Meenzer Fassenacht

I did this last year, and I did it again. It was Carnival. Once again. I tried to get some rather non typical perspectives of the day. I think it worked out sometimes.  Hope you enjoy the photos…

 

Little Spiderman near the station.

 

Green green green. I really like this costume.

 

On our way to Nina and her balcony. It started to be beautiful day.

 

Without wanting to be too nasty… there are so many rabbits around at carnival. And the one above fits the stereotype perfectly. Especially with the glasses, the belt and the bottle in his hand…

 

The english word for this costume is actually “garden gnome”. Beautiful light on Christina.

 

And there is the host for the day.

 

Guess who was there too? A d**** little nurse. Oh now, they are two…

 

…and a bad girl!!!

 

Posing in the sundshine on the balcony: Barbara.

 

Went for a little walk to document more funny costumes. E.G: Glücksbärchen!

 

Or, well… what are these called?

 

Some where not too eager to party, chewing on a zip is much more fun. (Look at the socks on his hands…)

 

The King (Card). Probably one of the best costumes this year. I think.

 

The best place to sit and watch (and drink)? Hm…

 

“You’ll never hit this window!” Guess the man on the right is not happy about it.

 

I am a social parasite, that is why I vote for CDU (christian democratic party)…

 

Die wilde Fastnacht!

 

A small ladybeetle and a cow.

 

At least someone is serious.

 

Nina, who is that?

 

Back on the balcony with Biene.

 

A little portrait of Johanna.

 

And something more serious right after…

 

Waiting to hit the streets.

 

This is meant to be a self-portrait.

Someone doesnt like carnival too much…

 

The king of carnival…. does like it very very much.

So does he!

 

This is actually not a typical rabbit. Nice!

 

A very fat baby, that looks a little bit like Ben Affleck.

 

The light started to get really nice. Two chicken on their way…

 

Stefan McDufleaux.

 

Dancing in the last sunrays of the day.

 

Couldnt believe my eyes, can you?

 

Walking towards the “Dom”.

 

A “classic”.

 

Nice glasses and hair.

 

Not really a devil smile…

 

A lion!

 

Partytime!

 

Alex in action!

 

 

And the sun went down… END.

It was a good time.

 

 

P.S:

Without being to cynical… But this one I shot the next morning. Everything back to normal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Zürich II

Here are some more pics from Zürich. Grant Lassie rocking the house.

 

 

 

Thanks, mates.

Zürich I

We started out on Saturday at around 9. Only about 4 hours drive and we were in Zürich, Switzerland. It is (apart from the complicated street and traffic situation) a very nice city. And I got at least 3 hours in the city, to shoot some pictures.

 

There is a beautiful lake just in the middle of the city. There were hundreds of birds…  I felt like in a Hitchcock-Movie…

 

Lots of people enjoyed the spectacle.

 

Well, not everyone.

 

But most of them.

 

Do you see the rabbit?

 

Beautiful Zürich.

 

Having a beer.

 

And here is part of the crew.

I am already back now. Short trip, but nice gig. We played a nice little concert with our friends from Grant Lassie.

Thanks, for the good times!

8th January

This has been happening that Sunday. 1-4 are digital files, 5 is analog photograph.

#1

 

#2

 

#3

 

#4

 

#5

 

Hope you like ‘em.

 

ERNA liest (mal wieder)

I had a lovely little (actually very very fast shooting, it was done in like 15 min) shooting with Thomas, Chrissa, Dominik, Florian and Dominik (again). They will read some of their own work tomorrow evening at 21h at the Q-Kaff.

   

And this was the final ad for the event:

For more information visit their facebook-site!

Berlin through a DDR lens

I was (again) in Berlin. We spent some time there for New Year’s Eve. And at a little flea market, guess what I found. A camera! A “EXA 1B”. It is a camera from around 1979 of the german firm Ihagee, which made cameras in Dresden.  I decided, to give them a try. I just bought some film without knowing if they would work.

The camera has a 50mm 2,8 lens. It does not have a metering system or a viewfinder. Takes a while to get used to it, because everything is mirrored.

The results are kind of weird. Not very sharp, not very true to reality, but a very very special character. For me, as the camera was built in the DDR, it is Berlin through a DDR lens:

 

“We are one people”

 

“Currywurst?”

 

Focusing was often just guess work.

 

Berlin Alexanderplatz.

 

Brandenburger Tor.

 

Reichstag I.

 

Somewhere near Potsdamer Platz.

 

Reichstag II.

 

Nostalgia?

 

More nostalgia? (Trabbi!)

 

Denkmal.

 

Playing around.

 

The opera in Berlin. Quite confusing.

 

And in the end…. a lonely dog with a muzzle. Oh, well, Berlin!

After a long time…

…we, that means five guys from the band Million Dollar Handshake, finally published our first album. It is called “A Night Without Sleep”. We’ve put almost 2 1/2 years of composing, songwriting, arranging and playing, recording, mixing and mastering into it. It also involved a lot of rethinking, remixing, rerecording and then all over again, just to get it the way we wanted. It features now ten of our songs and has a nice artwork wich looks like this:

This is the booklet from the outside:

 

And this from the inside:

 

If you are interested, you can have a little prelistening of some of the songs on soundcloud.

You can download the mp3′s from iTunes and listen to some seconds of every song too.

Or you just write me an e-mail and I send you the album via post. Only then you will get the beautiful artwork.

Some more portraits…

I haven’t got around to show these pictures of Swantje, yet. She is a jazz pianist, studying here in Mainz. You should really check out her myspace or better see her live! We tried a couple of things, and this is the result.

 

Classic black and white.

At what she does best.

A little portrait outside.

 

My personal albums of the year 2011

And I continue to do my recapitulation of the year 2011.  I always wanted to write a bit more about music on this blog, so here we go.

I don’t feel like I have the knowledge and the experience to give an overview about the musical landscape that has been evolving in 2011. I have listned to a lot of songs, have lived through a lot of albums and found a lot new music that I like very much. I intended to write a post about the “best albums of the year” and give a hammer explanation why I thought that these albums were the best. Then I realized that I am not listening to enough music to do that. Still, I wonder how pop music will eventually develop when almost every sog has either “tonight”, “baby” or “dancefloor” in its lyrics!? My personal favourite albums of the year are offside the poptrends of 2011.  This is only a personal list. If you don’t like the music, don’t bother. But maybe my personal recapitulation also gives some readers something new, presents an artist they haven’t heard of yet. If that’s so, well, then I smile.

 

#1: Bon Iver – Bon Iver

(published in June)

I remember listening to Bon Iver’s debut “For Emma, Forever Ago” every single day, when I had it in my hands. It was simpler, easier and more pure than a lot of records that I was listening to at the time. Naturally, I couldn’t wait for the new album. There are some beautiful guitars, some piano bars, some noise, a small crescendo and you know that this collection of songs is springtime. Justin Vernon left the small hut in the woods and gazes at the vast landscape. “Bon Iver” is warmer and more hopeful than its predecessor. Thank god it is.

Listen to Perth and Holocene.

 

#2: The Whole Love – Wilco

(published in September)

Someone really had to treat me to listen to this band. I didn’t know about it, I didn’t care about it. But when had a little spare time I gave “A Ghost Is Born” (published 2005) a try. Yes, this was a band I could listen to. Songs, such as “Hell is Chrome”, gave me chills, not just because of the lyrics. The new album is not as good. I didn’t like half of the songs. Still, I put it into this list. And the single reason is the first song. I love the drumtrack, I love the dynamics, I love it.

Listen to The Art of Almost.

 

#3:  Apocalypse -Bill Callahan

(published in april)

This album is probably the one that one could expect the less. Half country, half folk music, still not able to being put into any reference, Bill Callahan has made a little record and I cannot call it anything else but little. It seems like he was somewhere in the middle of nowhere and played a nice old guitar. Somehow the trees around him seemed more important, the mountains more epic, the animals listening to his music were more human than his co-musicians.

Listen to Drover and Baby’s Breath.

 

#4: Early In the Morning- Vincent James McMorrow 

(published in april) 

Again, we break out of civilization, ran into the woods and live in the wild. This is beautiful, this is raw. Reading Thoreau and watching the stars. Thank you, Vincent for letting us take part in this. There are artist that can combine poetry and music. Yes, there are. They are not obvious, they are not in the hit list, maybe they are just out there, in the wild…

Listen to We Don’t Eat and Early in the morning.

 

#5: The Rip Tide – Beirut

(published in august)

Beirut for me is like a love-hate-relationship. Sometimes I just can’t take it. Sometimes I just can’t get enough. When I heard the first chords of the new album I knew that this very first song could be a favourite of the year… and baammm! Horns, trumpets, drums… and I am in it! So many unusual ideas, so traditional and at the same time new…

Listen to A Candle’s Fire and The Rip Tide.

 

 

Other albums that I liked:

William Fitzsimmon – Gold in the shadows (all songs)

Radiohead – King of Limbs (Especially Codex)

Coldplay – Mylo Xyloto (Yes, I do. Listen to Major Minus)

 

Looking forward to 2012 and its new releases. What songs and albums did you listen to?

 

2011

I started this blog almost exactly 12 month ago and in terms of photography, this year has been quite rewarding. I started using film a lot more than I did before, which opened up a whole new dimension in photography, especially in street photography and portraiture. I also started to shoot a lot more commissions than I did before. It never felt like work also because of the wonderful people I had the pleasure to work with. As if that was not enough, I had a nice little exhibition with 5 of my street photographs and I attended a very interesting workshop in Berlin.

So, as a last post of this year, I reviewed all my photographs of 2011 and tried to pick some street shots, that I thought make some interesting images and have captured a certain moment and selected also some of the portraits that I like very much. There are much more, especially in the portrait section. I just wanted to keep it down to 10 photos. It doesnt mean I consider them as my best photos, or good photos at all, but they mean something to me and I think they do so for others too. Ah, and the order is not a ranking.

 

10 street photographs:

#1: Mauerpark, Berlin.    Shot with a Canonet QL17 on Kodak Tri-X. 

 

#2: Hauptwache, Frankfurt.    Same as above.

 

#3: Stijl-Markt, Mainz.   Shot with a Canon A1 on Kodak Tri-X. 

 

#4: Mauerpark, Berlin.   Shot with a Canon 450D. 

 

#5: Römerpassage, Mainz.   Shot with the Canonet QL17 on Agfa APX 100.

 

#6: Somewhere in Berlin. Not really a street shot, but one of the most spontanous portraits… Shot with the Canonet QL17 on Kodak Tri-X.

 

#7: Mauerpark, Berlin. Street Portrait.   Shot with a Canon 450d. 

 

#8: Schillerplatz, Mainz.   Shot with a Canonet QL17 on Agfra APX 100.  This picture was in my exhibition. 

 

#9: Jewish Memorial, Berlin.   Shot with the Canonet QL 17 on Kodak Professional B&W.

 

#10: Alexanderplatz, Berlin.  Canonet QL 17 on Kodak Tri-X.

 

 

10 Portraits: 

Some of them are from recent shootings, I havent shown on this blog yet.

#1: Maria.  For many reasons my favourite photo of the year.   Shot with the Canon A1 on Kodak Tri-X.

 

#2: Katrin.  A very funny shooting and (I hope it does not offend anyone) a picture that shows very much of her personality. Shot with the Canon 450d.

 

#3: Jasmin.  Shot with a Canon 5D. 

 

#4: Nina.  This picture was in a way planned, and not planned.  Shot with the Canon 450d.

 

#5: Maria. In some ways the opposite of the next one.  Canon 5D. 

 

#6: Maria.  Canon 5D. 

 

#7: Helen.  Canon 5D. 

 

#8: Jasmin.  A very natural pose. Canon 5D. 

 

#9: Maria.  Canon 5D. 

 

#10: Richard.  James-Bond-Pose. Canon 5D. 

 

So this was my photography recapitulation of 2011. I am happy with the outcome and I look forward to new stuff coming up. I had a lot of fun with a lot of people, alsow with all those who are not listed above. There are many more wonderful portraits of all the other people I took photos of. Thank you all for that.

I am very happy at the moment.

I wish you a very very very happy New Year and all the best for 2012.

See you all next year!