tobias m. schiel
When, a while ago, the lens artists challenged us to share quiet moments, instead of going through my beach and museum and travel photos, I wondered if, and how, I could show my quiet moments en miniature. Pondering several possibilities, I realized that reading almost always gives me some quiet – and that I can experience this quietness everywhere and anytime.
Today I would like to share a couple of pictures which surprisingly turned into a short story.
„Wir lesen, weil wir so tausend Leben führen können, ohne mehr als einen Tod sterben zu müssen.“ Denis Scheck
(We read so we can live a thousand lives without having to die more than one death.)
“Stai per cominciare a leggere il nuovo romanzo Se una notte d’inverno un viaggiatore di Italo Calvino. Rilassati. Raccogliti. Allontana da te ogni altro pensiero. Lascia che il mondo che ti circonda sfumi nell’indistinto.” Italo Calvino
(You are about to read the new novel If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino. Relax. Collect yourself. Let go of any other thought. Allow the world that surrounds you to dissolve into indistinctness.)
When I saw the lens-artists challenge Quiet Moment, this was the first picture that came to mind – it obviously took a while to make it, and a whole series with readers in different moments along with it. This week’s challenge seems a great starting point for sharing: Who says you can’t have a quiet moment when you’re On the Move?
When I read the Lens-Artists Challenge No. 366, I immeditately thought of these photos. I had originally prepared separate posts for the modern high rise (a groundbreaking modernist building in Düsseldorf from the 1950ies) and the more traditional buildings just behind the port of Camaret-sur-Mer.
Thinking about this week’s challenge a bit longer, I suspect these pictures highlight my own bias rather than the actual contrast between city and country. But I still find the juxtaposition more exciting than presenting the two places in separate posts.
This week, the Lens-Artists Challenge certainly called for a re-post of one of my favorite photos: A competitive game and a companionable occasion.
Dancing never feels like workout. However, at the end of a session, you might have practiced coordination, balance, musicality – and even find yourself out of breath. Plus, you’ll have flexed your social muscle.
A good start to a good swim. Of these three pictures, this is the only one that’s new – one I always meant to make but did not get around to till today. So, thanks for the challenge!
“Going back” is this week’s Lens Artists Challenge; Sofia Alves takes us back to an old doors challenge. In the light of these two ideas I’d like to start this post with some back doors.
As far as toy photography goes, I love to build and photograph doors because of both their architectural and narrative potential. They are simple means of definig a building and evoking an atmosphere – back door or main? Factory or bar? Welcoming or forbidding?
A door is a passageway. This function evokes narrative. The door is closed: what’s happening behind it? The door is open: will someone walk through it? And then, what will happen?
The inside and the outside can stand for a before and an after. Thus, narrative – or the paasing of time – can be hinted at in a single picture.
This week, John Steiner of the Lens-Artists came up with a challenge that really got me thinking: John prompts us to pick a word “that fits your topic and select three or four appropriate photos to share.” In view of my toy photography years and the time before that, would I find any common denominator? I used to be very intersted in abstract photography, exploring real space and pictorial composition. It also seems I like showing affiliations or connections, both spatial and social.
One way of doing so was employing neagative space and stark contrasts – which is something I’ve also been exploring with toys lately. So here’s a little retrospective: three toy photos, and three photos showing memorials.
The latter date back to 2012-13, while the picture with the three deck chairs is no older than a week.
A bold dog for the Lens Artists’ challenge #337.
Is it just me or does this reverberate with the lens artists’ challenge #331 – resilience?
Happy new year!
Slow down. Relax. Have a merry Christmas.
Lens-artists challenge #329: I am not entirely sure what’s happening in this picture because I was putting the focus on composition rather than narrative. However, the figures’ poses seem to hint at seomething last chance-y..
These miniature scenes do not happen out of the blue. I am an amateur photographer. I love wearing that type of cap. People have to wait for my while I take a photo. And yes, I have photographed shop windows before.
Scanning my photos for proof, I found some pictures that fit the bill. Looking back even made me realize I hid my face in my real-life self portraits as well.
I think when we photograph we always do it with thousands of pictures in our heads, even if we do not have them all before our inner eye in the moment we release the shutter.
Left: “A Picture With Me in It” (2012), right: “Junk” (2009)
A happy coincidence: This picture is part of a sequence, and it is ready to be shared just the moment lens-artist Leya announced this week’s challenge #319: Setting a Mood.
Kunstpunkte (literally “art spots”) stands for two weekends when more than 100 artists in Düsseldorf invite the public to visit their ateliers. These visits always fascinate me; they are a chance to get very close to art and artists, experiencing the places where the works are acutally made. This is similar to visiting the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (academy of fine arts) which I will cover in a separate post.
You may notice that I barely photograph the art itself, feeling much of it has already been reproduced (the last picture in this post shows part of an art work however). As for the artists themselves, I value their privacy, plus I am not really a portrait photographer. So here are some impressions from four different spots all of which you might not get to see outside of the Kunstpunkte.
Note: The next Kunstpunkte will take place next weekend and the weekend after.
Lens-artists challenge 313: cool colors.
Lens-Artists Challenge 312: Sense of scale. Photographing 1/87 scale (H0) worlds is in itself playing on our sense of scale, maybe even aiming at the viewer questioning her or his sense of scale for a moment. At the same time, most of the elements of a photo are applied in this small world, too: The objects in this picture, along with the camera position, should give a feeling of depth here. By employing these means, I hope to give the picture a real-life immediacy … a touch of streeet photography at best.
Architectures from Neue Nationalgalerie and Potsdamer Platz
Grids from Hamburger Bahnhof
More art at Hamburger Bahnhof, and a home made lemonade at the museum café
Lens Artists Challenge #308: pairs.
empire of lights 