The 200 Mark (The #365 Project)

As you may know, I embarked on Seasons of Glass, a project a little while ago to shoot and post a picture a day for year. That project has now reached its 200 mark, and I figured 200 would be a good number to write up a first summary.


I should start out that while overall I'm very happy with the results I achieved so far, and with the quality of the photos I managed to take, there were days when I felt like canceling the project - where I thought that the project, in the end, was more about quantity than quality. Fortunately, 'though, these days were rather rare. Overall, pulling the project through has kept me on my toes. It made me look for possible subjects everywhere and at every hour, challenged me to find things I normally would not have photographed and also made me take detours and discover new areas and aspects of Berlin. Overall, the project is a mixture of several things: a documentary of sorts about the places I see (and thus, to a large degree, it is about Berlin) as well as the things that I do. It is also an exploration of taking photos with the iPhone and the possibilities of editing these, or even using them to create collages, multiple exposures and drawings. In the end, 'though, the driving force has always been to find one picture that not only was worth being put up and shown to the public, but one that was maybe better than all the ones before (sometimes that also meant putting up not one picture but a small set of images).


Looking at the tags that have now assembled over 200 days, it is not surprising that Berlin is up there at the top of the list; and following it the two topics which have been the focus of my photography for the past ten years: urban and people. Seeing how long the winter was this year, it's also not surprising to see that tag way up at the top. Another tag, Little Things, is a bit more surprising: it's the expression I use to denote photos of small objects (statues, flowers, anything) I find around the flat, the hotel rooms, on the sidewalk. The kind of things I normally would not have bothered to shoot. Other tags, like toonpaint, doubleX and collage, reflect some of the techniques I apply using various iPhone apps.


The rest of the tags pretty much gives a nice summary of what my life was like the last 200 days: two trips to India, the daily grind of taking subways and trains, life in Neukoelln...


There are 165 more days to come: summer is waiting in the aisles and hopefully a couple more trips are coming up before the end of the Seasons of Glass. I hope to have fun with the remaining shoots, and I hope you'll enjoy it as well.

Bye Bye Winter

Spring is here, sort of. In honour of that new season, here is a look back at the long long winter we've had: Berlin Under Snow, a new set which I created on the Urban page. The photos were taken with a Holga and with the iPhone. Enjoy.

New India Galleries Online

I finally finished scanning in all the negatives from the Holga and Diana+ rolls I took in Chennai, Mamallapuram and Bangalore back in January, and I posted two new galleries to the Holga page. Unfortunately several of the rolls had severe light leaks and a good many pics were wasted. You see some of the not quite so damaged pics in the galleries.


All the sets with India photos are now in one place, namely [here].

Analogue Daydreams - The art of Holga photography

Back in January, Jim Elson, a media student in Berlin, interviewed myself and another Berlin based Holga photographer, Mathias Meyer, for a video about the use of and the fascination with Holga cameras, or, as Jim put it, "A short film about the Holga film camera, and those who love it". To the interview he added footage of us taking pictures with the camera and mixed in the photos taken during those sessions.
The video is an interesting essay about what Holga photography is all about. Check it out here.

India Revisited - Chennai & Mamallapuram

In January I returned to India for a little more than two weeks, some six months after my last visit. This trip took me to Chennai and also back to Bangalore. After the very mixed impressions I took home with me from Bangalore last time, Chennai turned out to be a very positive surprise. The city is the fourth largest in India, but it feels a lot less crowded than Bangalore. Traffic has its hiccups, but it's nowhere near as congested. There are other differences: I saw less extreme poverty and less destruction of old buildings to make way for shiny new glass palaces. There are still all the negative points which one has come to associate with India, the most noticeable of which is the extreme pollution: garbage and dirt that is just everywhere, accompanied by an all pervading stench; something which, I think, not only speaks of an utter disrespect of nature, but chiefly of other people's living space.


Still, I can truly say that I enjoyed my time in Chennai. As always, much of the joy of being in a foreign place is tied to the people you meet, and I found again that the hospitality and friendliness of the people in India is outstanding. Some of the best time I had was spending time at the beach in the evening during the week-end of Pongal (a South Indian harvest festival celebrated in mid-January), surrounded by thousands of people came out there en masse to enjoy themselves. In India, the residents of Tamil Naidu are renowned to be more religious and spiritual than elsewhere, and one of Chennai's striking characteristics is the large amount of temples and shrines encountered everywhere. Typical are also the large amount people wearing traces of Vibhuti, the sacred ash used in religious worship in Hinduism, on their brows. I don't know if it is their spirituality, or the climate (which can be extremely hot, I heard, but was a pleasant 30 degrees when I was there), or just the general laissez-faire attitude which I've come to associate with the residents of most seaside cities, but there was something of a very pleasantly laid-back feeling to the place.


I took several rolls of films in and around Chennai, all of which are away to be developed. Meantime, however, here is a link to two galleries of photos I took on the iPhone: one of Chennai (which includes some video footage), and one of Bangalore. Enjoy.


PS: more photos of Chennai and also of Bangalore can be found at my daily photoblog, Seasons of Glass.

"Be Berlin" Exhibition to be repeated in Berlin City Hall

In June of last year, the Luxembourg Embassy in Berlin held an exhibition of Berlin themed photographs by Luxembourg photographers, in which I also participated with a series of Holga photos taken at Berlin's CSD parades. This exhibition is to be repeated for one night only at the Berlin City Hall ("Rotes Rathaus") on Saturday, 30 January, for the "Long Night of the Museums."

The other four photographers are Marc Glesener, Ann Michaux, Marc Theis und Arthur Thill.

More information can be found at the Luxembourg Embassy's website.

2009 Reviewed

It's that time of year to create best-of lists - and here are my personal highlights from 2009.


We started January in London, which certainly was a good choice for passing New Year's Eve. Wintertime in London is also the perfect setting for creating very moody black and white photographs.

The next few months very comparatively boring, but May saw us travel to Amsterdam. Enjoyed the city hugely.

There was one major highlight in June: the Be Berlin photo exhibition in the Luxembourg Embassy in which I participated with a set of photos taken at various Gay Pride events. Fittingly, June is when the CSD marches are held, and this year I also captured a nice set of pics from the event.

For my birthday I received a Holga 120WPC camera, that is, a wide-angle pinhole camera. In July I went out and shot the first rolls of films with it. I must say, I do love that camera.

In August I went to India, to Bangalore to be precise. It spent most of the time working, but managed to get away to Mysore for a day. This old city was the highlight of that altogether very short - and strange - trip.

September I spent more time experimenting with the Holga 120WPC. Also, we visited the old East German broadcasting center, where I shot this set of photos.

In Octobre we took advantage of the last beautiful days to spend some time on the Baltic sea, on the island of Ruegen. The Diana+ camera was just perfect to catch the moody atmosphere of that time and place.

In November, I got myself an iPhone, and soon started playing around with the camera and the photography apps that exist out there. Taking photos on a daily basis, I soon ended up with a rather nice set of pics.

In December I took a short trip to Beijing. Didn't come back with many photos, but thanks to the iPhone, with a couple of good ones.

And to end the year in review, here is a photo taken today, on the very last day of the year; the year when Berlin finally saw some decent snow again. 


So this leaves me then wishing you all a Happy New Year, be good, be creative, and whatever you are, don't be boring.