Thomas at "Handbestand"
Thomas is the owner of a a cafe close to my apartment in Berlin called "Handbestand". Here he combines his love for antique books with very good coffee. The other day I asked him if I could take a portrait of him and was very happy that he agreed. See a short video of Handbestand here, check out their Facebook page here. It is a great place for having coffee, checking out old books, political discussion and epic chess battles that I unfortunately lose 99% of the time. But there is hope on the horizon! Thomas is my new chess coach.
Ich bin ein Berliner!
Two years after leaving New York I've finally arrived! Now I'm officially a Berlin photographer. Many thanks to Jens Hohmann for featuring me on his photography blog www.ontai.de.
Michael Rosker
My latest Project also involved web design. I was entrusted with designing my spiritual mentor Michael Rosker's website. It opens with the above photograph of Michael. To me this is one of the best portraits I'v ever shot. I'm not sure if what I like the most about this image is the intensity in his eyes, his smile, his overall good looks or all of the above!
Frederic
A few weeks I started a new portrait project. I put up an ad on Craigslist and just waited to see what would happen. Fred was one of the first people who contacted me. He is from France and has been living in Berlin for a year or so. He is a very nice guy. We spend the afternoon and talked more then we were taking pictures and parted as friends.
Freedom
Last weekend I went on a sailing trip to the Baltic Sea for three days. Many thanks to Julia and Jan to make this trip possible!. We sailed from Kühlungsborn to the Island Poel, from Poel to Fehmarn Island and back to Kühlungsborn. It has been more than 20 Jears since I spent six months on a tall ship but being out at sea the feelings of freedom and peace were back after an hour of leaving shore. To look at the horizon and see nothing but water and sky puts many things in perspective and always helps me to take life less seriously.
Nothing to gain and nothing to lose!
As tough as it was to leave the Big Apple behind, as much it also has freed me. I wrote in past blog post (you can go to the archive here) a lot about the ego. I spoke about how it is created and sustained but also about how to let parts of the illusionary self go. When I left the city I realised how much my self identity and New York City were tightly fused together. If, even only two years ago, somebody would have asked me if I would ever consider leaving the city, my answer would have been “never”.
99% Practice and 1% Theory!
Another change was that I finally started to teach yoga. This is a promo video of me practicing the 1st Series of Ashtanga Yoga. Many thanks to the Crawford Sisters! As with photography you can talk about yoga as much as you want but what counts is shooting or stepping on the mat. But if you do so continuesly for many years, you wake up one day and you can do things you thought you would never be able to do!
Christian
Christian and I have been friends for a couple of years by now. He used to own "Phoebe's" my favorite coffee shop in Williamsburg. One day we started talking while I had breakfast there and we have been friends ever since. Christian is a musician. Because his dream always had been to own a place where musicians could perform he bough the coffee shop. People were performing but it was tough to make money so unfortunately (for me!) he sold the place a couple of years ago.It took a while for us to get together to do the interview and picture but it took even longer for me to post it. We met in May.Christian and his wonderful girlfriend Stacy invited me over that night and after a fantastic dinner and him playing some songs on the guitar he gave me his interview. Happiness combined with simplicity is what he strives for in life.It was a great last (at least for the moment) interview in NYC and in the United States.
Faith Bartruff
Faith just sold all she owned and moved with only a few suitcases from LA to the Big Apple. She had a successful career as a fashion designer creating outfits for Beyonce and Nicki Minaj that left her very unfulfilled. One day she realized that nothing she ever had accomplished had ever given her any fulfillment. She came to a breaking point. She says she was crying out to God to change her life, to take away whatever does not make her happy and to create a life that is not only fulfilling to her but would also help others to find fulfillment. Within seconds her life started to change .....
Sarit Chalamish
I have been friends with Sarit for a few years by now. She used to work with artists and I met her taking pictures at a friends art opening who she worked with. She later on represented my fine art work. Sarit is one of these people that is able to juggle living in NYC, work, being married and being the mother of three beautiful girls. She is originally from Israel and talks in her interview about her meaning of life being first and foremost a mother. She says that she is contemporary in her day to day life but at the same time also very conservative. Being Jewish she mentions how important her faith is to her and talks about symbols in Jewish tradition like the separation of the mundane and the holy by celebrating the Sabbath. She says that her parents gave her an outlook on life that there is a force or power that overseas things and that knowing that this force exist makes her feel that things will be alright and that she hopes to pass on this viewpoint to her children.
Francheska Lopez
I've known Francheska for a couple of years by now. She is a fantastic contemporary modern dancer that has helped me with other projects in the past. She was part of a series of dance photographs I shot last year and her image is at the moment the opening photograph of my website. Self judgement is something that she, a lot of dancers and in some way or form we all are facing but for her it completely disappears when she is on stage dancing. She calls it her truest form and longs for feeling that way all the time.Francheska thinks that happiness is the meaning of her life and that people often forget that they are not happy but settling for the what they have. She talks about the struggle to live in New York City and that people have to work jobs they don't like (shit end jobs :-)) to make ends meet but do so to live in a city where there is more opportunity while they forget that they could be happier. She concludes by saying that whatever has created this existence is not a terror, is not scary or negative. Having a life is beautiful and that she guarantees that whatever is beyond this got to be beautiful.
