing pics.

Hasselblad 907x body with a Leica M to Hasselblad X mount adapter, which lets me mount a ‘50s Leica Summicron 50mm/f2 lens on it.

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Guy Sie @guysie.nl · 08/08/2025

Did some tests with the 50mm cron at f/2. Vignetting is not great but very fixable/croppable. Sharpness is fine for a 70 year old manual focus lens (it’s why people want vintage Leica character). As always with the 50mp back, more pixels than I know what to do with - check out the crop.

A photo of purple flowers sitting in the middle of green leaves

A very close crop of the previous photo of purple flowers sitting in the middle of green leaves

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Guy Sie @guysie.nl · 06/08/2025

This little adapter feels like it’s gonna be a lot of fun. It takes Leica M-mount lenses and adapts them to my Hasselblad X-mount body, so I can use the big, modern Hassy sensor with vintage Leica glass (this lens is from the 50s). I’ve seen wedding photogs use this combo to great effect on YouTube!

A Hasselblad 907x digital camera fitted with a Novoflex adapter that lets a vintage Leica 50mm f/2 Summicron lens be fitted to it. This combo rests on a blue table, with a Peak Design bag in the background.

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Guy Sie @guysie.nl · 05/08/2025

It’s a surprisingly simple DIY btw. Missile switch is just a standard electronics part I got from Amazon. It’s hooked up to an Aqara Zigbee leak sensor - normally detects if there is water in between the two screw contacts, but now it’s hooked up to the switch terminals, so it detects the toggle.

The inside of the Home Assistant missile switch. The bottom of the switch is shown, which has two wires (one black, one white) coming out of the terminals which are going to a white round Zigbee leak sensor from Aqara. The wires are attached to the screw contacts of the sensor.

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Guy Sie @guysie.nl · 05/08/2025

A while back I talked about the @home-assistant.io missile switch I made, but I never showed it. So here we go… this exists only because I wanted to have this ridiculous, over the top, oldschool switch in my home. It controls nothing, but I just enjoy seeing the state change 😅

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Guy Sie @guysie.nl · 25/07/2025

Oooh I’m looking forward to testing this! It’s KEKS’ modern remake of the Leicameter from the 50s - a shutter dial-coupled light meter for Leica M film cameras. All the original Leicameter sensors have basically died, but this uses the same form factor with a modern sensor and digital screen.

A Leica M3 film camera with a KEKS M-Meter mounted to the shoe. The KEKS meter couples to the shutter dial so you only have to set aperture after metering.

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Guy Sie @guysie.nl · 21/07/2025

The first time I’ve hooked up my @usetrmnl.com to @home-assistant.io! What you’re seeing is a screenshot of my HA dashboard displaying the current soil moisture levels of my plants, captured using @paulusschoutsen.nl‘s Puppeteer add-on. The TRMNL displays the screenshot using the Alias plugin.

A TRMNL e-ink display with a wood-look frame. The display shows a dashboard captured from Home Assistant that displays all the moisture levels of my plants, both indoor and outdoor.

Text displayed in the dashboard is as follows:

Indoor plants
Alocasia
28%
Begonia
26%
Peperomia
26%
Scindapsus
26%
Strelitzia
21%
Alocasia Zebri...
23%
Araucaria
53 %
Maranta
22%
Phlebodium
19%
Spathiphyllum
31%
Zamioculcas
23%

Outdoor plants
Olea
16%
Campanula
47%
Lavandula
21%
Mandevilla
27%
Mixed Pot
17%

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Guy Sie @guysie.nl · 16/06/2025

I did not shoot as much film as I wanted last year, so I’m trying to find an analog camera small enough for daily carry, that’s still enjoyable enough to make it worth the effort. Current idea is this Leica CL, an external Reveni shoe meter, and a 28mm pancake lens.

Hand holding a Leica CL film camera over a wooden floor. The Leica CL has a broken meter, so the small Reveni shoe light meter is inserted into the top of the camera. The Brightin Star 28mm f2.8 pancake lens is mounted to the camera.

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Guy Sie @guysie.nl · 10/06/2025

I’m gonna need time to process this result 😂

Veggie ID
Carrot
Strengths:
-Sentimental and very thoughtful
-Will snap you out of your delusions
-Collects many fun things
Weakness:
-Collects too many fun things
-Cannot commit to anything
-Irresponsible in their own special way
"It's ok I'm getting my paycheck on Thursday"
"Omg that's so cute!"
Alignment: Lawful 30%, Neutral 70%, Chaotic 0%
Good 90%, Neutral 10%, Evil 0%
Hidden Talent: Dance Dance Revolution Beast
Peer reviews:
"I am surprised they still have the bookmark I gave them in
5th grade"- Pumpkin
"It took 5 of us to hold Carrot back from getting a dog.
Carrot lives in a studio" - Garlic
"I stole a collectable from Carrot. Then Carrot saw it in my room and said, "Omg I have that too!" - Tomato

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Guy Sie @guysie.nl · 27/05/2025

Finally got one of those kids cameras that prints to thermal receipt paper rolls! This really should not be this much fun, but guess what, it is!! Like having unlimited black and white Instax.

A yellow/orange kids camera that prints photos onto thermal receipt paper, lying on a plastic table, surrounded by 11 black and white prints on receipt paper spread around the table. The prints are various photos of Guy, his living room, and the view outside of his windows.

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Guy Sie @guysie.nl · 26/05/2025

This could be a very interesting use of an e-ink tag running OpenEPaperLink - a medication tracker. Hit the corresponding button after taking your meds in the morning/evening and the timestamp on the tag updates. To avoid those cases were you just don’t remember if you took them today.

An e-ink electronic shelf label, normally used by supermarkets, running alternative firmware from OpenEPaperLink which lets you use them for other purposes. This one has been turned into a medicine tracker with 2 buttons on the top right, the left says ‘Evening’ and the right says ‘Morning’. On the label the last timestamp of each button press is noted, acting as a reminder of you taking your medication.

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Guy Sie @guysie.nl · 17/05/2025

Okay here’s a direct comparison of the ACeP e-ink screen (left) to the Spectra6 e-ink screen (right), default palettes. Spectra6 wins. In comparison, the ACeP screen feels like there’s a dull grey layer on top. Losing orange ink on spectra doesnt matter, red+yellow dither is still more vibrant.

Two Waveshare photopainter e-ink frames side by side on the floor. The left screen uses an ACeP screen and the right screen uses a Spectra6 screen. Both show the same illustration of a rocket launching into the sky. The colors on the Spectra6 screen are more vibrant.

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Guy Sie @guysie.nl · 16/05/2025

Turns our there’s an updated version of Waveshare’s Photopainter frame (their demo e-ink art frame product built around a pico) that uses a Spectra6 screen instead of ACeP. Couldn’t help but pick one up to test… first thought; much higher saturation on the colors, but you do lose orange as a color.

Two Waveshare Photopainter e-ink frames, one the original version and one the updated B version, on a table. The original version is showing its back, containing the pico PCB and battery, while the B version is showing the front with a test image displayed. The test inage shows the 6 colors - black, white, yellow, blue, green, and red - that the B’s Spectra6 e-ink can display.

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Guy Sie @guysie.nl · 05/05/2025

The reason these OEPL screen are so appealing is that because they were designed for supermarket shelves, they’re battery-powered and work anywhere without having to run power. I put this screen in our hallway, as a little ubiquitous weather screen you see before you head out the front door.

Guy’s hallway, featuring an intercom, a mirror and a coatrack against a white wall. A 4.2” e-ink shelf label displaying the weather is put on top of the intercom. This label had its firmware modified with OpenEPaperLink so it can display other information, in this case from Home Assistant.

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Guy Sie @guysie.nl · 05/05/2025

Started modifying the automations for updating the OEPL screens. Our local weather provider (KNMI via Weerlive API) doesn’t give daily rain forecasts, so have swapped those spots out for pollen counts from the Kleenex pollen service. As you can see, all red, this is not a good week for my hayfever 😅

A battery-powered 4.2” e-ink price label, normally used in supermarkets to display product pricing, now modified to run the OpenEpaperLink (OEL) firmware that lets you display other information, such as data pulled from Home Assistant. This label is displaying weather information from Home Assistant such as the current weather, hourly forecast, and daily forecast, and pollen information for hay fever.

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Guy Sie @guysie.nl · 03/05/2025

Also from ChunkySteveo’s repo comes the code for this little 1.5” screen, which with some magnet tape on the back becomes a nice tiny ubiquitous weather info panel that can go anywhere magnets stick. In this case, our kitchen rack!

A battery-powered 1.54” electronic shelf label, used normally for product pricing in supermarkets, modified using firmware from the OpenEPaperLink project and magnetically attached to a kitchen rack. This firmware lets you put other data on the e-ink screen, such as data from your Home Assistant instance. The label displays the current weather conditions.

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Guy Sie @guysie.nl · 03/05/2025

More OEL e-ink label experimentation! This automation is from ChunkySteveo and pulls the weather forecast and data from your Home Assistant’s weather entity. I will want slightly different information displayed, but this is an amazing starting point to customize! github.com/chunkysteveo...

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Guy Sie @guysie.nl · 26/04/2025

A first experiment with putting my own HA data on the OpenEPaperLink labels (the previous examples were generated by OEL directly)! Nothing fancy yet, but having these little batterypowered screens around the house - especially where I have no power - is going to open up a lot of options 🤩

An electronic e-ink shelf label, like those used in supermarkets, modified to run the OpenEPaperLink firmware to display data from Home Assistant. The screen displays Temperature, Feels Like, Rain Rate, Wind Speed and Wind Direction data that is pulled from a weather station connected to Home Assistant.

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Guy Sie @guysie.nl · 23/04/2025

Playing around with OpenEPaperLink, an alternative firmware for e-ink shelf labels like the ones they use in supermarkets. These guys have made it easy to display other information on the labels, like your Home Assistant data. Very cool!!! openepaperlink.org

Three e-ink electronic shelf labels sitting next to each other on a desk. They have been modified to run on OpenEPaperLink, an alternative firmware to use these e-ink displays as screens for Home Assistant. The left screen displays today’s date, the middle screen the current rainfall expectation, and the right screen the weather forecast.

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Guy Sie @guysie.nl · 16/04/2025

Spent the evening learning to use LVGL in ESPHome to create simple interfaces! Made a tiny cover art display that shows the details of the currently playing music in my kitchen.

An Espressif S3 box on a kitchen table, in between a Kitchenaid mixer and a kitchen ipad, turned into a covert art display using ESPHome and LVGL. Currently displaying the song Swing! By Ellie Dixon.

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Guy Sie @guysie.nl · 05/04/2025

Dumb idea made reality this weekend: I always wanted to have an over-the-top missile switch, like fighter jets have in movies, in my smart home to do something unserious. Turns out those switches are like 5 bucks on Amazon, and if you wire one up to a Zigbee leak sensor it works straight away 😁

A toggle switch with a red missile safety cover, like they have in jet fighters in action movies, attached with wires to an Aqara Zigbee water leak sensor.
By using the exposed contacts on the leak sensor, the switch can now be connected to a smart home platform like Home Assistant.

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Guy Sie @guysie.nl · 01/04/2025

But if you look closely, it’s quickly revealed that the screen is actually very low res and only supports 6 colors (2 of which are black and white). Of course nobody will look at it that closely normally, so it works just fine.

A close-up of the e-ink screen’s illustration of Sam & Max, revealing how pixelated the image really is on the screen.

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Guy Sie @guysie.nl · 01/04/2025

I’ve added the little Waveshare e-ink artframe to our gallery wall and am quite pleased by how natural it actually looks at normal viewing distance. Like a framed postcard hanging on the wall.

A photo of a gallery wall with 3 frames in the photo. The frame that is the subject of this post is a small color e-ink screen by Waveshare that is currently displaying a Sam & Max illustration.

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Guy Sie @guysie.nl · 19/02/2025

It took a while to get here - I ordered during the Black Friday pre-order sale last year, and it should have been here in December - but the Combustion gen2 is finally in my kitchen! Now I have to decide what I want to cook with this…

Me holding two retail boxes from Combustion Inc in my hand. One box has the Combustion Predictive Thermometer and wifi booster in it, the other has the Wifi Display in it.

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Guy Sie @guysie.nl · 02/02/2025

If I’m going to test this e-ink screen with illustrations, might as well pull out the classics!

A Waveshare Photopainter e-ink frame, displaying the box art of the ‘90s Lucasarts adventure game Sam & Max.

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Guy Sie @guysie.nl · 01/02/2025

After more testing, the e-ink screen looks much nicer with illustrations than it does with photography. Vibrant colors dither better. Here’s a test with the awesome Utrecht poster by Jochem Coenen. It looks like a real framed postcard at a distance - you only see the pixels from really close.

A Waveshare Photopainter e-ink frame, displaying an illustration of the city of Utrecht in the Netherlands, by Jochem Coenen.

A close-up of a Waveshare Photopainter e-ink frame, displaying an illustration of the city of Utrecht in the Netherlands, by Jochem Coenen. The separate dithered pixels are clearly visible in this picture.

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Guy Sie @guysie.nl · 01/02/2025

I had hoped that this kind of screen would be good enough to display my black and white photography, but this screen doesn’t do grayscale, so with just b&w it becomes a 2 color screen. Dithering helps, and at a distance it looks fine, but this really doesn’t do justice to the source material.

Close-up of the Waveshare Photopainter frame with an e-ink display showing a black and white image of a bridge in Utrecht, the Netherlands. The display only uses black and white pixels in this mode, as it does not support grayscale.

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Guy Sie @guysie.nl · 01/02/2025

Playing around with a Waveshare Photopainter frame. It’s a 7.3”, 7 color e-ink screen that comes prebuilt with a frame and very basic software to display images. You have to prepare pics by resizing to 800x480 and dither to reduce colors to the 7 available. Result looks very pointillism 2.0!

Waveshare Photopainter frame with an e-ink display showing a photo of a white building in Berlin against blue sky.

A close-up of the Waveshare Photopainter frame, still showing a photo of a white building in Berlin against blue sky, where you can see the individual pixels displayed by the e-ink. The display only supports 7 colors so all other colors have to be created by using the dithering effect to blend these 7 colors when seen over a distance.

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Guy Sie @guysie.nl · 25/01/2025

They might want to send Alexa back to language school 😂 (In Dutch, an egg fried sunny side up is called a ‘spiegel ei’ - literally a mirror egg. But obviously, that is about as wrong as you can translate it…)

A screenshot of a banner in the Amazon monile app with the text:

"Alexa, how to make mirror eggs?"
Alexa now also speaks Dutch.

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Guy Sie @guysie.nl · 31/12/2024

I totally missed that bsky did a 10M users celebration image that told you what number you were a few months back. Was curious, so Reddit says skyzoo.blue can pull the same number and… guess I was pretty early 😅

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Guy Sie @guysie.nl · 21/12/2024

February next year is going to be amazing for me, musically. Seeing Lake Street Dive, Sammy Rae, and Lawrence - 3 of my all-time favorite bands - in a span of 3 weeks.

A screenshot showing tour dates in Amsterdam for Lake Street Dive, Sammy Rae, and Lawrence.

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Guy Sie @guysie.nl · 17/12/2024

Yeah, I loved each one of these! Don’t know how many more 5-stars I gave out this year, but these were definitely highlights.

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Guy Sie @guysie.nl · 17/12/2024

Whoa. I averaged a book a week last year, but beat that this year by a good margin 😳 I read in bed every night before going to sleep, it’s an essential part of my routine to clear my head. The more stuff is going on, the more pages I need to reset. Lotta stuff happened this year 😁

Goodreads year in books picture that says Guy read 74 books and 24999 pages.

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Guy Sie @guysie.nl · 08/12/2024

All these pics are just a few example black and white snapshots from my first outing shooting with this XPan crop today. Nothing impressive yet, but I'm hooked by this cinematic vibe. Really looking forward to start shooting specifically for this crop soon!

A black and white panoramic photo of a bridge over the canal in Utrecht, the Netherlands. The wharf cellars lining both sides of the canal can be seen.

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Guy Sie @guysie.nl · 08/12/2024

This wide frame gives you so much breathing space on both sides of what you're normally used to - you can decide to fill it up, leave it empty, use it to focus even more on a central subject.

A black and white panoramic close-up photo of a parked bicycle, leaning against the fence at the canal in Utrecht, the Netherlands.

A black and white panoramic photo of an alley that leads down to the canal in Utrecht, the Netherlands. On the other side of the canal an ambulance can be seen parked on the street.

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Guy Sie @guysie.nl · 08/12/2024

The weird crop forces you to rethink how you look at a scene. Suddenly there's room to play with elements you can place across the wide frame. I'm reminded of how using Instagram Stories for the first time was fascinating for me, the weird stretched out vertical frame was really stimulating.

Black and white panoramic photo of a brass band busking in Utrecht, the Netherlands.

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Guy Sie @guysie.nl · 08/12/2024

One of the cool things on my new camera is that it can take pictures in the style of the Hasselblad XPan, an iconic film camera that took panoramic photos. In reality it just removes the top and bottom from a normal photo, but there's something super cinematic about this aspect ratio (65:24).

Black and white panoramic photo of the canal in Utrecht, the Netherlands.

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