We seem to live in really difficult times these days. There's the war in Ukraine that is killing thousands of people, both aggressors and defenders. There's the recent earthquake in Turkey in Syria with collapsing buildings and again thousands of casualties. There are the totalitarian regimes in Afghanistan and Iran, there's the still ongoing conflict in Jemen, hunger in Africa and the almost unbearable challenge for this and all coming generations, combating the consequences of climate change. read more…
A couple of weeks ago I was among those people who decided that it's about time to leave twitter behind and look for something else. For me leaving Twitter was relatively easy. I just had a tiny account there which just a handful of followers. In recent years I mainly used Twitter for reading, it was part of my daily reading routine and worked in combination with other news sources like RSS feeds. All of this use case is rather simple to replace, I have to admit. So it was a rather easy question for me if or when to leave Twitter. read more…
Yes, I know, it's that season again. We're approaching Christmas soon and everywhere the Christmas songs start playing, there are decorated Christmas trees and special streetlights to welcome this most festive season of the year. It's easy to become overwhelmed and get enough of all that shopping terror. But believe me, there's still one tradition that sets me back into Christmas mode every year. And as easy as it sounds this is my yearly stroll over the Christkindlesmarkt in Nuremberg during the weeks before Christmas. read more…
During my recent stay in Venice while the Biennale Arte 2022 was still taking place, I also had the chance to visit Marlene Dumas' solo exhibition "open-end" in the Palazzo Grassi. Certainly I recognized Dumas' name when preparing my trip to Italy, but so far I never had a clear picture of her work, of her personality or her artistic expression. So I stumbled into this exhibition without any major preparation. I didn't expect getting so excited about the paintings I saw there and realized her incredible craftsmanship for the very first time. Dumas' work is incredibly captivating and precise while staying rather loose in the actual execution. At the beginning of the exhibition there's a very good introduction video in the form of an interview to introduce Marlene Dumas and her story to the visitors. read more…
Earlier this year I've made a trip to South Tyrol again. It was early autumn and the leaves started to get colored already. As I got to know this area quite well over the years this time I decided to give up on making my regular types of images and instead go with something new. I remembered that for a long time now I have the Spectre App installed on my phone, which is a dedicated app to shoot slow shutter images right with your iPhone. So I decided to solely use this camera app for documenting this year's trip to the Etsch valley of culture, wine and apples. read more…