Pola

Yesterday I picked up my very first polaroid camera. Finally! I have been eyeing this kind of thing for a long time. Polaroid's offbeat colours and the soft textures are so lovely.

It's a Polaroid 340 camera, supposedly dating from 1966. It's almost as old as I am myself. It comes with a rangefinder and an automatic exposure measurement. You just have to adjust the ISO setting and there you go. Piece of cake! It works with the 669 and 690 (higher saturation) colour emulsions and the 664 (100 asa) and 672 (400 asa) b&w sheets. You put in a pack of 10 sheets at a time. The camera went for 29 euros from a shop in the Ravenstein gallery, fresh 3.8V battery included. The seller has been in business for more than 40 years and looks forward to closing the shop in a month's time. I bought two (dated) boxes of film with it for 10 euro and was as happy as a kid. The thing works great. It's a lot of fun and very inspiring.

Picture above is one of the very first shots. It shows my colleague Kim who is looking slightly amused at the silly contraption that is pointed at his face. It has been taken on a dated sheet of 669 Polaroid film.

Gabon Portraits, ctd

I finally came round to scanning the whole 2006 Gabon portfolio. 52 portraits in all. As this is a finished, homogeneous body of work, I may collect all of these pictures in a handmade book, similar to the EU Capitals dummy. I hope the pictures will be well received in Africa.

Bucharest bagged

Sunday evening I returned from Bucharest: the last leg in my journey along all 27 European capitals. It IS a big number and I guess having visited them all is some sort of accomplishment. However, I am glad we have reached the final station of this particular journey. In Bucharest I experienced once more how difficult it is to find fresh angles through the Horizon’s viewfinder. In a way I am photographed-out with this particular camera, at least in an urban setting.

Bucharest surprised me as being more Western than I anticipated. Compared to Sofia it feels less exotic. In their physiognomy and demeanour, the Romanians look more Central than South-Eastern European. The language too has its share in the ostensible familiarity of the surroundings. It looks quite close to Italian and it is comparatively fairly easy to get around menus and transport systems. Bulgaria, with its cyrillic alphabet, is a very different ball game. Although I was happy to be accompanied by my friend Werner, I felt reasonably safe in the city. We stayed out on the streets until midnight without any problems whatsoever. Actually, the biggest nuisance is the profusion of security personnel. Werner joked that probably one quarter of the population was being employed in security services, whilst another quarter was on the run for security services. We had an unpleasant encounter with a few of these guys on a cemetery where I wanted to take some shots. Luckily they intercepted us before I actually took a photo. Otherwise I might have lost a roll of film, or even the camera. One never knows. In any case, friendly they were not.

Architecturally the city reflects the megalomaniac reign of Ceaucescu. Vast, monumental buildings are sprinkled all over town. The famous Parliament Palace, second biggest building in the world after the Pentagon, dominates like a stranded, tasteless spaceship in the southeastern part of town. There is a compact “old town” which shows something of the former Belle Epoque glory of this city.

We crisscrossed the city, covering at least 35km on foot. The weather was fine, with temperatures around 14°C and fairly sunny on Friday and Sunday. However, despite these ideal conditions, I only shot 3 and a half roll. Today I got the negs from the lab and I think I will be able to find 6 decent pictures for the website. I haven’t decided yet what picture I will put in the book.

Dummy

It has taken a while, but now the dummy of the Capitals book is ready. The layout work was done my Eddie Ephraums from Self Publishing Solutions. Scans were partly done by Johan Doumont and partly by myself. I produced the prints of individual spreads on Hahnemühle Photo Rag 188g paper and then Inge van Pouck (www.boekbinderij.be) bound the whole thing very nicely together in a leporello format and put it into a slipcase. Nice teamwork.

The format is delightful. I knew already for a long time it had to be 18x18cm and this is really it. The book fits perfectly in the hand. It feels solid and compact. The accordeon binding works particularly well in conjunction with a layout which fits an abstract geographical progression, from west to east by means of a city's latitude and longitude, on each lefthand page. When leafing through the book, the basic feeling is one of progression, of a journey. The pictures are printed across the full width of a page ("aflopend") which reinforces this sense of continuity.

Over the past two days I have had the occasion to show the dummy to a fairly large number of people and the reactions are very positive. The whole concept seems to strike people as intriguing. They like to browse and fondle the book. I have also presented the dummy to an institution that may be interested in ordering a significant number of copies, as a gift. Again, reactions are promising and I sincerely hope we can make it work.

In a couple of hours I will leave for Bucharest: last leg in the Capitals journey! I hope to bring home some exciting negatives.

Limbo

On the face of it, you would say my photography is in a rut for the moment. I don't think there has ever been a moment in the last five years that I burned as little film as I did in the last couple of weeks. It's terrible. Maybe it's the lacklustre winter light, or the work or whatever. But I don't seem to be able to grab a camera and go out. I haven't even tripped the shutter of my Brooks-Veriwide (and if there every was a sexy camera, this is it). The Leica CM travels everywhere with me in my backpack but rarely sees the light. I've also largely disconnected from what is happening in the photo club. Don't really know what is happening.

On the other hand, I haven been thinking a lot about photography. I love turning projects and potential projects around in my head. The Dresden visit has kindled an interest in "moral bombing" and I have read W.G. Sebalds "Luftkrieg und Literatur" and I am now enthralled by Jörg Friedrich's phenomenal study "Das Feuer". I don't know yet how to turn all of this into images, but something may come of it. There's another, very ambitious project in the wings on the poet Hölderlin. As a result I have been reading up on his biography, his work and the whole early Romantic period. Safranski's marvelous biography of Friedrich Schiller has been a true highlight. Again, not quite sure how the reading is going to link into the pictures, but it keeps me busy. End of April I am going on a photo workshop in Sicily (more precisely on the Eolian Islands; it's organised by Tuscany Photographic Workshops). This is certainly going to give the Mediterranean project a new lease on life. Finally, Marko Hehl has invited me to participate in an exhibition in Chemnitz. This would be my first venture abroad. The concept of the exhibition has yet to take shape and I'm discussing this with Marko too.

Finally, in a few days I will travel to Bucharest: the last leg in my European Capitals journey and a good occasion to let the Horizon spinning again (and probably for the last time). I am curious how the Romanian series is going to take shape. It's not a pretty place and the winter will add to the gloom.

Talking about the Capitals series: on Wednesday the dummy version of the book will finally be finished. Then it will become really tangible! On Thursday I am taking the book to a first trial by fire: maybe someone will be interested to buy significant number of copies of it. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I have also sent the finished design in as a contestant in the Leica European Publisher's Award for Photography 2007, but I hardly expect any success on that account. One has to be realistic.

The photo above has been taken on our ski holiday in Klosters. Nikon D80. Probably the only picture worth salvaging from the last couple of weeks ...