Berlin Place2Be

Kurfürstendamm. © Knut Skjærven

Many thanks to Leica for asking me to participate in the series Berlin Place2Be as a promotion for the Leica D-Lux 5. I wrote a short article. I took some pictures.

This is actually one of the first shots I made with the D-Lux 5 after arriving in Berlin April 2, 2011. This couple was standing at the same spot for a looong time. I could walk around them, cross the street and come back and take more pictures. They could have been hit by a truck and still be standing there. Who knows, maybe they still are. Italians I presume.

You  can read the full article here.

In the article there is mentioned of a project Berlin Black And White. That blog is a spin off of this blog. Just wanted you to know

Good luck with your own photographic project. If you don’t have one, get one.

Photograph’s Three Objects

Screenshot from Phenomenology and Photography.

There is a new and interesting post on Phenomenoloy And Photography. Please click the link to go there.  Or click the image.

Cartier-Bresson, Burri, Sander and …

Brass Behavior. © Knut Skjærven.

A couple of years back I started publishing a photograph every time I loaded a new post to barebones communication. Eventually, I also started getting more serious about photography not only shooting left and right, upstairs and downstairs. Family and cute dogs.

This summer I started a proper photographic project called Berlin Black and White. Today that project holds 212 pictures from Berlin. There are more photographs to come. An exhibition and a book is also in the pipeline.

I couple of weeks ago I was approached by Frieder Zimmerman and Bernd Korte. They operate a German photosite, and they do their own publishing. “Are you interested in showing some of your pictures at our site?” Frieder asked me. I said “yes, selbstverständlich.” Now we are up running with 27 of the 212 pictures from Berlin Black and White.

Please visit the site at F11 photography. Click Expo 1 to get to the portfolio. The virtual exhibition will run from October 1, 2010, plus two months.

If is not everyday, by the way, I get mentioning in the same text as celebrities like Henri Cartier-Bresson, René Burri and August Sander. I don’t know how it is with you? I am honoured .

I thought I would let you know.

Here is the newsletter from 30 September 2010 (nr. 24):

Liebe Freunde unserer Website F11 photography,

Straßenfotografie ist die Kunst zur rechten Zeit am rechten Ort zu sein. Als distanzierter Beobachter doch nah genug zu sein, um mit Bildern Geschichten zu erzählen oder sogar selbst Teil der Geschichte zu werden. Straßenfotografie ist nicht die Jagd nach Schnappschüssen mit einem Teleobjektiv, sondern das Erfassen und Darstellen von Situationen. Große Meister haben diese Form der Fotografie zur Kunst erhoben. Henri Cartier-Bresson, René Burri, in gewissem Maß auch August Sander, sind berühmte Fotografen, die in diesem Zusammenhang immer wieder genannt und gezeigt werden. Viel Geld müsste man ausgeben, wenn man eines Ihrer Originale kaufen wollte.

Auf der Suche nach neuen Talenten haben wir Ihnen im Juni 2008 an dieser Stelle den Amerikaner, Phil DeVries, mit seinen eindrucksvollen Bildern aus New Orleans vorgestellt. Heute freuen wir uns besonders, Knut Skjaerven, als Norweger in Kopenhagen lebend, zu präsentieren.

Knut schreibt über sich selbst: “Ich habe Phenomenology und visual arts studiert. Ernsthaft zu fotografieren habe ich erst vor wenigen Jahren begonnen. Und damit meine ich, bei einem Thema zu bleiben, einen Stil zu entwickeln, der Wiedererkennbarkeit ermöglicht.

“Berlin Black and White” ist eigentlich mein erster Versuch, ein wichtiges fotografisches Projekt umzusetzen. Dabei macht es diese Stadt mit seiner Offenheit, seiner Multikultur einfach, fotografische Vorstellungen umzusetzen.”

Wir freuen uns, einige Bilder von Knut Skaerven zeigen zu dürfen und wünschen Ihnen genügend Ruhe und Muße beim Anschauen auf F11 photography . Klicken Sie danach bitte auf Expo 1.

Wenn Sie mehr über die Arbeit von Knut Skjaerven erfahren wollen, schauen Sie mal in seinen Blog: Berlin Black and White .

Ihr F11 photography – Team

Frieder Zimmermann und Bernd Korte

Dear friends of our website F11 photography!

Street photography is the ability to be on the spot on time and though being a distant observer to be close enough to tell stories with pictures or even becoming a part of the story oneself. This does not mean taking snapshots with a tele lens, but realizing and presenting specific moments. Works of famous photographers like Henri Cartier-Bresson, René Burri and August Sander have always been quoted and shown in this context. We would have to afford quite a bit to buy one of their originals.

Looking for new talents F11 has already presented the American Phil DeVries with his impressive New Orleans street-pictures in 2008. Today we are very glad to introduce to you Knut Skjaerven, a Norwegian, living in Copenhagen.

He says about himself: “I have studied phenomenology and visual arts and have become a serious photographer for a few years only. For me this means to stick to a theme, to develop a personal style of recognition for others.

“Berlin Black and White” actually is my first attempt to realize such a project. Berlin with its cosmopolitan and multicultural character is an easy and thrilling offer to realize my photographic ideas.”

We are looking forward to show some of Knut Skjaerven’s photos and do hope you’ll be able to watch them with leisure on F11 photography, clicking Expo 1.

In case you ‘d like to get more information about his work you should call up his Blog

“Berlin Black and White”.

Your F11 photography team

Bernd Korte and Frieder Zimmermann

Handbook of Phenomenological Aesthetics.

Marlboro Man

There is a new post on Phenomenology and Photography. It is about a new book from German Springer: Handbook of Phenomenological Aesthetics. An impressive work. Click image to go there.

Enjoy.

The Photographer´s Eye.

Photographer's Eye. Copyright 2010: Knut Skjærven

“The first thing a photographer learned was that photography dealt with the actual; he had not only to accept this fact, but to treasure it: unless he did, photography would defeat him. He learned that the world itself is an artist of incomparable inventiveness, and to recognize its best works and moments, to anticipate them, to clarify them and make them permanent, requires intelligence both acute and supply.”

John Szarkowski: The Photographer’s Eye, The Museum of Modern Art, New York 2009.

Barthes on Studium and Punctum

Screen Shot from Phenomenology and Photography

You may have noticed that there is a new post on Phenomenology and Photography. Click the link, or click the picture above to go there.  The post is about what Barthes actually meant with the terms studium and punctum applied to photography. You will find the answers in that post.

Enjoy.

While Waiting for Godot.

Berlin Black and White. Screenshot.

While doing a bit of waiting for Godot, I have set up a new blog Berlin Black and While. Please visit.

Maybe you have noticed that I have quite a lot of photographs from Berlin on barebones communication already? Why is this so since Berlin is not even my home town?

The answer is simple. Of all the cities I have visited Berlin is definitely the best I have found for photography. (And, by the way, it is not that far away).

Berlin is large enough to still explore every time I go there. Both spaces and places are really good, but most of all are the frictions of history still very much alive there. You can see that in the architecture  and you can sense it when you move around in the city. You can see it in the people.

Say it briefly: Berlin is an extremely photogenic city. My cameras love it. Very much so.

This is why there now is a special photo blog on Berlin. Black and White it is.

Enjoy.

Kairos – Phenomenology and Photography.

Decisive Moment, Copyright 2009: Knut Skjærven.

I can’t say much about this book yet. Other than it is here. I got a mail from Zeta Books yesterday, and they told me so.

I wrote to the author Chan-fai Cheung, Dr. Phil.. Besides being a keen photographer and a teacher of phenomenology, he also is Professor and Chairman, Department of Philosophy, at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. Among many other things.

One review copy is in the post to me from Hong Kong, and I really look forward to reading and reviewing it. I already downloaded an ebook version, but that will never be the same, will it?

Stay tuned for a review, and probably much more on this book. Oh,  Kairos is an old Greek word, and it basically means “decisive moment”.

Have a good day.

……………………

For full information about the book, please go here.

Telenot Commercial

Telenor’s overall marketing concept this season is that they want to help and support you. Hardly an USB position,  but fair enough. Telenor is trying to trick you into one of their stores where the staff can act as gods/guides to the complicated world of telecommunication. How to set up Facebook on your mobile phone, for instance? Fair enough even here, and I am sure that this is a relevant message for some.

But why make a simple message like this more complicated than it really it? I consider their last commercial on the Danish market as an expensive, confusing and artistically blown out example of how you muddle a basically good idea. My 2P. It hardly moves anything. Least of all market shares.

I might do a proper  CET (Communication Efficiency Test) on this commercial. Yes, I think I will.

Please take my wording here as a result of first impressions. That might change after a test.

Read more about Telenor Danmark.

Yet this is a delusion.

Kids in Alley. Knut Skjærven.

“The world of perception, or in other words the world which is revealed to us by our senses and in everyday life, seems at first sight to be the one we know best of all. For we need neither to measure nor to calculate in order to gain access to this world and it would seem that we can fathom  it simply by opening our eyes and getting on with our life. Yet this is a delusion. In these lectures, I hope to show that the world of perception is, to a great extent, unknown territory as long as we remain in the practical or utilitarian mode. I shall suggest that much time and effort, as well as culture, have been needed in order to lay this world bare and that one of the great achievements of modern art and philosophy (that is, the art and philosophy of the last fifty to  seventy years) has been to allow us to rediscover the world in which we live, yet which we are always  prone to forget.”

Maurice Merleau-Ponty: The World of Perception, Routledge London New York  2004. (Translated by Oliver Davis).

This is a barebones pitstop post. For more of the same, please go to pitstop puzzle.

Library Thing.