Thoughts

366 = done

Thoughts

Six more hours of this year, so it is time to look back. Honestly I am kind of proud that I managed to complete the a-picture-a-day-series of 2020, this very special year full of adjustments, disappointment and fears. I simply kept pushing the release and another big collection was formed. The pictures are all sorts of things, just like the past year was: interesting, also ugly, boring, blurred, but memorable, sad and funny, too, light and also very dark. It really means a lot to me to have found this personal way of retaining passing time. In 2020 I tried several ways of naming the pictures, I tried humour, sobrietry, philosophy and poetry. So in the future I can go back to a moment and meet the ideas of that moment.

In a way it feels like a rich life in this way. I fyou wat to have a look, you can do this here, later I will share some favourites on this website.

366/365

Summer time 2020

Thoughts, travel

Though this is a time of staying at home for most of the time, we luckily get the chance to leave our home for a bit. And honestly, I very much need this. When I think about it, I agree with this good friend of mine who told me once: When I travel I am my true self. As beautiful as summer time is almost anywhere with its happy blue skies, merry white clouds, bees and butterflies everywhere – my mind seems to need watching out a of a moving object, my whole body wants to bridge a distance. All I want is watching landscapes, cars, bridges and people fly by and also breath new smells, get fresh views, just be somewhere else. Not to forget finding new motives and sceneries for my photography.

A picture a day in pandemic times

Thoughts

Today is the one hundred fourty first day of 2020. Since March we all are spending most of the time at home. We work from home, we teach the kids on the kitchen table, (video)call our friends. We cook, we clean, we are busy. Our trip to Melbourne in May was cancelled, like everything else as well. Birthday partys, concerts, weekends. Life feels quite small and often dull. But time keeps slowly crawling. Like a snail in no hurry, without stopping ever, instead continiously crawling forward.

My project of the 366 days in pictures goes on, I add one picture each day. In this current year – I have done a-picture-a-day-series before, I give them German titles, using a phrase of a call to action. Sometimes it is funny, sometimes just a good advise. Sometimes a real invite to do better. It differs. Depending on the images I see that very day or how I feel. Because I can tell: a pandemic is something you feel from the inside.

All the pictures I took in 2020 you can find here. Scrolling through them is kind of satisfying: all the days that lie behind you neatly organized. Memories fixed. And scary days overcome. For the visual pleasure you see how the colors change in the pictures from grey days to freshly light green days to juicy dark green days in my favourite month of all – May.

Of course the subjects of my pictures are very limited, actually I only have two: things at home and walks around the area. And yes, often it feels like living in a big fish bowl, circulating around your own thoughts and walks. But: I am happy to have the walks and try to reach 10 000 steps a day. Keep on going.

366/78 – Steck dir Ziele oder lass sie los – wer weiß das schon

366/126 – Fang das Morgenlicht
366/99 – Mach Menschen Mut
366/132 – Notiere dir deine Gedanken

New year routines

Thoughts

Twenty twenty. It definitely feels like living in the future. I work a lot with teaching and literature this year but I just could not leave the photography out of my daily routine. Hence I have started a new 366-series this year. For me it takes away the sharp edges of time passing. Catching a frame each day has a deep meaning to me. It makes me happy.

There is still some work I want to show on this website: a portrait series of Emils and some North American travel pictures. In the near future I am going to work on that. For now I only share number 23 of this year’s 366. I took it this week which was filled with foggy days.

366/23

How’s life at the end of November?

Thoughts

So what’s new? Two weeks ago I removed my pictures from Café t’Bolwerk. I am actually very happy with how things went. I got to hear a lot of kind reactions on the images.

Furthermore I am busy with teaching and also I am working as an author now. I am in a team for an educational publisher and we are writing a school book about German literature. This consumes a lot of time, but also means a lot of fun. Having literature in my life, makes me very happy.

Two months ago I decided to quit my 365-project because I did not want to get bored by my own frames. After a few exciting trips in 2019 my horizon would be rather fixed. I still think it is a pitty because the chain of the days is broken, the diary is kind of broken. But hopefully there will be new chances in the future.

Two months ago I also bought an iPhone and I have to admit that its camera is quite nice, so I find myself very often using the phone instead of my bigger cameras. However I do have made some concrete portraying plans with people and as always I am very excited about them. I am so curious how the collaboration will turn out. And how the (November)-light will be of course! I will keep you posted.

Keep making plans, they mirror how you are

High in the sky

365, Thoughts

The last days of May I was lucky to spend in Munich. I was looking for interesting shots involving WATER since this was my topic that month (for that month or the ones before check my 365-album). My friends let me use the window seat and so I was able to take some nice shots. First it started with some grey of the tarmac, then green of the surrounding grassfields and then the ascending started. This makes you immediately realise how little nature is left, how huge the actual footprints are that mankind leaves on the ground – I mean: just have a look at this first picture. Your mouth shapes an O when a few moments later the fog is starting to show and is veiling the sight of the city. One tick later everything changes into a thick blanket of fluffy clouds which makes you forget everything humans did. Heaven is on your mind. It is the beautiful s-shape of the river Rhine that totally conciliated me.

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A new month

365, Thoughts

Concerning the 365-project: January is filed already, at least my images are. For February I came up with a topic: I am going to take a picture a day containing the colour red. Why is that, one might wonder. Because in the grey, cold month I want to remind me of passion, lust and – why not call it – love. Having a focus is fun. I should try it more often. I did a red month once earlier, when I made my 1000-series and I liked the outcome very much.

On the last day of January I went to Groningen to visit a symposium on The Negotiation of Values in Narrative, which was inspiring to me. I am looking forward how this will effect my future pictures. Because I also am interested in story telling and meta-perspectives. So let’s see, what will rise from that.

Here you see the first picture of February:

Feb1_0946 (Small)

What is it you prefer thinking or narrating

Hello 2019!

Thoughts

There it is: the new year. I am full of plans, like always. One of them is to make another 365-series, for a whole year. I know it will be tough: taking the camera with me, meeting my expectations in quality and finding a poetic title for the whole. But the reward will be big: producing a series is like a diary and can be interpreted in a lot of ways, it reveals more about insights of yourself and how you develop. And it freezes all the memories. The good and the ugly ones. In the end you will receive something like the picture here I took on new year’s day: it’s chaotic and confusing, but it is beautiful and retains this one  special moment in time. Wish me luck!

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New year’s day 2019