Stealing Time

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Did you ever try to steal time?
Tonight I don't have to because Europe is switching back from Daylight Saving Time and I get one hour as a gift.
Although I will probably sleep during this free hour (3AM to 4AM) it's interesting to think about what can be achived in 1 hour.
I already started to browse my memory for the most intense hour I can think of.
Actually I can't tell you the answer without thinking - is that a bad sign?
No I think it isn't. I know that my life is full of intense moments. Probably I'm simply too sleepy when they happen - similar to the gift hour tonight.

This photos is part of a little series giving evidence that stealing time is possible. See more photos here.
By the way: The golden clock is now hanging in a kind of conference room in our office.

Get-to-Know-Shaking

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These eggs are typical for German supermarkets. They are made of chocolate with a little plastic toy inside.
Sometimes they contain little collectable figures and one could overserve people in the supermarket shaking one egg after the other trying to find the eggs with the figures by listening to the noise.
Really strange if you ask me.

I imagine being shaken by someone who wants to get to know me. He/she simply shakes me and finds out whether I'm worth keeping. Or vice versa. Nice or frightening thought? Let me think when I had the feeling of being shaken recently...

Are the eggs available outside Germany, too?

This photo is my contribution for this week's assignment of "Project: Glimpse", a little photo project I started on Flickr together with Julie and a few others.

Contact

Kontaktfreudig (outgoing)

On Saturday I had my second expedition with my small chalk board. I went to Frankfurt with a friend for visiting an exhibition and had my chalk board with me. We strolled through the streets with no idea and let the chalk board guide us.

I saw some signs in front of a store. One of them said "Kontakt" (contact). I didn't get the story behind that sign but I thought that "Kontakt" could be cool for adding some different meanings using the chalk board. Therefore we asked passers-by whether they want to help us.
In the end it turned out that it was really great for making 2-minute-contacts to absolute strangers. I think the strangers liked it, too - of course only after the mandatory 2 seconds of panic similar to Mana Mana).

Maybe I should have the small chalk board with me all the time. Probably it would make me a more outgoing person.


Kontaktscheu (contact avoiding, shy)


Blickkontakt (eye contact)


Kontaktanzeige (lonely hearts ad)


Wackelkontakt (loose connection)

Project: Glimpse: The Couch

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Ever felt like a couch potatoe? I can spend whole Sundays on my couch with a book, listening to music or just having a long nap.
But the couch prevents me from exploring my cosmos.
A few weeks ago I read that having a nap of 20 minutes boosts energy back into you. I just tried it by setting the alarm on my cell phone to 20 minutes and I jumped up immediately after hearing the alarm clock.
What shall I say - it worked. I felt fresh again and a few minutes later I painted faces to potatoes.

This photo is my contribution for this week to our little Flickr "Project: Glimpse". The task for this week was "The Couch". You can see more photos [here].

Pieces of Broken Glass

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Plain, shiny, flawless. Just perfect. Then you break it for whatever reason.
The pieces might still looks structured, still kind of beautiful.
But you have to be aware that it's only a pile of pieces.
No way back to the even surface.
Touch it with your boots and the beauty is gone. Forever.

Reduced Gents Showers

"Gents Shower Room" - "Highly Reduced"

What does this mean?
Is the price for taking a shower highly reduced? Maybe as a teaser for filthy men?
Or is it a kind of teaser for girls to have a glimpse at athletic men having a shower? Well, then it's a bad sign if the admittance is reduced.

(Seen in the ruins of an abandoned department store in Munich)

Light Horse

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Actually I intended to make photos of the Nuremberg Airport at night. But after a while I started to paint with my torch during long exposure shots.
This is one of the few horses that can run as fast as light.



Here are some more of my first tries as a light painter/writer.

Compound Glimpse

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Did you ever think about how an insect glimpses at our human all-days-life? It flies through your apartment watching you fighting with you vacuum cleaner or ironing your clothes. I'm pretty sure that the value of those tasks won't be too obvious for the fly. Well, sometimes it's hard for me, too.
This thoughts remind me of a very great book I read a few years ago. It's an old Science Fiction story called "Picknick am Wegesrand" by Boris and Arkadi Strugatzki.
The book tells about aliens that visited the earth leaving contaminated zones, don't caring about the humans and leaving without any contact.
The humans were like insects watching humans doing a picnic at the roadside. The insects see big life forms doing strange things and they have no clue what's it all about.
I'm pretty sure that we ARE the insects in many cases.

This photo is my contribution for this week to "Project: Glimpse" on Flickr. The task for this week was simple "Glimpse".

Zoo-m Lens

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On Sunday I felt like using my big lens. It was a beautiful autumn day and I really had to go outside. My idea was to go to the Nuremberg Zoo and playing around with animal photography.
I don't like zoos in general because the imprisoned animals always make me sad. This time it was ok because I had something to do and because the most sad animals - the gorillas - were not in their cages.
Here are some of my photos.

If you want you can see more of them on my flickr account.
Shooting the animals was ok but not as exciting as being on one of my "Digipirsches" through a city and taking photos of people

Project: Glimpse, Day 7 / Breakfast

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I love to have a very extended breakfast at the weekend.
Having a minimum variety of spreads for my rolls is very essential to me.
This is what was available for my breakfast today.
Currently my favorites are rose hip and honey.

This is the photo of Julie for this topic...

So, this was a week of exchanging glimpses between Georgia, USA and Bavaria, Germany. It was very funny to be forced to do a new photo for a specific topic EVERY day.
For the future we will do only ONE task per week and we'll open our "Project: Glimpse" to the public. Feel free to join our Flickr group. It would be great to get to know YOUR glimpses at the world. See the groups' page for our rules and for details.

Project: Glimpse, Day 6 / Neighbours

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I live in a house with three apartments. This summer my favorite neighbours moved out because they bought their own real estate.
The new neighbours are a couple with their son. The strange thing is that they have thousands and thousands of things. They live here for 3 months now and all hallways and the stairway are still packed with boxes and stuff.
Even the public room in the basement (which I use for drying my clothes) is full with crap like a fitness bike that looks completely unused.
I hope I'll never need that much stuff to stay alive.

This is the photo of Julie for the same topic...

Project: Glimpse, Day 5 / Nearby History

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Today I had to shoot a photo of a historic place nearby for Project: Glimpse. First of all I though about simply taking a photo of the imperial castle in Nuremberg or of the Nazi rally ground.

After a few minutes of thinking about it I came to the conclusion that this would be too obvious and that I want to share glimpses of the pearls in my direct neighbourhood.

There is this small village named Cadolzburg near the village where I live. Both of them are west of Nuremberg in southern Germany.
Cadolzburg is an assembly of humble small houses surrounded by forests and all kinds of green. Nothing special except the big castle in the middle. It's really amazing to see how much the medieval guys overacted. The building is really oversized and one would never expect such a castle in a small village.
I like the view from this spot a lot. Unfortunately I was stuck in the office and the daylight was almost gone when I arrived in Cadolzburg. My last chance was to use my tripod and to shoot some long exposure photos for a HDR photo.

Actually I don't know much about all the historic pearls near me. Hopefully this project will re-activate the pearl diver skills in me again. I already hold my breath.

Here is the photo of Julie for the same topic...

Project: Glimpse, Day 4 / My Wallet

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It's getting more intimate every day. Probably the differences on wallets between Julie and me isn't a European vs. USA thing but a boy vs. girl comparisn.
I'm curious about her photo.

I described all the items using flickr notes. You have to click on the photo and move your mouse over it to be able to read them.

Project: Glimpse, Day 3: The Fridge

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The topic for today was "The Fridge". I wasn't aware that my refrigerator is that American. I opened the door and was immediately surrounded by bullets. A clan of Indians was fighting with some cowboys for a bottle of "Texicana Salsa" sauce.
I'm really upset that the little folks don't respect my privacy. Apart from that I think they overacted a little bit because the quality of the sauce is more or less mediocre.
For the moment I let the guys in the fridge and hope they will come to a conclusion prior to my next hunger attack.
Since I closed the door of the fridge I can hardly hear the shooting sounds. That’s at least something.


Here is the photo of Julie for the same topic...

This posting is part of "Project: Glimpse", a photo experiment about sharing glimpses between Atlanta, Georgia and Bavaria, Germany. Learn more...

Project: Glimpse, Day 2: Office Desk Mysteries

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This is my photo for day 2 of "Project: Glimpse".

I simply shot the area below my monitor and tried to describe the elements using Flickr Notes. Click on the image to go to Flickr and move your mouse over the image to see the notes.

I guess an office desk in the US will look quite similar.

Here is the photo of Julie for the same topic...

This posting is part of "Project: Glimpse", a photo experiment about sharing glimpses between Atlanta, Georgia and Bavaria, Germany. Learn more...

Project: Glimpse, Day 1: On my way to the office

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These days I'm kind of eye-to-eye with the low autumn sun when I walk from the parking lot to the office at the morning.
I like having the lids of my eyes "fighting" with the sun.

I have to pass a fence on my way. It's a very typical German-style fence called "Jägerzaun" (hunter's fence). I never saw such a fence outside the German speaking areas.
The sun created me a nice shadow of that fence and I realized that I never realized that fence until today.

I guess I will notice the shadow from today on every day.

Here is the photo of Julie for the same topic...

This posting is part of "Project: Glimpse", a photo experiment about sharing glimpses between Atlanta, Georgia and Bavaria, Germany. Learn more...

Project: Glimpse - Introduction

This is one of the few postings without photo. I want to introduce to you a new small project I'm involved in - it is called Project: Glimpse.

A few days ago I searched Flickr for a inspirations for wedding photos because I had to shoot the wedding of my sister. Usually I strictly refuse to shoot such events but I made a very special exception for my sister.
I got in touch with a photographer with wedding-photo experience from Atlanta, USA called Julie and asked her to give me some basic tips. She gave me a few very useful hints and the most important was "relax".

Apart from talking about wedding photos we exchanged some thoughts about photography in general and about differences.
This conversation ended in the idea to do a small photo project together using Flickr.

During this "Project: Glimpse" Julie and I try to shoot a photo of the same thing/situation every day (at least for the first week). Our targets will be small aspects of our all-day-lifes. Goal is to learn about our differences on things/situations that are supposed to be kind of similar at the first glance.

I'm very curious what differences will show up regarding
American vs. European
Male vs. Female
Single vs. Married

If you want you can follow "Project: Glimpse" on Flickr.com
a) Discussions about "Project: Glimpse": [Link...]
b) The photo pool of "Project: Glimpse": [Link...]

I'm really excited about sharing glimpses of our lifes between continents.

Today was the first day. See the following posts for more details.