Swollen Passports

Tomorrow the travelling season starts. I’m about to begin with 10 days Scuba-Diving in Egypt then 1 day back in Germany then 6 days on a business trip to USA (my very first one, hey hey).
This means that I won’t be able to post new pictures in the next 2 weeks. Too bad. I hope you will visit my blog, though.

But we’ll see. Maybe I will not enter Egypt or the US because of my passport. After the last journey it visited my washing machine by accident. Now it is a little bit, let’s say - swollen.
I know that especially the clerks at the US customs are more than accurate with passports.

“Sir, unfortunately you are not able to enter the United States of America. Your passport it swollen. I ask you to leave immediately”


Swollen Passport

Going Analog

Sometimes I want to be able to touch images. I mean the need for paper prints instead of pixels on the monitor. The first result of this need are 100 paper prints of photos I like. I got the shipment a today and the quality is really great.
The last days I spent several hours to sort my photos in categories like Humans, Food, Ruins, Dead Animals etc. This is a whole bunch of work and so far I finished only the years 2006 - 2004. Because I bought my first digital camera back in 1998 there are several thousand images left.
To be honest I don’t know exactly what to do with the paper prints. Probably I will put some of them into frames and they will end up on a wall in my apartment. But what I know is that several hundred pictures are about to be printed, too.

Fake Trousers

A shop in Nuremberg. Some plastic mannequins stood around and did their job - displaying jeans.
I was wondering why one of the jeans didn’t hang as deep on the hips as the others. Well, it was simply the window cleaner.
After all I think it was very wise of him not to wear those low-hip-jeans when doing HIS job.

Nearness

I feel that some kind of nearness you can’t have with a partner but only with a very good friend. Dunno why. Maybe because it’s a different kind of nearness when hormons ain’t part of the game.
Today I’ve been to Berlin. I saw the three girls lying on a sunny bench and I found that closeness very impressive and enviable.



Well, that doesn’t necessarily mean that one isn’t able to feel good being alone.
Look at this guys - I’m quite sure they enjoyed their lonely moment very much.

Actually I went to Berlin to find a new friend. I’m not sure whether I found one but at least it seems not impossible.

Liberty

I went to the movies. The name of the film was “Das Leben der Anderen” which means “The Life of the Others”. A German movie.
It was about a country that doesn’t exist any longer - the former German Democratic Repuplic (GDR). Today that country is simply the eastern part of Germany.
The movie told about the so called STASI, the secret service of the GDR. One of the main tasks of the STASI was to spy on their own people - the citizens of the GDR.
The main character in the film was a STASI officer who had to observe a writer and his girlfriend and became more and more familiar with the people.

I liked the movie a lot although it was not a very funny one.

This posting is not supposed to spread a lot of pathetic junk but I got aware again that I got liberty for free since I was born. The liberty to shout out loud what I think, the liberty to travel wherever I want to and the damn liberty to choose between more than 13 different movies in one single cinema.

Most of my friends come from the former GDR and I will never know how it felt to be imprisoned in your own country. I don’t like everything about our western money-centered world but at this particular moment I am very grateful for the freedom and liberty I get almost for free.
I hope I won’t forget that for a while and I hope you don’t think I’m a conservative patriot. I’m not.

Right Ones

You try all day to make some piece of software work but all you get is an unhandled exception. You are running out of time and the mood is below zero.
Then you contact the right person and she tells you that you probably use the wrong files and that she can provide you the right ones in no time.
After a few minutes you feed the files into your server with your old USB-stick and ....
...it works!
Well, usually it would have been done in on minute and you needed the whole day but you feel good, though.

If life works that way it’s good to know who is the one providing the ideas you need. But hell, who knows that?

Backyard

Some backyards are quite romantic. This is not one of those. It seemed to me as if the sun never reaches the bottom of the yard.
It would be hard for me to feel happy if my room would head to this idyllic scene.

Railway Station Violins

An old violin player in the subway of the Nuremberg Railway Station playing for some coins.
He played nice, he was friendly and he had a piece of an old newspaper with him. The article said “Street Violin Player Brutally Attacked”.
Why is the world always unfair to the poorest ones?
To be honest, I didn’t feel very well photographing the poor man with my expensive electronic toy. Of course I asked whether I can shoot some photos.
Finally I came to the conclusion that I cared for his life for at least 2 minutes instead of walking by without noticing.
The violin player and I both smiled when we shaked hands and wished each other luck and health. That can’t be a bad thing.

Spring and Death

These are the days for buying colorful spring flowers. Best would be if you buy a stylish grave light in the matching color, too.
Strange idea of bringing together signs of life like spring flowers and symbols of death like the grave lights.
I don’t think it is a bad combination, though.

Directions

Sometimes it’s good to see a finger showing the right direction.

The finger reminded me a little bit of the one of God in the Sistian Chapel in Vatican City in Rome. The creation of Adam, you know? Can it be that I saw God on top of the Emperors Castle in Nuremberg? Well, if yes it was very unspectacular.


Detail of the fresco of Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel, Rome (taken from Wikipedia)

Sorrow Pin Boards

Although I’m not religious I like churches. I enjoy the huge spaces “wasted” for a reason that one can’t grab.
The silence, the shadows in the corners and the pure dignity of that buildings seems to be a good thing.
I walked around in Nuremberg the whole Saturday afternoon to get some things sorted in my head. A church called Sebalduskirche was the place were I spent a long time to make some photos and to experiment with my old tripod.
I’m not very satisfied with the results but it was good to have something to be concentrated on without being disturbed by the loud world.
The image in the middle shows a kind of pin board. It was filled with little notes of people. The wrote down whats going wrong in their life and what they ask god for.
No idea whether god responded but like the idea of pinning sorrows to a board to get rid of them.

Devil’s Rainbow

The second rainbow in one week. Unbelievable.
I sat at home and realized some very unreal light outside. Everything was yellow at once and the clouds looked very dramatic. It’s been a very long time since I saw a rainbow with such strong colors. A few minutes later it was gone.
You can even see the second almost transparent rainbow on the left side.

When I was a child my grandmother told me that the rainbow is made by god to please mankind. The devil sometimes tries to follow suit and creates a second rainbow. But the devil never manages to create such a big beautiful one as his counterpart above.

Well, actually I don’t believe in the guy in black neither in the man in white but I remember my grandmother’s story every time I see a second small rainbow beside the big one.
Don’t be afraid, I won’t bother you with more rainbow pics but this one was to impressive not to be shared with you.

Although I adjusted the contrast a little bit the colors were real.