After reemerging much later from my last long time assignment, than I had expected, I am thankful that my Madonna is still finding her way into the BURN.ED GARDEN exhibition in San Antonio, Texas.

I started this series – which is not listed on my website – a couple of years ago and held it rather privatly so far.

A couple of weeks ago I found an old friend on Facebook from my school days in Brazil.

Tommy was the pure concept of sunshine. Huge blue eyes and a broad smile that seemed to never leave his face. Tommy’s father was our math teacher and the one who went with us to the first Hard Rock festival in Rio – we were a small group of hard core hard rock fans, and we were minors in need of an adult “victim” to accompany us. At the end it was due to Tommy’s father that we were the only ones who had to watch the show from behind (!) the stage, as he expected the Maracanã stadium to collapse under the rhythmic jumps of the audience.

Tommy was also the magic guitar player of our first very own band … And only his huge smile never quite fit the hard rock concept.

Tommy just died of liver failure.

Like many of us. he did not cope well with returning to live in Germany.

I found out literally one click before I read that I was being asked to submit a quick selfportrait.

I thought, I could not do a self portrait today.
I did one nonetheless.
I am not sure if it can be used for what it is supposed to be for …
But here we go.
For Tommy.
For blue eyes and a soul that will now hopefully find it’s light again.

While on the road to the collodion workshop in Lacock, I decided to make use of my time and test the iPhone’s hipstamatic filter. And yes, it is rather fascinating. I do actually own both an Holga and a Diana but being a child of the digital age, I totally enjoy the filter’s instant results – please forget for an instant, that I am travelling to England to take an 19th century technique workshop …

To criticize the filter a bit: I found it unnecessarily difficult (if not impossible) to frame the image correctly – guesswork, experience and luck is needed – most likely the software is programmed this way on purpose. Annoying nonetheless. It is NOT a Holga after all, but a digital device. If I WANT a lucky shot, I can close my eyes.

After a couple of shots (= too few) my iPhone was sucked dry. So I switched over to the iPad to cover the actual crossing via train through the Eurotunnel. The dog was our main reason for choosing this means of transportation but it did not go half as smoothly as we had hoped for. Due to an incident earlier that day another train got stuck halfway through the tunnel, delaying everything. Nightmarish for the passengers, no doubt about this. But also for us. Instead of approx 30 min, we were in those coffin like carriages for way over two hours. Our only advantage was that we could still see the sky when we looked out of the small windows.

I will upload some images of that the next time. We just arrived at Lacock and I have not yet downloaded the files from the iPad.

I am thinking about covering the collodion workshop with digital hipstamatic. It would be so incredibly off, to actually be interesting again. Will ask if it is ok.

Not really. But looks fun, does it not?

We are having the Women’s World Cup (soccer) in Germany and part of the show is right in front of our house at the riverside. Bad for walking the dog.

The night I took the picture above, they were installing the spot lights.

So you see: most of the explanations are trivial and boring.
Best to stick with the UFOs …

It toke me a long way to finally press the purchase button on the iPad. But I did it. And I do not regret it a bit, now that I finally got to this stage.

The main points for me are clearly that I can update my presentations in no time and look professional. While I was carrying paper presentations around with me, I would actually have to reprint them time after time because they would get messy in my bag and when people leafed through them. Depending on whom you want to show your work to, a coffee stain and crease might be acceptable – or not.

Secondly, I can actually fit the iPad into most of my handbags while still being able to use my 10finger system with the keyboard. It feels a bit like playing on a piccolo flute, but it works, and that is the most important. Every one who learned to type with 10 fingers knows how lost you get, when you all of the sudden have to switch to two fingers: takes me forever and I never know where the letters are. I sincerely do not manage to type with two fingers without loosing my good mood (and the train of thought).

As I am working on three books right now, I have a lot of writing to do, so always having the iPad with me is less of an issue than carrying my large screen macbook pro around or typing stuff into the tiny iPhone. And you probably know how it is with the “perfect expressions and statements”: they do not tend to come when one is sitting at a desk, ready to type, but when one is standing in the ticket line, going out to walk with the dog, having a latte in a little street corner coffeeshop or just sitting at the river or in the subway. Now I flip open the iPad, jot the thought down in no time, send myself an eMail as backup and there I am! Perfect.

Obviously the iPad has more to offer than just this. But even if I merely counted the points mentioned above, I did a good deal with it. Considering the sheer amount of presentations ahead of me, I actually saved money if I use it for more than 9 months.

Amazing thought.

Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and the wounded. It’s a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with the darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognize our shared humanity.

Pema Chodron

Always when you think that there couldn’t be anything more, the “more” pops up. Seems to be some kind of natural law.

In a matter of instants, the sun light faded and a courtain of water fell from the skies.

That was yesterday. And the whole episode did not take more than a couple of seconds – just long enough for me to run to grab the camera, lean out of the window and take some shots – while getting soaked. Then it was over again. Standing in the kitchen, dripping all over the place, I found that I got a beautiful sequence … and the most astonishing image of the group I am saving up for the book. “A Tender Heart”, yes, in preparation, right on my table at this moment.

They cleaned the pond recently and replaced the lights. So now, in the night, when your eyes are drawn to the only late lightsource in the backyard, you have these two glowing eyes staring back at you. I do not want to complain, but I think they could have done a better job with the light – less haunting. On the other hand side it kinda fits to the character of the place: always empty, always watching. Kinda Stephen King like – only this time it is a backyard with a pond instead of an house.

They put something in the water to make it turn green – or probably they forgot to put in something to keep it clear. But I have to say that I prefer it this way. I always wonder why on earth pools are painted light blue anyway? What most unnatural color to put into a pond like the one in our backyard! I kind of understand why you have this in swimmingpools – the notion of clean and cool. Especially in warmer regions a dark color in a pool would just help increase the water temperature, and with this the growth of everything you do not want to have in that water … but why in a pond? Oh well … it is beyond me.

I guess it is just this way “because it is done this way”, meaning: people do not reflect about alternatives. I fear it is not even about not wanting to take risks – most likely it is about unawareness and being pigeonholed.

Maybe it is just, so that I take some picures … But that would be to take myself to seriously, I fear. :)

Just did this one … An interrupted long exposure into the pitch dark – and I really thought I had heard the shutter – but turns out I had not.
No tripod anyway. Hanging out of the window trying not to breathe, long exposures of this kind become somewhat life threatening.

I am closing the Backyard Series soon. Waiting for the final recipes …

And of course:
Dalwhinnie, Bowmore, Bruchladdich, Bunnahabhain, Caol Ila, Lagavulin, Laphroaig …

Hopefully this winter.

Where there is no light, there is no shadow.
Cliché – but true.

A day earlier at a barbeque party. Same thing, only different.
Always worth it to look up once in a while.

From a bottle of Clos Napoléon, 1986, Fixin 1er Cru.
I have been carrying it around with me since that time – along with several other bottles that probably did not survive either.

May my friends forgive me …
Yes, I have been warned.