Fotoeins Fotografie

location bifurcation, place & home

Posts tagged ‘Via Regia’

My Cologne: wandering the streets in Ehrenfeld

For many, the German city of Cologne brings to mind the Cathedral, Karneval, and perfumed water.

For me, Cologne brings to mind great friends, tasty Turkish nibbles, football side 1. FC Köln, and Ehrenfeld.

My friend Y wanted to test her new camera on the streets, and when she suggested the Ehrenfeld neighbourhood, I readily agreed. My many visits to this city on the Rhine have frequently ended up in Ehrenfeld that’s largely Turkish and working class, an immigrant blue-collar area with which I readily identify and it’s why Ehrenfeld is my K-‘hood.

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An afternoon at Roemerberg, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday: animal kingdom (Frankfurt am Main)

I’ve been reading about photographer Joel Meyerowitz and studying his pictures. Meyerowitz said:

You look at it [a photograph] and all around the real world is humming, buzzing and moving, and yet in this little frame there is stillness that looks like the world. That connection, that collision, that interfacing, is one of the most astonishing things we can experience.

Photography is a response that has to do with the momentary recognition of things. Suddenly you’re alive. A minute later there was nothing there. I just watched it evaporate. You look one moment and there’s everything, next moment it’s gone.

At the Römerberg square in the German city of Frankfurt am Main, I stand apart from the crowds pointing their cameras at the fountain or at the reconstructed famous buildings to the side. I slow down, stop, and take a breath. I happen to look down at the small dog in the bag, attached by a ribbon to the gentleman holding a purse in his other hand. He’s adjusting his pants in a semi-reluctant pose and although he’s facing away from me, the pose is almost as if he’s been “caught holding the bag.” The purse’s owner has gone out of the scene, looking at something else that’s caught their eye or perhaps they’re looking for souvenirs.

Are they visitors or residents? Does it even matter? The tiny pocket-sized canine is the key.

The dog looks at me distinctly unamused, whereas the pigeon “inside” the cord sits calmly on the cobblestone, seemingly unconcerned by the surrounding bipedal hustle and bustle. Once I’ve taken the frame, I’ve witnessed the rhythm of legs, corners, and triangles; sometimes amusement strikes without warning. Does the dog somehow sense it’s at the bottom of the hierarchy? Is the dog’s pleading look a request for escape? Of course, I’m also thinking about Elliott Erwitt’s “Snaps“.

I made the above photograph on 9 May 2015 with the Canon EOS6D, 24-105 L-zoom, and the following settings: 1/200-sec, f/16, ISO1000, and 105mm focal length. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins.com as http://wp.me/p1BIdT-9Fo.

Augustinerkloster, Augustinian Monastery, Erfurt, Thüringen, Thuringia, Germany, fotoeins.com

Erfurt: Martin Luther’s start at the Augustine Monastery

You can almost imagine a 16th-century monk walking these halls, contemplating various aspects of spirituality, and reconciling them with the hardships of everyday living.

In the federal state of Thuringia in central Germany, the Augustinerkloster (Augustine monastery) in Erfurt is a notable place for the history of Martin Luther and the Reformation.

Martin Luther arrived in 1501 and began studies in liberal arts, law, and theology at Erfurt University. In 1505, Luther experienced a big personal event (the scare of his life, as legend goes), and decided to leave his studies by entering the Augustine Monastery to become a monk, much to his father’s displeasure and objections. Built originally around 1300, the Augustine Monastery was home for Martin Luther until 1511, and it’s here where he was ordained as a priest. The site underwent extensive post-war reconstruction after suffering heavy bombing damage in the Second World War. The monastery is now a seminary and a modest hotel: guided tours of the monastery provide a glimpse to Luther’s early years as a monk, and visitors can now reserve rooms for overnight stays in a no-frills technology-free setting and a peaceful comfortable environment.

Erfurt’s Augustinian monastery is listed as one of many additional candidate sites for inclusion into a single UNESCO World Heritage Site under the title “Luther memorials in Saxony-Anhalt, Saxony, Bavaria, and Thuringia“.

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Leipziger Weihnachtsmarkt, Christmas market, Markt, Leipzig, Germany, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday: A Christmas star shines on Leipzig

It’s time once again for the Christmas markets, and in Leipzig, I found this beautiful illuminated star at the Leipziger Weihnachtsmarkt at the city’s market square. Leipzig has continued the tradition of a Christmas market for the last 500-plus years (since 1458). It’s a reminder for me to find the nearest market and get me some Glühwein. You can read much more about the Leipzig Christmas Market (in English) here.

I made the photo above on 2 December 2014 with Canon EOS6D, EF 24-105 zoom-lens, and the following settings: 1/1000s, f/5, ISO10000, and 58mm focal length. Leipzig Tourismus und Marketing GmbH (LTM) hosted my visit on 2-4 December. Access to public transport was kindly provided by LTM and the MDV Mitteldeutscher Verkehrsverbund regional transport authority. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins.com as http://wp.me/p1BIdT-7aj.

Spinnerei, Leipzig, Sachsen, Saxony, Germany, fotoeins.com

Leipzig Spinnerei: from cotton mill to arts centre

The Leipzig Spinnerei is a former cotton mill (Baumwollspinnerei) in the western industrial suburb of Plagwitz. The massive site at an area of 10 hectares (over 1 million square feet) with rows of factory buildings began operation in 1884 and eventually became the largest cotton mill in Europe with thousands working and living on-site. After the site ceased to produce spools of cotton thread shortly after reunification, artists took advantage of the cheap empty space, and transformed the area into studios, galleries, and exhibition halls. Much has been written about the impact and examples of art and space on Leipzig as the “new Berlin” as well as the “New Leipzig School.” The site as art and culture space opened its doors in 2005.

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ShUM, SchUM, medieval Jewish cities, Speyer, Shpira, Worms, Warmaisa, Mainz, Magenza, Germany, Ashkenaz, Rheinland-Pfalz, Rhineland-Palatinate, fotoeins.com

ShUM, Jerusalem on the Rhine: Speyer, Worms, Mainz

When threats of destruction to property and life follow and linger over a group of people through no fault of their own over centuries, there’s something to be said about an eternal need to keep a watchful eye. Words like Verfolgung, Vernichtung, and Vertreibung1 have been etched into memory. I have all this in mind as I explore Jewish history in Germany as part of my need to answer the following question:

How did a nation of people which fostered composers Bach, Beethoven, Handel, Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Strauss; and writers Goethe, the Brothers Grimm, Heine, Hesse, Heinrich and Thomas Mann, and Schiller sink to the worst depths of human atrocity and depravity in the first half of the 20th-century?

It’s easy to forget Jewish people have lived in what is now Italy and southern Europe since the middle of the 2nd-century BCE and inhabited southern Germany from the late 10th-century AD/CE2. During the High Middle Ages, three important bishopric (and cathedral) cities of Speyer, Worms, and Mainz along the Rhine river formed an important league or federation of Jewish communities (Kehillot) from the end of the 10-century to about the mid-to-late 14th-century. The word שו”ם or ShUM (SchUM in German)4 is an acronym consisting of the first letters of the Hebrew names for the three cities:

•   Shin (ש), Sh for Shpira (שפירא) → present-day Speyer;
•   Waw or Vav (ו), U for Warmaisa (וורמש) → present-day Worms;
•   Mem (ם), M for Magenza (מגנצא) → present-day Mainz.

The ShUM cities became centres for learning, training, religion, culture, and trade within medieval Germany (Ashkenaz3) and throughout Europe. Today, the three ShUM cities establish key destinations for historical travel, provide rich examples for continuing research on medieval Jewish life, and add up to a comprehensive project in recognizing an important chapter of the history of Jews in Germany.

The ShUM/SchUM was inscribed as World Heritage Site by UNESCO at the 44th meeting of the World Heritage Committee in July 2021. ShUM is Germany’s 1st all-Jewish world heritage site, a big acknowledgement to the centuries-long presence of the Jewish community along the Rhine river.

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Helios Leuchtturm, Helios AG, Ehrenfeld, Koeln, Cologne, Germany, fotoeins.com

My Cologne: there’s a lighthouse that never goes out

“Why is there a lighthouse located in the middle of the city? That makes no sense!”

“Did the Rhine river once flow here? Is that why there’s a lighthouse?”

“Is the structure some kind of forgotten remnant of the past?”

“Maybe that’s not a lighthouse, but rather a beacon that lets people know about a fire somewhere in the neighbourhood.”

These are some of the questions and statements posed by Cologne residents when asked if they know anything about the lighthouse in their midst.

Located in the Ehrenfeld1 borough of Cologne is a red brick 44-metre (144-foot) high lighthouse. But why is there a lighthouse at all in the “middle” of Cologne? The Rhine river flows through the city, but the river is hardly visible from the lighthouse at a distance of about 3 kilometres (2 miles). The structure is not an actual operating lighthouse; it’s a symbol of early 20th-century enterprise from what was once one of the most important companies in Europe and marking the location of a big factory that once manufactured electrical equipment including maritime lights.

Founded in 1882, Helios2 established their presence in the town of Ehrenfeld before the latter was incorporated into the greater city of Cologne in 1888. The company once boasted a staff complement of over 2000 people, with products sold in Germany and Europe ranging from electrical generators and transformers, light bulbs, light fixtures in public spaces, and electrical streetcars. Helios also built light towers for the North and Baltic Sea coastlines, including ones at Roter Sand (Weser river estuary), Borkum and Wangerooge (East Frisian Islands), and Sylt. The onsite lighthouse in Ehrenfeld was constructed as a testing facility and never used as a navigational aid or marker. The company overextended its financial reach until Berlin’s AEG3 purchased Helios in 1905. Manufacturing operations in Ehrenfeld ceased in 1930, bringing a final end to Helios’ business presence in Cologne.

The present-day buildings which remain are used as office- and art-space. As historical landmark, the “Helios Leuchtturm” remains as part of the urban heritage in Ehrenfeld and Cologne. If the people in both borough and city have any final say in the matter, the lighthouse will never have to go out.4

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Römerberg, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday: Heine’s warning about book burning (Frankfurt)

Most visitors to Frankfurt am Main will stop at the historic Römerberg square for pictures of the surrounding buildings with bank towers in the background. But a glance down onto the cobblestones near the Gerechtigkeitsbrunnen (Fountain of Justice) reveals a writer’s stern warning. In the tragedy “Almansor“, the German-Jewish writer Heinrich Heine warned readers about the dangers of burning books:

Das war ein Vorspiel nur. Dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen.
– Heinrich Heine, “Almansor” (1820-1821)

Heine wrote how burning books is a dangerous omen: “where books are burned, people aren’t far behind.” A little over 100 years later, this prescient line played out as the Nazis took over and targeted in particular Jews. On 10 May 1933 in Frankfurt and in other cities across the country in plans orchestrated by the Propaganda Ministry, tens of thousands including university students loyal to the Nazis gathered to burn books by writers who were Jewish or who were deemed ‘unpatriotic’ or ‘un-German’ to the Nazi ideal. Books by Bertolt Brecht, Sigmund Freud, Heinrich Heine, Erich Kästner, and Heinrich Mann among others were thrown into the fire. The Gedenkplatte (or Gedenktafel) Bücherverbrennung is a memorial and modern reminder for constant vigilance against the dangerous reasons for book burning and the consequences beyond.

Gedenkplatte Bücherverbrennung, Römerberg, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, fotoeins.com

Gedenkplatte Bücherverbrennung: memorial plaque to 1933 book burning

I made the photos above on 9 May 2015. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotopress at fotoeins.com as http://wp.me/p1BIdT-79O.

Love locks, Eiserner Steg, Iron Footbridge, Main river, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday: Crown of locks on Frankfurt’s Eiserner Steg

The Eiserner Steg (Iron Footbridge, 1869) is a pedestrian-only bridge over the Main (word pronounced like “mine”) river in Frankfurt am Main which connects the city’s Römerberg and Old Town on the north flank with the Museum Embankment and Sachsenhausen on the south flank. My glance to the city’s “Main-hattan” skyline found clusters of love-locks hanging from the bridge structure. Whatever your opinions are about these love-locks, they make a great compositional feature.

Other love locks:

•   Cologne’s Hohenzollernbrücke
•   Heidelberg’s Alte Brücke (Old Bridge)

I made this photo above on 20 November 2014 with the Canon EOS6D, 24-105 L zoom-lens, and the following settings: 1/20s, f/4, ISO4000 and 24mm focal length. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotopress on fotoeins.com as http://wp.me/p1BIdT-7WE.

Blick heben, Foto Gregor, Neumarkt, Köln, Cologne, Germany, fotoeins.com

Fotoeins Friday: Blick heben (look up) in Cologne

The phrase on the pavement compels passers-by to ‘look up’ …

  1. A Rolleiflex camera, one about which I’ve begun dreaming of owning one day …
  2. On the ledge sits a photographer with a big-ass zoom, doing whatever they can to get “the shot” (over Neumarkt)
  3. two (headless?) Santa Claus’ climbing the wall, when really, one of them should be handing me a 5D Mark 3 …

Or the fact that I should part some cash over to Foto Gregor.
(Oder vielleicht soll ich etwas Geld beim Fotohaus Foto Gregor ausgeben …)

I made this photo on 6 January 2013 with the Canon EOS450D (XSi), EF-S 18-55 IS II zoom-lens, and the following settings: 1/40s, f/5.6, ISO800, 55mm focal-length (88mm full-frame equivalent). This post appears on Fotoeins Fotopress at fotoeins.com as http://wp.me/p1BIdT-7fz.

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