What’s going on?

The short version:

• I had a photo-shooting a few weeks back for a theatre project.
• The photographs were published twice in the German newspaper AZ (Abendzeitung), and once in the German newspaper SZ (Süddeutsche Zeitung).
• You will find a report on the shooting, the project, a few final photos, and (of course) the parts of the newspaper my photographs were in!

The long version:
Most of you guys know that I’m doing photographs now and then.
A few weeks back, Julia, a colleague and friend of mine, told me that her and two friends were performing a theatre play in a few weeks, and asked me if I would be willing to do a photoshooting because they were in need of material for PR, advertising and such. The project is called “Orpheus & Eurydike”, and is a theatre play with an actor, a piano player, and a singer. You can find more details on the play on their website.

After recently completing an awesome workshop on exactly that kind of topic, I agreed, and we met on a very warm Friday afternoon in the “Hofgarten” (a public park) in Munich. The problem was that they needed the photographs *immediately*, and since I was going to go on holidays for a week on Saturday morning, I had to work the whole night. Another problem was that the sun was still very bright (even at 5 and 6 pm), so I had to use rather extreme flashlight. The idea was to get some photographs with a little bit of surreal flair (Orpheus & Eurydike, is, after all, quite an epic fantasy story).

We went to work, finished after around 8 hours. Julia came home with me, and we spent the night in front of my computer (till 6am), me working on photoshop, her telling me what details to keep and which ones to work on, what photographs to delete and which ones to take, et cetera.

You can see two final results here and here.

Now, due to many press-contacts, Julia was able to place infos on the play in different newspaper (twice in the AZ, once in the SZ).

Rock’n Roll!

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Today I want to write about one of the greatest inventions in the sector of art I’ve heard of so far: the Image Fulgurator.

It was invented by the 24 year old German art student Julius von Bismarck.

What does it do? It is a camera that is triggered when another camera that is not too far away uses its flash. But the Image Fulgurator doesn’t simply produce pictures, it uses a flash and and an analogue picture in the camera in order to project that picture onto an object for a very short time; it will therefor appear on the photographs of other people.

Imagine taking a picture of a famous building, just to see it on flames if you check it afterwards in your digital camera; or a huge brandname on a famous building, which clearly wasn’t there when you took the photograph. Or some text on the clothing of a star …

Julius calls the device (translated from German) “apparatus for minimal-invasive manipulation of photographs”, and he thinks of it as an analogue hack. I love the idea.

Here are the technical details, and here is an article about the Image Fulgurator (SZ magazine).

[ the photograph shown above was shot by Richard Wilhelmer; thanks to Verena for sending me the link! ]

From May 2005 until a few months back, I tried to ignore people as photography motives as hard as possible. And it worked pretty well, actually. I focused on architecture, landscape, and small weird things and oddities.

But then, joining a few communities, and having very beautiful people around me I am allowed to bug with my camera, I got more and more interested in taking pictures of people. So much actually, that (although I should really get my master’s thesis done) I went on a workshop a few days back.

Here is a first result. Other photographs will follow the next days (click the link to see a larger version).

More results:

• Julia
• Tina

After the freeze at Munich Central Station on the 4th of May, there was another one a few days ago at Odeonsplatz, a public place in the City Center of Munich.

• I took a few photographs (1) (2)
• Someone uploaded an awesome video on youtube - a montage of different videos, with great editing (slo-mo, highspeed, great angles etc.). It’s around 4 minutes, and very funny to watch.

For general information about flashmobbing and freezes, see this posting.

Yay! I’m *really* happy right now … and I’ll tell you guys exactly why:

A friend of mine told me about the gallery theUntappedSource.com a few months back and encouraged me to apply as artist. I browsed the website and instantly took a liking to it - the webdesign is just awesome (one of the most beautiful sites on the web - simple, yet fascinating), they represent great photographers and other artists, and I very much appreciate the idea behind the gallery.

A short summary of their self-image:

We believe that a respected gallery, even one online, must filter who it allows to display artwork, and this, ultimately, will result in a high end gallery experience beneficial to both the artist and the customer. As our name would imply, we represent artists and artwork that hasn’t been fully exposed or recognized (let’s face it, exposure is never a bad thing in a high quality setting amongst other talents!). Brilliant artists are everywhere and that is why we are here. We aim to be a place where customers can come to enjoy great artwork and purchase fine art reproductions on a wide array of media types.

Well, after some encouragement I did apply there in November, and was “accepted” a few days back … cheerio!

The whole concept is extremely personal - they only have 2 or 3 people working on the gallery, and if you submit artwork, it takes about 24hours until it gets shown in your gallery because the administrators see to each and every single artwork manually (!), resize it for your needs, sharpen it according to what looks best as thumbnail, give you feedback if there is a problem (dpi not high enough, bad crop et cetera) and put it online.

This is a great achievement for me, because first professional authorities start appreciating my work, although it was done with an utterly crappy camera - so there is a lot of improvement to be expected as soon as I get my hands on a DSLR (Donations? Anyone?).
And of course I do not expect to actually sell anything on theUntappedSource, but that wasn’t the point for applying there in the first place.

My personal subdomain will be implemented in a few days, until then follow this link to my gallery.

One more thing:
After considering this whole “what categories of people exist?” again, I have come up with a conclusion: there are 3 classes of people. The first one consists of people like you guys who don’t have an account on theUntappedSource (some might think about calling you “losers”, but I of course will refrain from such disparaging judgements); the second one includes people like me who applied there and were accepted (I’m therefor pretty cool, I hope you get the point).
The third class though is a very small one and holds those very special people who were asked by theUntappedSource (sic!) if the gallery may represent their work … thanks to that special “third-class” (oh sweet irony) human being AliceLitwin for encouraging me to apply.
Seriously.
Thanks.

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