Berlin | experiments in experience

(s)hoe city

Berlin, Germany | © Verena Fischer 2013

All pictures taken with: Olympus Pen E-PL3 and Panasonic Lumix 20mm f/1.7 ASPH.

Excuse the title, but that’s what it says! These pictures were mostly taken around Friedrichstraße, apart from the one in daylight which was next to the vocational school that is at the end of my street.

The last few days I’ve been busy developing and scanning film. Nothing to show yet, because I want to process them all before I edit the pictures further. I still have 5 rolls to develop and 7 to scan from my trip to Chemnitz. I hope I’ll get it done before we go to Chemnitz again over Christmas. Theoretically that wouldn’t be a problem, there are still 8 days to go, but the next 4 we will spend in Dresden. On that note, here a friendly reminder that there will be an exhibition starting in Dresden tomorrow which will also show some of my pictures. If you want to check it out, it’s at the Hole of Fame in Königsbrücker Straße 39, Dresden. The vernissage starts at 7pm. So, the next few days will be spent with the exhibition, sightseeing and we also want to see a couple of museums. It’s the first city trip in ages, so I’m excited already! Of course I’m taking a couple of cameras, so you’ll probably see some Dresden impressions soon.

December 13, 2013 | Categories: street | Tags: art, Berlin, Dresden, exhibitions, Germany, photography, photos, pictures, postaday2013, street photography | 3 Comments

up we go

Berlin, Germany | © Verena Fischer 2013

All pictures taken with: Olympus Pen E-PL3 and Panasonic Lumix 20mm f/1.7 ASPH.

Occasionally I feel the need to document my neighbourhood here in Berlin as well. As you can see it’s not too pretty actually. Of course it’s winter already, which always makes a difference, but one has to remember that Berlin is one of those places with especially long and cold winters. This look is a reality for a substantial part of the year. Too bleak for my liking! This winter I will spend at least January and February in San Sebastian hoping that the winter won’t go on much longer after that. Last time spring only came in April, so I’m hoping this winter will be a little shorter. Skipping at least a part of this dreadfully bleak season is already a start though, whatever happens.

Yesterday I had a breakthrough when developing film. I managed to push a roll of Ilford HP5+ to ISO 1600. I tried to push a couple of rolls to ISO 3200 once and somehow it really blew out the highlights. Considering that I was doing stand-development, this was actually an indication that I did something wrong. I researched stand development again and realised that I have been doing semi-stand so far. I usually agitate vigorously for half a minute and then invert once every 30 minutes. When developing film at box speed this actually works really well, but when pushing it was too much agitation. This time I did one minute of slow inversions – 6 in total – and then swirled carefully for 15 sec every half hour with 90 minutes development time in total (it was Rodinal 1:100 in a 500ml solution). I guess I will have to try pushing to 3200 down in the subway next. If I can manage to get decent results I can finally also start shooting in the subway with my Zorki.

As you can see, I’m still learning how to handle film. At ISO 400 I already feel rather confident, because I’ve shot and developed quite a few rolls of that. For box speed I have used D76, Rodinal and Ultrafin so far and I have the most experience (semi-)stand developing with Rodinal. Soon I will also try to develop in Caffenol, because I’ve seen so many nice results with it. However, when it comes to pushing or pulling I still have lots of room for improvement. At least I’ve now found one recipe that seems to work.

Something else I learned was that filtered water is not enough for the the wetting agent in Berlin. In San Sebastian it worked fine even unfiltered, but here I got some serious water stains which I only noticed after scanning. I will have to figure out how to rewash the cut negatives. Last time I tried it, it turned into a bit of a disaster, because I don’t really know how to hang them. For now I got myself 5L of distilled water for the next 9 rolls I have to process.

December 10, 2013 | Categories: street | Tags: art, Berlin, black and white, Germany, photography, photos, pictures, postaday2013, street photography | 3 Comments

let go of your ego

Berlin, Germany | © Verena Fischer 2013

All pictures taken with: Olympus Pen E-PL3 and Panasonic Lumix 20mm f/1.7 ASPH.

Another session for the ‘Down below’ project. I seem to have lost track of how many sessions I did, so I don’t really know whether I should be shooting some more for it or not. In any case, this can probably wait until next year anyway.

Yesterday I realised that I should have researched my scanner a bit more thoroughly when I got it. In the past I was using Image Capture to scan the negatives and then I cut, inverted and sharpened the scans in Photoshop. Turns out that although the scanner did not come with software for the mac, it actually exists anyway to download from the Epson website! The software is not perfect, but way better than my previous approach. And of course I don’t have to spend ages turning negatives into positives. I prefer to sharpen in Photoshop anyway, but other than that the Epson Software does a pretty decent job. Perfect timing to have found this software since I still have 5 rolls of film to scan and this does not even include the 8 remaining rolls from my trip to Chemnitz. With the new software the post-processing will go much faster.

Our trip to Dresden on the 14th for the vernissage of the exhibition is almost planned now. I missed the last exhibition where some of my pictures were shown, so it will actually be the first time I see them hanging on a wall. Should be a rather rewarding experience. We are also planning to go see the Old Masters gallery and the Mathematisch Physikalischer Salon, and of course I’m hoping to take some pictures around Dresden as well. I am already looking forward to the trip, since I did not get much opportunity for travelling like this in ages.

December 7, 2013 | Categories: street | Tags: art, Berlin, black and white, Germany, photography, photos, pictures, postaday2013 | 1 Comment

perfect fit

Berlin, Germany | © Verena Fischer 2013

All pictures taken with: Olympus Pen E-PL3 and Panasonic Lumix 20mm f/1.7 ASPH.

These pictures are from the new set of my ‘down below’ series. Although I was hoping that could finish it soon as well, I think this one will actually still take a while. I also wanted to have an analog part of the series, but so far I’ve been failing at pushing the film correctly in Rodinal stand-development. My only test roll was severely blown and I have since realised that I’ve been over-agitating the roll. Instead of inverting every half hour I should only swirl when pushing. At box-speed my semi-stand method seems to work well, but pushed it just didn’t work at all. I will have to try another roll doing it correctly and maybe test Caffenol as well. This probably won’t be happening this month though, because I am way too busy on another project.

A couple of days ago I arrived back in Berlin after my trip to Chemnitz to shoot for my ‘Memory’ project. Almost every day I went to places that are connected with my past and took pictures. It was a rather strange experience, because almost everything changed or is entirely gone. The apartment building where we lived until I was 7 or 8 is gone, my kindergarten, my primary school and my secondary school as well. The only two places left are the house where we lived until about half a year after I was born and the building where I lived until I was 17. One of these houses I can’t even remember, because I could not even walk when we moved away. It almost doesn’t count at all, since in a project called ‘Memory’ I should actually have a chance to remember. So, in the end only one place is left and I’m not sure whether they will demolish it as well. After all it’s an ugly concrete block and they have demolished so many of them on the other side of the valley. However, I think this one is actually still rather inhabited and even quite central as far as the outskirts of town go. Maybe they will keep it for the time-being. The fact remains that four of five places where I spent my childhood and teenage years are gone. No wonder then that my encounter with the empty lawns or parking garages that took up these spaces instead was rather surreal.

Especially when I walked around the neighbourhood of my childhood I found myself confused and could neither remember in which entrance of the apartment block my best friend lived nor could I be sure whether my kindergarten was an older or a newer building. I think I remember a newer building and that it stood where now a lawn is. The internet confirmed my memories and apparently the kindergarten was demolished in August and September 2012. This happened so recently that Google Maps still shows an aerial view of the building. My primary school already disappeared a few years earlier. I already had the idea for this project several years ago and wanted to take pictures of the exact same places assuming that everything was still standing. I wanted to start with my primary school, but when I got there I had to realise that the building was gone. Since then my brother also had been in the neighbourhood and told me that our house had disappeared as well. Back when I realised that my primary school was gone I saw it as a reason to abandon the idea, but the longer I thought about it the more I grew convinced that I needed to try it anyway. It might be difficult to document something that is already gone, but I believe that this will add to the atmosphere of the project. It is strange that not even ruins remain, but this is what the planning authority of the city council seems to regard as progress. And besides, it helps to keep builders in work.

Although quite a number of places have changed considerably there are also aspects that were completely unchanged. The manhole cover next to the street where my best friend and I sat to count red cars, the hum of the electricity pylon which gives you a slight tingling sensation when you stand underneath, the winding path leading up from the tram stop, all remains the same. Somehow this combination of the familiar and unfamiliar added up to a rather eerie atmosphere. It probably did not help that the area seemed devoid of people, despite the curtains in the windows. Ironically I actually saw more crows than humans in the neighbourhood, which did not improve the atmosphere one bit. I tried to take some pictures of the birds, but when I got too close they all flew up into the air with indignant cawing that kept following me for minutes afterwards. There were so many of them! Let’s just say that I have had nightmares in the past that started in just the same way …!

The crows kept following me even beyond the neighbourhood too, or at least that’s what it seemed like when I was at the other end of town at my secondary school, well, where it used to be. Also there I got indignant caws and a lot of flapping wings at my attempts to take pictures and nevertheless they kept lurking around watching me intently. ‘Surreal’ hardly captures what it was like to be walking around in such eerie surroundings.

By now I almost finished the project. All that is left are precisely those places that are still there, the apartment block where we lived during my teenage years and the building where I only spent a few months. I will have these sessions when I am back in Chemnitz over Christmas and with this I will hopefully manage to finish the shooting part of the project. Next up are film development, scanning and post-processing. Of those I can hopefully manage to finish at least the development and scanning this month so that I can do the post-processing in San Sebastian over the winter. I can also develop and scan later, but I definitely need to finish the shooting part though or else I will have a break in atmosphere if the seasons change in the pictures. So far I only developed one roll. Pretty decent results I have to say at least from what I could gather by just looking at the negatives. I hope the other rolls turn out equally well.

December 6, 2013 | Categories: street | Tags: art, Berlin, black and white, Germany, photography, photos, pictures, postaday2013, street photography | Leave a comment

kings

Berlin, Germany | © Verena Fischer 2013

All pictures taken with: Olympus Pen E-PL3 and Panasonic Lumix 20mm f/1.7 ASPH.

Two weeks ago I was shooting for my ‘down below’ project and these pictures are from the first session. As you can see, I had quite a successful session, especially considering that this is the second post on the session. I had several of these sessions and it seems that I will be advancing on the project a lot once I edit the pictures. Since I’ve been considering to make a book project out of it, I will probably continue along these lines when I’m back in Berlin as well.

The last few days I have been so busy with my ‘memory’ project that I hardly had time to edit pictures though. I will have to try to catch up once I’m back in Berlin, although I see myself getting busy developing and scanning film as well. So far this second project is going really well and I will almost have covered all the places that I wanted to capture. I will probably have to go out for another couple of sessions when I’m here in Chemnitz over Christmas, but these will be nice places that should not involve any emotional turmoil. That certainly can’t be said about all the places that I visited so far.

Among the more disturbing places was my primary school, or at least the place where it used to stand. I don’t exactly have happy memories there so I was a bit afraid that it might affect me badly. Already years ago I wanted to try to take pictures there assuming that the school still stands, but when I got there the building was gone and I gave up the idea. After all, how do you capture something that is not there anymore? The school right next to mine still stands though and since it has the same architectural design it was actually almost like seeing the real thing. Also the sports ground and hall as well as the gardening plot still exist pretty much unchanged. Walking across the sports ground was really rather uncomfortable, but despite the fears I had in anticipation of confronting this part of my life, I actually managed to get on quite well and stay relatively unperturbed emotionally.

Today I will go back to the same neighbourhood to look at the spot where our house used to stand. Yes, they did a pretty good job at erasing my past. The house where we lived the first 7 or 8 years of my life, my primary school and my secondary school have all fallen victim to the rather ironic policy of demolishing buildings to improve the city. Sure, they’re right that these buildings were rather bleak and ugly, but somehow it still feels wrong that they are gone. This city has a socialist past and sadly none of the architectural achievements of socialist modernity made it to Chemnitz. Architecturally socialism in Chemnitz produced rather bare and functionalist buildings – and still the city centre would be much nicer if they had reconstructed the existing buildings rather than to build these ugly modern buildings where none of them actually fit together. Albeit somewhat ugly at least the more functional socialist architecture was homogenous. The modern stuff they built instead seems out of place and is ugly nonetheless.

I myself feel rather out of place here at the moment as well because almost all the shops I knew have disappeared along with quite a number of buildings. The other day I wanted to warm up in the market hall when I was out shooting on a very cold day. When I got there I had to realise that it now was a bike shop. Every day I walk past some shop or building that had some meaning to me when I was little but which is now empty and abandoned or gone altogether. I don’t know whether I should read this symbolically. For years I could not even remember my childhood and I have abandoned the city and my old life there as well. Maybe it is only fitting that all signs of my past are gradually being erased. I can’t help finding it rather eerie though that my relationship to my hometown and the state of my memory should be reflected so appropriately by such city planning efforts. No wonder that I keep finding the experiences of re-visiting the places of my childhood so surreal. Maybe in reality I am actually in a padded cell somewhere only imagining my journey to my hometown. This sure would explain the strange resonance between my mental state and my current surroundings, because then the outside world would only be a product of my own making. That said, whenever I face such eerie doubts about reality I remind myself that it might just be my brain having problems to integrate my memories with all the changes that have obviously happened in Chemnitz in the last few years. Considering how much has changed it is rather unsurprising that I would feel rather odd about it. No matter how uncomfortable this feeling of derealisation might be, I have to say that it is at least rather inspiring with regard to my project. I hope that I will somehow manage to convey this feeling in the final images.

December 2, 2013 | Categories: street | Tags: art, Berlin, black and white, Chemnitz, Germany, photography, photos, pictures, postaday2013, street photography | 2 Comments

knorke

Berlin, Germany | © Verena Fischer 2013

All pictures taken with: Olympus Pen E-PL3 and Panasonic Lumix 20mm f/1.7 ASPH.

Last night I spent a few hours working on the first batch of pictures that I took recently in Berlin while working on my Down Below project. Every day I went down in the subway and spent some time exploring, getting off at every station and taking pictures. It seems to be a good strategy, because I got a lot of interesting pictures and only spent a little more than half an hour for each session. After about 5 stops with trains every 5 minutes and spending 10 minutes at some stations when it was interesting enough, I was already saturated and had taken a ton of pictures with a good results. Some stations are obviously more interesting than others. Usually those are the ones where several lines cross and where more people get off. However, even the stops where you would not expect to see anything interesting can be worth a try, since one might get lucky. After seeing the good results of my first session I’m really curious about the next ones.

The last couple of days I realised how very silly it was to choose November for my plan to come to my hometown to take pictures. Boy is it cold out here! On the first outing my hands were red and stiff when I took my gloves off. These gloves work fine when I have my hands in my coat pockets, but not when I’m holding a metal camera! You can imagine how much fun it is to rewind a roll of film when the camera is really cold and your hands are already freezing before touching the damn thing. So, the first order of business was to get some cold weather gear, which meant going to the mall and getting myself some mittens and leg warmers. And did I mention that taking pictures involves standing around too much in the snow, which is a guarantee for numb toes? I’m hoping that wool inlays for my shoes will help at least a little bit, but judging from experience it won’t prevent cold feet entirely. Only walking helps with that and once the feet are cold they usually stay cold anyway. Somehow the gloves are still a problem as well. The mittens are really nice and warm and work fine with my Olympus, but they are actually a bit of a hassle while shooting with my Zorki. It works, but I tend to cover the rangefinder window while trying to focus, which is hugely annoying. Maybe I have to get some sports gloves instead.

The other problem while shooting analog in this weather is that the film tends to get a bit brittle. Yesterday I managed to break a roll of film in such a weird way that I still don’t know how it could have happened. It basically sliced a bit of film off the long side while rewinding. I guess I can be lucky that this did not happen on the whole length of film or else I would have sliced the whole roll in half. Normally film rips on the short end and you only lose a few frames, but this could have easily ended up ruining the entire roll. The way it happened I only lost about 3 or 4 frames instead of one or two with a regular rip. Ah, the joys of photography in cold weather! No wonder that I’m trying to escape this madness by moving to Spain! At least there it snows just a few days if it snows at all, while here in Germany it’s usually months of this weather! For this project there are only two ways of dealing with the cold though: Putting up with it now or re-scheduling the whole effort to happen in spring instead. I’m already here though, so I might as well try to get it done anyway even though it involves quite a bit of discomfort.

November 27, 2013 | Categories: street | Tags: art, Berlin, black and white, Germany, photography, photos, pictures, postaday2013, street photography | Leave a comment

arrival

Berlin, Germany | © Verena Fischer 2013

Planet Earth | © Verena Fischer 2013

Düsseldorf, Germany | © Verena Fischer 2013

All pictures taken with: Olympus Pen E-PL3 and Panasonic Lumix 20mm f/1.7 ASPH.

Although posting pictures in a delayed fashion is on some level good, because it allows me to distance myself emotionally from the shots, it also might be slightly confusing to you readers. After all my narrative happens mostly in the present while the accompanying pictures come from the past. Although travel pictures are somewhat appropriate for yesterday, Berlin was actually not my destination. Right now I am actually in Chemnitz and we arrived yesterday by car. If you ever spent an extended amount of time on the motorway you can probably imagine how very bored I was in the car on the passenger seat. There is only so much time you can spend eating and after a few initial shots around the Berlin city motorway the landscape quickly turned too boring to be enjoyable photographically. At least the journey from Berlin to Chemnitz is not long, so I only had to kill a few hours. Still, after arriving I realised that boredom and visual monotony leads to extreme tiredness. At least when you’re driving yourself you need to pay attention, but as a passenger it turned out to be just mind-numbing grey-brown emptiness.

Whenever I arrive in Chemnitz I start to feel slightly off. It is the slightly restless trapped feeling that seemed to pervade my teenage years. Usually this is accompanied by the world lining up with my emotions by showing me something to underline this feeling of hopelessness and boredom. In the past I would step off the train and see a skinhead or already hear a completely idiotic conversation in our dialect on the train. Surprisingly even after a car journey the world managed to provide me with a similarly disturbing experience: The first person I saw arriving in Chemnitz was a guy in full camouflage gear hitting his shepherd dog with the leash. Well, thank you, dear universe, for reminding me why I do not live in this city anymore. Of course this is nothing more than selective perception – I chose to see this person instead of ignoring it – but still it illustrates how very strange it is for me to visit my hometown.

November 25, 2013 | Categories: travel | Tags: art, Berlin, Düsseldorf, Germany, photography, photos, pictures, Planet Earth, postaday2013, travel | Leave a comment

high above Berlin

Berlin, Germany | © Verena Fischer 2013

All pictures taken with: Olympus Pen E-PL3 and Panasonic Lumix 20mm f/1.7 ASPH.

On Friday I travelled from San Sebastian back to Berlin. Honestly, it was a journey from hell. I was supposed to land at Tegel airport, but just as we were approaching Berlin the pilot made an announcement that Tegel was closed due to an emergency landing. We were being diverted to Schönefeld airport which is in the far south of Berlin, at the other end of town. I already saw myself trying to figure out trains and wondered whether I should take a cab from somewhere, so that I wouldn’t have to deal with luggage on the subway. However, I was being rather optimistic there. It turned out that Schönefeld airport just didn’t have enough ground crew to deal with all those extra planes from Tegel. For one hour they couldn’t even get stairs to the plane to let us get off. The planes to the left and right from ours were in the same predicament. My thoughts of trains and cabs inevitably shifted to the evacuation slide. Finally after one hour the pilot made another announcement. Apparently the best solution would be to refuel and fly to Tegel after all, because it would take at least another 1 1/2 hours to get us off the plane, not even thinking about luggage or transportation to Tegel yet. The announcement caused quite a bit of laughter. Imagine your plane lands at an airport and nobody comes to let you out! It’s almost like a rather absurd hostage situation. Ironically for safety reasons refuelling is only permitted with the stairs in place, so after half an hour escape seemed finally possible. However, since there was nobody there to handle the luggage or even let us into the seemingly abandoned airport building, we were stuck anyway.

The whole situation was somewhat ridiculous and surreal, especially since the only food I had left was half a raw courgette meant to go with my dinner that apparently was still ages away. Then finally …

“We welcome you to our flight from Berlin Schönefeld to Berlin Tegel. [-applause-] The flight-time will be approximately 15 to 20 minutes. Please switch off your electronic devices now …”

[-20 minutes later-]

“… We are delighted to FINALLY have managed to bring you to your destination [-applause-] … and thank you for your patience.”

In Tegel it was the fastest I ever got my luggage – it was basically already waiting for me when I entered the building – but of course that couldn’t make up for lost time. And just as my thoughts started to revolve around cabs instead of the courgette one big problem manifested itself. There were no cabs and the queue for getting one looked about half an hour long. Swearing I made my way to the bus stop and waited another 15 minutes, while pondering why the 10°C lower temperature in Berlin seemed like it was approaching freezing. By now my mood was rather subterranean and the [expletive deleted] guy eating a kebab on the bus while my stomach was grumbling definitely didn’t help matters, even though I would never eat kebab! Ah, believe me, there is no more appropriate way of arriving in Berlin than hearing a youth shouting Turkish insults into his mobile phone for 10 minutes followed by having someone else stink up the bus with kebab and then finally watching this same person drop something on the floor and eating it anyway.

Another 20 minutes later I finally arrived at the bus stop near my house. You can’t imagine how very long a 10 minute walk can stretch when you’re absolutely exhausted and have to drag two suitcases behind you while you’re freezing off your bum. The first thing I did when I came home was to sit down on the sofa with a big sigh. And that’s exactly where I stayed for the next hour or so, because I just couldn’t face the thought of getting up on my feet again. At around 12pm I finally managed to drag myself to the kitchen to prepare some dinner and soon later I devoured a chicken leg with … dun dun dunnn … half a roasted courgette.

Well, the silliest part of the story is probably that the plane that had caused my journey to take 13 hours instead of 9 or 10 actually had no apparent fault at all. There had been smoke in the cockpit, which is why the emergency landing happened, but when the firefighters arrived, it was gone. They checked with heat sensors, but apparently there was no problem whatsoever.

You see, this is a story of absolute and utter incompetence, which one nowadays can easily associate with Berlin’s airports after the disastrously failed attempt to open a new one last year – with some luck it might open 2015, but at some point I also heard talk of possibly tearing it down again because of its dismal fire safety arrangements. Oh the irony! Not without cause one of the stewardesses joked during one of the many announcements that we must have landed at the yet to be finished airport instead of Schönefeld.

Ah, Berlin, it’s good to be home. (Translation: “I think it’s time to move.”)

PS: No, your eyes are not deceiving you, these pictures are actually in colour [Space for sufficiently exasperated gasps here]! In my defence, although it might seem rather out of character, this Stalkeresque display actually strikes me as a rather appropriate fit for this surreal experience.

November 10, 2013 | Categories: Berlin, Uncategorized | Tags: airplanes, art, Berlin, Germany, photography, photos, pictures, postaday2013, travel | 2 Comments

sky high

Berlin, Germany | © Verena Fischer 2013

Planet Earth | © Verena Fischer 2013

All pictures taken with: Zorki 4K and Jupiter 12 35mm f/2.8.
Kodak Tri-X souped in Rodinal 1:50 (stand).

When you take an old film camera onto a plane nobody can complain that you’re using an electronic device during takeoff. And it’s tons of fun to shoot clouds from above! Most of the pictures won’t turn out special, but occasionally you get something awesome. I’m really happy with the last one for example. Both the pictures above the clouds were taken with a yellow filter at 1/1000 and f/22. It’s that bright up there! If you have cloth curtains, be careful not to burn them.

I have a whole other roll from the journey back, but these will have to wait until later. From a first quick glance at them none of them seem as spectacular as that last one. Sometimes you just get lucky.

Yesterday I picked up some measuring cups and plastic containers for developing the film over here. I also filled a roll of film, because that ruined roll from my flight is not really the best material to test a new developer. I might have accidentally pushed part of the new roll a stop as well – the markings on the shutter speed dial of my Zorki 4K are not really that accurate -, but I guess it will have to do. I’m not using a light meter anyway, so there is a lot of guesswork involved anyway. I’ll see what comes out of it. Whatever the result, it’s good practice.

October 17, 2013 | Categories: black and white | Tags: art, Berlin, black and white, Germany, photography, photos, pictures, postaday2013, street photography | Leave a comment

wonderland

Berlin, Germany | © Verena Fischer 2013

All pictures taken with: Zorki 4K and Jupiter 12 35mm f/2.8.
Kodak Tri-X souped in Rodinal 1:50 (stand).

Just before traveling to San Sebastian last time my brother came to visit me. On one of those days we went for a walk to a nearby park and on the way there I took these pictures. My brother felt slightly uncomfortable with me walking next to him taking pictures of random people. I guess I’m used to it by now, so I don’t mind it much. Well, these are the results. I’m actually really happy with those and maybe the reason is that they’re slightly underexposed and therefore slightly pushed with stand development. The result is more contrast than I normally manage to get with my Zorki. Maybe it’s also that the 35mm is slightly more contrasty than the 50mm lens – could well be, since it might be a newer model. It came with my Zorki 4K from 1975 while my 50mm might be 20 years older than that.

You can expect more awesome results from this roll, but I will post them another time. They are from my flight from Berlin to Bilbao and I prefer to keep subjects apart.

October 16, 2013 | Categories: black and white | Tags: analog, art, Berlin, black and white, Germany, photography, photos, pictures, postaday2013, street photography | Leave a comment

the readers

Berlin, Germany | © Verena Fischer 2013

All pictures taken with: Olympus Pen E-PL3 and Panasonic Lumix 20mm f/1.7 ASPH.

People sometimes say that they don’t have the time to do the things they want. Well, if it’s photography then I really don’t see how that can happen! Taking pictures commuting is definitely an option, during lunch break, even out of the car it can work. Maybe you won’t be taking those fancy glossy landscape pictures in the most exotic places if you don’t have the time, but there is great stuff right in front of your nose already. You just have to learn to see it. Especially street photography is easy to do just while you’re running errands. These pictures for example were taken on the way to the dentist just before my trip to Spain. I won’t bore you with the common horror of dental procedures, but let’s just say that these pictures sort of make up for the half paralysed face and my personal highlight of not being able to close my right eye properly …! I guess the dentist was overdoing it a bit. This was especially fun considering that in the end the dentist decided to post-pone the treatment until after my return, because there was a risk of complications when traveling. A shame that I forgot to mention my Spain trip until after he turned me into a prettier version of Two-Face …!

Where am I going with this? Well, If you’re committed to the things you want to do, you do them even under the most horrific circumstances, sometimes even in the most absurd situations. Those are the ones that make other people shake their head in disbelief. Taking pictures with a half-paralysed face and not properly closing eye definitely falls into that category. Yeah, I did that. Other people might also find you a little nuts if they see you reach for your camera instead of a tissue at the onset of a nosebleed. Yes, I admit it, I’ve done that as well. If you’re committed, you do those kind of things without giving it another thought.

So, you see, “I don’t have the time” is really a bad excuse. “I’m not committed enough” is more like it. Don’t listen to your own bad excuses and take your camera with you wherever you go. And if your camera is too heavy to do that, then pick up a smaller camera! My Olympus really was a revelation in that respect after lugging around a heavy DSLR or a particularly sturdy old Soviet rangefinder camera before.

October 15, 2013 | Categories: black and white | Tags: art, Berlin, black and white, Germany, photography, photos, pictures, postaday2013, street photography | 2 Comments

she’s got her hands full

Berlin, Germany | © Verena Fischer 2013

All pictures taken with: Olympus Pen E-PL3 and Panasonic Lumix 20mm f/1.7 ASPH.

I’m a bit behind on my editing, because I’ve been out with the camera every day for a few days. I’m not used to it anymore! Yesterday we went for a little walk up the mountain and explored the area a bit more. Where ever you live there are likely to be places quite close by that you just ignore. Backyards, strange stairs leading somewhere, sometimes parks or side-streets that seem too unspectacular to see what’s there. Well, I like to go to exactly those places, because often you find interesting stuff. I’ll show you what we found in a few days.

I also ordered the developing tank and chemicals to develop film here in Spain. I don’t have a scanner here, but I can look at the pictures with a magnifying glass and that way I also don’t create a backlog. The developer I ordered is Tetenal Ultrafin. Originally I wanted Ultrafin Plus, but it seems that they discontinued it. With Ultrafin I will actually have to make an effort to develop at the right temperature and for the right amount of time. So far I just dumped the film in random temperature Rodinal 1:100 for about an hour and that was that. I guess a bit more precision developing might do me some good actually. And of course it takes less time and I can do 2 rolls at once if I want. Should also be possible with stand development, but I’m always uncertain whether it wouldn’t be too much liquid for the tank if sticking to 1:100 and at least 3ml per film. With my old Jobo tank it wouldn’t have worked, it’s too small, but my new AP development tank actually takes 650ml. I will have to try that at some point. Ultrafin is not for stand development though and I’m curious what the results will be with this developer.

Today’s pictures are from a few days ago when I was somewhere in Prenzlauer Berg.

October 14, 2013 | Categories: black and white | Tags: art, Berlin, black and white, Germany, photography, photos, phots, pictures, postaday2013, street photography | Leave a comment

the east

Berlin, Germany | © Verena Fischer 2013

All pictures taken with: Zorki 3C and Jupiter 8 50mm f/2.0.
Kodak Tri-X souped in Rodinal 1:50 (stand development).

Where better to go with a Soviet rangefinder camera than to the area near Karl-Marx-Allee. The result looks kind of like I time-traveled into the 80s. In fact, the last picture very much reminds me of the area where I grew up in Chemnitz, so that’s very fitting! I definitely want to take some pictures around places where I grew up in Chemnitz and I think this is a clear job for one of my Zorkis!

Apart from that I yesterday enjoyed a sunny day in San Sebastian. Felt like I was properly warm for the first time in weeks! Pictures of San Sebastian will follow, but I first wanted to show off some of the recently developed film. I also ordered the developing equipment to develop my film here. I will be playing around with Tetenal Ultrafin Plus as a developer and I’m curious about the results.

October 13, 2013 | Categories: black and white | Tags: analog, art, Berlin, black and white, Germany, photography, photos, pictures, postaday2013, street photography | 4 Comments

let’s go

Berlin, Germany | © Verena Fischer 2013

All pictures taken with: Olympus Pen E-PL3 and Panasonic Lumix 20mm f/1.7 ASPH.

It was bound to happen at some point: Yesterday I ruined at least part of a roll of film, by not reversing it before opening the back. One great piece of advice: Don’t remove your film while the plane is landing, it’s far too distracting! Anyway, I’ll see how badly I ruined it, when I develop it. Maybe the beginning of the roll will still be alright.

My journey to Spain was all in all quite ok. My health was behaving itself and like this it’s not so bad to travel. The weather on arrival wasn’t so great – a bit cold -, but I was feeling so good, that we even went for a walk after arriving! If this trend of travelling without health problems continues then I sure will start travelling a bit more!

These pictures were taken when I went to the Meret Oppenheim exhibition in the Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin with a friend.

October 12, 2013 | Categories: black and white | Tags: art, Berlin, black and white, Germany, photography, photos, pictures, postaday2013, street photography | Leave a comment

yummy, books!

Berlin, Germany | © Verena Fischer 2013

All pictures taken with: Olympus Pen E-PL3 and Panasonic Lumix 20mm f/1.7 ASPH.

Tomorrow I will be flying back to Spain. Although I’m not particularly looking forward to the prospect of travelling itself, I’m sure looking forward to arriving and being there. Also, after seeing some of the results my Zorki produced above the clouds I feel that I can spend the time up in the air in a good way: taking pictures! And yes, that means I will be taking my Zorki after all, since I’ve somehow almost managed to develop all my previous rolls of film that I still had lying around (4 in total just this week, the last is sitting in the developer right now). And, I’m impressed, I was doing quite well guessing the correct exposure settings even without the light meter, well, as far as I can tell with stand development. It compensates a bit for minor mistakes. When you develop the film yourself it all becomes a bit more forgiving. Even my accidental Rodinal 1:50 stand development didn’t seem to cause too many problems (normally I develop in 1:100).

On that note, let me say a few words about my new AP development tank. I had a Jobo before, which is considered to be the best, so I wasn’t expecting much from the cheap replacement. However, I’m actually really quite happy with it! The spools are much less fiddly than the Jobo ones, so that I don’t spend ages in the dark trying to get that stupid film onto that stupid spool – yes, a bit of swearing was always involved with the Jobo spools. Instead the film runs smoothly onto it without causing much trouble. 2 spools were included and and they are held in place by a clip. With the Jobo tank I had one roll, where the spool wandered upwards in the tank so that not all of the film was covered with developer consistently. This can’t happen with the AP tank, because of the clip. Also, the AP tank has a screw top lid, which is much more easy to use than that weird construction Jobo uses. This weird Jobo lid was also the reason why my old tank had to be replaced, because it didn’t want to close properly anymore. The only downside of the AP tank: it leaks a little bit more. The Jobo tank also leaked, but with the AP tank I get quite a bit of spillage. Especially with the fixer this happens, because I agitate more while fixing than while developing. It’s not so bad though, after all I don’t have carpet in the bathroom. Generally I’m quite happy with the AP tank and I’m definitely in no hurry to get a Jobo replacement. Who would have thought that the cheaper development tank would be the better one?

Of course after all this developing it will take me a while to process the pictures, so these are still the digital pictures from the last few days. They were taken around Friedrichstraße.

October 10, 2013 | Categories: black and white | Tags: art, Berlin, black and white, Germany, photography, photos, pictures, postaday2013, street photography | 2 Comments

the eye

Berlin, Germany | © Verena Fischer 2013

All pictures taken with: Olympus Pen E-PL3 and Panasonic Lumix 20mm f/1.7 ASPH.

I have been busy these last few days. I went out, took pictures, developed two rolls of film, scanned one of them and I also went to the Meret Oppenheim exhibition in the Martin-Gropius-Bau. Yes, I wasn’t joking, I really was busy. These pictures were taken a few days back when I went to Friedrichstraße to buy my favourite photography magazine Schwarzweiss (Black and White). After I got it in the bookshop of the station I walked around for a bit and let myself drift through backyards and unknown streets. I haven’t been wandering around much lately, although I do enjoy the experience. It feels good to be back out there and able to walk. My health was making that somewhat difficult for quite a while. You can see: I’m getting better. These past few days I was almost feeling normal and my health didn’t interfere with my life much. I hope it stays like that for a while, because it’s rather enjoyable!

October 8, 2013 | Categories: black and white | Tags: art, Berlin, black and white, Germany, photography, photos, pictures, postaday2013, street photography | Leave a comment

onward

All pictures taken with: Olympus Pen E-PL3 and Panasonic Lumix 20mm f/1.7.

The other day I was walking from Friedrichstraße to Französische Straße. Thanks to a huge building site the subway is not running between these two subway stops. Well, I had my camera, so I wasn’t too bothered about the walk. It’s a rather touristy stretch with quite a lot of shops and it’s not that easy to capture anything interesting apart from people walking. This is generally the problem with street photography in certain areas. People are just passing through and nothing much is happening. After all some person walking doesn’t make an interesting picture yet. It’s good to take those “boring” shots too though, because that way you get practice for the moments when really something exceptional lands in front of your lens. Practice practice practice. There is another reason why taking the boring shots is important as well: Sometimes you only see what’s really happening when you open up the picture on the screen or look at the print. Strange things might be happening in the background that you didn’t notice in the moment itself or details might suddenly strike you as interesting that you couldn’t have seen unless you could have stopped time. You will only know if you take the shot anyway. And that’s precisely why I like to have a digital camera while I’m just walking around on errands. It doesn’t matter if I take too many pictures or if it’s too dark for the autofocus to work perfectly. If 90% of the shots turn out blurry or boring, there is no cost attached. Not even storage cost, because you can just delete the really bad ones. However, with a bit of luck there might be something really interesting in the 10%. Those are usually the shots you would have missed if you would have had to stop, compose and possibly change settings before pressing the shutter. Just snapshots? Well, you were there and took the shot. What does it matter whether it was a deliberate effort or a matter of luck, if you get that amazing shot? Even being lucky needs a certain amount of instinct.

October 2, 2013 | Categories: black and white | Tags: art, Berlin, black and white, Germany, photography, photos, pictures, postaday2013, street photography | 1 Comment

all you need is rock

All pictures taken with: Olympus Pen E-PL3 and Panasonic Lumix 20mm f/1.7 ASPH.

Yes, it’s Monday and I said I would buy purified water for developing film. Well, so far I haven’t though, because I had to go to the doctor’s office to let them stick me with needles again. They’ve already drawn blood 3 times in a month, but now it’s finally over! Too annoying. Since I’m mainly here in Berlin for the doctor’s appointments, this means that next week after I get the results of these blood tests I can get on a plane back to Spain!

In Berlin it’s already quite cold. In fact it’s actually unseasonably cold, close to freezing at night. I already picked up the first chestnut of the year in the courtyard, so for me it’s officially autumn and the temperatures reflect that. I’m braving the cool nights with wool socks, a blanket and nice hot cups of tea. I’m even thinking of getting yeti out, that’s my hot water bottle. The occasional pumpkin or roast vegetable finds its way into my food as well, which is nice, but I would really prefer a bit more warmth right now. Luckily it’s not yet too freezing for my fingers when taking pictures. Not yet winter, which quickly turns Siberian in Berlin. In Spain there is still a remnant of summer and I’m hoping it will keep until next week. A bit of warm air and sunshine would do me some good for sure! Autumn reaches Spain too, but the climate there is so weird that occasionally there will be a warm day even in winter. In Berlin it’s likely to be the opposite. In between really hot days in summer you’ll find unseasonably cold weather and the winter is positively depressing, dreary and freezing. Well, it’s much closer to Siberia, right? Guess where I’ll be spending the winter months!

Well, although I didn’t manage to get that purified water I at least took quite a few pictures today. I bet you’ll see some of them tomorrow, since I seem to have managed to push through my post-processing backlog. The pictures I’m posting today were taken a few weeks back in Mitte when I was trying to get my broken developing tank exchanged. Other photography related aspects of my day were: Reading my favourite photography magazine, editing pictures, reading about the process of creating art in a book about comics and watching a lecture about Marx. Photography and Marx? Yes, but please don’t ask me to explain it (yet). I will let you know when I have figured it out …!

September 30, 2013 | Categories: black and white | Tags: art, Berlin, black and white, Germany, photography, photos, pictures, postaday2013, street photography | 2 Comments

lift off

All pictures taken with: Olympus Pen E-PL3 and Panasonic Lumix 20mm f/1.7 ASPH.

There I was thinking I could just easily get back into the swing of things after a lazy summer. Over the summer I was also trying to recover from my health issues. Well, not so easy. If you solve one problem, it usually just creates another one, because the universe finds it pretty funny to make things as difficult as possible. In all my efforts to tweak my diet, new issues start cropping up and therefore I never really get a break from “recovering” somehow. I will get there eventually. There is only one conclusion to draw: I just have to try to work anyway, even if I’m not yet feeling entirely great. I still have 4 undeveloped rolls of film lying around and some other pictures that need editing, before I can get into a proper routine again.

In a couple of weeks I will be traveling to San Sebastian again and this time I probably won’t be taking my Zorki. While I do want to keep working on my analog photography I just don’t feel I can do that properly if I have to wait a month or longer to see the pictures. And then there is this barrier of having to develop not only one roll but that several rolls are waiting. And if you go out and take more pictures, there will be even more of them accumulating! It starts to feel like a hassle and that’s not really how I want to work. Do I have to mention that yesterday when I was just about to get on with the developing process I realised that I forgot to buy purified water? The water over here is so horrific, that I’d end up with limescale on my negatives if I’d wash with normal tap water. How annoying! Tomorrow then – since obviously the shops are closed on Sundays.

This backlog of film rolls is definitely part of the problem of living in two cities. You never have all the stuff you need (in this case developing tank, chemicals and the scanner obviously had to stay in Berlin) and it breaks up the routine so much as well! My good working routine before the summer got thrown out the window in San Sebastian and now that I feel like I can get it back I’m already about to travel again. I can’t wait to finally have everything in one place!

That said, even though I didn’t work consistently over the last month it’s not as if I was lazy either. I’ve been to see several doctors to try to get answers, researched a lot of health stuff and as a result my pain has improved substantially with another diet change! I might even expect some more improvement over the next couple of months, because complicated processes are involved that need time to sort themselves out. Things are definitely looking up! We’re even slowly planning a trip to Prague, which is amazing! This is just great, especially since travelling has been all but impossible for me for a long time. I used to be quite ill right after travelling, so going anywhere for a short period of time wasn’t really an option. A city trip? Pointless under these circumstances! During a two week trip I would have been horrifically ill one week at least. At the beginning of the summer I managed to travel to San Sebastian without getting so ill though and things are getting better and better. Maybe by next year our Prague trip will finally happen! The next step after that would be a trip to Buenos Aires. I’ve been dreaming about that for many years, but my health was just too bad even for a longer trip. A long flight with jet lag is obviously not exactly the best idea for someone with delicate health. Now it might finally become possible though!

I’ve already been working on my health actively for a year now and I’m still not really “healthy”. It’s like peeling an onion layer after layer. Always new problems are uncovered. However, I’m improving anyway, even if the slow process sometimes feels as if nothing is happening at all. However, considering that I managed to get on a plane twice in the last few months without getting horrifically ill, things really must be improving! I used to travel back and forth between England and Germany every few months for a number of years and my one week ordeal after every flight was as reliable as the sun coming up every morning! Travelling twice without that? Unthinkable! Maybe one day I’ll be able to just travel and take pictures without worrying about my health at all! Wouldn’t that be great? Well, I’m working on it. And if I keep visualising the goal, then the hassles of dealing with doctors and all the temporary setbacks don’t seem all that bad. It’s worth the effort, even though setbacks mean that I won’t be able to work consistently. That’s another thing that will hopefully change if I manage to improve my health a bit more!

September 29, 2013 | Categories: black and white | Tags: art, Berlin, black and white, Germany, photography, photos, pictures, postaday2013, street photography | 1 Comment

om nom nom

All pictures taken with: Olympus Pen E-PL3 and Panasonic Lumix 20mm f/1.7 ASPH.

What’s the biggest annoyance of travelling to a different country? Well, it’s gotta be the security check. Getting the laptop out, belt, possibly shoes and then it possibly beeps anyway. The newest problem: If you’re travelling with film, exposed or unexposed, the x-ray scanner will fog it! So, tomorrow I will request to have my whole pack of film hand-checked instead. I hope it won’t be a problem.

Yes, tomorrow I’m leaving Berlin for 7 whole weeks. I’m hoping for beach weather and a lot of photographic opportunities. So, don’t be surprised if the captions suddenly say San Sebastian instead of Berlin!

June 25, 2013 | Categories: black and white | Tags: art, Berlin, black and white, Germany, photography, photos, pictures, postaday2013, street photography | 2 Comments

girlfriends

All pictures taken with: Zorki 4K and Jupiter 12 35mm f/2.8.
Fuji Neopan souped in Rodinal 1:100.

The other day when I was testing my new Zorki 4K and my Jupiter 12 35mm lens I went to Friedrichstraße and walked around the station a bit. This is where these pictures were taken. I’d say the camera works fine and the lens gives decent enough results as well. I think after this test it’s settled: I’ll take the Zorki 4K with me to San Sebastian. The film advance lever is just so much more convenient than the dial of the Zorki 3C. Both Zorkis have the issue that a small part of the picture ends up on the sprocket holes. With the Zorki 4K this problem is a bit less pronounced as well.

June 24, 2013 | Categories: black and white | Tags: art, Berlin, black and white, Germany, photography, photos, pictures, postaday2013, street photography | Leave a comment

journeys

All pictures apart from the second one taken with: Olympus Pen E-PL3 and Panasonic Lumix 20mm f/1.7 ASPH. The second picture was taken with: Canon EOS 450D and Canon EF 50mm f/1.4.

I felt like dancing tango the other night when I was watching the outdoor dance floor at the Strandbar with my camera. Obviously I’m not supposed to dance yet after my surgery. It was good to stop for a moment though, listen to a couple of tangos and take a few pictures. It gave me at least the tango feeling for a little while. I miss it.

June 23, 2013 | Categories: black and white | Tags: art, Berlin, black and white, Germany, photography, photos, pictures, postaday2013, street photography | Leave a comment

immersion

All pictures taken with: Olympus Pen E-PL3 and Panasonic Lumix 20mm f/1.7 ASPH.

The weather in Berlin seems all over the place this year. First it was too cold and wintery, then it rained for weeks and weeks, and now it has been too hot to even move a finger, let alone leave the house during the day. So, yesterday I was busy trying not to melt and I am not exaggerating. This is also not the kind of weather where British people start complaining, no, with 35°C it was about 10°C higher than what is already considered unbearable heat in a UK summer. All the while in Spain rainy 16°C seem to be awaiting me for my summer vacation. And didn’t I read something about the arctic ice melting and the Earth’s crust heating up? Wait, how many signs did we say we needed for the apocalypse? In any case, I hope the apocalypse can wait until after I had time to relax on the beach. That is if the weather in Spain decides to turn into summer at all …

June 22, 2013 | Categories: black and white | Tags: art, Berlin, black and white, Germany, photography, photos, pictures, postaday2013, street photography | Leave a comment

super cute

All pictures taken with: Olympus Pen E-PL3 and Panasonic Lumix 20mm f/1.7 ASPH.

The last few days I’ve been taking so many pictures that I can hardly keep up with processing them. I still have to scan a roll of film from my Zorki 4K test and there are two days worth of pictures from my Olympus waiting to be edited. Yesterday I even picked up my Canon and took some pictures of some outdoor tango! Well, I won’t complain about days filled with photography!

June 20, 2013 | Categories: black and white | Tags: art, Berlin, black and white, Germany, photography, photos, pictures, postaday2013, street photography | Leave a comment

experiments in experience one day at a time

Posts tagged “Berlin”

(s)hoe city

up we go

let go of your ego

perfect fit

kings

knorke

arrival

high above Berlin

sky high

wonderland

the readers

she’s got her hands full

the east

let’s go

yummy, books!

the eye

onward

all you need is rock

lift off

om nom nom

girlfriends

journeys

immersion

super cute

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