Only One Left

Cinema: Only one seat left for the premiere of the movie of your favorite actor and an ugly guy with a T-Shirt showing the portrait of that actor in front of you in the queue.

Puzzle: A 10000-piece-puzzle and 9999 of them are done.

Airplane: Waiting list. One no-show seat. It's you against the guy with the Senator-frequent-traveller-card.

James Bond Movie: Bond tries to defuse the counter of the bomb. Only one second left.

Lunch: Only one salad left and a group of skinny girls in front of you.

Titanic: 1500 passengers left, one life boat.

Traffic: Only one slot left in the only parking garage and you're already late.

Life: Exactly 1 person which matches perfectly?

You need just ONE and there is exactly ONE. Sometimes it works, most of the times, it doesn't. But probably the few working ones are worth it.

Stories Behind and the Fox

Sometimes I see remarkable things. Things that I don't understand at all. What bothers me in such situations is the fact that I will probably never find out what the heck was going on.

Last weekend I saw an iron fence and a stone on top. Just one single stone (I could tell you that the German mason jargon calls it "17er" and that the correct name is 3DF) but I had no idea why someone placed it on top of that fence.

When it comes to such a situations I usually recite a sentence from Lord of the Rings - one of my two favorite sentences of that book. It's about a small fox that saw the travelling Hobbits sleep in the forest of the Shire.
I looked for it in my English version of the book for the sentence:

"There's something mighty queer behind this". He was quite right, but he never found out any more about it.

Two weeks ago during the Taubertal Festival I saw a slice of ham sausage on the road. I said to my fellow "You know what? I'm sure there's a story behind this slice of sausage and probably we'll never find out more". As far as I remember I even told my fellow the story with the fox from Lord of the Rings. Aaand - I shot a photo.

And to my/our great surprise we did find out more! Half an hour later we walked by a car full of girls (yes, of course it was a car full of girls). It was stuck in the traffic jam on it's way to the camping ground. The girls asked us about the remaining waiting time. We chatted a little bit and for some reason I told them about the slice of ham sausage we found. I really don't know why I tell a group of girls such a pile of crap. The girls started to cheer instantly "That was us. We marked our way." And as a sign of proof the threw a new slice of sausage out of the window.
I was speechless.

I don't expect from life to explain me the background of all the small riddles. It's quite the contrary. It makes my life more valuable if it stays unexplained to a certain extend. But sometimes - sometimes it's great to lift the curtain and understand the how and why - Even if it's only ham sausage.



PS: I really think I will never find out more about the stone and the fence.

Disobedience

It's forbidden to park bikes

Everyone is a little rebel from time to time. Probably a minimum amount of disobedience is mandatory to give you the impression that you can do whatever you want.
Although it's an illusion and you know about it, being just a little disobedient may feel good occasionally.

I shot the two photos in Erlangen and Bayreuth and they made me smirk.


Keep door shut

Bilderrätsel

Wer errät die zwei Begriffe?



This posting is for Germans only because it's playing with words. No way to translate that.

Wer auf der Leitung steht, findet hier die Lösung für Rätel [1] und Rätsel [2].

Smile If You Are...

This is my last photo of the multiple-intances-series.

The initial thought was that the fact you are smiling doesn't necessarily mean that you are feeling simply ok. I wasn't in the mood for "performing" more moods in front of the camera, though.

Unique

Click on photo to enlarge

Do you think you are unique?

Homeland Tourist

Click on photo to enlarge

Every time I walk through the old city of Nuremberg with my camera I look like a tourist between all the other folks with big cameras from Japan, Italy or the US.
Local people always look a little puzzled when I start talking with the local Franconian accent because I'm supposed to be a stranger.
It's really hard to explain that it's not the camera that makes a tourist.
Why the hack is it so unusual to take photos in your own city?

Beatsteaks Toast

When I feel like writing I really have to do it. Instantly. Sometimes it requires some improvization regarding pen and paper.
Last Saturday I attended a concert from a Berlin band called "Beatsteaks" during the Taubertal Festival 2007 and it was the best one since ages. Even facing the fact that I'm relatively tall I was concerned about getting enough fresh air because of all the jumping people. Really awesome.
The next moring on the campsite during an luxurious lunch on an orphaned shopping cart this writing talkativeness appeared and all I had was some toast and the sauce of my Ravioli.
A lot of the passers-by stopped for reading the "memo" and said something like "great concert, wasn't it?".
Well folks, that's what I wanted to say. Mission accomplished.

If you want to know how the Beatsteaks sound like try [this].

More of my food-writing can be found [here].

PS: The neighbour from the tent beside our lunch-site ate a corner of the toast slice with the "E". I apologize for this.

The Sock of Death

Did you ever confront someone with an old sock? Probably not, right?
We tried that last Sunday at the Taubertal Festival. The concert of Mika was kind of boring and didn't catch our attention. I found an old sock at the muddy bottom, put it on a stick and a few second later it turned into a black ghost hovering in front of the faces of some strangers.
My camera man stepped in front of the strangers and smirked at them like a lunatic. And while they tried to find out why the jerk is grinning like hell the sock of death appeared.
Surprisingly most of the folks laughed with us. Only the last one got a little bit angry and broke the stick.
Although there was a significant risk of getting some punches we had a lot of fun wit h the sock of death.

The best thing was that two very funny folks which saw us doing the sock thing took revenge. The followed us with a thing on a stick that was completely different from a rotten sock. But this is a completely different story.



Thanks to my imfamous camera man for shooting and editing the footage.

Rubber Boot Living

I spent a weekend out in the mud - literally. The Taubertal Festival 2007 is a 3-day Open Air with a lot of rock music und usually with constant rain.

The most important pieces of clothing were rubber boots. It's been years since I covered my feet with that sexy things.
Rubber boots remind me of some situations in life: You are standing in the middle of a puddle of mud that life arranged under your feet. Actually it should frighten you because of all the dirt and due to wet feet.
But - but you were clever enough to wear your protecting gear. Rubber boots around the sensitive area of your mind. Life can rain down like cats and dogs but you don't let come it close to you - there's always a layer of thick rubber between you and life.
OK, you look damn stupid in your mental rubber boots but you stay dry.
Stupidly sometimes I think that the few muddy guys that jump cheering through the mud are happier.

















If you want you can see more of my rubber boot photos of the weekend [here...]

Soccer Twins

I couldn't resist in taking this photo. The poor guy was a stranger and he wasn't aware of it but I saw him and instantly there were two footballs in front of my eyes.

Binoculars

You are too far away from where life's going on?
Hard solution: Drag your little butt closer to the stage.
Easy solution: Stay where you are and use binoculars.

I fear that tech stuff seems to work for a while but on some point in time you might realize that you still sit on the outer rim.

The photos were shot on Saturday at the Classic Open Air in Nuremberg. I really love this free concert. It's like a big picknic in a park.

Unidentified

Last saturday I was sitting on a square in Nuremberg listening to some live music and trying to shoot some photos of the artist with my big lens.
Suddenly a stranger tapped my on the shoulder and pointed upwards to the sky.
First I didn't know what his intention was. Then I realized that I was excited about some little yellow dots crossing the sky. He asked me to shoot some photos of them because they looked strange in his opinion.
Actually I noted the dots before because they didn't look like normal airplanes. But the artist on stage was attracting my attention and I forgot about it.

So I switched my camera to the highest light sensitivity and the zoom to maximum.
At home I zoomed into the image and tried to enhance the contrast as good as possible.

The result can bee seen above.
Tell me what you want but this is not an airplane. I will not say the U-word but you know what I mean, don't you?

What do you think?

Mooning

Click on photo to enlarge

Today I had the feeling that the moon is nearer to me apartment than usual.
Well, on the other hand, maybe I was just closer to the cosmos.
Let's asume the latter - I like that thought.