Skip to content

Studio notes A picture and a few sentences about it

This is where I write down what stays with me about a picture: one photograph, a few sentences, the newest first. No technique and no project write-up, just what I see in the picture.

  1. #

    The counter of the Mojo Bar in Offenbach: a pink neon sign in a wall of flowers, a warmly backlit bar front and blue-lit bottle shelves

    The light someone chose

    Behind the counter of the Mojo Bar in Offenbach, a pink neon sign hangs among flowers; below it the bar front glows warm, and beside it the bottle shelves are a cool blue. I could have neutralized all of it with light of my own, and the picture would have been cleaner. But then it would no longer have been this place. Someone chose this light, and what mattered to me was leaving it alone. In places like this I first ask which light is already there before I add any of my own.

    The article behind it

  2. #

    The bottle shelf of the bar in the Druckwasserwerk in violet and warm yellow light, sharp liqueur bottles in front and blurred rows behind

    Neon may stay neon

    On the bottle shelf of the bar in the Druckwasserwerk, violet and warm yellow light meet. Early on I looked for the single strong subject; today I would rather work with the character a place already has. Here that very color is the subject, not an evenly brightened version of it. Only the bottles in front are sharp, and the rows behind them are allowed to blur. My visual language has not become louder for it, just more deliberate.

    The article behind it

  3. #

    A cushioned window seat in the Franziska in the Henninger Turm, with Frankfurt and its skyline behind it at blue hour

    Blue hour over Frankfurt

    A window seat in the Franziska in the Henninger Turm, with the city behind it at blue hour. My favorite pictures of Frankfurt are rarely its best known views. They are the ones in which a place and a short moment line up exactly. Here the streets below are already lit while the sky is still blue. I was there on a commission, and still this picture is one of my personal ones.

    The article behind it