The teacher is Johannes Rigal, whose courses I always enjoy.
We were in the area of Hardenbergstraße, Ernst-Reuter Platz, Fasanenstraße, Kurfürstendamm ….. and the first assignment was to do with “describe ‘city’ to someone who has never seen one’. There were about six other assignments later on, but I got kind of stuck on the first one.
Will need to pick 10-15 photos from the following:
With Go2know Lost Places Fototouren.
I will never stop wondering why the Germans call them Lost Places.
First of all, with the German propensity to translate everything into German, including for example Polish place names, then why use English words for this?
Secondly, the places are – obviously – not lost, so –
Thirdly, if English words have to be used for this, why not do as the English speakers and call them “abandoned places”, which is what they are?
LAST UPDATED 14 November PM.
I signed up for this photography course which turned out to be a mistake. Partly because, as it turned out, it is more about paper and cutting and pasting and glue than about photography. Now, I don’t use the word hate lightly, but here it is: I hate paper and cutting and pasting and glue, for any other purpose than purely practical. And collages. They are too messy. And partly because I don’t have a creative, let alone artistic streak in me, and during the first class it became clear that those are required (although it is still not quite clear to me, what is expected of us, which is perhaps just another proof that I am out of my depth in this class).
However, I have always liked surrealist painting and sculpture and will try to dive into surrealist photography during the coming weeks. I did visit the Max Ernst exhibition in the photography museum, but came out totally uninspired, so he will not be on my list of favourite surrealist photographers :-).
Whether this post will turn out to be suitable for presentation in the class is doubtful, though.
Talking about collages, this, from 20222, is the closest I will ever get to making one:
Incidentally, going by some of the synonyms offered by the various dictionaries – “strange”, “dreamlike” – the above is from what I can safely say was the most surreal time of my life (described elsewhere on this site). Even surpassing the first Covid19 lockdown, AND 5 November 2024…..
I guess I have always found life, and the world, surreal (and not in a good way), and now more than ever. We are living surrealism, and humans – the most disagreeable species on earth – constitute surrealism personified.
In order to disperse all those dark thoughts (by the way, I was stunned to see how on 6 November, everyone else continued chirping and lah-di-dah-ing as if nothing had happened) I went to see the Sony World Photography exhibition, not looking for surrealist photography particularly, but to see if I could find something which I could juxtapose or otherwise use together with my own photos.
The first one is from the exhibition, the second one is my own (I call it “The Dingo ate the Baby”). But naah, they work better separately:
Having barely finished destroying Planet Earth, we are now looking for other planets to go and destroy, including, unfortunately, the moon (though strictly speaking not a planet, but we’ll still do what we can to ruin it). Personally, I prefer to enjoy it from afar with no signs of human interference. The first photo is from the Sony exhibition mentioned earlier – the second is a triptych I made of the setting full moon some time during summer 2024:
The day after, I went in search of some splashes of colour on a grey day, literally as well as metaphorically, and was also hoping for photos to illustrate the contrast between the abundance in this part of the world, compared to the abject deprivation in other parts. I have to say I was unprepared for so much distasteful ugliness, as well as the obscene food waste. But yes – the geese go well with pumpkin – in more ways than one.
On 9 November, Germany celebrated the 35th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. In Berlin, a wall of posters was put up along the trajectory of the wall from a little north of the central station to a little beyond Checkpoint Charlie. Impressions from the day are in a separate post. This is one poster that caught my eye with surrealism in mind – I don’t really understand what it is referring to, but the photo looks like it fits the category of surreal:
The next day – birdwatching (a bit of a joke in thick fog) on Tempelhofer Feld. There was definitely a dreamlike atmosphere and again – more photos in a separate post):
Earlier this autumn, I was experimenting with ICM to see if it might make already strange photos stranger, perhaps even creepier.
Sharp or with motion blur – what works best? :
Some more ICM:
Other previous attempts at making photographs look “surreal” – not sure how many of those actually work:
A couple of older triptychs. The first one is what can happen during a pandemic lockdown – the second while walking along a beach somewhere in my favourite part of the world: The Wattenmeer:
I am compiling a list of favourite surrealist photographers – to be added in due course.
On 22 November, I suddenly found myself doing a tiny bit of cutting and pasting:
(The sculpture (minus lips) is by Stephan Balleux).
With Merlin Schiel, Freilandlabor Britz, listed in Umweltkalender.
Woke up to thick fog but a weather app insisting it would lift at around 9.00 – the time of the start of the walk – which is why I attended. The fog did not lift, but there was a special atmosphere on Tempelhofer Feld (not least due to my fear of getting lost since I already have no orientation skills whatsoever), and also, a couple of kestrels let us get quite close, so I am glad I went.
And some on the way out, and some on the way home, and two from my home:
A total of five photos to be submitted to Blende2-Hamburg.
Despite the fact that I live in Berlin, with its endless amount of street art, I somehow do not think I will photograph any for this assignment.
As for autumn foliage, I’ll have to wait and see. So far, there is not that much of it around.
But ICM – I have done quite a lot of that, periodically, in recent years, and always find it fun, for a little while, until I don’t, and completely forget about it. But I am always happy when it come up as “homework” in a course.
Below are the results so far (to be continued for another couple of weeks) from which I will have to choose five photos:
Festival of Giant Kites, Tempelhofer Feld, 21 September:
Morning walk at Landwehrkanal/Urbanhafen 24 September:
Visit to Berlin Herbstrummel. Obviously a missing link in my cultural education, although it was a lot like a pre-Christmas fair:
My attempt to make a bundle of “pretty”, pastel-coloured prizes look creepy:
Visit to Tierpark Berlin 7 October:
And finally – an attempt at making a scene look more dramatic – not sure I succeede, plus the odd one out: a multiple-panel with autumn foliage, such as it was, since that was only getting started in Berlin a few days ago:
In the end, 13 people were signed up. Three of those actually turned up. I will forever wonder what it is in “please do not sign up unless you plan on attending, and if you do sign up and then discover or decide that you are not going to attend, please cancel”, or similar words to the same effect, it is that people do not understand.
Other InterNations members are wondering why I have so few “Contacts” in my contacts list. Apart from the fact that I don’t care about having contacts in InterNations contact list, another reason is that I block no-showers from being able to contact me directly. Sorry.
Anyway, it was a good day out, the weather was perfect, and the number of visitors must have broken all records.
Here are the (too many – sorry :-)) “normal” photos I took:
Early morning walk at Landwehrkanal/Urbanhafen 24 September
Under circumstances (e.g. 32C forecast for today), I am quite sure we will not see many birds. Also, the leaves still on the trees, I will most likely not be able to get any bird photos, but the walk will be enjoyable anyway.
It is really true that there are fewer birds everywhere, but we did see this Goshawk:
In any case, the Späth Arboretum is always worth a visit, like an third Berlin botanical garden, with an impressive number of different trees and bushes, and a small lake.
The Spät’che Baumschule further has various plant nurseries, as well as a shop with local produce, good coffee and homemade cakes. It is also home to various annual festivals in an idyllic location, a.o. a wine festival with wines from small German wineries, and a Christmas market which is reportedly “Berlin’s prettiest”.
Other photos from the walk:
(As seen from my home in Berlin).
