Month: February 2023

Einmal (Once)

I had a lot of inspiration from the discussion we had in the short lived photo book club. We were talking about pictures in the Wim Wenders’ book “Einmal” (Once). Wenders is a famous movie director – I assume many of the photos were taken while scouting for moving locations. Main aspects for the selection are dilapidation, ruin and desertion. We were discussing aspects of the composition of the photos. Wenders is not afraid of empty spaces in his pictures. Many are structured by straight lines from roads, edges of buildings. Fragments of cars, buildings, rails or signs give hints to what is happening outside the obvious. Parts of the pictures are out of focus. Masts are included to give significance to disruptive elements, well known sights are disfigured by objects which normally do not show up in tourists shots.

I went into the most unattractive parts of town and tried to take pictures following these instructions. Each picture has a spot for the actors.

Waiting for Magic to happen…

Each year in the middle of February, when the Horsetail Waterfall in Yosemite is roaring, the sun angle before sunset is just right, and no clouds are covering the sky, the waterfall glows for a couple of minutes from orange to a deep red.

Thousands of people wait for hours to see the magic, including myself. And when it happens, a loud cheer echos through the valley. A special moment. While physics may explain the glowing invoking possibly “nonlinear optics and Mie scattering” on the fine water droplets generated by the fall, “Magic” is the birthplace of primitive religions and all the belief stuff that humans can imagine…

Winter

The current storm remined me of the unpredictable storm I went through a while back coming from Northern California. These two were taken 15 minutes apart at two different offramps on Highway 99. First looking east the second west.

Der aktuelle Sturm erinnerte mich an den unvorhersehbaren Sturm, den ich vor einiger Zeit durchmachte, als ich aus Nordkalifornien kam. Diese beiden wurden im Abstand von 15 Minuten an zwei verschiedenen Ausfahrten auf dem Highway 99 aufgenommen.. Erster Blick nach Osten, der zweite nach Westen.