Above/featured: “Fred & Ginger”, a.k.a. Dancing House (Tančící dům) with streaking streetcar – 6 Nov 2016.
This is a city with which I fell in love for the first time in late-2007. Many returns to Prague ensued between 2007 and 2016. As a follow-up to “Previously, in Berlin“, I explore through these 10 images my previous visit to the capital city of the Czech Republic.
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: Waterfront and Te Papa: Wellington, New Zealand – 12 Oct 2010 (450D).
Two definitions for the noun “capital (city)” are:
1. the city or town functioning as the seat of government and administrative centre for country or region.
2. with modifier, a place associated more than any other with a specified activity or product; e.g., fashion capital of the world.
I’ll go with the first definition. With almost 70% of this planet’s land mass in the northern hemisphere, you’d be forgiven in subscribing to a selection bias for capital cities primarily north of the equator. I was born in the north, but I also spent a good chunk of the last two decades in the south; so, I’ve chosen here 5 capital cities in each of the northern and southern hemispheres.
Above/Featured: Vancouver Central (VPL) – 11 November.
I look back at 2019 through 19 images posted on social media, continuing a consecutive string of year-end reviews. With the following images made entirely in the metropolitan Vancouver area, a number of questions about places past and present were raised; what remained elusive were clear answers about home and belonging.
Above/featured: “Interchange (after Harry Callahan).” Downtown Vancouver – 28 Jul 2016 (6D1).
“Color is descriptive. Black and white is interpretive.”– Eliott Erwitt
“I work in color sometimes, but I guess the images I most connect to, historically speaking, are in black and white. I see more in black and white – I like the abstraction of it.”
– Mary Ellen Mark
For me, the pull towards photography has always been about images in colour and landscape format to highlight a location, illuminate a historical event, or to feature a person who touched many lives. Thinking about and making images either square, in monochrome, or both have provided useful challenges to push the working dynamics of creativity. I hope the following images will get the viewer to ask if there’s more than what’s presented and to get possible answers on their own.
Fotoeins Fotografie 