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5 of my favourite places in Berlin

Marga Schoeller Bücherstube at Knesebeckstraße 33, 10623 Berlin-Charlottenburg
A Berlin bookshop with a superb selection of English books; it has an exquisite book-lover’s atmosphere and no matter how little money I have, I rarely leave without buying ‘just one book’.  The Marga Schoeller Bücherstube is a Berlin establishment - first opened in 1929, it…

A New Interview -  Immanuel, a Conversation in Berlin

I met some lovely people in Berlin, all kinds of people and some of them agreed to talk with me.

Immanuel was one of those people.  You can read of our conversation over here ....

Luke Turrell, Musician - an Interview

When your father is a viola player and a teacher at the Royal Academy in London, and your mother is a pianist, then there’s a very good chance that you will follow them into a world of music and this is precisely what Luke Turrell has done.  However don’t for one moment imagine a shy retiring type or a driven…

The TASWIR Exhibition -  as explained by Curator, A.S. Bruckstein Çoruh

Merit Fakler, video artist, worked with A.S. Bruckstein Çoruh, curator of TASWIR - Pictorial Mappings of Modernity and Islam, in filming an explanation of the exhibition I’ve spent the last 3 months photographing in Berlin ...

Oleg Grabar, Historian and Archeologist

I had the pleasure of hearing Oleg Grabar speak recently.  This was taken at TASWIR - a ha’atelier event, inside the Martin Gropius Bau museum, Berlin.  Low difficult light - no problem for my exquisite Canon EOS 5D Mk II, using the telephoto lens here, handheld.
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The Violinist II, Berlin

It was snowing outside and so we worked with the space we had ...

TASWIR - this week’s Events.

Wednesday I’m photographing The Role of the Museum in the Study and Knowledge of Islamic Art – The Past and the FutureMschatta-Saal (Zutritt über den Haupteingang des Pergamonmuseums, AmKupfergraben, 10178 Berlin).

Oleg Grabar (Princeton) is a scholar of Islamic Art and Architecture whose Research has had a profound and far-reaching influence on the field.  His books…

Snow ... and Berlin

We woke to this ... nothing too bad but it kept snowing all day.  We cleared our path and the neighbour’s, then we noticed tonight that he cleared his again, and ours.  We were mortified.  He’s in his 80s but one of those hale and hearty 80 year olds.  Still, I do believe my parents might…

The TASWIR Project - Ha’atelier Platform for Philosophy and Art, Berlin

This is the project I’ve been involved in since late October, 2009. 

The brainchild of curator, Dr Almut Sh. Bruckstein, the word TASWIR is the Arabic, Persian and Ottoman-Turkish term for mapping, visualizing, describing and outlining.  The exhibition has placed classical objects, usually labelled as ‘Islamic art’, in the context of…

Berlin

An update from Dirk appeared in my comment section and I thought it a good idea to add it to the photograph:
By the way:

Hafiz Schükri (or Schükrü)was part of the board of the Islamische Gemeinde zu Berlin e.V. (Islamic Community of Berlin) that was founded in 1922. The founder was Abdul Jabbar Kheiri, who lived in…

Ahmadiyya Mosque, Berlin

Realising I was fascinated by people and places, my lovely Berliner friend Dirk, took me wandering through his city yesterday ... on a Muslim day out.

Dirk is a Scholar of Jewish and Islamic Studies who lives between Berlin and New York.  You will read more of Dirk but later.  Anyway, knowing that I had had a small experience of…

Kaiser Wilheim Gedachtniskirche, Berlin

This photograph was taken inside Kaiser Wilheim Gedachtniskirche.  Apparently, this glittering art nouveau-style ceiling mosaic depicts members of the House of Hohenzollern going on pilgrimmage towards the cross ... I looked up and found it beautiful.

Winter, Berlin

And just as I adjust to this Berlin life ... of coffee in my fabulous little Vespress Nero coffee pot, a single bed, no curtains and a spartan kind of existence, it’s time to go home again.  This morning I delighted myself by sleeping until 9.30am, a feat rarely achieved any place.  I discovered the ice on…

And like Alice, I stepped through the looking glass ...

Alice is playing with her kittens—a black and a white kitten, the offspring of Dinah, Alice’s cat in the first book—when she ponders what the world is like on the other side of a mirror (the reflected scene displayed on its surface), and to her surprise, is able to pass through to experience the alternate world. There, she discovers a…

The Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin

This is the place where I spend a lot my Berlin-time.  And just so you know, the restaurant is staffed by the loveliest people serving the most excellent food (the potato soup is my favourite but the pasta was exquisite that time too) and the gift shop has an incredible selection of books, often with a good selection on special.

…

And now for the grind ...

And so it goes that I have been all but locked onto this laptop, processing photographs from Berlin.

I make myself go out at least once a day, even if it’s just to the supermarket.  My companion is New Zealand’s National Radio ... brilliant interviews!  I found Judith Binney’s interview on her book,

And back to Belgium ...

I brought so much work with me, it almost surprised to get through check-in without being over the luggage allowance but no, my work is the 1000s of photographs I have on my laptop and backed-up all over the place.

I told no one I was returning, no one but Gert and so Jessie and Sahara almost fell over when…

Gendarmen Markt, Berlin

When Rainer, the wood-worker, wandered off to find his business card for me, I couldn’t resist taking this shot of his wood-working equipment.

Website Updates ...

I have updated the About section of my website ... having woken at 4am with a growing list of things I must do. 

It seems these small hours of a morning are a good place to find the peace required to work.

I’ll leave you with a favourite image taken here in Berlin.

Brandenburg Gate, Berlin

We wandered today, this was one of the sights seen ...

Berlin, where I met this most remarkable man ...

Who allowed me to take photographs freely ... thank you Rainer.

The Very Best Christmas Market I’ve Ever Wandered In ... Gendarmen Markt, Berlin

At the U2 Stadtmitte stop.

The Hand, Berlin

I love the way sculptures aren’t coy about having their photograph taken ...

Poet and Pilot ...

When wandering, my life seems always to revolve around the people I meet, the places I see and the books that I find ... almost always, and Berlin has been no exception.

I am reading those 4 books mentioned previously, smiling as they fall over one another but then today, I had one of those ‘didn’t-see-it-coming’ kind of days, common…

Reflections, East Berlin

And I am back ... in Berlin

The flight from Brussels is just one hour and ten minutes and so very easy to make ... so far. 

I arrived, unpacked very fast and then headed out into the Berlin sunshine, full of smiles over my return.

I walked to Marga Schoeller’s exquisite bookshop on Knesebeckstrasse, and fell on two books before…

Flying Home, just for a week ...

Two weeks into this project and I’ve been offered the chance to return home for a week.  A workshop was cancelled ... and so, unexpectedly, I’m heading back to Belgium to regroup and work out what I need to bring back for this Berlin life.  Definitely more clothes, thicker heavier warmer than before.  I return and stay until 21 December,…

Ali Kaaf, Artist

I was fortunate to not only meet Ali Kaaf but photograph him too.  And it was a pleasure.

Ali is exhibiting work in the exhibition TASWIR: Pictorial Mappings of Modernity and Islam, in the Martin-Gropius-Bau from November 4 till January 18, 2010. 
…

TASWIR – Pictorial Mappings of Modernity and Islam. The Opening, Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin 2009

I found this group really rather beautiful and couldn’t resist photographing them as they sat there on the stairs inside the Martin Gropius Bau here in Berlin.

TASWIR – Pictorial Mappings of Modernity and Islam. The Opening, Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin 2009

I loved the way this woman’s hat matched in with the colour of my photographs here in this shot.

TASWIR – Pictorial Mappings of Modernity and Islam. The Opening, Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin 2009

TASWIR – Pictorial Mappings of Modernity and Islam. The Opening, Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin 2009

The opening was superb.  Here’s a small taste ...

TASWIR – Pictorial Mappings of Modernity and Islam.  The Opening, Berlin 2009

The Berlin Wall ... 20 Years after It Fell

The New York Times is running an interactive feature on readers memories of the Berlin Wall and I have to confess, American English is the most common English I hear when I’m on the subway or wandering through Potsdamer Platz.  Anyway, I must try and check some of this out in the days ahead ...

My…

A Room of One’s Own ... Berlin

A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction. (or take photographs)
Virginia Woolf, writer

What a difference a desk makes to my life ...

My hostess, and sometimes flatmate in this mostly unfurnished apartment, returned to her home in Bavaria prior to leaving for the King…

Etel Adnan, Berlin 2009

“As for any serious writer, the audience of an Arab–American cannot be confined to his or her fellow Arabs. Books have a life of their own and no one can determine their fate. The only thing we can strive for consciously is to be aware of the existence of a growing body of Arab–American literature, try to know it…

Berlin ... and Me.

How do you write of a day where you started out photographing Joseph Semah, listening as he talked with all kinds of interesting people.  And yesterday ... I was called out to photograph Etel Adnan talking with Ali Kaaf, and that was delicious too.

This afternoon was all about a book…

Taswir, the Exhibition, Opens Tonight ...

I have two huge tasks today. ... my photographs start going up at 8.30am, or so we were hoping last night.  And then I have to photograph every room there,within a short period of time so that everyone else involved in this particular task can get their work complete in time for the Taswir Exihibition opening…

Finding My Way in Berlin ...

I almost giggled to myself but remembered it would just make me seem slightly mad, giggling as I wandered, almost lost, in Berlin’s metro.  There I was, making my way through the metro, map in hand, hoping that this first time going ‘home’ alone would be a success.  And of course, it was.  Gert had made maps and I had…

Success!

If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living.
Wherever you are—if you are following your bliss, you are enjoying that refreshment, that life within you, all the time.

A Fashion Peasant begins with the problem of shopping but moves onto Berlin Bookshops

It could be said that I am entirely allergic to shopping ...

I’m fine with searching for books and can spend hours in Antwerpen bookshops but putting together ‘a look’ or a winter wardrobe ... not to mention organising something for this winter in Berlin ... that terrifies me.

Today, I headed into the city with an…

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italy genova genoa italia berlin antwerpen antwerp photography genua photographer belgium portraiture la superba flanders fields taswir zena ha'atelier istanbul portrait poetry