Exhibition: "Do it yourself"

Since Thursday, the Berlin Museum für Kommunikation has been hosting an exhibition about the principle of DIY.  It is a colourful conglomeration of things connected to this term and it's fun to visit. I tried to capture some impressions while strolling through this vivid collection.

If you are now curious, you can find more about the exhibition here. 

I am always also impressed by the house as such: an impressive building, that is worth a visit in its own right. That's why I will show it to you in an extra post in a couple of days.

Have a nice weekend!

First Friday of Spring

It's as if Berlin has taken off its winter coat and put on a sunny smile:

Hello Spring!

It's Spring!

And it is said: „Wie das Wetter am Frühlingsanfang, so ist es den ganzen Sommer lang.“

(A weather lore, saying as weather is on the first day of spring, it is all summer...)

Thus: great expectations!

Happy Spring to you!

Berlin Sunrise

On my way to work on a cloudy morning, when turning around a corner - there it was!

Reminded me why I am always carrying a camera ...

City Colours

...walking through the streets of London before sunset. 

Going Underground

 

It’s 4 a.m. and we thought they’d be fast asleep...*

*I didn't plan this, but somehow, this week is sheep week...

Time Travel

Postcards from England. One day the clock just stopped.

MIM #2: Sheep GIF

I have to admit that I long thought GIFs were a long-gone gimmick that never really existed. I only came across them a few times and almost always in connection with a "no". "No, don't use them in a presentation. Just. No."

I also have to admit that a "gif" was - for me - a synonym to clipart. And ok, I would not use them in presentations...

If you would like to scroll down now, because the running goat makes you a little bit nervous, I do understand :)

Lately I've stumbled across GIFs rather often. When I read this great article by uberlin I discovered a whole new perspective about them. They are not clipart. Also the Friseur-Gif by Maikitten got stuck in the back of my mind.

So, last weekend when I took some photos of animals on a meadow in sequence and flipped through the pictures later, I saw the goat running and thought: this is a GIF.

That was when I decided to try out this whole GIF-stuff - and make my first GIF: tada! :)

I chose some photos and edited them so that they had - nearly - the same light, the same size, the same horizon etc. Each photo got a new layer in the new file in Photoshop. Then there is the "Animation"-window in Photoshop where you can create frames. I added as much frames as I had layers and in each frame I hid all the layers except the one I needed (e.g. 8 layers, 8 frames: Frame 1 - hide layer 2 to 8, reveal layer 1). When this was done I adjusted the time each frame should appear and saved it for web as a .gif.

That was it. For a start. I think there is a whole new world about them and I am looking forward to learn more about this technique...

I hope you enjoy the running goat and its phlegmatic sheep-mates as much as I do :)
Good night!

Hamburger Bahnhof

My first MIM

I'm not only interested in everything that has to do with photography but also love to create other things. That's why I thought it a good idea to combine both: practice taking and editing photos and share the results of some of my projects. Therefore, this blog gets a new section. In this section I will show things I made by myself and how I made them. I wondered how to name this new part of my blog... the first thought was - of course: do it yourself. But who am I to tell you what to do :) As I'm a little bit allergic to imperatives but also receptive to abbreviations, I chose to call a spade a spade: Made It Myself - MIM!

So here is my first MIM. And I hope other MIMs will follow and you will enjoy the section and get some inspiration to DO IT YOURSELVES :)

MIM #1: Pimping KNUFF (Decoupage) 

To get my desk things in order I was looking for some sort of magazine files that were not only practical but also pretty. Most things I've seen were rather boring office stuff, so I decided to try something I wanted to try for a long time: decopatch. That's where Knuff comes in: it is an Ikea magazine file that comes with an unfinished surface inviting you to pimp it according to your own taste.


Decoupage (or Decopatch or in German "Serviettentechnik") is a way to decorate things with the help of tissue paper. In short: you take a wooden object, splash loads of glue over it and wrap it with some tissue as neatly as you can.

Try to avoid creases but don't worry if some of them are resistant to your endeavours - they will go away once they are dry.

Very helpful is a scalpel - in any case something very sharp - to neatly trim the edges.

When it is dry you have to vanish it all again and again (I did it 4 times) so that it will have a fine and shiny surface. Yes, some patience is necessary...

The little lamp is still a bit suspicious about its new neighbours but I am quite fond of them ;)

Underwater

Somehow, the colour and shape of the sky in this picture remind me of how I've always imagined
the dome of Atlantis would look like ...

Back to the City

Silence is golden

Summer Thoughts

 

 Standing under a tree and listen to the noise of the leaves, smelling the light that gets green by touching them.