Located on the bank of the Elbe river, Dresden is the capital city of the state of Saxony in east-central Germany near the Czech border. The Zwinger Palace in the Old Town is one of the most famous baroque buildings in Germany. Along with the Frauenkirche nearby, the Zwinger is one of many famous landmarks in Dresden.
Der Jüdische Friedhof (Old Jewish Cemetery), Grosse Hamburger Strasse
In the past, I’ve often felt guilty for taking photographs at a cemetery, as if the act of opening and closing the camera’s shutter somehow “exposes and steals” the essence of people who are laid to rest. Only in the last few years have I overcome these feelings, as I now see cemeteries as beautiful places to visit and to witness frozen snapshots to individual lives over time. On this late-autumn afternoon, I stood in the middle of the garden, transported to a different place and a different time, surrounded by tranquility and living memories.
Große Hamburger Straße (or Greater Hamburg Street) was the key central road in what was once the Spandauer Vorstadt, which was the suburb or town at the foot of the former Berlin city gates. The road allowed for trade and movement from Berlin in the direction towards the nearby town of Spandau.
According to berlin.de, the area developed around the Hackesche Market and Courtyards:
Historically, development of the Höfe went hand in hand with the growth of Berlin as a thriving urban centre. The expansion started around 1700 from an outer suburb known as Spandauer Vorstadt, located outside the Spandau City gate which already had its own church, the Sophienkirche as early as 1712. Friedrich Wilhelm I built a new city wall here and the former suburb became a new urban district belonging to Berlin. Today’s Hackescher Markt takes its name from the market built here by a Spandau city officer, Count von Hacke.The influx of Jewish migrants and the exiled French Huguenots gave the district the cosmopolitan diversity which it never lost. The first synagogue was built in this area and the first Jewish cemetery established on the Grosse Hamburger Strasse. Another name for the area, the Scheunenviertel (barn district) is associated today with up and coming art galleries and the more bohemian side of Berlin. The largest synagogue in Germany was built in nearby Oranienburger Strasse in 1866.
In use from 1672 to 1827, this is Berlin’s oldest cemetery for the Jewish community. Buried here is Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786), philosopher, a founding father of the Jewish Enlightenment, and grandfather to the great composer Felix Mendelssohn. During the last stages of fighting in the Second World War, 2425 dead were buried here in 16 mass graves. With no clear boundaries separating those buried in the past from those buried during the war, the new memorial garden was constructed and restored in 2007-08 with all of the buried left undisturbed as they were.
The present location was also the site of the first nursing home in 1844 for the Jewish community in Berlin. The Gestapo transformed the home in 1942 to a collection and staging point for prisoners, and ordered the destruction of the entire site in 1943. 55000 Berlin Jews from infants to the elderly were deported and murdered in the concentration camps at Auschwitz and Theresienstadt.
Yes, you read that correctly … part 2.
I made a mistake.
I wrote previously about “flipping” or resetting the image-number counter on my camera for the 7th time as I visited the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney.
I was wrong and I’d been too hasty when I began writing. I’d read the image numbers incorrectly, and I’d overlooked the image numbers (67000!).
But it wasn’t long until zeroes were back on the camera display and the actual 70000th exposure was made on the Canon 450D/XSi.
For a few evenings after opening night, I’d visited and photographed various displays at the VIVID Sydney festival of lights around Sydney Cove, Walsh Bay, and Darling Harbour. Midweek is a good time with fewer people around for plenty of space at the best spots to photograph the sights. I chose a Wednesday evening to focus on the Opera House. The photos below form a part of the sequence called “PLAY” by the Spinifex Group who have additional projections at the festival.
I made the photos above on 29 May 2013. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotopress at fotoeins.com.
Since 2004, the Festival of Lights have lit up various buildings and attractions throughout Berlin. The 2012 version saw 12 consecutive October evenings of another grand lighting display in the German capital city.
As part of a week-long period of activities, Blurb Australia sponsored a photo-walk through Sydney’s Hyde Park and the Domain. Leading a group of about 40 to 50 interested photographers was Daniel Milnor. He assigned two tasks throughout the afternoon. First, we had the option of photographing back-lit situations, or making a set of photos with different textures as the theme. The second assignment was learning how to make portraits: how to prepare by looking for suitable light, how to approach people, how to connect with people, and how to frame people in a portrait. The day ended with drinks at the nearby Arthouse Hotel for conversation with photographers and bookmakers with a variety of soft- and hard-cover photobooks on display.
Another thing I learned was advice about the present state of photography; the necessity of hard work, perseverance, and patience; and about the disconnect between what’s popular and what’s important. I gained a great deal of encouragement by what I’ve learned over the last few days.
Disclosure: Promotional. I received promotional consideration in the form of coupons from Blurb Australia. I made the photos above on 21 May 2013. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotopress at fotoeins.com.
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