Cycle 48

She is 20. He is 28. Together they are 48. They give each other a theme. They capture it and represent it inside 48 hours.

[cycle48]

A city made from Nature - Multiple Exposures

Finally I decided to make a post. I have failed in my attempt of doing this theme. My biggest apologies for so long wait.  I am not quite content with my result, actually, with amount of it. I wanted to do several photos of the theme, but that went unsuccessful.

The reason of my failure and such long wait to fulfill my task is next one. I excluded the fun part of it. I was trying so much to make it perfect that, in the end, it was impossible for me to take one single photo. It wasn't for fun or for my own joy, it became a challenge for me, but in a bad way. I tried to make it perfect. Like I do with everything in my life and miss the fun part of it.

This shot was taken from a video I filmed when I was riding with metro. I was filming the reflection on the window, which kinda made it double exposured. I had two pictures, the talk between thoose two and city lights outside.

When I see the pictures now, I can't understand myself why i waited so long to make this post. I decided to take it easy, and stop pushing myself over the edge, and enjoy the imperfect part of me and world around me.

The theme I will give to Michael will be

Imperfect observing

Jelena

[cycle48]

What comes after sunset?

Now THAT is a really good question. The simple answer would be to say. "Night" or "It's dark" and everybody goes to sleep.

Basically one could say, the world is exactly the same as it is with the sun shining. This means there are no changes in landscape or suddenly new buildings would appear. All that stays the same.

But what does change is human behavior and our perception of the world around us. For a great deal we perceive our surroundings through our eyes. But in the absence of sunlight our ability to see is dramatically reduced. Therefore, we feel uneasy and human behavior changes. And at the same time, to compensate we do two things: Our eyes boost sensitivity and we help us with artificial light in street lamps or in our houses.

On my trip to Cologne I tried to explore this a little bit and take the challenge from this side.

The amount of detail we can perceive is greatly reduced an many things fade into pure shapes rather than objects and people. Our vision gets a little blurred.

... even though the action itself - a person running by - is the same as it would be in plain daylight.

With bright lights present, the rest of the world fades into black.

But everywhere people continue life inside. It's like there are TV Sets everywhere and you can look inside. ^^

Well, maybe the world does change a bit ;) - I started to play around with multiple exposures in camera.

So, the theme for her will be:

A city made from Nature - Multiple Exposures

Michael

[cycle48]

Underground - undisclosed desires

Yes, it was definetly a desire. Undisclosed especially. My photos actually have nothing with anything underground except the last one. Almost. So, here is my story.

Berlin is definetly the right place if u want to see exciting underground sights. Whole Berlin has so many tunnels and bunkers, leftovers from WW2 and other. There are lot of exciting tourist tours going throught all this, but for today there was none. I tried to find some place I could visit on my own instead. So I found an interesting text online about "Spree tunnel Stralau" built somewhere around 1890's. It was a tramtunnel and had a single track, going under river Spree. Perfect! It's near my place, I won't get lost and it's under ground, actually, under river. I was so excited! I always wanted to see something like that. I also found out it was closed ( bricked ) and i assumed that i will see atleast an entrance or something there. Atleast some table with the details. But I missunderstood the whole text. I took my camera and hoped on S-bahn to get to Treptower Park where the tunnel supposed to be. My search began there. I had no idea what exactly i was looking for, I couldn't find any pictures online to see where exactly should I go. I only had a picture of map which had a line where the tunnel should be. I felt like a child trying to find the hidden tree house. So I walked all over the place and found nothing. I was suprised, not even a table or any info about it. I already assumed there are no any leftovers of it, but I still had some hope I will find atleast an entrance on the other side.  Since I was predicting failure I tried to shoot atleast something so I went under the trail bridge and took that photo at the beginning of the post. It was really exciting to be under bridge while metro goes over it. Creaking sound and tremor.

I also saw this, and my thoughts were "Who puts so much effort to get over there just to paint something? She/He was really comitted to her/his art." I appreciate that. Really. 

I don't know why this photo connected me with the idea of desire. Maybe of my own desire to fly?

Since it was a beautiful sunset I needed to show u that. So I also took this picture. Desirable?

And here we are. This is it. This is the "Spree tunnel". Not even a sign. Just ground and grass. I was so tired and dissapointed so I took only this picture, just to remind people, once, there was a tunnel. And it went under the river. In 1890's. Alteast I learned something new about this beautiful city. I had a great time trying to find it. I felt exhausted but happy, even If i couldn't see anything except this ground and few bricks. I knew something was there, once.

Theme for him - What comes after sunset? 

Jelena

[cycle48]

Art made Alley

Unlike Berlin, Munich is very different in terms of graffiti. While it's ubiquitous in Berlin, the opposite is true for Munich. I knew a few places here, but non that would satisfy me on this theme.

So I did some research beforehand and I came across this underground crossing below the Friedensengel at Prinzregentenstraße. It's a little hidden, so I hadn't known this place before even though I must have stood right above it several times. :)

I had to search some time before I finally discovered the entrance. It's easy to see from the river below, but pretty hard to find from the street above.

Similar faces to the left...

...and to the right.

The opposite wall looks like this:

Very colorful.

The exit along the riverside.

I really liked that I found the place this way. I wonder what else is lying below our feet. So the

Theme for her is "Underground - undisclosed desires".

Michael

[cycle48]

Urban sports

Today was a weird day. I got out at late afternoon so streets were pretty empty. I was thinking where I could find something related to my given theme. Since I was feeling kinda down today, I thought I won't be able to capture anything. But in the end, this hunt cheered me up. I took a walk throught Gleisdreieck Park, which was quite big. I found a perfect spot for my theme. I am not quite content with the first photo, I forgot the get my settings right, since was a fast action and needed a bigger shutter speed. And I don't like how I cropped his head. I tried to get another one, but they decided just to cycle normally. 

It was fun to watch how everyone is doing their thing, this guy got the spotlight today :)

I like how graffiti expressed the "urban" in this theme, so I tried to include it in every shot, and it worked. Which also gave me an idea for next theme. I was thinking about art on the streets, not exactly graffiti, any interesting form seen on the street, so....

Theme for him - "Art made Alley"

Jelena

[cycle48]

Yellow tried to dance

So, this was my first theme. When I started out, I wasn't sure what I would come back with, if anything at all. ;)

But on my walk through the inner city of Munich, I quickly ran into this golden/yellow figure on the - yellow - house trying to dance. It was even on its stage up there for everyone to see.

This was unexpectedly quick. So I went on :) - I found it really interesting to experience the city while focusing on a specific color like - in this case - yellow. Suddenly one get's very much aware of everything around that's in this color. It almost pops out while other colors seem to fade a little.

After a little while this mannequin in the very center of Munich caught my eye.

The way she was posed gave me the impression that "she" also tried to dance.

And finally I passed the famous river surfers which surf all year - even when there's snow around them and ice in the water.

I liked the interesting play of colors. It's "yellow" playing with "red" and "blue" in "green". ^^ Which brings me to the ...

Theme for her: "Urban sports"

Michael

[cycle48]

The feeling of Sun on cloudy day

I tried to capture warm feeling of a cloudy day. In my attempt of doing it, I walked for about an hour around my neighborhood - Neukölln. I saw a usuall day, people in rush, grey colors. I was thinking about the theme I was given and I couldn't find anything that made me warm. So I decided to visit Flughafen Templehof. 

At any day, there are bunch of people, playing with their kids, dogs, kites, doing bicycling or skateboarding. Or just drinking beer at improvisied garden, made by residents of Neukolln.

I really liked the kid with the ball, he was more on the ground then actually playing with it. His jacket was contrasting the whole weather of the day which also caught my eye. 

Thoose two guys sitting in the garden, I actually walked behind them for 10min until I got there. Then I found out what was their plan for today - just sit back and enjoy.

Theme for him - Yellow tried to dance

Jelena