I had a deep look into my photo archive the last days and I found some concert pictures from the last 2 years. They remind me of some great days in my life.
I was in Berlin last weekend to visit a good friend of mine. We talked a lot of and did some sightseeing and shopping. But we also visited a photo exhibition in the C/O Berlin on Saturday. It was a huge retrospective about Don McCullins work from 1958 – 2008. But their was also a second one.
Jonas Bendiksen showed us the slums of the world in his exhibition “The places we live”. Both exhibitions are just incredible and necessary to see. Everyone who´s interested in our world and got the chance to travel to Berlin within the next weeks have to go there. But notice… you definitely need some time for all the pictures especially with these hard topics. I was finished with the Don McCullin exhibition after almost 1 1/2 hours and it was hard to clear my mind of all these cruel pictures and take a step to the next one. My mind was full of thoughts about the world and McCullins itself because I tried to imagine the situations he had been into. So I took a short look at the other exhibition.
These pictures here are not presentable for the whole exhibition. I just want to give you a small survey about it. You definitely need to see all the pictures by your own.
After 2 hours in the C/O Berlin we were very hungry and so we decided to take a meal in an Indian restaurant. I was totally fucked up at the end of this day.
This was the view out of her window.
There was a snowman demonstration against atomic energy near the the “Alexanderplatz”.
“I always believed that I don´t own my photography rather that it owns me. It gave me a life, an extraordinary life which could never be repeated. I feel as if the gift of seeing what is really going on in the world is mine only so long as I put it to proper use.”
“My responsibility towards mankind is to show how the war I am photographying is ugly and uncomprising. Young people, over here, have grown up with an Hollywood´s vision of the war: frivolous and glamorous, filled with handsome and muscular guys, nicely tanned.
That´s not what war is about.”
“Photography is like an unexploded mine, you must go around it, you must not thread on it, you must respect it – otherwise it will blow your legs off.”
“Stealing pictures of these people with a long lens was not my style. I wanted to be close to them, to feel their plight, and to convey the emotion of contact with them.
I wanted their trust and to become their voice.”
“It is difficult to associate the word "dignity" with conditions such as I photograph, yet dignity is what I try to show. I find it most in the people who suffer the most, they seem to marshal the energy of dignity, because they will not surrender.”
“I did´t want to be a war photographer in the first place, I wanted to show landscapes and peace [...] which I find much harder than photographing war.
It does´t take much eyesight to photography someone dying in front of you.”
“If the time is not right, I can be patient, stay in that place for hours, willing things to come.
The other day I to photograph the sea, in the West of England.
I sat for two hours, looking into the water, willing the clouds to go where I wanted them,
until they did just that, and I took one picture and I went home.”
“When I got to Africa, I found it´s not a story just about Aids. It´s a story about poverty.
In a way, poverty is war. It´s a disgrace; it´s abominable.
I found people sleeping in darkened rooms, lying on the floor, not even in comfortable beds the way we would expect to be if we were ill in a hospital. I found people who had no medication whatsoever, no food, nothing, living in intolerable conditions. It´s just unacceptable in terms of humanity.”
It was kind of an interactive exhibition because you have to go inside some boxes where you stand in front of 4 huge screens. You hear someone speaking about his life, the place he lives at and about the common situation in his country. Everything was illuminated in a dark way outside the boxes so you get a feeling for the conditions in a slum.
fucked up at the end of the day but i really enjoyed everything.
cheers // Martin
I´ve been to the “Staatstheater” Cottbus last December to see the play “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz”.
The theatre is just beautiful and i really became heebie-jeebies sometimes because of the awesome sounds and the whole stage setting. Here are some impressions:
cheers // Martin
I´ve been in Kiel for exactly a week now. Today was the first day for me at the sea this time.
This is what I found there:
cheers // Martin
I had a visit to my old hometown over the x-mas holidays. This was not the first visit but this was the first time that i really saw the “beauty” of this town. All the shapes, walls, destruction, old houses, the landscape, the people… I was really fascinated by all those things. And I became the feeling to make a small portrait of my hometown cos maybe you´ll find some beauty in it too.
train station
i really <3 the walls of that city…
from another century…
black & WHITE
Dieselkraftwerk – Art Museum
“ class struggle”
These are the streets of my district were I lived for 14 Years.
This is the place where I lived in a high rise building for 14 years.
Everything was smashed down because many people moved out of Cottbus
and the house was nearly empty.
On those steps you get to another high rise building where a good friend of mine was living in.
Now it´s also destroyed and empty on that place.
I also met some old friends…
“the cat…miau”
today & yesterday
and i had some great party times…
I also met some shitfaces…
…but also some beauties.
cheers // Martin
This is my first blog entry this year. So happy new year to all my readers and friends.
And let´s begin with the end of the last year. I was in Berlin on 31 of December.
Uh yeah. Big city is calling. We went to Berlin to have some party in the “Festsaal Kreuzberg” cos someone of the band “Bonaparte” was one of the DJ´s. So we expected some great music.
But did we get the great music?
NO!
There were some dancing songs but I really expected more of THIS evening. It was just a normal party with some champagne at 0 am. But I was happy to had my lovely friends round me. So we didn´t care any longer bout the music and made our own party. Here are some impressions of this night:
we were chilling in a girlfriends flat first…
Reindeers?? Forget it.
We are living in the 21th century.
Santa is coming via a motorcycle and he´s moving his ass on it!
We also had some drinks to feel comfortable with the world out there…
Berlin moves on and on…
…and we were on our journey to the club.
just some street shots in the train….
We finally arrived the club. I was kind of afraid of the this security guy.
I had also forgotten my passport but everything went to the good.
In the club…
Happy New Year!
…we had our own party…
The toilet. I really like to shoot toilets.
Yeah do me the Pharaoh.
Maybe it was already to late at this time…
way back home…
Berlin can bring you down in those nights…
I thought this was the last picture for this night…
…but then i saw this light at the alternate house.
Next day. Way back to Cottbus…
we were also totally destroyed…
cheers // Martin
check their music and meanings:
cheers // Martin
Today i woke up and saw that the sun was shining bright. So i decided to take a walk with Nadja to the “Brasil Café” for a brunch. It´s a really nice café to hang out and have a brunch. The prices are also quite fair. And also with me…my new Canon S90. It´s awesome to see how this camera works and i love it more and more. But here are my impressions:
the walk through the dirty streets
pigeons warm-up in the sunshine
the massacre
i used the manual focus here. works quite good with the focus loupe
cheers // Martin
Maybe one of the biggest rock-pop bands from Germany with the name “Silbermond” played at the Rothaus Arena Freiburg last Tuesday. And I was there to shoot them. It was cool to see how they interact with the audience and how they care bout their fans and everything surrounding them. They played almost 2 hours and 4000 people were there to see them. But i´m not really into their music so let´s finally see some pictures.
cheers // Martin
but i don´t care…
new comments