Mai
16
I am guest teacher at Münster Art Academy! I teach analogue film and eco developing! Two weeks only, but very intense, 5 students participating!
The weather was gorgeous the first week, so we did part of the process outside!
Mai
9
One year ago (it was actually in June and July 2021) I started a pinhole photo project: I take something from nature (the image and the developing ingredients like clover, sage, peppermint, food waste etc) and I give it back: I hang the photo in the place where it was taken. It remains there until it gets stolen, rained down, or weathered.
It is in transit, it will disappear, but that doesn’t matter, the flowers are wilting as well and the trees are losing their leaves.
Nothing is forever, but for a while it is just there, delightful: kiss the moment, it’s not a pyramid!
(This installation was part of the exhibition THE GARDEN. CINEMATICS OF THE SOIL at Silent Green Kulturquartier, Berlin 2021)
Now one year later the photos are still hanging there! Some torn, all a bit withered … but still so beautiful!
Mai
1
What is an impex actually? A disease? An input? Is it Latin? No, much easier: “business, (in company names) import and export”.
Anyway, Foto-Impex is my favourite photo shop in Berlin, they sell all the sweet stuff that I need … photo paper, fix and developer, sheet film … all Adox and all Foma and all the others!
Big kiss goes out to them!!
Apr
18
… Hiking! With my friend Gesine and her dog Sumi! 12 km! Yay! 77 km away from Berlin! Pure joy and forgetting about miserable things one day long. New leaves, crisp air, a freshly born spring … the earth is such a beautiful space if only …
Apr
10
The weather is ugly, spring won’t come, winter lingers here forever, so I stay inside and tinker with old and new film stripes …
Apr
7
Mrz
29
Mrz
23
There is an interesting small film and photo company in France called WASHI FILM: “Film Washi is the world’s smallest company to produce photographic materials. Specialized in handcrafted film making and industrial film conversion, Film Washi offers a wide range of unique and innovative films.”
This is their website: http://filmwashi.com
I bought a 500 ASA film and used it in my little pinhole camera. Maybe it was a bit preexposed, it has funny light leaks at the perforation … but I like it anyway!
Mrz
22
Mrz
21
Mrz
20
Mrz
18
Mrz
16
Mrz
15
Feb
22
My shop is online!
Full of nice pictures: pinhole and super 8! Colour and b&w! And a comic book!!
Click on the image or here >>> Dagie’s Shop
And HERE is a short Welcome Film!
Feb
21
Placing soda-soaked brokkolis on a stripe of old Kodachrome super 8 film (see posting February 17), leaving it there for a while, then rinsing and fixing it, gives you a nice leopard pattern!!
Feb
19
Yes, there are things that can go wrong … I developed two super 8 films and both came out blank. An old Agfachrome: blueish and an old Kodachrome: light orange. Too old, bad storage, natural decay … this can happen even if the chemicals are super fresh and my hands are magic 😉
Feb
18
Feb
17
Some film experiments with vegetables. I marinated them for a couple minutes in soda-vitamin-c-water and then placed them on film stripes. Interesting pattern! Will be fixed and rinsed afterwards so that they will be stable. More to come!
Feb
14
Feb
13
This is a report about how things can go awfully wrong and in the end can become something beautiful and just … magically matching somehow.
Maybe it will be a bit too chemical and diving deep in photographical layers … but it will be funny too, promised!
I spent a week at my friend’s spot on the countryside and we had some very cool film and story ideas. Yes, sometimes I am not totally self-centered … with the right person there can be a swinging mood in the air vibes!!
We took a black&white TriX film (fresh from Kodak), filmed our ideas and then decided to develop it reversal. Meaning: positive. It is much more complicated than developing it negative. Which I do all the time using coffee and my breakfast remains and such things.
Reversal developing needs a very strong bleach to get rid of the first developed black silver. Then there’s a second exposure to light (the first exposure happened when the film was, well, exposed in the camera!) to activate the sleeping silver salt molecules which will then turn black when they get in contact with the second developer. Phew!
We used FOMA chemicals. FOMA is a czech factory that produces lovely stuff like foto paper, films and chemicals.
First developer, bleach bath, clear bath, and then: the moment when you shiver and open the tank lid and see: YES! Pictures! (a film that has just come out of a bleach bath looks milky-white with clear images). The rest of the procedure can be done in daylight.
So we rinsed it and then poured the second developer over the 15 meters of well-bleached film … and then Yell and Shriek: the emulsion began to fall off! To peel off! To run away in flakes!!! The images that we just saw just slipped away under our fingers! Out with you, developer! Some seconds in fix, no rinsing, just carefully hanging the long spaghetto to dry … and then scanned it the next day.
Now what happened here? I know that this bleach made from permanganate and sulfuric acid gives a lot of stress to the emulsion … softens it and makes it very sensitive and vulnerable – better not touch or rub too much! So was it the harsh and strong second developer that crushed it? Is the Czech soup too strong for a TriX?
Next day brings freshness in mind and mood. Somehow the two-third destroyed film appeared miraculous to us … and to the film story. We thought about defocussing, about stuff that happens in the corners of your eyes, of your consciousness, about second sight … and the film and the story melt, kiss and prosper!
This is just a little glimpse into it, I think the real film will be a longer one than usual and it will take a while. I am happy.
Watch a little Trailer on Youtube!!
Jan
31
Nice, France, lately.
Jan
24
Phew … that was intense!!
5 more coffee developings and one last soup made from many fruit (oranges, lemons, pommegranate, onion …) and some Tannenzweige … errr … Christmas tree twigs! And cocoa powder! Wonderful result! Going to get all 8 films digitized … you will see them soon!
Good night and day!!
Jan
18
More filming, more developing!
We cooked a soup together … made from all our breakfast remains like banana, apple, kiwi peels, some cold coffee, tangerines and lemons, weird Russian tomato goo, sweet potato peels, dried mushrooms and cranberries and perhaps some more! All mixed and with the added soda and vitamin c turned out to be a decent developer!!
Jan
17
I am giving an intense 2-weekends Super 8 film shooting and eco developing workshop in Berlin!
Day 1 Saturday, day 2 yesterday. In a very special place right in the core of Berlin (the former East part), at Alexanderplatz. In a very special space: Bi’bak / SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA.
Here is the Link X
This is how they describe themselves:
“SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA explores cinema as a space for social discourse, a place for exchange and solidarity. SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA brings together diverse social communities, links geographically distant and nearby places, the past, present and future, and decentres an eurocentric view through transnational, (post-) migrant and postcolonial perspectives. SİNEMA TRANSTOPIA is a transtopia, a place where “cross-border ties and connections converge, are reinterpreted and condense into everyday contexts” (Erol Yıldız). As part of the pioneering urban policy Initiative Haus der Statistik, the cinema experiment bridges the gap between everyday urban practices and film to create an alternative art form that connects different social perspectives.”
I love to be part of it! We are a group of 12 coming from all parts of the world (Chinese, Turkish, Swiss, Brazilian, Russian, German) working, playing, developing and exploring together for a certain time. It is intense and beautiful!
Jan
12
How great it feels … sometimes I am aware how centralized I live, how hipsteresque and how deep in the middle of yumminess!
Just step out the door of my house and fall into the best Ramen Restaurant that there is in Berlin-Kreuzberg! Cocolo Ramen X-berg, Graefestraße 11!
Cocolo means … heart. The hot and spicy noodle soup gives me the heat that I need for this winter!
Jan
6
Me at rbb, a local TV …
I appear from minute 30:25.
Click here or on the picture!!
Or click here for just me, not the zoo director report before … on youtube!
Jan
4
