Today I got to spend another day with the most beautiful weather in Nagasaki. When it got dark, I took the ropeway up to Mount Inasa which is supposed to be ranked on the top three best night views in the world.
By the way, the pictures from this trip so far were all taken with my phone (hence the somewhat low quality). As soon as I am back and the films are developed (yes, I am still in my analog experiment) I will post more pictures.
Soviet War Memorial in the Treptower Park, Berlin.
You may have noticed that I did post a lot of black and white images lately. Not only are these images without color, they also are made on an old film camera.
I made first experiments with a film camera when I was in Oslo, but on this trip this was not my primary camera. I continued to take photos with my digital cameras and this was fine so far. However, I still was intrigued by the idea of photographing with an analog, all-manual camera. So a while ago I acquired an Olympus OM-1 with a couple of lenses. The only “comfort function” this camera has is a light meter. Apart from that, it is all manual. You have to advance the film, focus, set aperture and shutter speed—ideally so that is matches the light metering—and then you can take one picture. For the next one you have to repeat all this. And still I decided to use this and only this camera for a while.
So why leave all the functions, image quality, and ease-of-use factor of my other cameras behind? The whole image taking process is slow, processing the films takes time, and films and development cost additional money. Still there was something about photographing on film that fascinated me. Maybe it was my impression that digital images tend to look just too clean. Or it was the fact that you cannot take a whole bunch of pictures and instantaneously look at them on the screen of your camera. Instead you have to have some confidence in your decisions and then be patient until the film has finally been developed. I also really enjoy to use all the vintage lenses that came with the camera. And just to look through the gorgeous viewfinder of the OM-1 is a pleasure on its own each time again.
Whatever the reason was, I still do not regret my decision. So for some time I will continue to shoot on film. One side effect is that I am not able to update this blog that frequently as I have to adapt to the time it takes to fill up the 36 shots of a film. For example, I still have some pictures from a skiing trip to the Feldberg I did in February in queue. So be patient, look out for more grainy, analog pictures and do not worry—at some point I probably will get enough of it again and return to the new and shiny world of digital photography.
When I started this blog, I intended to post just day-to-day events and pictures. As you can see there are some posts about Mannheim and some about my Band, Cabba Cabba. In recent times, I somehow started to do more excursions and vacations. I went to Oslo and Barcelona and did a hiking trip around the Edersee in the freezing cold. This all was not really “daily rhythm” and in the next weeks I definitely will break with the title of this blog.
This Wednesday, I will begin a six week long vacation in Thailand! These are two “firsts” for me. First, I cannot remember being on vacation that long. Second, I never left Europe yet. So why do this long and distant travel, you might ask. At first I somehow ended with a quite huge amount of vacation days available for this year. In order to “get rid” of them (not that this is a bad thing) I had to plan something big. Then I thought “why not go somewhere I never have been before?”. I studied the map and came up with South East Asia. I made this first decision based on recommendations from friends and driven by the thought that both the area and the culture would be something completetly new. After some more researching I ended up with Thailand as my travel destination. Although this problably is the mainstream country of the area, it should have enough exploration possibilities ready for me, as I do not know anything of it yet.
In the first weeks of my trip I will attend a group tour where we will travel to Thailand’s north. During this time, I will have to opportunity to discover the area, maybe do some hiking and get to know the hill tribes that live there. The second part of my trip is not fully planned yet, but I intend to do some “backpacking”, probably in the southern part of the country. You can see this is just a rough overview of the trip yet. This is more or less intended: I did not want to plan everything ahead and bring some spontaneity to this trip. As soon as I am in Thailand, there will be enough impressions and ideas where to go and what to see.
My plan is to post here regularly to keep you up-to-date. Of course I also want to use this trip to do more photography, so expect some images, too.
Now I will continue to work on my todo list that I want to complete before my departure (this post is one item of it. Check!) and slowly begin packing. So I guess I should get back to work now, as there are quite some things left to do. See you soon (or read, actually)!