day 241: nature’s shadow
nature’s shadow © Verena Fischer 2012
Maybe you’ve noticed that I’ve been posting a lot lately. Well, that’s because I’m actually still more than a month behind on posting pictures. It doesn’t make much sense to take a picture a day and then not post them as you go, so I’m trying to catch up on months being busy with other things, like writing my novel that is really almost finished now (77,000 words already and still a few more scenes to write). As soon as I’m back on track I’ll just post one picture a day a again.
This picture was taken at a primary school quite close to here. I especially liked the shadow of the tree on the red brick wall.
day 86: St. Paulus
St. Paulus © Verena Fischer 2011
I didn’t have much time yesterday to take pictures, but on the way to the supermarket around 10pm I took this picture of the catholic St. Paulus church which is just on the next block. I also noticed on Google Maps that there is a monastery right next door which I didn’t notice yet. Strangely enough I hardly walk down that street, although it’s the closest street side street from my own. Strange how your habits can change the perception you have of your immediate neighbourhood. When I lived in Brighton I lived a little way up a hill. I have to admit that I only once went further up the hill although I lived there for almost a year. And even then it was only because a friend suggested going there together.
day 77: autumn leaves and church window
autumn leaves and church window © Verena Fischer 2011
The other day I read this very interesting post about the dangers of starting to teach tango too early. I have been thinking about these exact issues the last few days after going to a few tango classes this week. I myself have learned the basics from a course run by university students for free and only much later I have taken “proper” classes. I have to say that these proper tango classes have taught me next to nothing, because the classes I happened to take only focused on figures. Maybe it was important to have experienced them all, but the impact on my dancing at the time was not noticeable. I’m a follower and it always seemed as if nobody actually leads all these figures, because social dancing happens to be much more basic than what tango potentially offers in options. You only have to watch a tango performance and you can see that tango has a bigger repertoire than what most people can safely integrate into their social dancing. Therefore I always had the opinion that as a follower I can actually learn much more useful knowledge from just practicing a lot, i.e. dancing in milongas with open-minded people, sharing tips in practicas and from the occasional one off workshop where one of the teachers comes over and corrects some detail.
Of course, after a few years of experience I’m rethinking this opinion in part. My reason is the problem of bad habits. They creep in easily and are much easier to correct if caught early on by a good teacher. However, also for this all you need is regular visits to a practica given by a good teacher. Finding good teachers is difficult though. As the aforementioned article describes many tango teachers start teaching way too early after only 2 or 3 years of dancing. As a result they get stuck with their own bad habits. To keep up the pretence of being an expert they necessarily have to stop going to classes themselves, they get stuck with their prematurely formed opinions and quite likely fail to develop their dancing further since there necessarily is a lack of input from the outside once you yourself are supposed to be the expert. The worst thing about self-proclaimed experts is that as a result their bad habits ripple through the tango scene. Here in Berlin we have many of those “experts”. Some joke that every second dancer claims to be a teacher.
The other day I witnessed a class that encouraged leaders to walk backwards in a tight circle. This is beyond being a bad habit, it’s sheer madness in my view! This finally explained to me why many of the milongas here are chaotic if not even dangerous. Nobody seems to tell people that they should be considerate enough not to invade the space of other dancers. No matter how tightly you spin that circle when you walk backwards in such a fashion, it won’t grow you new eyes on the back of your head. While you move backwards all sorts of things could happen behind you and you won’t even know since you don’t see where you’re going. Sure, a tight circle lessens the danger of collision somewhat, but it’s still inconsiderate dancing behaviour, because you’re likely to invade the dancing space of dancers behind you without even noticing. If you teach your students this bad habit, you might as well encourage them to dart sideways into the way of other dancers if you need space, or you could actively teach them this awful habit some people have here of turning in wide circles with their elbow outstretched on a full dance floor.
Yes, an outstretched elbow will open up some room very quickly. Yes, going backwards can give you space too. Even darting sideways into the way of other dancers will get you space. You’re actually stealing the space of other dancers! I watch these experts dance and many have all of these bad habits. No matter how good their dancing might look at times, there is one basic lesson they have not learned themselves: How to be considerate! Although tango can be hard, this part is not exactly rocket science. Dancing in an inconsiderate fashion just to have enough space to show off might be enough to impress beginners. However, the people who actually know a thing or two about tango and just want to have a nice evening won’t be impressed at all. And that means that they certainly won’t go to your classes either.
The picture shows a church window I see almost every day.
day 58: dark clouds over Berlin
dark clouds over Berlin © Verena Fischer 2011
Quite some time now I’ve been wanting to check out a street that I once drove through in a driving lesson. Back then I was pondering whether I should just stop and tell my driving instructor that I just have to take a couple of pictures. However, in the end I didn’t and I also forgot a bit about it. Yesterday I got the chance to see that street again. Originally we headed out to take a look at the book shop I mentioned the other day which is in a remote corner of the market hall down the street. When we got there the market hall was closed though which is probably normal considering that it was just before 6pm on a Saturday. We kept on walking and eventually I recognised a street close to the one I wanted to see, so we made a turn into that street and already found some very cool old houses. Then another left turn and we were there: Kruppstraße. I only recognised it when I looked it up on the map, but it definitely was that street.
About halfway down we found a really old building that was pretty run down and looked a bit abandoned. On closer examination it turned out to be a police station although part of it is probably disused. The building was neither repaired nor redecorated after the war which means that there were actual shot holes in the walls. There was an entrance on the side with a big metal door and a sign that said it was the Abteilung Verbrechensbekämpfung, the department for fighting crime, specifically fraud. There was a reasonably big standup ash tray with fresh cigarette buds as it seemed, which was probably the only sign that the building is actually still in use. Imagine working there, or even worse: imagine being brought in for questioning into a building with shot holes! The original house entrance was actually facing away from the street. A light blue door, rotten with the light for the house number crumbling and grimy. Someone had written initials next to the entrance in blue marker together with a little heart. Who’d choose a place like this for such signs of affection?
On the way back it occurred to us that the autumn weather with the fallen leaves, the cold wind and the crisp temperatures really added to the sinister feel of the place. Black clouds were moving in fast and we were walking briskly to get home before the storm hit. Obviously it was too late though. Yesterday’s picture was taken only a couple of blocks from Kruppstraße, but quite a way from home. We got caught in heavy rain without an umbrella. However, it was well worth it, because it added to the atmosphere of the rotten old police station. Interesting stories happen in this kind of atmosphere.
day 51: too golden
too golden © Verena Fischer 2011
Today you can expect two posts since I didn’t get the chance to write my post yesterday. The day before we again went on a little walk, this time to the Hansaviertel. It’s not so far from here and there is the Tiergarten, a massive park with the Siegessäule (Victory Column) in the centre of what is called Stern, i.e. star. The latter is a big roundabout which I’ve encountered to be quite confusing in my driving lessons. The roundabout is also the reason why you can only reach the Siegessäule through a tunnel.
You can already see the Siegessäule from quite far off and the closer you get the better the picture opportunities which is surprising since it’s just massive, but the streets leading up to it are big avenues so that there is not much obstructing the view. We were again walking at dusk, so the closer we got the darker it also was which was a bit of a shame, because it prevented me from taking pictures of the shot holes in the base of the monument. On the base there are also reliefs showing scenes of the victory that is celebrated with the column. These reliefs were dismantled by the French and taken away after WW2. They were only returned before the 750th anniversary of Berlin in 1987, 42 years after the end of WW2. Germany was allowed to see itself as more than just a beaten and guilty country again. Not that Germans ever take that opportunity though.
The guilt over the second world war is definitely part of the German identity. Since I’m only half German I’ve never really understood this guilt. As far as I understand the workings of the universe, cause lies in the past and effect in the future, and definitely not the other way round. So what is it really to the Germans nowadays that they have to feel so guilty about it? It makes me remember the absolute hilarious Fawlty Towers episode “The Germans” and the phrase “Don’t mention the war”. If you don’t know it, I’ve added a link to the scene at the bottom, it’s brilliant! And it also reminds me of all the cringeworthy jokes I heard in England that Germans usually wouldn’t find funny at all. Maybe that’s the reason why people often assume that Germans don’t have a sense of humour. It’s really just in those matters though! There were actually some great German comedians too, like the late Loriot. I’ve linked my favourite Loriot moment at the bottom as well. This one is mostly without words. The woman tells him to wait for the lady of the house and at the end he says “The picture is crooked”.
The photo shows a close-up of the Siegessäule just above the base.
day 46: architectural marvels
architectural marvels © Verena Fischer 2011
Originally we were thinking of going to the Pergamon museum yesterday. However, it didn’t seem as if the sudden warm weather was agreeing very well with me, so we just walked around Unter den Linden for a bit and then returned home.
In front of one of the buildings of the Humboldt University that is just across from the Staatsoper there is a little used book market very much like the one in front of the Mensa at the Düsseldorf university. When I still studied there I used to dread this used book market, because I always ended up spending way more money on books than I could actually spare. It’s not surprising then that Ezequiel and me both ended up buying books. However, he can regard himself lucky that he cannot speak the language, or else he would have bought many more books than he did. I tried to limit myself and only had a brief look at the GDR Science Fiction section. I hoped to find a nice old GDR edition of some soviet SciFi where I wouldn’t mind the translation into German. And indeed, I was lucky: I found Fiasco by Stanislaw Lem who is one of my favourite Science Fiction writers.
Everyone probably knows Solaris which is pretty amazing, although in my opinion it is not even his best book! Among the ones I read The Invincible is quite likely the most impressive:
Contact is lost to a starship when investigating a planet which at first sight seems like a pretty barren lifeless rock. They send another ship, i.e. The Invincible, to see what’s going on and they only encounter a very strange form of mechanical life that reminds of insects. By themselves they are not much of a threat, but they can self-organise into big swarms that show complex and dangerous behaviours. In the end the fight against them has to be given up. I remember enjoying it immensely!
I’ve also discovered with yesterday’s picture that if you zoom in on the TV tower here in Berlin you can see a quite cool example of futuristic soviet architecture. From down below it already looks impressive enough, but with this magnification it looks just great! A perfect picture to go with my new book.
day 27: temptation
temptation © Verena Fischer 2011
On Tuesday I travelled to England to hand in my MSc dissertation. And that’s what I did yesterday. I spent all morning changing things around, printing the 200 pages twice (300 pages in total, because I printed the code double-sided) and then I had to bind the two copies at the school office with a ring binding machine. It took me half an hour, because it was such a thick stack of paper! In the end I managed to get it all done and hand it in. And now, I’m free! And I even had a celebratory Bacardi and cranberry juice last night.
After handing in I walked around the Sussex uni campus and although it doesn’t seem like this, things do seem to change. I wanted to go to a shop in Bramber house and was heading right for the side door to the post office and the shop … and there was just a plain brick wall! Apparently they put a Co-op in the building instead of the grubby overpriced little shop that used to be there when I used to live on campus. And they got rid of the side entrance in the process. So after I bought myself a buy-1-get-1-free deal of gummibear packs – I have to admit that I’m totally addicted to those – I walked around taking pictures. Suddenly I started feeling melancholic since I realised that it’s probably going to be the last time that I’d take pictures there. As usual I failed at trying to find the “Boundary walk” which is supposed to be a path where you can walk all around campus. Instead I ended up near the cancer research buildings and I felt like I was sneaking around people’s backyards again. That seems to be one of my hobbies lately.
Yesterday’s picture was taken in Chichester 1 which is one of the informatics buildings. There are labs on the ground floor and also upstairs and in places it has a really sinister feel to it, especially late at night. However, informatics students basically live in the labs and sometimes you run into a girl at 1am brushing her teeth in the ladies bathroom which makes it less creepy. At night I probably wouldn’t be brave enough to turn of the light, but during the day I always felt the temptation of turning it off, just to see how dark it really would become. Let’s just say, I quickly turned it on again and ran for the hills, since it got so dark that I have to assume that I turned off the light in one of the research labs too … oops.
day 20: backyard discoveries
backyard discoveries © Verena Fischer 2011
When I was a teenager I once read a book by Wolfgang Hohlbein called Dreizehn, i.e. German for 13. It’s about a 13 year old girl (oh surprise …) who happens to find a door to another dimension and is stuck on the other side in a creepy house. The story is somehow connected to the Pied Piper of Hamelin and I only vaguely remember the whole story of the book. I do remember enjoying it very much though and I was listening to one of the old albums of Die Ärzte back then. It somehow fit very well to the mood of the book. The album had an awfully awesome picture of Bela B – their drummer – in the booklet which would just haunt me! Well, you know how teenagers are …
Yesterday’s picture was taken in a backyard just 2 blocks from here and it is a good example for the curious fact that in Berlin you just need to keep your eyes open and you’ll find something strange and interesting to take pictures of. You might have also noticed lots of brick buildings in my photos and that is because Berlin is just full of them. Especially in the backyards where the facades are in bad shape you can see that many buildings are built with brick stones even if they don’t look like it from the outside. Secretly maybe all of them are made from brick, you’ll never know without drilling a hole!
The photo just reminded me of the Hohlbein book since there is this strange gateway painted onto the facade of the building. I immediately remembered Bela B and the photo in the booklet, so I put on this album called Im Schatten der Ärzte to remember better how it felt like back then. It’s strange how easily we become obsessed with something as teenagers. And shortly after we lose interest and forget completely that we ever were this taken. Then one day looking at a picture or listening to some music we are catapulted back into our past and get a hint of what it must have been like back then.
And one day I will look at a picture or listen to some music that will remind me of how it was to wander through the backyards of Berlin to take photos.
day 19: poor abandoned education
poor abandoned education © Verena Fischer 2011
Yesterday’s picture was taken at a school nearby. They kicked me out of their gym hall the day before. Obviously I wandered in there to take pictures.
I graduated from high school about 7 years ago. However, I still sometimes have this dream that I am back in school and that I am called to the black board to solve a maths problem. It is an easy one, but I can’t read the numbers and I am utterly lost. The other kids get impatient with me, start laughing and the teacher says: “Well, at this rate you’re never going to amount to anything!” And I start saying “Hey, I already have a university degree, I don’t even know why I am here … and who are you to judge me?” – “If you can’t solve this simple problem, then your degree probably isn’t worth anything, right?” and so on and so on.
Maybe the dream doesn’t mean anything, but after I have it I always end up questioning whether the problems I seem to be dealing with in real life are really all that difficult to handle. There is a film by the Coen brothers called A Serious Man where the protagonist has all these problems with his job and with his family and his son is being bullied in school. In the end the doctor tells him that he’s seriously ill and there is a tornado coming towards the city on the horizon. What I’m trying to say is: Are we not all making a big fuzz over nothing until we’re facing the real big stuff? Are we dealing with the adult equivalents of silly maths problems that we used to take so seriously before we went to university and discovered that there is always a harder problem out there?
In the end it is all not that important. And this is a good thing to realise for me just before the final deadline push of my MSc dissertation. It’s all just the things we do, because we’re supposed to do things. There is this notion in society that really bugs me: Who won’t work also won’t eat. This notion is what is driving us to worry about education and jobs and simple maths problems as if they were the really important things in life. The real problems are not as easy to deal with as a deadline at school or in your job.
Yesterday in a conversation with my friend Sarah we realised that if life was ideal I would be an artist and she would be a comedian. And we both wouldn’t be staring at the screen worrying about whether our simulated robots move or not. Well, sadly life isn’t ideal, so I best get back to my experiments.
And I best also stop wishing that I’m in 5th grade and my biggest problem is figuring out fractions …
day 17: taking the plunge
taking the plunge © Verena Fischer 2011
The other day I read in a book by David Hurn and Bill Jay called “On being a photographer” the tip that your camera is the best excuse to go to places where you’d feel uncomfortable without it. Hurn describes the situation of a ballroom dancing competition where he’d feel very out of place if he’d just walk in there without his camera. He wouldn’t know the culturally appropriate things to do or to say; he wouldn’t know any people and someone might ask him what he was doing there and all of this would disconcert him greatly. With his camera however, he can be out of place and be accepted easily by people.
Yesterday I had the perfect opportunity to put this tip into action when I was taking pictures of the building housing a public indoor swimming pool in Berlin Wedding. The building had lots of really strange and creepy graffiti on it, so I was walking around the building taking pictures of it. Then I noticed quite a few young people standing in front of the building and they didn’t exactly look like the usual swimming pool crowd. They were trendy kids with piercings and strange alternative clothes, smoking cigarettes with a certain “cool”. And since when is it cool to hang out at a public swimming pool in a city like Berlin? My curiosity was aroused.
Still, I was hesitant to go inside since I didn’t know anyone. I just stood outside near the entrance taking pictures of a door that was marked with the sign of a space travel agency – another indicator that this was no ordinary swimming pool – and listened to the conversations of these kids to find out what was going on. Apparently there was some sort of exhibition. And then the penny dropped: the building is now used for exhibitions and young artists have their studios in there! Indeed, my camera was my ticket to get in. I just walked in there as if it was the most normal thing, looked around as if I was looking for someone I knew and then (still slightly hesitantly) walked past some people following my instincts. I didn’t look at the exhibition and just took pictures of the building, walked around and even looked at the studios of some artists. It all felt very adventurous and if anyone had asked me what I was doing there I would have had an excuse “Oh, I’m just taking some pictures, do you mind?”
Keep in mind though: if you want to take the plunge, check whether the pool has water first! Especially if you want to do things like venturing into abandoned buildings. You don’t want to end up all alone in a building that is unsafe!
day 16: stairway to love
stairway to love © Verena Fischer 2011
Thanks to my fiancé Ezequiel I was reminded yesterday that it needs an open mind to really subscribe to the title of my blog. Real experiments in experience should push you out of your comfort zone and make you do something you would not do otherwise. This doesn’t necessarily mean eating insects, like my dad did over the last Christmas holidays, or walking around haunted houses alone in the middle of the night. It can start with little things, like eating mango ice-cream with fresh strawberries on it although the idea seems absurd to a traditional girl like me. It’s almost as crazy as mixing leek and basil! Ezequiel recommends these sort of things to me and I say “No way!”, but then end up trying it anyway.
If I’m not brave in the food sector, then I won’t be brave about anything and just stay at home. That’s not like me though, since it has always drawn me out into the world. I can’t remember any moment when I really had such a strong urge to stay that I really stayed in the end. I might have had the urge, but every time that happened I told myself to man up and face the world since only exciting new experiences could come of it. Well, that’s not quite the whole truth though. After all everyone makes mistakes and some experiences might be exciting but certainly not nice, and I had these experiences too over the last few years. However, largely the spirit of this attitude agrees well with me and I recommend it strongly.
Yesterday, apart from eating mango ice-cream with fresh strawberries (definitely nice) I also went out into the grey weather with my camera and my friend usch who happened to be in town. We went to a building in Wedding in which one of the tango places is located and which I knew to be an interesting spot for taking pictures. The weather was really awful and we got drenched on the way back, but I managed to take some interesting pictures. Someone had attached a paper heart to the window in the stairway and I had been wanting to take a picture of it for a while. It was very dark in the building, but one of the shots turned out wonderfully.
One needs to take the challenges in life one step at a time. If I can be brave enough to go out into the rain with my camera to take pictures of stairways, then I might also one day be brave enough to eat insects. Who knows?
day 15: tree making out with building
tree making out with building © Verena Fischer 2011
A couple of days ago a car was sounding its horn when I was driving by a church on my red bike. The reason was because I had my eyes on the building and not on the street and was starting to drift off the bike lane! Not paying attention to the traffic is not exactly the best idea in a city like Berlin. There are many taxi and bus drivers who just seem to hate people on bikes, so normally I’m really careful when I’m going on the street. Well, if a view makes me not pay attention in the middle of traffic, it’s probably worth photographing I thought and came back to the church yesterday.
What’s interesting is that I’ve only noticed the church then, although I had been going past it on the bike regularly. Probably the light was never good enough to let me notice all the intricate details. A great detail is the ivy that is growing on the building. It is thick like a regular tree and really adds to the atmosphere. I was trying to take a few pictures of the Ivy trunks on the side of the church facing Perleberger Straße but then had to realise that the trunks are too far down in comparison to the leaves and it would never make a good picture. However, red brick stone churches are worth photographing on its own and I got some great shots out of it. The church is on a street corner so I went around it to see the rest of the building and found the spot for yesterday’s picture: The kindergarten of the church.
I don’t remember much from my own time in kindergarten and I couldn’t remember details of the building if my life depended on it, but I remember that the playground had painted car or bus tyres half buried in the ground. I remember also that another kid. out of carelessness or malice, I don’t know, hit me in the head with a heavy metal door. And foremost I do remember the reason why I don’t eat beans today: My kindergarten teacher forced me to eat a whole plate of them, because “We eat what is on the table”. She came to regret it, because the beans made me sick. Ah, the joys of growing up in the German Democratic Republic, i.e. East Germany before the reunification. And beans do make me feel sick to this very day thanks to that lovely lady.
day 13: when a door closes, a window opens. or maybe not
when a door closes, a window opens. or maybe not © Verena Fischer 2011
I have realised a long time ago that I’m a creature of habit. Once I’ve found a quick and nice way to get to a certain place I will not try another way “just to see”. I am not someone to roam the city for no reason and I will not go on long extended walks just to see what is on the other side of a hill. Sometimes I would like to be a person who does that, but then I’m usually too busy or too caught up in other things to just drop everything and go for a long walk.
My favourite book is George Perec’s A Man Asleep and it is about a young man in Paris who decides on the day of his final exam to just stay home. He starts this strange journey of walking and walking for hours through Paris and he begins with curious exercises, like reading every word in a newspaper, without any explanation of what he is trying to achieve. Closer towards the end of the book he gets the feeling that whatever he was trying to achieve has failed and that he has to find new methods of getting there. It’s a very moody interesting book and I just love the fact that the reader can only get a hint of what this man is actually trying to do. I think that’s also what’s so fascinating about this book: this man does nothing that would have any meaning for the reader but I myself was captivated by it and really wanted to find out what the man is aiming at. In the end only your own imagination of what the man is doing can fill in the blanks.
This man is not the only character in literature who roams the streets of a big city without aim and I always wonder why I am so fascinated by the thought of walking the streets for no apparent reason. What’s interesting about this is that my camera is what transforms me into a person who roams the streets with no destination. My camera will let me find out what is on the other side of the next hill and whether I can take a picture of it.
Yesterday my camera took me to an industrial area which is only about 10 minutes from here. For some reason my daily routine has never brought me into that direction before. I found beautiful brick stone industrial buildings from before the war and the old Turbinenhalle from 1909 by the architect Peter Behrens. From the name you can guess that it’s a factory that produces turbines. Today’s picture doesn’t show this building though, but another nice old building that is right next to the coolest wood carved playground for children.
By the way, there are no hills in Berlin …
day 12: girl in blue skirt
girl in blue skirt © Verena Fischer 2011
I read a blog post yesterday (see below for a link) that gave the tip to delete all the pictures which you’re not going to use. The reasoning behind it was that in the digital age we have lots and lots of storage which means that we keep everything and end up never wanting to look at our pictures again. In the end, who wants to look at all the blurry failures that didn’t make the final cut? Right, nobody! And 10 years down the line with thousands and thousands of pictures that you snap without thinking since “you can always delete them” you will never want to look at all this stuff again. Well, that’s not what we take pictures for, right?
The post also reminded me of a very good friend who is always months if not even years behind in editing his pictures. This includes just deleting all the blurry ones. That’s what the digital age has given us: A possibility to become the person with the stacks of paper ceiling-high in their flat who have problems even taking out the rubbish. We’re messy! There is something about collecting things that makes us obsessive and we collect more films than we could ever watch in a lifetime “just in case” and we keep all the blurry pictures of people whose names we don’t even remember “just in case”. Well, yesterday after reading that post I was thoughtful while taking pictures and quick with my delete button afterwards. And I keep wondering whether that’s not the key to taking good pictures. See, think, shoot and even delete. Maybe deleting is necessary so that we develop an eye for what’s good and what’s bad.
Yesterday’s picture was taken at the church across from my driving school, the Johanniskirche in Berlin. While I was taking my pictures there I was mostly alone, but then a girl walked through towards the back. I had about 5 shots of her walking through the frame, but I only kept this one which in my opinion captures her determination in walking nicely. In the future I will also try to delete with determination.
day 9: self-portrait with mirrors
self-portrait with mirrors © Verena Fischer 2011
It makes for an interesting change of pace when you decide to take pictures every day. It means that you have to get out into the world a little more. You see new places, do new things just to get close to an opportunity for a decent picture. Yesterday this relatively new project got me to do something I almost never do: I went to an exhibition alone! Ezequiel is not in Berlin at the moment and I have to admit that lately I stay away from people to concentrate more on my work (well, it doesn’t really help, but that’s a whole other story). This also means that if I want to do things and go places to take pictures I have to do it alone. The exhibition I saw was a photography exhibition with pictures of André Kertész, a hungarian photographer who lived in Paris and New York. He took beautiful melancholic photos which looked at things in a new and exciting way. He also seemed to be fascinated by reflections, so strange mirrors and reflections on windows make an appearance in his photos too. I definitely liked his style and already ordered a book about him.
The exhibition was in the Martin-Gropius-Bau, a building in the Italian Renaissance style that was erected between 1877 and 1881 by the architects Martin Gropius and Heino Schmieden. It’s a beautiful building with lots of sculptures and it’s worth a visit in its own right. Martin Gropius was the great-uncle of Walter Gropius by the way who was the founder of the Bauhaus school. I visited the Bauhaus archive about a week ago (read about it here) so it’s one of these moments where I realise that everything is connected.
Today’s photo I took on the first floor of the Martin-Gropius-Bau where there are two long mirrors on opposing walls. One of the mirrors says “West” and the other “Ost” (German for east). I found this to be the perfect scene for a self-portrait since I have a confusing relationship with west and east Germany too. Can you figure out at which mirror I was pointing my camera?
day 6: the third door
the third door © Verena Fischer
After 14 times 1.5 h mind-numbing driving theory lessons I am now finally finished! Today I had my last lesson and after it I felt so relieved! Since I moved here every week I went to at least one of these lessons on my bike although it was dreadful and boring enough for my brain to attempt to vacate my skull (it never did, but I would have totally understood …). Well, it’s finally over!
This also means, however, that I now have little reason to go to Charlottenburg where some of the theory classes, including today’s class, were held. I’m not particularly sad about it, since most of the buildings in this particular area are rather ugly modern blocks, but I certainly wanted to use the opportunity to take some picture of the town hall of Charlottenburg which rather impressed me when I saw it for the first time. It was built between 1899 and 1905 and Heinrich Reinhardt as well as Georg Süßenguth were its architects. Like so many buildings it was badly damaged in WW2, but it was rebuilt after the war and now it’s one haunting building with Gargoyles and all sorts of ornaments in the midst of rather modern looking boring blocks.
I had a look inside too and the building convinces with interesting wall decorations and strangely lit corridors that give the place an interesting character. Today’s picture is again of a strange door. I found it in the entrance of the library which is part of the building. The door has a sign on it that says “Reinigung” which could either mean that it’s a laundrette or a cleaning cupboard. After a quick look through the little window in the door I realised that neither the sign nor the view from this little window could give me any clue as to what’s going on behind that door. It’s the third mysterious door since yesterday …
day 5: two doors down
2 doors down © Verena Fischer 2011
Today in my practical driving lesson I saw a building that I would have liked to photograph. My camera was in my bag on the backseat and I kept wondering for a few blocks how my driving instructor would react if I would say to him “Look, Herbert, I need to take a picture. Wait here for one moment …” Well, after pondering this for a bit I thought that he probably wouldn’t be very impressed. I took a mental note of the street though and will probably go back there on the bike one of these days. Learning to drive in Berlin is not so much fun by the way, because it is a big city with lots of traffic and lots of strange things like the roundabout at the Siegessäule which is probably no real roundabout and the Stadtautobahn which is no real Autobahn since you’re only allowed to drive 80 km/h there. And who needs a car in Berlin where there is exceptionally good public transport?
Living in the city means for me: Having the option of *not* taking public transport though. Did you ever notice that big cities are full of crazy people? I don’t mean people with wild hair and funky clothes, no, I mean people who have disturbing conversations with themselves on the subway and scratch their head with a knife on the bus (that was once on a night bus in London). Also: people can be so annoying! Street musicians, junkies, kids mistaking their mobile phone for speakers and so on. Well, to sum it up, I don’t like taking the bus! Instead I have a shiny red bike that I bought second hand from a nearby bike shop and I can go everywhere I need to go in only 20 min. Of course Berlin is big and sometimes it’s still necessary to take the public transport, but in my daily life I don’t really need a bus pass.
So, why do I want to get a driving licence then? Well, because it’s convenient whenever you have to go places at night (and I dance tango mainly after 10pm). Additionally and maybe more importantly Berlin has also very cold winters! -10°C are not exactly comfy on a bike or waiting for a bus! And maybe, secretly I also feel that having a driving licence will give me the naive feeling that I’m a “grown-up” and not a student who will never be able to afford a car. However, I would never admit that in public, so forget what I said!
Today’s picture I took after the driving lesson while walking along the river Spree. Two strange unmarked doors of unspecified function that are located at one of the bridges over the Spree, the Hansa Brücke. It’s an ugly bridge that replaced the one that was destroyed in WW2.
day 4: the shady bear business
the shady bear business © Verena Fischer 2011
From the window in the living room of my quiet apartment in Moabit I can see the sun disappearing behind the roofs and the leaves of the chestnut tree in the courtyard are blowing in the wind. The window is open, but one hardly hears cars go by, and the entire area makes me think of a quiet Sunday afternoon, especially on Monday mornings. My street is in a speed restricted area with cobbled streets and many trees, benches on the corners and old-fashioned water-pumps that still work. There is also an old market hall that has a nice flair about it and a rather useless supermarket inside. I like it a lot and sometimes go inside even though I don’t need anything from in there. There is also a catholic church which sometimes annoys me with too much bell ringing and two schools that have never bothered me in the 2 ½ months that I have been living here. Today’s picture is of the entrance of one of these two schools, namely the Carl-Bolle-Grundschule which was built 1903 by the architect Ludwig Hoffmann. The highlight of the building are for me the statues of two bears reading together with a boy and a girl. Why bears? Well, the bear is a symbol associated with the city of Berlin. What I find rather amusing is that for Ezequiel and me one of the bears looks a bit perverted, maybe because he can’t keep his paws to himself. Can you guess which one? Leave a comment if you know which one I mean!
It’s the fourth day since I have had the idea to publish one picture each day and I am beginning to wonder when the day will come on which I have nothing to show! These days it has been easy because I have been out and about in the city with Ezequiel. Well, Ezequiel sadly left for Spain today after 3 fantastic weeks together and the past few days it also hasn’t been raining so much. Well, I guess those rainy days in which I will focus on my MSc project will be the ones when I will actually need the extra motivation provided by my blog! Until one of those days comes along I will just enjoy taking pictures around town or in my neighbourhood whenever I go and explore a bit more of this big beautiful city.
experiments in experience 