The lens is the photographers best friend.

Please enjoy the teaser trailer from my first feature film: You may also view it in high definition on the Facebook fan page of SHANGDOWN. The Way of the Spur

A babymatic of our daughter Emily Fan Montrasio. She was born in cold January 2010 in Shanghai, China, with a weight of 2750 grams and a length of 48 centimeter. A babymatic is a cinematic baby short film. If Vimeo is slow for you, try YouTube:

Once or twice per year I stumble upon a video or a film that captures me with it's magic, that inspires me, that makes me want to become a filmmaker. Nuit Blanche is such a video. Nuit Blanche from Arev Manoukian on Vimeo. I am speechless. This short deserves awards, lots of them. It's perfectly smooth, everything about it is done well (the lighting! the costumes!…

Jiajia gave birth to our beautiful daughter:

I am writing this negative experience down to leave it behind me, to forget about and to go on, to enjoy the new life with my sweet little daughter. I am also writing it down as a warning for other foreigners, expats and Chinese people who are having a baby in Shanghai or somewhere else in China.

Never ever have your baby in a Chinese hospital.

It simply has been the worst experience in my life. I am not exaggerating. It didn’t look bad in the beginning, when it seemed really comfortable to have a hospital nearby your home. Not when we heard the price, which was a quarter of what foreign hospital charge. Not when we saw the equipment, which was modern.

But once the actual delivery of the baby started, all that went to hell in just three days.

Yay! CNNGo is using one of my creative commons photos in a article called "Fake Chinese money is a problem, but so are fake anecdotes in articles". You can read it here: www.cnngo.com/shanghai/shop/fake-chinese-money-problem-so...

There are great HDR tutorials on the internet, but many or most of them require you to invest an hour or even more into the editing of a single image. The problem is, I don't have that kind of time! HDR is an hobby, and sometimes I've got really little time for it. But I love HDR pictures. So over the last three years, I've learned…

Wuzhen is a beautiful and historic city located in the northeastern part of China's Zhejiang Province. It is well-known for its picturesque canals, traditional architecture and rich cultural heritage. The city is an important tourist destination, attracting visitors from all over the world who come to explore its charming streets, ancient bridges and peaceful water towns. Wuzhen has a history that dates back more than 1,300…

View towards Puxi from the Lupu bridge in Shanghai, China. Treated in Photomatix and Photoshop. Shot with a Canon 5D Mark II and a 85mm f/1.2 lens. UPDATE! As you can see on the screenshot below - which was taken on a windows machine that is not genuine - my image made it onto the frontpage of the popular german photo magazine VIEW by Stern. Yay!

a helping hand from Jakob Montrasio on Vimeo. omo supports since 15 years a charity organization which helps handicapped widows in the countryside. this video shows their efforts, as the charity organization helps a mother who is unable to help her child. shot for omo / unilever via ogilvy shanghai. this is the 'cinematography cut', if you will. the original two minute version can be found…