May 1st in Berlin
Just a few photos from the first of May in Berlin. Unlike last year at Myfest, our second May 1st in Berlin was spent walking around the city, stopping to meet friends at Holzmarkt and in Görlitzer Park with a quick walk through the festival on our way home. After a long winter of hibernating, Erster Mai in Berlin this year felt like the real marker of spring and the upcoming summer and like always, it is a really special day to be in the city.
Police, Police, everywhere. Mostly they were just hanging out prepared for the worst, which never came.
Olympus Photography Playground
with lots of engagement sessions right now, my mind is constantly dreaming up shots of couples in love. My lovely friends happily obliged me with some PDA :)
Olympus is currently hosting a Photography Playground at the Opernwerkstätten here in Berlin, which is exactly what it sounds like- a playground for photographers. Twelve international artists created installations in the 7,000 m² space with the theme of “Space and Art” creating a giant interactive exhibit. Both of my visits to the playground had me feeling a bit like a kid in a candy shop, and took me back to my days studying photography in college where I was constantly experimenting and learning about my camera. Olympus allows you to borrow and test out their new OM-D digital camera at the playground and then give you the SD card to take home with you, just make sure to bring your passport along so you are able to borrow the camera. Half of the images above were taken on that camera by Andreas and the other half were taken by me on my Canon 5D Mark II. Can you tell which are which? The exhibit runs until May 24th and I highly recommend a visit for anyone in Berlin, whether you are a photographer nerd like me or a hobbyist, make sure to check it out!
Olympus OM-D Photography Playground
Zinnowitzer Straße 9 · Berlin (Sbahn Nordbahnhof)
11am – 7pm Daily until May 24, 2013
Exploring Berlin | Botanischer Garten
A few weeks ago when it was still very much winter here in Berlin, Thea and I found comfort in a warm oasis within Berlin. We were doing a bit of location scouting at the Botanischer Garten for the cover shoot of the new issue of sisterMAG (which I photographed and will be released in early May). Spending just a short time in the warmth of the greenhouse did wonders on my mood. We spent all of our visit exploring the different climates within the greenhouse, but I imagine the space outside in the surrounding gardens are beautiful in the spring and summer when they are green and blooming, it is a shame that during our visit they were still covered in snow. We will just have to make another visit back now that it is finally spring!
Berlin Botanischer Garten
Königin-Luise-Straße 6-8
14195 Berlin
weekend
Our weekend in photos, also just an excuse to post a ton of Hazel pics:
JR’s photo from his series Wrinkles of the City down the street from our apartment in Mitte
Waking up to these two cuddling makes my heart explode. My phone is full of pictures like this one and on Saturday morning I managed to pull out my real camera to document the cuteness.
The rest of the images are from Sunday afternoon at the Park am Nordbahnhof and Humboldthain Park, which we discovered has some amazing views of the North part of the city from one of the World War II bunkers in the park. This city never fails to surprise me.
Weekend
Spring’s arrival in Berlin was long overdue and welcomed with open arms, and it felt like everyone came out of a long hibernation and was enjoying the warmer weather. There is something sort of magical about the beginning of a new season, especially spring as the days get warmer and longer. In a city like Berlin it is amazing what a few days of sunshine can do for everyone’s spirits- suddenly people are smiling as they pass you in the street, shopkeepers are nicer and people seem to literally have a spring in their step. We spent most of the weekend outside and soaked up all the sun we could, as no one knows how long it will stay.
We met friends on Saturday at the Winterfeldtplatz Markt and proceeded to eat snacks from almost every stand there, or at least it felt like that. It was my first time at the market there and I loved all the local producers and food stands, we will definitely be visiting again soon.
After an afternoon catching up with friends, we walked back from Schöneberg and randomly decided to go to the top of the Siegessäule.
Hazel somehow forgot how much she used to love her bike basket and graced us with her annoyed face, which she pulls off oh so well. what a diva.
Sunday was spent riding bicycles and lounging at Tempelhofer Feld, along with what felt like half the city’s population.
Beer and French Fries = an incredibly nutritious lunch at the Biergarten at Tempelhof, which was followed up with a scoop of ice cream from Erste Sahne.
And we finished the weekend off with an evening scooter ride to Charlottenburg where we randomly decided to stop at Aroma for Chinese food. In case you are curious, their pork buns were AMAZING.
I hope all of you had great weekends too! Inspired by my friends, Field Office, I decided to open a shop on Society 6 and am excited to offer more print sizes and iPhone skins and cases of my photos. Check it out here!
Cereal Magazine Volume 2
I was so excited to see that the Postman had delivered the new issue of Cereal Mag today, and I was lucky to be asked to photograph two stories inside the magazine. Cereal Magazine is a beautiful new print magazine from the UK focused on food and travel, which just so happen to be two of my favorite things as well. :) The new issue has a wonderful Berlin travel section including not only the stories I photographed featuring R.S.V.P. and the city’s most popular street food, currywurst, but also two beautifully written and photographed stories about the Jewish Museum and the Bauhaus Archives (both are places I still need to visit- maybe this weekend we can go check them out, it is certainly perfect museum weather!). For Berlin friends, you can pick up a copy of Cereal Magazine at Do you read me? and for everywhere else, click here for a full list of stockists.
I will definitely be spending the long weekend enjoying the new issue as I am hoping to take a much needed break away from my computer. Do you have any big plans for the Easter holiday? Usually we get away for the long weekend, but this year we will be lying low, catching up on sleep and trying to not slip and break any bones on the icy streets. Please tell me some of you are going somewhere warm!
Check out some outtakes from the shoots for Cereal Mag here.
David Hasselhoff at the East Side Gallery Protest
the guy on the right had a boombox inside of a suitcase and was blasting “I’ve been looking for freedom” – mood music at its finest!
When I saw all the excited chatter on twitter that David Hasselhoff was coming to Berlin to support the protest against the destruction of the East Side Gallery, I knew we needed to go and witness this piece of youtube history. I have always found his connection to Germany mildly fascinating and yesterday’s event was definitely an experience. I somehow got swept up into the massive crowd following behind David and made a silly little video of the highlights. Keep in mind I was getting pushed from pretty much every direction so it is pretty shaky, but you can hear the Hoff break out into song :) which is obviously what we were all hoping he would do. Although, I am not going to lie, I was a little bummed that he didn’t bring the jacket he wore in 1989 when he sang on the wall. Apparently he has promised that if the petition to save the East Side Gallery is successful, he will come back and throw a huge concert here in Berlin. Drücken wir die Daumen (fingers crossed)!
exploring berlin | stasi museum
A few weeks ago on a very snowy Sunday afternoon, Andreas and I ventured east to Lichtenberg to visit the Stasi Museum. The museum is housed in the former Stasi Headquarters building which was stormed by protesters on January 15, 1990 during the collapse of the GDR. When it became clear the East German government was going to fall, Stasi officials had holed themselves up in the building destroying and shredding Stasi documents and after the some of the shredders broke from overuse, the officials continued to shred the papers by hand. The protesters believed those documents, many of which detailed the personal lives of GDR citizens, should have been available to the people and been made public. Since 1995, a team of people in Zirndorf outside of Nuremberg, has been working to piece back together by hand, the 15,500 sacks of paper which were recovered. A fascinating article was written in the Guardian detailing the documents and the efforts to piece them back together, read it here.
a camera which was disguised as a button. The wide array of hidden cameras displayed in the museum are fascinating (especially for photography nerds, like me), there was even a camera hidden inside a watering can. The great lengths the Stasi went to spy on the citizens of East Germany is unbelievable (and really sad).
Infrared flash cannot be seen by the human eye, but can be used to photograph subjects at night without being seen. Infrared flashes were hidden in the doors of this car to photograph along the roads. The watch was used as a recording device.
one of the most well known parts of the museum is the office of the last Minister of State Security, Erich Mielke. His office and those of his colleagues have been restored and are pretty much exactly as they were left over 20 years ago.
Stasi Museum Berlin
Ruschestraße 103, Haus 1
10365 Berlin
exploring berlin is a series following my explorations of my adopted home city.
*Note to non-German speaking visitors, most of the text in the museum is NOT translated. There is a LOT of text to read, detailing the history of the Stasi and the GDR government and those who stood up against it. Although I do think for those who don’t understand German, it would still be really interesting, I just wanted to write a little warning to prepare you.
weekend
It feels like ages since I last posted a weekend in pictures post, and that is probably because it actually has literally been months since I last blogged one. Things have been sort of quiet around here lately and part of that is because things have been crazy busy around here- I randomly signed up for German classes which are 3 hours a day, 4 days a week and have thrown my schedule completely off. I have also been feeling a little disconnected from this blog and trying to find the inspiration to post again. I have some big plans for the year and hopefully with that, will come some interesting new content for this little piece of the internet.
The start of this year rekindled my desire to explore this city and get out of my neighborhood on a much more regular basis (which as other Berlin folk know, is not always that easy- especially when you work from home). Over the weekend Hazel and I braved the below freezing temps and walked across the city discovering parts of Mitte and Wedding I had never once stepped foot in before (some of which were interesting, some not so much). I also fell in love with Volkspark Rehberge, which felt like a little escape from the city and was mighty charming filled with kids sledding through the woods. I have a love/hate relationship with winter, while I despise the grey days and darkness, I love how when the sun actually comes out for a quick minute like it did this weekend, you cherish every second of it.
Exploring Berlin | Hansaviertel
The Hansaviertel is one of Berlin’s most unique neighborhoods. It was almost completely destroyed after World War II, and it became a sort of experiment for modern urban planning in the 1950′s. In response to East Berlin’s massive apartment blocks on the former Stalinallee, the Hansaviertel was based on the idea of a “garden city” where the apartment buildings were separated by large green spaces and lots of trees. 53 architects from 13 countries were invited to design a range of apartment blocks in the Hansaviertel, representing what was then thought to be the “city of tomorrow”. I find the idea of the neighborhood and the urban planning ideas which created the space fascinating. Even though I know practically nothing about architecture, walking the quiet streets of the Hansaviertel almost transports you back in time, and I love that.
Thanks again to Context Travel for inviting me to experience their Divided City tour, I highly recommend it to visitors and Berliners alike.
