bridges of understanding

Posted on 2011/04/29 by Jens Stachowitz

Men are pausing on the pendant bridge "Gimberger Sichel" (Grimberg Sikle)

Pausing at Grimberg Sikle @ Jens Stachowitz

“The cities in the Ruhr Metropolis are working together” is the key issue of the polis magazine edition 1 / 2011 with the title “The Awakening Hercules”. Michael von der Mühlen, city manager of Gelsenkirchen, has written an article about the culture of collaboration between the major of the 53 cities within the Ruhr Area. He used my photograph from the “Grimberger Sichel” (Grimberg Sickle) to express the main idea of his article: Since more then 20 years city planners and politicians are working on building interurban bridges of understanding and are trying to work together to build up the the Ruhr Metropolis. Nowadays those efforts come to fruition.

tearsheet from polis magazine 01 / 2011

The brigde is located near the Grimberg Harbor in Gelsenkirchen. It was designed by the engineering office Schlaich Bergermann and Partner from Stuttgart and was built by the Regional Association Ruhr (RVR). It was awarded the “European Steel Bridges Award 2010”. The bridge connects the recreation areas north and south of the Rhine-Herne Canal and connects the cycle path along the acient ore-railway-line with the cycle path within the Emscher Park. I awaited this moment with the men pausing on the bridge in the evening sun for about 2 hours. They did notice me photographing but did not bother about me. So I could capture a moment of friendlyness, informality and understanding with no posing towards me.

A Meeting with Robert Lebeck

Posted on 2011/03/21 by Jens Stachowitz

The world-renowned german photographer Robert Lebeck openend his exibition in the Lumas Gallery in Düsseldorf on 2011-03-18. I had the opportunity to join this event and was very pleased by the behaving of this man. Although he was the center of the evening he was withdrawn and unassuming. He was also very friendly and humorous. When I had the chance to have a conversation with Lebeck I shaped the hypothesis that his behaving would have helped to get access to people when performing his profession as a photo journalist. He told me that he had never thought about when he was doing the job but could agree with the consideration.

Lebecks photographs show that once he had creeped up on somebody on velvet praws he was able to catch the moment with his argus-eyes. See the website of Robert Lebeck for some examples or a brief study. I looked at the evening not only as a visit but as a training in photo jorunalism too. So I took a lot of frames of Lebeck acting on this stage and trying to show his friendlyness and humor. There were three or four more photographers who besieged him the whole evening and there were a lot of guests with their point-an-shoot-cameras too but Lebeck was not disturbed in his serenity. I am very thankful for this.

Der weltbekannte deutsche Fotograf Robert Lebeck erÃ¶ffnete am 18.03.2011 seine Ausstellung in der Lumas-Galerie in DÃ¼sseldorf. Hier steht er inmitten seines Auditoriums bei einem Interview.. / .The world-renowned german photographer Robert Lebeck openend his exibition in the Lumas Gallery in DÃ¼sseldorf on 2011-03-18. Here he stands amidst his audience while interviewed. (Jens Stachowitz)

Der weltbekannte deutsche Fotograf Robert Lebeck eröffnete am 18.03.2011 seine Ausstellung in der Lumas-Galerie in Düsseldorf. Hier steht er inmitten seines Auditoriums bei einem Interview.. / .The world-renowned german photographer Robert Lebeck openend his exibition in the Lumas Gallery in Düsseldorf on 2011-03-18. Here he stands amidst his audience while interviewed.

Der weltbekannte deutsche Fotograf Robert Lebeck erÃ¶ffnete am 18.03.2011 seine Ausstellung in der Lumas-Galerie in DÃ¼sseldorf. Hier steht er lachend inmitten seines Auditoriums bei einem Interview... / The world-renowned german photographer Robert Lebeck openend his exibition in the Lumas Gallery in DÃ¼sseldorf on 2011-03-18. Here he stands laughing amidst his audience while interviewed. (Jens Stachowitz)

Der weltbekannte deutsche Fotograf Robert Lebeck eröffnete am 18.03.2011 seine Ausstellung in der Lumas-Galerie in Düsseldorf. Hier steht er lachend inmitten seines Auditoriums bei einem Interview… / The world-renowned german photographer Robert Lebeck openend his exibition in the Lumas Gallery in Düsseldorf on 2011-03-18. Here he stands laughing amidst his audience while interviewed.

Der weltbekannte deutsche Fotograf Robert Lebeck erÃ¶ffnete am 18.03.2011 seine Ausstellung in der Lumas-Galerie in DÃ¼sseldorf. Ein Gast (Andreas Ehrhard) Ã¼berreicht ihm den Bildband Photography Unplugged von Harald Mante als Geschenk fÃ¼r seinen drei Tage spÃ¤ter bevorstehenden Geburtstag.. / .The world-renowned german photographer Robert Lebeck openend his exibition in the Lumas Gallery in DÃ¼sseldorf on 2011-03-18. A guest (Andreas Ehrhard) consigns Lebeck the photobook Photography Unplugged by Harald Mante in anticipation of Lebecks birthday three days later. (Jens Stachowitz)

Der weltbekannte deutsche Fotograf Robert Lebeck eröffnete am 18.03.2011 seine Ausstellung in der Lumas-Galerie in Düsseldorf. Ein Gast (Andreas Ehrhard) überreicht ihm den Bildband Photography Unplugged von Harald Mante als Geschenk für seinen drei Tage später bevorstehenden Geburtstag.. / .The world-renowned german photographer Robert Lebeck openend his exibition in the Lumas Gallery in Düsseldorf on 2011-03-18. A guest (Andreas Ehrhard) consigns Lebeck the photobook Photography Unplugged by Harald Mante in anticipation of Lebecks birthday three days later.

Der weltbekannte deutsche Fotograf Robert Lebeck erÃ¶ffnete am 18.03.2011 seine Ausstellung in der Lumas-Galerie in DÃ¼sseldorf. Das Foto zeigt ihn als Silhouette reflektiert in seinem eigenen Bild und die ihn umgebenden Menschen beim Signieren seiner Bilder und BÃ¼cher. / The world-renowned german photographer Robert Lebeck openend his exibition in the Lumas Gallery in DÃ¼sseldorf on 2011-03-18. This Photograph does show Lebeck as a Silhouette reflected in his own picture and the people surrounding him when signing his books and photographs. (Jens Stachowitz)

Der weltbekannte deutsche Fotograf Robert Lebeck eröffnete am 18.03.2011 seine Ausstellung in der Lumas-Galerie in Düsseldorf. Das Foto zeigt ihn als Silhouette reflektiert in seinem eigenen Bild und die ihn umgebenden Menschen beim Signieren seiner Bilder und Bücher. / The world-renowned german photographer Robert Lebeck openend his exibition in the Lumas Gallery in Düsseldorf on 2011-03-18. This Photograph does show Lebeck as a Silhouette reflected in his own picture and the people surrounding him when signing his books and photographs.

Get relaxed in the Valle Vercasca

Posted on 2011/01/16 by Jens Stachowitz

Flowing waters in the Vercasca Valley | vercasca = green | @ Jens Stachowitz

On may way down to Ligury to fellow the Italy-Within-The-Frame-Workshop in April 2010 teached by David duChemin and Jeffrey Chapman I intermitted my journey towards Ligury and backwards home to stay a day and a night in the Valle Vercasca (Green Valley) in the Canton of Ticino in the Swiss Alps. I wanted to slow down and wanted to revisit this wild and emeraldgreen river I had seen lots of years before. This time I wanted to create photographs that show my love to this part of nature and I wanted to show the juxtaposition of flowing water and the resting stone and their harmony they build together.

The best photographs I used to create an electronic greeting-card that I send to my family, friends, colleagues, fellowers and customers in January 2011. If you like you can watch the flash-slideshow here (German version). If you do like to catch the meaning of the lyric that my wife has created you could have look at the html-version with english subtitles in the caption-field below the photographs.

Happy New Year 2011

Posted on 2010/12/31 by Jens Stachowitz

fireworks in the rear of the silhouette of the ancient steelwork Phoenix-West | Dortmund @ Jens Stachowitz

All of my readers of this blog I wish a Happy New Year 2011!

My passed passed year 2010 was full of work, learning and pleasure. Till now I had hardly any time to reflect my expieriences and to list the lessons learned. I will do that later on because I wish to translate it into empirical knowledge.

to be reflective leads to a never ending process

Posted on 2010/11/24 by Jens Stachowitz

Cover of The Vision Driven Photographer - eBook by David DuChemin

This post is inspired by the eBook The Vision-Driven Photographer by David duChemin. This post is also inspired by a documentation about the monk Martin Luther and his influence on the Germans that was broadcasted in the german televison two years ago. What is the correlation of both? – I will give it a try to formulate what holds David and Martin together in my mind.

Martin Luther could not be quiet to circumstances the clerus was responsible for. He was fought and he put his life on the line to tell the world that in the relationship between God and one single person no institution ever should or could play a role. Luther wanted the mind to be free. He wanted people to be good informed and to judge autonomic. This dates back for nearly 500 years now and we still are struggling to build, sustain und evolve democracy.

Now, what to do when you – thanks to Luther and a lot of others – are free from constraint? What to do when you are and feel responsible and you do not like to be a part of an unaccountable mass? What to do when you are an individuum willing to be a emancipated person and a part of a human collective? You should perceive, sence, think about, digg deeper, …, judge, plan, act and be reflective.

David duChemin is a photographer and a teacher for photographers and he reminds us in his books to intentionally create photographs that are expressing in the clearest way what we want to say. This expression – and this is my thought – is a necessity when we want to be an emancipated person and want to shape our life and our society. David duChemin reminds us that writers, painters, musicians … express their feelings and thoughts with other languages and other tools but the process is the same. Like photographers – and let me add – all other emancipated persons – they have to figure out how they percieve the world they live in, they have to figure out what they want to tell the other individuums they want to reach and have to figure out how to successfully communicate.

David duChemins topic is personal and photographic vision: “We all have vision, the question is: are we aware of it? Personal Vision is how we see life whether or not our eyes are open. It grows, it changes, it flip flops depending on where life takes us and that makes it the challenge it is. You think you understand it, catch more than a fleeting glimpse, and maybe you do for a while, but one day you wake up and it’s changed for some reason and you have to rediscover it all over again” (p3). “It’s an endless journey” (p23, David duChemin: The Vision-Driven Photographer).

If you do want to create rich in content photographs, poems, songs … I think it´s worth to have a look into the eBook The Vision-Driven Photographer.

If you use the promotional code DRIVEN4 when you checkout, you can have the PDF version of The Vision Driven Photographer for only $4 OR use the code DRIVEN20 to get 20% off when you buy 5 or more PDF ebooks from the Craft & Vision collection. These codes expire at 11:59pm PST November 28th, 2010.

waiting for the river – the day after

Posted on 2010/10/14 by Jens Stachowitz

The project »Warten auf den Fluss« (waiting for the river) by the artist-group Observatorium in Rotterdam has fascinated me. »Waiting for the river« does mean the Emscher that is no river since over 100 years but an open waste water canal. The Emscher will be renaturated in several years and this art project wanted to tell us this. Warten auf den Fluss was a hostel in the Emscherlandschaftspark made of wood and had a warm and inviting atmosphere – I loved it and about 25.000 visitors had a look at it during the summer of 2010.

Warten auf den Fluss von Uglix bei Flickr

Warten auf den Fluss was part of the EMSCHERKUNST.2010 Exhibition curated by Prof. Dr. Florian Matzner.

I visited the sculpture the day after it was demolished – it was a temporary project and was over at Sept. 18th. 2010 – and I got a little bit sad.

I vainly hoped it would be saved and I could invite friends to to stay overnight together.

Here are two links for further informations (in German language) with some good pictures by the bloggers Gunwalt and Karin Reichert-Frei and Thomas Frei.

Gerd Lieder is chasing reflections

Posted on 2010/09/19 by Jens Stachowitz

patchwork by Gerd Lieder

My eyes were immediately cought by the reflections Gerd Lieder has chased and painted. I saw a few of his paintings – those from Dubay and those about Gehry´s architecture – in the art galery art-isotope in Dortmund, Germany. The exibition started on Sunday, 19th Sept. 2010 and will last till 17th Oct. 2010.

For me there is a strong parallel to Eli Reinholdtsen, my photographer-friend in Oslo whose work I have mentioned in Eli Reinholdtsen is chasing reflections. In this two paintings by Gerd Lieder there are the strongest parallels

Fifth Avenue by Gerd Lieder

Bäume 2 Trees 2 150 x 110 cm Öl/Leinwand 2004

Trees 2 by Gerd Lieder

Gerd Lieder is working with glass, water, mirror and foil and he uses a camera to chase the reflections he wants to paint with oil at canvas. Yes, you see paintings. His body of work is very impressive and his technique to manufacture photorealistic paintings is on a master level. Gerd Lieder is playing with the viewers understanding of reality, like Eli does in a similar way. Eli is explaining her approach in her eBook you can find here. What is shown? Has it really been so? Did Gerd Lieder change something while painting?

See this article by Tom Querengaesser to get some insights and see Gerd Lieder´s website for more impressions on his work.

Eli Reinholdtsen is chasing reflections

Posted on 2010/07/31 by Jens Stachowitz

Today and want to introduce Eli Reinholdtsen a photographer-friend of mine living in Oslo, Norway. I met Eli in Genua when she was arriving for the second week of the Italy Within The Frame Workshop in April 2010 and I was leaving after the first week. Eli I first met virtually on facebook as a result of Jeffrey Capman´s building up a workshop community. Eli posted this photograph (above) to introduce herself into the community and I was very impressed. I like this photograph very much! Eli has been an avid snapper ever since she was given her first camera at the age of eleven but discovered the infinite potential of creative camera modes about two years ago. Like to be seen she did the discovery very fast.

Eli and I – and other participants too – had a glass of wine and I had a very good conversation with Eli that avoce my wish to stay in touch with her. Later on within her workshop week she put a self-published book called “Folk” into David duChemin´s hands at the breakfast table and as a result of this introduction this ebook (beneath) was released by Craft And Vision on July 28th.

Very well done Eli! I am very impressed by the photographs in this ebook. The photographs have multiple layers inside combining at least two images in one, leaving question marks and stimulate curiosity. Its a joy to see the full size photographs on the first half of the book and the smaller sized versions with comments on the back half give very good explanation and education. Eli loves what she is photographing! She loves street photography, she loves reflections and is drawn to when people are wrapped up in their own thoughts. Her photographs make me smile but the photographs are the result of hard working: Comming back to see whether the light is better, waiting for an hour ore more to catch the moment, trying to create a better photograph in the same setting but another moment, not giving up when she could not capture the image she wanted to create. Chasing Reflections – a wonderful art piece and photography education at the same time! Highly recommended!

Buy at the webshop of Craft And Vision

For the first four days only you can enter the promotional code REFLECT4 to save 1 $ (will expire at 11.59pm PST August 1, 2010).

the beauteous holdup of the world

Posted on 2010/07/19 by Jens Stachowitz

On sunday, 18. July 2010, the ruhr area celebrated a gigantic street festival of everyday culture called »ruhr still life« as a part of the European Capital of Culture RUHR.2010. I took part, was totaly captured by this event and recorded 12 GB of data for 801 photographs that will be part of my »One-Mile-From-Home-Project« and that will take a while to edit to be a consumalbe slideshow.

100000 cars are moving on this motorway every working day.

Here some facts and emotions:
• 60 kilometres of the busiest motorway in Germany were blocked. Only pedestrians and ciclists were allowed from Dortmund to Duisburg – never ever this has been before
• 3 Million people attended – a gigantic mass and a very impressive moment in the life of everybody I could speek to
• the motorway sometimes was not able to contain the masses – the newspaper titeled »the beauteous holdup of the world«
• 20000 tables were put together to the longest table of the world – a symbol for the idea of belonging together in the ruhr area that consists of 52 cities
• 12000 voluntiers that made the festivity happen – I say: Thank you so much!
• beautifull summer weather and nearly nothing unplesent happend – a day of delight!

See some impressions from my hometown taken by press photographers.

Portraits are build on a faithfull relationship

Posted on 2010/07/17 by Jens Stachowitz

At my last self assignment – 20-years-Post-&-Welters – I trained to better create environmental portraits on the boat the aniversary was celebrated on. When the journey started I was introduced by the host of the party as a friend and a photographer. He told his guest that the photographs will be shown on his and on my website. He invited his guests to give a sign when they don´t want to be photographed. Here I will show Portraits of which I am pleased and proud of.

There were a lot of people around and the most of them got used to me photographing them. With some of them I had a talk about themselves beeing photographed. Most of them I spoke to told me that they do not feel comfortable being photographed. I tried to build up a good relationship to them. That were my strategies and messages:
• I don´t like to be photographed too but I am luky to see good pictures I am in.
• I know that there has to be a balance between having a party whithout disturbance and the goal of the host and his guests to have some good photographs to hold their memories.
• There will not be shown any photographs in the gallerey in which they look bad.
• After creating a photograph they can look at the display of my camera and decide whether to delete it.
• They should talk to others and enjoy the party. I will wait for the decive moment when they smile or laugh. I will not press the shutter release when they are eating and drinking.
• They should not pose. It would be the best not to consider me.
• I accuse for using the flashlight because of the very low light within the boat and harsh light outside.

So they could see that I am aware of their situation and could share some values with them. After this conversation most of them agreed in being photographed. They got into a comfort zone because they haven´t had a sence of risc any more. Most of them cooperated, gave us – me and them – a try. There where only some guest I didn´t get a good photograph from. Mostly there was at last a photograph that could be accepted.

Very happy I am with this photograph because the woman told me that there is no chance to get a good portrait of her. I know her for years and could not agree. The problem is not her appearance but her feeling that a photo whith her in will fail. I hope this photograph will tell her another story.

One of the guests told me – supposable some more felt this without articulating it – that the mimic (facial expression) of me hidden behind my heavy dslr-camera with a 70-200mm-lens and a flash mounted on is intimidating. I could agree to this and told him that I own a smaller camera and would have used it when the picture quality would be as good as those from my dslr. He could agree in this argument and got used to me, my camera and me photographing him. Finaly he could give me a little smile when facing my camera.