Such a lot was going on that I didn't find the time to blog. One of the most important things regarding my photography was the Street is Serious-Workshop I attended in Berlin. I expected it to be fun and a nice opportunity for networking, but it turned out to be much, much more. What was most valuable for me was the portfolio reviews. The guys, namely Severin Koller and Chris Weeks, pushed me in all the right directions. Simon Becker was there as local guest teacher and had some differing views, but in the end they all agreed on one thing: I'm a colour person. Well, yeah, now that you say it ...

It's funny, in Berlin I was the only girl and the only dedicated colour shooter. That made me feel quite exclusive in a good way :) Seems like everyone else is into black & white, which is nice and all, but for me color is just more interesting. And someone has to do it.

So I started to look for colours in the last weeks and months, and maybe I'm onto something here. It's good to have a guideline. I also tried to keep that in mind when the press trip season started and I managed to have two hours of my own in Beirut. In foreign cities you need some time to adapt, and the colour theme gave me something so hold on to, something to look for.

My new love for color demanded the instant acquisition of new photobooks for research and development. I bought The suffering of light by Alex Webb, who uses bright colours and dark shadows in an extraordinary way, as a part of composition, often quite complex ones. At the moment a definite favourite of mine. The title refers to Johann Wolfgang Goethes colour theory: Die Farben sind die Taten des Lichts, Taten und Leiden – "Colours are the deeds of light, its deeds and sufferings". Not scientificly correct, but nonetheless a beautiful thought. He was a poet, after all.

Maybe it has something to do with not being distracted, or maybe it has to do with knowing where to go. But I just feel at home when I am at home. I know my own city, I know where the light is most beautifully reflected by the skyscrapers, I know where and when the afternoon light comes around the corner and where the cobblestones glimmer after a light rain. I know where there is life even in the late evenings, where there are islands of light in dark winter and I know where to position myself to capture all that. I just know my city.

Don't get me wrong, I love travelling. And I love to take pictures in unknown surroundings. But often I am torn between wanting to capture the plain old sightseeing stuff (documenting where I went) and shooting street stuff (documenting the human cond... youknowwhatImean). Palladio buildings are nice, but also distracting. You are seeing things differently, the city, the architecture, the beauty of the place, all that. But that is mostly in my way when all I want to see is shape, light, juxtapositions and maybe some interesting people.

I really am glad that I live in a city that is of a reasonable size, has all kinds of architecture from gothic to skyscraper and looks good in photos. It's not beautiful, it's not New York, but it's interesting enough. I'm still not bored with it, even though I was born here and grew up here and still live here. I believe that here are many stories still waiting and many pictures want to be taken. I am just not finished with it. And i do not have to think much, I can trust my instincts. I wander the same route every saturday and hope for something to happen and scarcely I come home with nothing. Mostly something unfolds – sometimes something beautiful, sometimes something very strange. But that same old city just works for me.

Sometimes you come across something funny and photoworthy and even manage to take a decent picture of it, that can be postprocessed into something even more decent and you look at it and you are really satified with yourself.

And then for the next three weeks everything you do just isn't that great.

I mean, it's okay. Sort of. Nothing to be ashamed about. But you know it is probably just the filling material until the next great thing happens, the next decent shot that gives you a warm fuzzy feeling inside. Until then: Just something that keeps you occupied, something to practise on.

And it is great indeed that you are critical with you work and edit a lot and know that not everything that is kind of in focus is a masterpiece. You aren't a beginner anymore. But, please: Get rid of that feeling of utter futility every time you open Lightroom. Bother to take the camera out of your backpack when you are out and about. Scan that pile of negatives. DO SOMETHING! The next decent shot doesn't take itself, you'll have to at least cooperate.

... the gardens. Green and clean and full of life. Secret meeting-place for couples and picnic area for families.

... Cairo. Chaos and order and dust and way too many people and way too many buildings and don't even mention the cars. Vast and crowded and unnerving and beautiful and impressive and unbelievable at the same time.

... the rawness. The non-disneyness. The lack of plastic.

... the ancient monuments and how close they are. How many, and how people go about their ways being used to face human history of thousands of years on a daily basis. How they sit in front of the pyramids and have a picnic. Egyptians have picnics everywhere, even inside a Mosque.

... the Nile, how it brings life, still.

... the people. First and foremost it is the Egyptians, a friendly and quite humourous bunch, that make the country what it is. Sometimes it might even be a bit much, then smile and go away. But smile, because they do so as well.

... all Egypt here @ Flickr

Just in case anyone wondered: I still own my M9. And I use it regularly, like last weekend, when the sun threw harsh bolts of light across the streets and between the houses. It made for some extreme photos. Very different from the soft, powdery film look.

So I looked for the interesting spots and kind of lingered there. People must have wondered why I spend half an hour between the bike stands on the shopping street, but the light was so interesting. And you don't get run over. Bike stands are so practical and a blessing for street photographers. They just don't get enough appreciation. The bike stands, I mean.

This woman with the black balloons I just followed. But I had to be quick, it only took minutes to hand them all out.

Everything is so slow with my twin-lens Flexaret VI. Thinking about exposure, looking at light, framing, focusing, turning the advance knob, changing film. Buying film, getting film developed, waiting. Scanning. Getting used to it. Getting decent results. Falling in love with it. But eventually I did.

I'll always thought: Okay, this Flexathing might be nice for playing around before I get something decent, like a Rolleiflex. (When you think twin-lens, you think Rolleiflex, right?) Then I actually took a Rollei in my hands and found the focusing not as convenient. And, to be honest, I was quite content with the outcome of the czechoslovakian copycat. It works fine. The lens is not bad (even my Leica salesman had to admit that). It's light and reliable. Now I bought a brighter focusing screen (you get them from Rick Oleson), I unscrewed the camera and fumbled it into the slot, which was easier than I thought. Now it's even better. Brighter.

And now that springtime arrives and the world is growing greener, I feel the urge to add colour to my pictures, too. Not bright, vivid, perfect digital colour, but that powdery, film-like colour. It's Portra 160NC in this case and I love it. Just bought a batch today and not planning to return to b&w anytime soon. Not before autumn, I guess. And I am not planning to change to another twin-lens – probably these Rolleiflexes are overrated anyway. Or the Flexarets are underrated. In any case: It serves me well and I am happy with what I have.

Happy Anniversary, little M9! This household is officially a beleica'd one for a year now (first shot exif says Feb 27th, 2010, so it's exactly a year). I really have to hold myself back with praise because I could go on for hours. Of course it's not for everyone, but I cannot see myself ever returning to a DSLR. These huge, lumpy things, with all the displays and buttons and programs for cats and fireworks. It was nice while it lasted – but no, rangefinder it is for me.

So, how do I work on the street? Aperture between 2.8 and 5.6 usually. Under normal lighting conditions I use the A setting for Automatic. Against the light I measure and give it a little longer exposure. Takes less time than switching the modes on my DSLR. Outside I use about 250 Iso even in sunlight, because then I can use f4 or f5.6. And that's about it. Three numbers are all you need. Because then there's the focusing. You have to learn to guess distances, but don't worry, you will. And with a reasonable aperture you don't have to worry about ten centimetres more or less. The rest is instinct.

And the weekly expeditions to the city centre grew on me. Frankfurt never gets boring. It may not be a beautiful city, it really isn't, but it is interesting enough and on saturdays it gets really crowded, because all the action concentrates on a few hundred meters. There are some spots which never cease to amaze me: The Goethe Straße with the Chanel and Prada shops and the rich people showing off big cars and cute kids. And the Zeil with the ordinary folk and the huge department stores. And always a classic: The market hall. It is all there, you just have to be fast enough. (And you can. Even with an M9.)

Good news everyone! The sun is out again! Temperaturewise it is freezing outside, but at least it is not dark and/or grey anymore. The light is still cold and blueish and hits you frontally from a very low sun. So, interesting conditions to work with.

Or better say: work against. I decided for some contre jour these days. Including lots of lens flare from my trusty old summilux. It's not perfect, but I like it this way.

"What are you shooting?" a woman asked me. She added, she was a photographer herself.
"Oh, just silhouettes", I said. "The light is beautiful here."
"But that's against the light!" she said.
"Yes", I said. "That's against the light."

So that was 2010. Picturetakingwise a good one. I have a new job which doesn't include photography of mayors shaking hands, so I use the camera in my free time to walk around and look at people and surroundings. That is surprisingly relaxing, like meditation, it helps getting your mind off things. Also, as some of you might have noticed, I have a new camera, a Leica M9. Financial ruin never felt so good.

The year starts in Italy. In February I got my camera, in March I went south to try it out and practise for the Mille Miglia. Now this one was taken in Parma, where I tried to get quicker with the manual focusing. This is tricky, but also you have to decide where and on what to set the focus. With my DSLR I would just have fired, and probably the autofocus would have decided for me. Very probably it would have decided on the couple in the background. Actually I like my decision more, to let them have their privacy in the blur.

Mille Miglia! There we go! This one I took before the start in the evening, it had just rained, now the sun came out again and the light reflected on the wet asphalt. And it is one of my absolute favourites.

So how did it work out at the Mille Miglia with the M9? Quite fine. The good thing is, even in the dark I did not struggle as much as I did with the Pentax K10. I wasn't yet initiated in the mysteries of hyperfocal focusing, but enough of my photos turned out fine and I had no problems in sending a bunch back to the newspaper. They even printed one of the nightshots. And the one with Mika Häkkinen. I was so proud. This one above was taken on the last day: Siena, after three days spent in clouds of carbon dioxide, on the campo.

Back in Germany. Summer. Heat. A playgound in the forest, and a lot of spraying water. One of the nicest places when it's really, really hot, and there are huge lawns around and people have picknicks. Pictures that practically take themselves.

Yes, there is some visible noise when you use the M9 above 800 Iso. This one was taken before I got Lightroom 3 which has a remarkable noise reduction tool. I now go up to 1600, and after post production everything looks fine. Of course a fast lens helps. This was taken on the Mainuferfest with a 50mm/f 1.4 Summilux, my favourite lens from the beginning. One day I want to have a 35 Summilux as well, but prices have practically exploded with the success of the M9. When I tell people I have bought the 50mm on ebay for 600 Euros, they either begin to cry or laugh hysterically. I wasn't particularly lucky, I was just early. And the lens gives beautiful light blobs. But I like this picture especially because of the boys' expressions, you can see their anticipation.

I have already told the story of the dancers, but of course I had to include one of those in here. It was a lesson in blending in and what to do in terms of self-deprecation to get a good photo. I'd do a lot.

My most successful photo so far. I take part in the street photography now project which gives an instruction every week, for which you have to go out, find something and upload it on flickr. It is a competition, but foremost it is an incentive to go out and shoot, bring home stuff, upload it and discuss. This one was instruction #4: "Document some evidence of human ingenuity that would otherwise go unnoticed. Do it without including any humans in the picture", given by Michael Wolf. I still look forward to every friday when the new instruction is published.

This one I just like. No particular reason. And just an example of what people frequently do while walking around.

Oh, right. He he. This one was taken at one of the famous publishers parties at Frankfurt Book Fair, or, to be precise, during the afterparty hangout at Frankfurter Hof. It was four o'clock in the morning, I just had my third Scotch (Scapa, 18 yrs, very good), we were sitting in the smoker's lounge and without much ado or even moving at all I took this picture. It reminds me of a Tarantino film still for some reason. Probably my favourite portrait this year. (Which doesn't say much, as I rarely do portraits.)

My favourite victims are the rich and not-so-beautiful people of the Taunus hills who crowd Frankfurt on Saturdays in pursuit of quality shopping time. Yes, they are ugly, botoxed, tasteless, flashy and I have to admit, I am utterly fascinated by their kind. I walk up and down Goethestraße as often as I can to catch them. This was taken in the market hall, where the poorer ones without cooks congregate to buy their truffles and handmade pasta. (I do as well, but not on saturdays. Saturdays I go shooting.)

This was taken at Stilblüten-Modemesse, where the independent labels show and sell their stuff in Frankfurt. One of the organisers is the Label Goyagoya, to whom I am faithfully devoted as a customer. They also dressed the staff and turned them into goyagirls. These are three (and a half) of them. And that is just another picture I like.

2010 said goodbye with loads of snow. I like it, snow is just so photogenic. Here it is falling down in front of the incoming train, just some white flocks. So with this photo I say goodbye as well for now. I chose it because it is a bit edgy, and I often think, my photos have to get a bit edgier too. Just more surralism, more absurdity, less boring for sure. That's my new year's resolution for 2011: Take more interesting photos, and photos that are more interesting as well.

I don't know what you think, but for me there is a visible development in the course of this year. But maybe it's just in my head. This was one of the reasons I wanted to have this blog, to not just upload, but to evaluate, edit, and ask myself questions. So where am I? Still on the way and not yet there. Still training and struggling to get better. Of course. I wanted to look for something as a distinctive style and to take photos that are more than just pretty. And although I still have a lot to work on, I have some ideas where this might be going. I could have taken most of these pictures with a DSLR as well, but I guess the rangefinder pointed me towards a certain direction. And got me thinking more. Which is a good thing.

… Robert Doisneau
…Edouard Boubat
… William Klein
… Elliott Erwitt
… Mario Giacomelli
… Nan Goldin
…Thomas Ruff

Vivian Maier's life will be made into a full feature length documentary, and you can help! Look here: www.kickstarter.com
I'd be glad if this works out and look forward to my DVD.

There is a great graphic depiction of the ups and downs one suffers while learning to take pictures. Decent pictures, that is. Have a look here: Photographers life in a graph. While I left out the dreaded HDR hole (thank god), I seem to have plunged into the Dammit, I suck-Valley of Horrors.

It is exactly one year now since the day I ordered my M9. It was a good year in total, with many good pictures taken. But I started off with some really crappy stuff and now I am nowhere near I like to be. One year ago, you could say, I decided to get serious about it all, find a style, take photos that are more than just nice. I am working on it. Two or three days a week, at least. I take the camera with me and go strolling after work, aimlessly around the city, and take pictures. It is immensely relaxing, I enjoy doing it. So why bother if the outcome is not always satisfying?

But I bother, because constant struggle is the only way to get better, I believe. And sometimes you need some time off and do something completely different: Medium Format, Twin Lens. I bought myself a nice Czechoslovakian Flexaret VI off eBay, freshly CLAd, full working order and less than 100 Euros. Straight from Slovakia, no meter, no frills, no nothing. Just film and lens. So if you think a Rangefinder could slow you down, try this. It's like walking a turtle when you are used to a greyhound.

The metering works surprisingly well. First I used a very old exposure chart I found beneath my grandfathers camera gear. Then I bought a handheld meter, a Gossen Sixtomat. Cheap, but reliable. Once you have measured the scene, you can work the rest by continually adjusting exposure or aperture. And film is forgiving. Then you have to focus, then you have to expose, then you have to advance. Advancing doesn't involve a lever, so it takes a few seconds to scroll. You better use your one chance well, or the subject is gone. So if you go out on the street, concentrate.

So it's really basic. But I think, people have worked with that fifty years ago, why can't I? I can, sort of. It forces you to think differently when shooting and to wait a week for the films to be developed. It slows everything down, the whole process. After using the Flexaret for a while, an M9 seems a fast high tech machine. And foolproof. When I got my first film rolls back, I wasn't happy. Exposure was off, focus was somewhere else and the framing – don't ask. It took me about ten rolls to get the first acceptable pictures – a roll, that's nearly 10 Euros including development. And then I had to get a scanner because I wasn't happy with either quality or price of the lab scans. Which means another 200 Euros for an Epson v500. So, 400 Euros and several months later, the project starts to work. Does all that help me out of the Dammit, I suck-Valley? I have no idea. But at least it keeps me busy.