One Object – Flower from Sven Mahr on Vimeo.
Last week I got deeper into the details of shooting film with DSLR. This is another result from learning by doing it. Enjoy and let me know your thoughts about it. Thx.
Kalender CAPTURE THE SILENCE 2012
Braucht Ihr noch ein indiviuelles, künstlerisch ansprechendes und extrem limitiertes Weihnachtsgeschenk, einen Neujahrsgruß oder ein paar schicke Fotos für was weiß ich wo?
Für alle Fans meiner Fotos habe ich einen CAPTURE THE SILENCE Kalender für 2012 gemacht. Letztes Jahr hatte ich ein paar Kalender mit Fotos von Rom verschenkt und die kamen so gut an, dass ich nachbestellen musste. Deshalb habe ich das dieses Jahr wiederholt und möchte die Kalender nun keinem vorenthalten. Die ersten Exemplare des diesjährigen Kalender 2012 gingen heute in den Druck.
Details zum Kalender:
- DIN A3 Querformat
- Papierstärke 250g/m²
- Hochgradig weiße Oberfläche für höchste Farbsättigung
- Doppelte Spiralbindung, Metall weiß
- 1 Titelblatt + 1 transparentes Deckblatt
- 12 Kalenderblätter + 1 Rückkarton + 1 Indexseite
- Kalendermonate in 3 Sprachen
Wem der Kalender gefällt, der kann gerne einen bei mir kaufen – solange der Vorrat eben reicht. Ob eine Nachbestellung bis vor Weihnachten noch klappt, müsste man abwarten. Ich geb dann hier noch mal Bescheid.
Da ich ja keine Massen produzieren lasse, kostet mich der Kalender in der Herstellung schon ca. 18,90€. Deshalb schlage ich mal folgenden Preis vor – wer mehr zahlen will, darf das gerne tun :-)
Preis: 27,90 €
Am einfachsten ist es sicher für mein Freunde & Bekannte im Raum Dresden, die kriegen vielleicht sogar noch ein Tee und Plätzchen, wenn sie sich einen Kalender abholen wollen. Sollte jemand dabei sein, der es sich per Post schicken lassen will, der müsste noch ca. 5 € Versand (DHL Deutschland) einkalkulieren.
Also falls jemand Interesse hat, dann schreibt mir auf jeden Fall eine Email.
Die Kalender lasse ich bei fotobuch.de drucken. Damit habe ich letztes Jahr gute Erfahrungen gemacht. Ich habe mich wieder für fomanu fine entschieden.
Ich wünsche euch eine angenehme, möglichst stressfreie, schöne Vorweihnachtszeit!
Euer Sven
Toys are boys best friend
Recently I was happy to visit friends of mine in Berlin. Their little boy "Julez" has some really cool toys and a father who is a very skilled designer. That paper robot is just amazing! So for the second time I became amazed what wonderful scenerie this childs room offered for making photos: Three batmans facing a fight with Master Joda or being after arobot or a squirrel... Rude guys. Enjoy the photos!
Winter in Dresden
Window to Louisenstrasse...
This photos had been taken during this year. Always from the window of my room. In the morning, at night and during the day with no concept actually except the similar perspective. Just natural coming & going, like the rain, the sun, the snow... changing, changing, always changing. But THAT what is seeing all this... did it ever change, does it ever change? Don't know. Enjoy life!
Misty Fall 2010
Let there be light and colors and lets call it Fall! In Dresden we had a extremely colorful and bright falll this year. With friends we went to Pillnitz near Dresden and walked a trail along the yineyards on the hills of Pillnitz. The light was just amazing and so this photos appeared. Enjoy! You can find the photos here.
Zen & Jeff Wall's pine in the yard
My Master's thesis in art-history was about the artist Bill Viola and Zen. Looking at Bill Violas art work for some years there always was... something. I didn't know what it was back then, but later through my own meditation experience and knowledge about Buddhism it became more clear. Even while the spiritual aspect of Violas work is well discussed in the science literature, most art-historians encounter his work from a Christianity kind of perspective. What is ok but not enough. Most of the European Western art that we discussed at the University was based on Christianity. But in Violas case – and as I know now in the case of many other contemporary artists – looking at Buddhism and especially Zen can enlighten the work of many artist which are connected with this Eastern spirituality. Bill Viola will not be the subject for today's article instead I would like to show another artist who maybe doesn't know Zen, but who made a piece that connects very well with Zen.
It is a photo called "Pine tree on the Corner" by artist Jeff Wall (transparency in lightbox, 1990, 119 x 149cm, photographed in Vancouver Canada). The photo shows alarge tree in the frontyard of a house at the corner of the street. A quiet impressive kind of tree that can hardly be overseen, right?
So what is it that connects that photo with Zen? Some Zen students maybe already understand: in the Zen tradition there are kongans (click if you need to know more) and mostly these kongans ("public cases") are telling us stories about a dialog between an ancient Zen Master and his student were mostly the student has a question and the teacher is answering in a way that the student can have a direct experience.
Kongans are not riddles or something that can be figured out with thinking - it is pointing back to the mind of the questioner. So every Zen student knows this famous kongan:
Mumonkan (case 37): A monk asked Zen Master Jōshū: “Why did Bodhidharma came from the West?”. Jōshū answered “The tree in the courtyard”.
For those who doesn't know the tradition little explanation is maybe necessary: Bodhidharma is the founder of the Zen school of Buddhism. He was a meditation monk who came from India (in the West) to China (in the East). So the question asked by this monk means kind of "Why did happen what did happen?" or "What is the meaning of all this?" or"What is the truth?". The answer of the Zen Master just points to this very moment, what is truth. This tree can hardly be overseen. If you have any thinking about what is the truth (because maybe you studied philosophy so long that you already forgot how simple it is) ... then the tree will help you and becomes your teacher. If Jeff Wall would be asked this kongan he might already understand: yes, the tree in the frontyard! No space for any useless speculation, interpretation or conceptual thinking.
Telling this here occurred to me just because we have currently an exhibition of Jeff Wall going on in Dresden in the Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen Dresden. Many years ago I saw Jeff Wall's "Pine tree on the Corner" in an exhibition in Dresden. This time I missed it.