Curcuma Miracle

I have a bad shoulder. It hurts. Right arm (mouse arm!). Inflammation. I try soft movements and applied some Voltaren (anti-inflammatory gel), stinky chemical ointment … but then I read about curcuma. The yellow spice. The little sister of ginger.

Mix 1 spoonful curcuma with 2 spoons coconut oil and massage it into the hurting body part. It’s all yellow, my hands and my shoulder look as if I’m transforming into a Simpson and it smells soft and lovely spicey. For more curcuma power heat a cup of almond milk, add one spoonful curcuma and drink it.

And you know what, I did it last night and this morning the pain was … gone.
It is amazing. So powerful. Plant, you’re a miracle, thank you!

Sorbit, Maltit, Isomalt, Xylit, Aspartam, Acesulfam K

Wow … isn’t this yummy? I got a box of chewing gum product sample from Telekom. Nice!
Give me telephones and make your cables broader, but please: hands off food!
Are you nuts? 6 different artificial sugars, at least one of them supposed to m a y b e cause cancer … Wouldn’t only one have been enough? Or … REAL sugar?
Sigh …

I’m Back

I was not away though ….. just superbusy. Hey! I shall not forget to blog! It’s fun! Spread images, love and beauty, the world needs it. OK, noted it.
Thank you Global Super 8 Day …. yes Super 8 became 50 recently and the world celebrated it. There are thousands of spots on this globe dedicated to that funny small format … showing, filming, developing (me! And the Echo Park Film Center!) … thank you Solothurn and Basel in Switzerland for hosting me and the cool people there who participated.

And now it’s winter and I’m pouring silver snow flakes on stripes of film hoping to create magical images. What does it mean? Any suggestions?

Avanti!

Wow ….. that was my very first developing performance … outside my intimate bathroom. Avantfilm, you’re my hero.
I filmed a roll of TriX super 8 film in Stockholm, filled two Jobo tanks each with 4 meter stripes of it, collected flowers, leaves and birch bark in Stockholm and Karlstad (thank you Stina!), filled my water bottle with lake water from Lake VĂ€nern (light yellow) and prepared tea. And Caffenol. Added Aqvavit. Did it – with a superlovely participating audience who set their phones on 10 minutes developing time countdown and at precise ringalingadingdong the show was over, the film developed, I fixed it, hung it up at the gallery ceiling and what? Images! Hooray!!!

Stockholm2

Summer is definitely over now …. I discover beautiful deserted places … you can swim for free everywhere: the water is clean! Next year come again! And then have a nice outdoor gym in the park (Tantengymnastik?).

My favourite bridge, connecting Gamla Stan with Södermalm:

The Holy Triangle:
Kardamom, Vanilla and Cinnamon bun! Buy three, get happy!

Stockholm1

On a trip to Avantfilm in Karlstad, Sweden, where I’m luckily invited to show some films of mine and to give a little performance on film developing with coffee, plants and Aqvavit, I play holiday in Stockholm 3 days before. Landed safely in Arlanda (what a beautiful name!), getting wet under heavy rain, admiring amazing cloud formations, sleeping on a boat … some impressions! More tomorrow!

Eastman Ektachrome Commercial Film SO-425

This post is dedicated to Peaceman / Friedemann and his film experiment blog called Filmkorn!
He bought a heavy load of very expired (1971!!!) old colour double super 8 film rolls and gave me some to play and experiment with.
This film is rare, has about 6 ISO and was used as a copy film.
He did several tests with E6 and some replacements of the not too well working first developer, used Dokumol and Diafine and got very very different results!

He inspired me to continue his tests using eco friendly first developer!
And what came out is just fantastic.

E6′ first developer is weak and boring, Caffenol is best, Rodinal is lovely, black tea, if too strong, distroys the colour layers beautifully and Vodka makes you think you are hallucinating!!!!!

(from left to right: E6, tea, Rodinal, Caffenol)
(The vodka film stripe comes later, not yet scanned)

MĂŒggeling

One hot summer day at MĂŒggelsee. Berlin – Friedrichshagen – Tram 61 to „Licht- und Luftbad MĂŒggelsee“ – Licht und Luft – Light and Air! Ducks come close, water is medium cool – I love it. A tiny little feeling of very late summer appeared and made me feel just a little … blue. Lake blue. Sky blue.

Because The Night 



 belongs to Patti!
Wow, that was one of the best concerts ever in my life, I’m still sweaty smelly and glowing, Patti Smith @ Tempodrom in Berlin, the Horses Concert. She’s so cool, I wanna be like her when I’m old, oops, I’m close before, she’s not that much older, wearing her rock’n’roll gray hair like a timeless angel, smiling about 15 times towards us, the loving audience. Power galore and all these horses songs that catapult me back when I was still at school and sweaty and smelly and in love with the wrong guy and dancing my barefoot feet away in Halle / Westfalen.
Sorry for the bad iPhone picture (3gs), Patti beams that much! I love her for her music, her power, her beauty, her lyrics, her yelling out messages. Multiplying earth and life love, I hope.

Solarisation Miracle

I shot some colour film cassettes for my 2015 „Ode To June“ film and developed them myself. Colour reversal in E6. Something must have happened with the last cassettes, the chemicals became weird? Was it too tropical outside? Did I shake the film too little while it was bathing in its colour developer?
Anyway … I got something that you can never get if you want to have it like that on purpose … the film solarised. The result is 2 minutes of the most beautiful bizarre dreamy images I ever shot!

Silent Butterfly Kisses In The Green

There is a new venue in Berlin. In Berlin-Wedding. A former crematorium. Sounds spooky but is not at all. Silent Green. The official opening will be in autumn this year, but the unofficial has just taken place: music and films and wine and dance and a beautiful summer night! Good souls lingering! Me showing films (here you see a super 8 projection of „Butterfly kisses“. And a wonderful slide installation all around!

Photo © Tom Grenz

Saving Images

How I love what I do! People google how to develop long dead film formats, colour and black&white, that no film lab would develop any more because film gelatine parts might peel off …. well, they find me. I do it!
Recently I had an Agfa CNS 110-20 – small format colour negative film which I developed carefully and got at least some pale images with some beautiful mistakes … perhaps condensed fluid that had settled on the film layer over the years … the decades??
Anyway … I save images and I love it.

Let’s Drink Champagne, They Are Here!

This is for you, Paolo & Lisa, 2 of my alltime favourite friends!
In Berlin for one month, giving an awesome workshop, making a film (together with 20 people, kids, twens, oldies) on super 8: The Sound We See: Berlin!
More soon here, sorry I forgot to blog earlier – so involved!!
I’ll be back soon!!