Above/featured: U2 train departing Berlin’s Zoologischer Garten station – 28 November 2021.
I look back at an eventful 2021 year with 21 images with personal questions about how impending- and actual-loss affect how life proceeds beyond death, and how feelings of real belonging are different from feelings of a proper home.
Above/featured: S-Bahn station Messe Nord/ICC – 27 Nov 2021 (X70).
I’m going home to Berlin, for the 1st time in 4 years.
To travel at all, and to go international, is a big privilege; I’m grateful for the window of opportunity.
After a long gruelling emotional 2020 year taking care of an elderly parent at home with cancer and accompanying them safely to their final days, I’m desperate to get outta Vancouver for a break. But another 9 months pass before the largest roadblock to travel is dissolved. At the end of October 2021, the Canadian government releases a digital vaccination certificate suitable for domestic and international travel. Within a week, I have a set itinerary using credits from a cancelled trip.
The following describes plans and unconventional sights for Berlin, Germany over 11 days in the 2nd-half of November 2021. As case counts change and situations evolve at both ends, travellers must remain vigilant with extra preparation and adapt to changing policies, protocols, and requirements by different countries for visitors, ensuring safe and smooth travel, out and back. I go over all guidelines supplied by Germany’s Federal Foreign Office and the city state of Berlin.
I’m not going to lug my DSLR camera and extra glass for this quick trip. Instead, I’ll only use my 340-gram (12-ounce) compact fixed-lens camera. In all respects, it’s a big weight off my shoulders.
Above/featured: Tempelhofer Feld: runway 09R/27L at former THF airport – 16 Oct 2017 (6D1).
I made the cross-country rail journey to Berlin for the first time in 2002 when I lived and worked in Heidelberg. In the years since, I’ve answered the siren’s frequent call by returning to Berlin multiple times. I’ve lost track of the precise count that’s north of 10, but less than 20.
Berlin is Germany’s capital city, but in many respects, the city isn’t very German at all. Berlin is an “internationally German place.” The enigmatic moody metropolis isn’t the prettiest and can be one of isolation, especially in autumn and winter. During a cold gloomy stretch in late-2012, I survived by accessing the diverse array of arts and culture events and venues. What is very familiar is how Berlin’s residents show up outside when sunshine returns.
The following 16 images in chronological sequence show a slow forward progression to a quiet contemplative observation of the city and her residents.
Above/featured: Siegessäule & Grosse Stern, at night – 13 Nov 2012 (HL).
I compiled a list of songs accompanying my travel, a soundtrack that’s full of meaning and memories. This is another set, a listing of tracks I associate with Germany’s capital city. Music is always about personal selection, and every track fires a specific memory of time and place within Berlin. For example, watching “Lola rennt” (Run Lola Run) in a movie theatre in Toronto in the fall of 1998 planted the seeds for a move to Germany three years later. My first visit to Berlin soon after marked the beginning of a deep love affair with the “grand lady of BAER’leen.”
I like shiny pointy objects, and if it’s by deliberate effort or accidental circumstance, the Fernsehturm (TV Tower) slides into many of my photos from Berlin. And if people throughout Berlin can see the tower, how do those who live in or commute through different parts of the capital city view the landmark? After multiple visits between 2005 and 2021, I’ve accumulated over 45 lines-of-sight to the TV Tower around Berlin.
Fotoeins Fotografie 