decay
Decadimento – Italian Decay
Wednesday, March 17th, 2010 | decay, exhibitions, gallery | No Comments
Yesterday, I presented at the third Basel PechaKucha Night, taking place at Unternehmen Mitte. I was honored to be invited again after last year’s presentation about Chernobyl. If you don’t know what Pecha Kucha is: It’s a presentation format where a couple of people present 20 slides for 20 seconds each, resulting in a 6:40 minutes show. Great fun – go see one if you have the chance.
My topic this time was “Decadimento – Italian Decay”, where I presented urbex four locations from Northern Italy. Each of these places has its own history which I will explain another time with a full set. Enjoy!
New Urbex Photo Series: Mad Hatter’s Desert
Thursday, October 15th, 2009 | decay, gallery | No Comments
In Summer of 2007, we went on a longer trip through Northern Italy. One of the places we visited was an abandoned brickworks plant. The workshop was a large area outside a small town, situated atop a hill. It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon, and the orange brick roofs were waiting patiently under the warm evening sun.
A Little Pixel Experiment
Sunday, October 4th, 2009 | abstract, decay, gallery, pixel art | No Comments
I have a huge respect for pixel artists; the simplicity, the love for the detail, and the whimsical results – it’s such a fun artform. Today, I’ve taken a couple of my newest abstract photographs and tried to morph them into pixel art pieces. All of them are hand-drawn, i.e. I haven’t just rescaled the original, but created them from scratch (that’s why the colors are sometimes a little off).
… became … 
… became … 
… became … 
… became … 
… became … 
My latest abstract works
Thursday, October 1st, 2009 | abstract, decay | No Comments
Over the last couple of weeks, I have experimented a lot with abstracts, mostly square crops of industrial details as well as a couple of polyptychs. It’s a very intuitive process, and the folks over at DeviantArt have been a great help in finding out what works and what doesn’t.
Testing: Abstract
Sunday, August 30th, 2009 | abstract, artists, decay, gallery | 2 Comments
One of my favorite artists is @davespertine, a London photographer I know from DeviantArt. Dave’s photography is abstract to various degrees, and he strictly refrains from explaining what his work is based on – it’s there for enjoyment and interpretation, not understanding.
Having seen and commented so much of Dave’s work, I decided to dip my feet into abstract waters. I’d love to hear what you have to say about my first three pictures.
Exhibition: “Industrieromantik” in Zurich
Saturday, August 29th, 2009 | artists, decay, exhibitions | No Comments
If you’re in Zurich one of these days, check out Dy Tammy Wyssgott’s and Holger Schimanke’s exhibition “Industrieromantik” (industrial romance) at Rote Fabrik. Tammy and Holger display about 25 of their industrial and decay photographs; the exhibit includes sad and sensual details of factories and residences, as well as contrast-rich architectural structures. Also, the exhibition is inside a cool alternative restaurant, just by the lake, which features great fruit cake. Check it out.
Exhbition homepage: “Industrieromantik” (until 14 September 2009)
Exhibition location: Ziegel Oh Lac (part of Rote Fabrik)
Chernobyl Journal #13: End of the Rainbow
Saturday, July 4th, 2009 | decay, hdr, travel journal, video | No Comments
This is the last part of my travel photo journal to the Chernobyl zone of exclusion. Check out the Chernobyl Journal page for the full story, all pictures, videos and sounds.
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After that short excursion, it was five o’clock – time to leave. We went back to the bus, where Tanya had fun harassing Yuriy and the driver with feedback noises from the walkie-talkies:
Sound: Walkie Talkie Feedback Galore!
We picked up Laura and René (who had lost their way in Pripyat, but found back to the main street), and drove back to Chernobyl. The last location we visited before returning to the research station was the old shipyard north of Chernobyl. The rusty boats looked beautiful in the evening sunlight. It was hard to find a good spot to shoot them without having tree branches in the way, but it was a worthwhile location to visit at the end.
Chernobyl Journal #12: Fire & Militia Station
Friday, June 26th, 2009 | decay, hdr, project wormwood, travel journal | No Comments
This is part twelve of my travel photo journal to the Chernobyl zone of exclusion. Check out the Chernobyl Journal page for the full story, all pictures, videos and sounds.Wormwood category.
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Beat and I re-grouped at the van and took a break. A quick phone call to Laura and René revealed that they were still exploring Pripyat roofs, so we asked Yuriy if he could take us to the old fire station in the southwest for half an hour. The station was nothing special – a large hall for the (absent) fire trucks and some adjacent common rooms (one of them full of soft drink bottles).
On the other side of the road however was a much more interesting site: Pripyat’s old militia station, which was full of old vehicles: Cars, buses, trucks, dredgers, even a small tank BRDM-2D combat vehicle. There were further vehicles on top of the militia building, and I still have no idea how they got up there. I was initially worried that the radiation around those vehicles would be very high, as metal absorbs radioactivity better, but it wasn’t. This meant that they hadn’t been used during the accident, and all of those vehicles had been moved to the old junkyard at the border of the zone.
Photo Albums
Album: Fire Station
Album: Militia Station
Map for this Journal Entry
The Chernobyl Journal will conclude next week.
Chernobyl Journal #5: Amusement Park, or: Why You Shouldn’t Wander Off Alone
Sunday, May 10th, 2009 | artists, decay, hdr, project wormwood, travel journal, video | 5 Comments
This is part five of my travel photo journal to the Chernobyl zone of exclusion. Check out the Chernobyl Journal page for the full story, all pictures, videos and sounds.
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Because of our group member’s different paces and interests, we were rarely at the same spot at the same time (which helped to keep people out of your pictures). At the Palace of Culture however, we all got together again. And while René and Laura were busy rising a new FC Pripyat from the ashes of the gym, and Beat was still looking for good spots to shoot, I got into a conversation with our guide who was standing in front of the van, waiting for us. › Continue reading
New Photo Set: Autumn Leaves
Saturday, January 3rd, 2009 | decay, gallery | 1 Comment
Photo Set: "Autumn Leaves"
Some months ago, my friend and fellow photographer Annie Bertram recommended to me to visit the historic automobile cemetery Gürbetal near Bern. The area was originally planned as an open air museum for vintage cars from the 1940s – 1970s, but the owners (who dealt in used car parts) never realized the project. So, the car collection became a car cemetery under birch trees, which was recently used for a national art exhibition. Unfortunately, the area is now closed for environmental reasons, and its future uncertain.
My wife and I visited the cemetery in October, one day before it closed. It was an amazing autumn day, and birch leaves were covering the cars under the trees. I’m happy to present to you a photo sets called “Autumn Leaves” – it contains 34 color and 20 black & white pictures.
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