Culture | Fotoeins Fotografie

Posts from the ‘Culture’ category

“Science is an integral part of culture. It’s not this foreign thing, done by an arcane priesthood. It’s one of the glories of the human intellectual tradition.” – S.J. Gould.

Fotoeins Friday: Haithabu-Hedeby, 🇩🇪 UNESCO WHS

Just outside the city of Schleswig, Germany is the site of a former Viking settlement near the western end of the inlet Schlei. The sheltered harbour and a relatively short overland (portage) distance between the North and Baltic Seas made this an ideal location for settlement. The Viking sites Haithabu and Danevirke nearby have been inscribed as UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2018.

I made the image above on 30 May 2024 with a Fujifilm X70 fixed-lens prime and the following settings: , and 18.5mm focal length (28mm full-frame equivalent). This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-wI3.

My Berlin: Wrapped Reichstag at night, 30 years on

Above: “Wrapped Reichstag 1995–2025” light show.

In 1995, the artist duo Christo & Jeanne-Claude carried out a bold but contentious project by covering Berlin’s landmark Reichstag parliament building. Plans for the project had taken over 20 years, even though the artwork had always meant to be temporary and all expenses had been covered without corporate sponsors. Over 5 million visited in a period of 12 days in the summer of 1995 to look at the undulating “silver dream” in the German capital city. The timing was ideal. After reunification of the two Germanys in 1990, the new home of the federal parliament would be Berlin’s Reichstag. Renovations to the building began in the autumn of 1995 with the federal parliament opening in the spring of 1999.

From 9 to 22 June 2025, the Reichstag building was illuminated nightly with a light show in a 30-year anniversary tribute to the famous 1995 artwork. In a 20- to 30-minute cycle, the light-show appeared to first envelop the building in silver fabric. The fabric cover flapped in artificial breeze, before the cover lost its shape and fell onto the ground at the base of the building. The free-of-charge light show began shortly after sunset at about 930pm and continued until 1am. Whatever Christo and Jeanne-Claude chose to cover and transform, their art works posed questions of perception, origins, shape, functionality, and permanence.

• DW: Germany Arts
• Visit Berlin

( Click here for images )

Nuremberg: The Landmark Trials in Room 600, 80 years on

Above: In front of the Justizpalast (Palace of Justice) at the corner of Benjamin-Ferencz-Platz and Fürther Strasse in Nuremberg, Germany.

On 20 November 1945, an extraordinary trial got under way in the German city of Nuremberg, only six months after the Nazis surrendered to the Allied nations in World War 2. For the first time in modern history, an assembled tribunal of international judges presided over trials against top leaders of a nation for crimes against peace, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and conspiracy to carry out these crimes.

What is called the “Nuremberg Trials” refers primarily to the “Major War Criminals Trial” where over 20 leaders in German Nazi high command were put on trial before the International Military Tribunal (IMT) from November 1945 to October 1946. The IMT consisted of judges from each of the four Allied nations: Great Britain, France, United States, and the U.S.S.R. Subsequently from late-1946 to 1949, 12 additional trials were held before American military tribunals to uncover and highlight the extent and depth to which additional leaders in German society supported the Nazi dictatorship.

“… The privilege of opening the first trial in history for crimes against the peace of the world imposes a grave responsibility. The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant and so devastating, that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored because it cannot survive their being repeated. That four great nations, flushed with victory and stung with injury stay the hand of vengeance and voluntarily submit their captive enemies to the judgment of the law is one of the most significant tributes that power has ever paid to reason.”

– Opening statement by Robert H. Jackson, U.S. chief prosecutor, on the second day of the Nuremberg Trials (Major War Criminals Trial), 21 November 1945; see Sources below.

( Click here for images and more )

Uhlbach, Grabkapelle auf dem Württemberg, Württemberg, Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, Deutschland, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday, Stuttgart: Uhlbacher Weingärten

From the top of Württemberg hill in Stuttgart, this east view faces the village of Uhlbach in the city district of Obertürkheim. The hills are covered in vineyards; among them are white-wine grape varieties Burgunder, Herold, Kerner, Müller Thurgau, Riesling, and Trollinger.

I made the image above on 20 Jul 2024 with a Fujifilm X70 fixed-lens prime and the following settings: 1/500-sec, f/11, ISO1000, and 18.5mm focal length (28mm full-frame equivalent). This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-wyN.

SF Mission: La Victoria Panadería & Pan de Muerto

Above: “La Victoria” mural painted in 2024 by Timewizard & Tressprays.

There’s something very familiar about a family-run bakery: the look, the warmth, the smell, the taste. As a product of Chinese immigrants and growing up next to (Vancouver’s) Chinatown, I have a very soft spot for their bakeries: every bite of the sweet and the savory are living memories of “home”.

On a wander through San Francisco’s Mission District on All Saints Day (2024), I find myself in front of the mural called “La Victoria” adjacent to the bakery with the same name. My eyes light up at “pan dulce” (pastries). Already aware of the “Día de Muertos” holiday, I turn the corner to see the stack of “sweet bread” in the window display, including the “pan de muerto” (bread for the dead) and the “cross of bones” on top of each “pan”. The holiday is a memorial and celebration of the dead. Small altars accompanied by golden brown pan de meurto and brilliant orange marigolds symbolize the connection between living and dead, allowing the dead to find their way back “home”.

To the amusement of the women behind the counter, I order and hold a pan de muerto in my hand, before digging into the slight crunch of the thin crust, delighting in the sugar sprinkle and orange tang in the glaze, and revelling in the soft interior of the bread. I’m grateful for a small glimpse of traditions in the Mexican-American community.

• November 1: Día de Todos los Santos, All Saints Day.
• November 2: Día de los Muertos, Day of the Dead.
• I’d learn later about the bakery’s journey to its present location.
• I enjoyed reading about pan dulce and pan de muerto from The Other Side of the Tortilla.

La Victoria Panadería.

Pan dulce.

Pan de muerto with the “cross-bones” on top: glorious, delicious.

Location

• La Victoria: 3249 24th Street (at Capp), since 2019
• BART lines Blue, Green, Red, or Yellow to station “24th Street Mission”
• MUNI bus 14 or 14R to stop “Mission Street and 24th Street”
• MUNI bus 48 or 67 to stop “24th Street & South Van Ness Avenue”

( View this location on OpenStreetMap )

I received neither prior support or post-visit compensation for this content. I’m happy to pay for the pan, and I’m not asking for free pan; what am I: a dum’ colonizer?! I made all images above on 1 Nov 2024 with an iPhone15. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins DOT com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-wl3.