Auswanderer Quatsch

Every year deserves its post on the Christkindlesmarkt: here was 2007 and there 2008.

You’ll have to imagine the atmosphere and scents and believe me a little. Every year, at the begining of the Advent-time, the market place of Nuremberg, borded by its Frauenkirche, is invaded by little wooden tents with red-white covers (colors of Franconia, the sub-region of Bavaria where Nuremberg is located). On friday before the first advent weekend exactly, the Christkind will appear on the balcony of the Frauenkirche and call all the kids of the world in to come and prepare themselved for Christmas (if you can read German, have a look at the post I wrote in 2007 where I quoted the whole invitation speech ; it’s worth it). All those little tents will stay there until christmas and be visited by over 2 million happy xmas-friends.

I must say I don’t know what all the tourists look for when they come here. Most of the shops are just selling xmas deco that you can now find pretty much everywhere. But for all the adults who used to come here as kids and kids nowadays, it seems to be pure heaven. Scents of grilled sausages mixed with and cinamoon, fruit-breads and sweets, not to forget the Glühwein (cooked wine with spices) fumes. I must admit, even if xmas did not really used to sound, smell, taste or look like that for me it’s a really pleasant place to go to… and that must be what people search for.

So that’s a common place to be in December. Colleagues and friends meet over a Mug Glühwein, families (at best with kids and babby buggies in the crowd) over a few roasted almonds and whomever over a “3 im Weckla” (3 finger-like sausages typical of Nuremberg in a little piece of bread).

As a real Nürnberger, I met old colleagues last week with whom I worked really hard on trying all the different sorts of Glühwein (and Feuerzangenbowle of course) that there is. We met again, with MlleV’s friends this time, on saturday. When the weather was barely over -15°C and if the Glühwein was enough to raise our global body temperature (and lower our mental capacities of course) it did not go as far as the fingers or toes. That was freaking cold so to say.

On the way back (actually on the way in… but it did not go well with my storyline ) we came by the Albrecht Dürer Platz (he was the most famous painter of the city in the 16th century), place that must be one of the oldest-looking places in town and can become a photography wonder on times like those…

We were in Dortmund this weekend ; this was my first trip “stopping” in North Rhine-Westphalia actually.

I lack a lot about the history of the region but I was really surprised/shocked to realize how heavily the metal industry (easy to spot with the high furnaces) and the industry in general is still present everywhere you look. Factories, old depots, lots of train tracks leading nowhere… I’m sorry to say that, but with a grey weather it does not look so welcoming.

Anyway, since the weather was really crappy, we decided to pay a visit to an indoor exhibit called “Sternstunden, Wunder des Sonnensystems” a.k.a. “Star hour, wonders of the solar system”. The exhibit is setup in an old gas-tank, formerly used to store a large amount of gas used to feed the gigantic furnaces of the metal industry that settled around at the beginning of the 20th century.

On the picture below, on the wall, you can see part of a panorama picture of the region taken at the begining of the 20th century. About first third from the left you can see the tank in which we were standing… which seems kind of really small among the furnaces and chimneys… but is now almost the biggest building around.

As you can see on the very first picture (that I stole from the website of the exhibit), the tank is round, about 100m high, 20m across and made of heavy metal. The temperature inside was definitely not more than 10°C, so after making fun of the lady supposed to take up the coats at the “garderobe”, we kept walking the whole time. The exhibit is mostly composed of pictures about the wonders of our solar system. 80 pictures printed 3x2m, displaying stars, clouds, milky way, planets, canyons, rings etc. all taken by sattelites and robots flying our solar system.

All around the room, some sculptures of the different planets of our solar system were displayed… and in the middle:

That was really a good exhibit! We really had a good time, thanks A&J.

At night, when the zombies get bored, they stop moaning and start whispering…

Mlle V was out to watch Maria ihm schmeckt nichts with a friend in the movie theater yesterday. I spent my evening playing with my cameras before dozing off in the couch watching MadMen season 2. Wonderful serie bytheway… I’ll have to talk about it one day… but not now.

Anyway, yesterday was picture play evening… so here is one of the results to share with you.

As already stated somewhere in a previous post, we were in Brittany this summer. One of the places I wanted to go to was the “Pointe du raz”, a spike of land looking west a couple miles south from Brest that would be France’s westernmost point if the “Pointe de Corsen”, located a few kilometers north, did not exist. Anyway, accessing the place was a fun long drive on a narrow road. We parked a few kilometers back and walked for a couple hours on the “Sentier des Douaniers” - a walking path following the coastline along the whole French coast – to reach the place.

With such a great weather we had a wonderful line of sight. The Island of Sein that you can see in the back is only visible with such a great weather.

As you can see, Mlle V. is carrying the backpack, that’s why I only took the Lx3 there although the weather was so gorgeous. Why is that? Simply because I had messed up my shoulder pretty bad playing silly on the beach a couple days earlier (did not require any stitches but that was a close call) and could not carry anything on the right shoulder without risking to open the flesh again. So we walked “light” leaving the reflex and its objectives in the car…

Below is the view looking west, you can see La Vieille’s lighthouse and the Sein’s Island.

The view looking north. This view, with a couple boats, clouds geometry, strange cliffs and one lonely fence was nothing less enjoyable!

Definitely worth going there

31 jours, autant de photos, une vingtaine de participants… autant de bonnes raisons de revenir sur l’aventure.

Autant le dire tout net, tout comme l’an dernier, le PADC était une aventure difficile ;  il y a bien des soirs où , la brosse à dent dans le bec, on se rend compte qu’on a toujours pas pris cette “§$%&/ de photo et qu’il va falloir repousser l’appel de la couette, pourtant si tentant, de quelques minutes. Mais tout comme l’an dernier, le bilan est rétrospectivement très positif!

Sur ces mots je concluais le PADC 2008:

“Je ne l’ai réalisé que vers la fin, mais au début du challenge j’ai passé beaucoup de temps à chercher un sujet original et pas assez a “composer”. De longues heures j’ai erré dans Nuremberg dans l’espoir de trouver un bon sujet qui fasse une belle photo ; souvent avec succès d’ailleurs. Si ce genre de photos “de reportage” est un exercice de style complexe et qu’il faut absolument maîtriser (demande une vitesse d’exécution rapide et empêche bien souvent de s’y prendre à deux fois), c’est également un exercice qui, je trouve, bridait ma “créativité”.

Peu à peu, j’ai cherché à faire moins original au niveau du sujet et tester des choses plus créatives photographiquement parlant. Sous-exposition longue avec ou sans flash, “light painting”, composition de plusieurs sources lumineuse, composition scénique, cadrage atypique, jeu avec le flou de bougé du sujet et celui de l’appareil etc.

Les photos ainsi crées sont parfois intéressantes, parfois moins mais elles ont pour moi un cachet plus “personnel”, une valeur supplémentaire, une réelle impression d’avoir crée qqch et non seulement “bien capturé”.”

C’est clairement dans cette direction que j’ai travaillé cette année. Au niveau de la recherche de scènes, au sens mobile du terme, zéro. Pas une fois j’ai été “erré dans Nuremberg”, point de ballades de 2h à l’affut du moindre élément intéressant cette année. Au contraire, beaucoup plus de montage, de scènes préparées et concues pour l’occasion, certaines prévues de longue date d’ailleurs.

Cette fois ci, j’ai laissé ma créativité s’exprimer en utilisant mon flash déporté comme dans Me&Myself, Game Over, Close encounter of the 3rd kind ou Oro Oro Oro. Dans cette dernière, tout comme dans Blue Style, j’ai été utilisé des gels colorés pour jouer avec la lumière. J’ai joué dans la surexposition dans Last of his kind, dans la macro via Wörter (qui utilise aussi le flash déporté cela-dit), Drops, Rotations et I thought summer was upon us. J’ai finalement joué avec la vitesse de prise de vue dans Elle et lui, Jambe et flêche bleue, Late barn et wanna… be… home.

Heart ² a été faite sans artifices particuliers… mais a été une des plus difficiles à obtenir. Les portraits était un de mes objectifs secrets… Mlle V. n’avait pas le coeur à servir de modèle… dommage. Tout comme l’an dernier, je termine le PADC sur Teamwork une photo composite toujours aussi plaisante à construire.

Le PADC 2009 c’est également un grand nombre de participants, et un niveau très élevé avec de très très belles photos. Parmi mes préférées se trouvent Rushing into the light de Pierpol, Charles est heureux de Akya, Jesus de Herisson26, Aimer c’est donner de DuaneH et La fin de l’ouragan de Ghusse… mais je vous conseille vraiment d’aller faire un tour sur le pool pour voir toutes les autres, qui valent largement quelques minutes de votre temps.

Oui, le PADC 2009 était chouette, je me suis bien amusé et maintenant j’ai même l’appareil photo qui me démange. Remettra t-on le couvert l’an prochain?