Curry and Cucumber Pinholes

Curry – the golden Indian mixture of turmeric, pepper, coriander, cumin, garlic, buckwheat clover, mace, black pepper, chilli, allspice and cardamom.

Each of these spices contains phenols, some more (for example, chilli and turmeric – they act as an antioxidant against free radicals, antiinflammatory and anticancerous), some less (cardamom). Together they celebrate a golden, hot, warming party!

Combined with soda and vitamin C they develop photo paper, giving nice soft shades of gray, and the coloring power of turmeric tones it yellowish or for some strange reason rather a little greenish!!

And now: Cucumber!

Cucumbering – SD 480p

Yesterday – see the video above – I mixed some cucumber pickles water developer! I did it before and I know it works fine … now again because I’m actually producing a handful of photo prints for a little exhibition (me amongst many other artists, it’s a kind of benefits event for a gallery here in Berlin-Neukölln).

And there will be a winter market in December at my beloved spot “Silent Green” where I’ll have a stand exhibiting some pieces, mostly … you guess it … photos that I developed in various magical soups!

A Flock Of Flickers In November

Achchch, my little webinar meeting pot! I thought it would come to an end … nobody showed interest to participate in summer … I guess everybody was on holiday or whatever …
Anyway: yesterday I had 3 lovely people from Germany and Ireland and we talked 2 hours about super 8 and ecological developing!

Here’s a 2 minutes short recap!! On YouTube!

La Meko Film Festival

My film ‘Audry Lornacle or 14 Days in DJ’s House’ just had its world premiere at the La-Meko Film Festival in Landau in the Palatinate / Pfalz (I was there two months ago and gave a workshop!).

What is La Meko? It started 20 years ago in the Media Education/Communication Psychology (FaMeKo) department of the Institute for Media Education and Communication Psychology (IKM) at the University of Koblenz-Landau … phew … in short: La Meko! Maybe it also means ‘Landau media goblin’… And since then, this small but excellent festival has been around.
I’m now a fan and have a subscription … Next year, I’ll be doing another workshop there on pinhole photography!

I was there for four days: it’s so far south-west that it wasn’t as cold as in Berlin … the vineyards glowed yellow and red, and France is only 30 minutes away by train (Wissembourg / Weissenburg). I went there to buy cheese!

Rosenkohlfilm / Brussel Sprout Film

My friend Judith visited me and on a wine-fuelled evening, we came up with a crazy film idea involving Brussels sprouts… developed in Brussels sprout juice, of course.
The background is this: every year at the Hamburg Short Film Festival, there is a category called ‘Flotter Dreier’ (Threesome): films up to 3 minutes long on a specific theme. The theme this year is ‘3’.
Our Brussels sprouts film is called “3 Leute, die 3 Minuten auf TriX 3 Mal Rosenkohl verfilmen” / “3 people filming Brussels sprouts 3 times in 3 minutes on TriX”. Total nonsense but lots of fun. At the moment the film is being digitized. Coming later … watch out!

Paulinenaue Paulinenaue Paulinenaue

Paulinenaue Paulinenaue Paulinenaue Kilom Kilom Kilom Kilompompom Gun
A nonsense film, perhaps.
This Super 8 cassette (Kodak Plus-X) lay forgotten in my possession for 15 years until I developed it. That’s why the film is so faded, damaged and knackered!

Click here to watch it on Vimeo!

Cow Parade

Kodachrome & Prosecco and some other yummy soups!
The story continues … Yesterday I tried Prosecco! The result is good but less orange-ish!
Watch these gifs (bad resolution, sorry, better coming later)!

(The original Kodachrome negative is yellow / orange … then I digitized it with my fancy Sumikon machine and flipped it over to positive / complementary colour: blue!)
In conclusion, I can say: You can expose Kodachrome film (make sure it’s relatively fresh, don’t use any from the 70s or early 80s!) to plenty of sunlight, and then you’ll have a chance of getting some good pictures.
And then you can bathe it in different developers: ‘normal’ chemicals or Caffenol or all kinds of juices / teas, the result will always be more or less yellowish to bright orange!

Uroma / Greatgranny

From “Ode an Juni 13”: “Making jam made me think of an early childhood memory: great-grandma, skinny, old and dark, standing in the doorway of a dark house, smelling warm and like … marmelade!”

I realize that I love drawing. Spontaneously and without thinking. I shall do it more. Drawing film maybe. Watch out!

My Last Workshop Of This Year

… took me to the countryside! More precisely: 2 hours north of Berlin, near Angermünde.

A former student of the DFFB (Wiki says: “The Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin (DFFB) was founded on 17 September 1966 as the first film school in West Germany, officially opened by the Mayor of Berlin, Willi Brandt. Established as a non-profit limited company under the sole ownership of the State of Berlin.
In the late 1960s, DFFB became involved in student political movements; in May 1968 the school was briefly occupied and renamed, and later that year 18 students were expelled amid debates over management and governance.
From the 1970s onward, the academy was associated with politically engaged and documentary filmmaking.”)…

… bought an old, large railway station building together with friends. The station is still a station, trains come and go … but the large building was no longer needed (buy your tickets online!).

My co-teacher Ute, six students and I lived, worked, cooked, ate, slept and developed there for two days.
16 mm film, developing with food scraps, chestnuts and flowers… in buckets! Great fun and wonderful results!

And that was it for this year (or was it?) with the workshops. I will now have a little more time for my own projects!

Gym

Yes. I’m starting now in my late age to be a little bit sporty. I’m going to the gym now. Twice a week. Started 2 days ago, cool gym coach Mary instructing me and made a nice plan with me. No excuse any more. It’s “Just Move” in Bergmannstrasse. Women only. Super atmosphere and I can go there by bike. Yes.

Norgaardholz – Film

I made a very short film recently when I spent a wonderful week at my mother’s at the Baltic Sea in August.
I remember … a timeless feeling lying in the sand in the sun … and the Baltic Sea was for once in my lifetime not too cold to swim!

Here’s the film!

Ostsee!

Ich liebe die Ostsee! I love the Baltic Sea! This time I was so lucky … had a full week of sunshine, low wind, nice heat, no rain! Quite unusual!!
I met with my brother and nephew, we helped Mama with house and garden (it’s a bit like a new beginning for her since my father died earlier this year …).
Some images!