Winter is almost gone and all we talk about is the scents outside the house - it smells like spring!
Read moreSeptember Gift // Desktop Wallpaper Giveaway
The month September where I grew up will forever mean one thing - it’s school time once again, kids, set your alarm clocks to an early hour again, get new notebooks-rulers-cartridges in the office supply shop and be ready for some rainy afternoons filled with homework to do. It was a certain sweet but also depressing feeling of hopelessness at the same time. To get back to school and hang out with friends in the break times in the cafeteria was one good thing. But knowing that that’s actually the end of the long sunny summer days and it’s only gonna get worse and wet and dark, and the next summer is like an eternity far away if it’s there at all, made me pretty mental.
In short: those few days before September 1st - they were heavily confusing.In a way I’m actually happy the twelve school years are long over but I’ll always remember them in a sweet hate-love manner.
Bottom line is - we need a new vibe for September. And that is why I want to wrapt it up into one sheeny mantle of a cozy mood. I imagine him to feel lush emerald, calming, silently inspiring and soft, with its way more gentle sunlight and refreshing moisty breezes. I prepared a desktop wallpaper that reflects these sensations and reminds me everyday of what I want September to feel like.
Nonetheless - I want to share it with you as you can join my idea by simply enlarging and downloading this photo-graphic calendar wallpaper that I made (or downloading it over here). And if you set it to your desktop picture - please send me a screenshot to see how it looks like, because I’m very curious!
Enjoy the beginning of autumn and a gentle change of the seasons. And - go more to botanical gardens! It's overall calming and a beautiful place for photographic meditations.
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Photos made with Nikon D7000 + Sigma Art 35mm f1,4, in this botanical garden. Graphics made with Wacom Intuos on ArtRage Lite.
The Girl who was a Fox
one good side about living on an island far far away is that friends want to eventually come and see it and see me. Helgoland seems to be an island where 'no one has ever been but was always curious to come and check it out'. as i am here right now, some adventurous friends dare it and take a weekend or more off for a short discovery trip. when i get visits here, they mostly are intense and very cozy, i show around the island, tell stories about baby seals, show the ocean horizon all around this tiny little island. we bond on this island much more, more intense than while i was still living on the mainland, where on weekends eventually you come together for a party or a dinner, but rarely experience a face to face time over a few days. then i bring them back to the boat and wave good bye. Maren came to visit me last weekend. she is a girl fox and she writes beautiful songs. i first met her outside of a café in Bochum where she was knitting a big fluffy Iceland style pullover, as she had spent lots of time living in Iceland. the second time i saw her in a sweater with a fox picture. i immediately had to show her my fox earrings i was wearing those days. on the last day of her Helgoland visit the sun was tickling my bedroom wall. we got inspired and played around for the sake of beauty.
for Maren's music you can check her page Girl and the Fox or visit her facebook site.
her left arm/shoulder tattoo was made by the Expanded Eye art duo, also to be found on facebook and instagram.
her right lower arm tattoo the leaf was designed by... me! <3 the ones who know me have seen it many times changing on my arm or had been given one, too, with my legendary permanent CD marker. since 2012 random examples one, two, three, four, five are to be found on my old blog. Maren eventually got it inked in Iceland.
ps:
“Just that,” said the fox. “To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world …”
Photography Adventure #1: Blue Smoke
a few years ago i discovered Tumblr (for those who don't know - it's a blogging platform for all sorts of media, but mostly used for images. this platform is used a lot to re-blog other people's images on the own tumblr blog; and so at the end you have a blog mainly with a collection of images from anyone who once shared an image on the web or on another tumblr blog). those image collecting tumbler blogs - which offer an on-growing collection of images dedicated to a certain theme, or colour, or mood.. - those are addicting. since i was writing my Bachelor theses, and then later my Master thesis, i kept on looking for tumbler blogs like this on the web just to distract myself and get lifted up a little bit from the grey studying monotony. i would say around 60% of the time that i actually had dedicated for my studies that day went on jumping from one image blog to another. just watching, scrolling, getting one inspiring moment after another. at that time i was admiring and observing and thinking 'oh wow! oh wow!.. oh wow....'. there were photographies and drawings i had never seen in any album, in any exhibition, any photography book. it would be images of dreamy meadows, girly things, flowers, witchcrafty details, mountains.. its hard to just describe. today i can say this activity pretty much shaped my eye for what i want my photography to look like. the aesthetics, the compositions, the mood and colour combinations. at the end of this post i will put a few link examples for what i mean.now after have said all of this i am very happy to say that since recently i started creating more and more images on my own. usually in the past and of course still with a pleasure today i captured images on my travels and weddings the way i found them or the way i saw them. today more and more i try to put things and people in a scene and challenge myself with certain uncontrollable conditions. these images bellow are a result of one recent experiment: putting a person in a scene in a pre-defined outfit in a pre-chosen location at a certain time of a day. adding a requisite to all of that, like a colourful smoke torch that i don't know anything about but had seen it on many of the tumbler blogs mentioned above . i am starting to feel deeper satisfied with the fact that i am getting closer to the image aesthetics which i have admired so much once. i can actually be a creator of one of those dreamy image.
now these are a few of the images i created together with Indre when she recently visited me on my current home - the island Helgoland.
as promised i am sharing a few of my most influential imagery blogs:
http://fiebre.tumblr.com/ http://shawnlowe.tumblr.com/ http://www.carissagallo.com/ http://juliatrotti.tumblr.com/ http://cabinporn.com/ http://madfuture.com/
now of course todays Pinterest and Instagram had made it a bit different and i mainly scroll through those sites today instead of Tumblr. yet it's just a little tribute and a thankful thought that i dedicate the creators and participants of Tumblr ,-)
sharing the same blood
less than one month ago happiness has come to our family. my little brother heart and his wife have welcomed this gorgeous baby girl to the world. she will make our world an even more beautiful place to be one day. she has this calming gaze, looking around, observing and enjoying the calm. her mama - my sister in law - is Peruvian, so we are all very excited about how our baby girl will look like as she grows. her hair still seems coal black as mamas, skin bright as my brothers, eyes seem to become dark brown honey. but she looks just like my brother when he was a newborn baby - the most favourite and handsome little fellow in the whole newborn station in the hospital. i can't help - i already picture her as this little girl playing with her pigtails, this beautiful young teenage girl in a skirt, then a young woman, with all these cultural influences and love around her. another daughter of the goddess nature in our family. you should see the look of her eyes..
meet Elea Violetta. my lithuanian german peruvian inca, european latin american niece, already the favourite of her four aunts. i love her to the moon and back.
ps: oh, and now i just HAVE to go to Peru! what a beautiful reasonable need ,-)