just one picture & how it was created: The ivy coat of the house

The ivy coat of the house

2024

~

Frankfurt. Starting from the grounds of the Japanese film festival, I was on the way to a restaurant. "Walk instead of taking the metro", I say to myself. I don't know my way around Frankfurt. On good days, all the more reason to walk. On bad days, absolutely the opposite and I would definitely take the metro. So it was a good day.

Not far from the grounds and I am captivated by the sight of this house. This house with its turret wears a beautiful coat of ivy. I position myself on a street corner, exactly where I end up taking this photo. I work on the exposure settings. Through the viewfinder, I see the top window of the turret, covered in ivy, opening. An older man, well-dressed, shows himself and looks out. He looks in my direction and waves. I turn round to the back to see who might be standing behind me and would wave back. To my astonishment, or perhaps shock, I don't see anyone there. He's waving at me. Hicks.

He looks friendly but I'm still embarrassed and feel like I've been caught out. I finally wave back and he stands there for a while. I wonder if he wants me to take a photo of him. He gets lost in this big house and the photo, and I don't really like taking photos of strangers anyways. I wait in a very obvious manner and don't take a photo.

He goes back from the window and closes it. Everything is as before. And I take my photo. With this memory between the grains of film.


Camera + lens: Minolta Dynax 7000i + Minolta AF 50 mm f/1.4
Film: Agfaphoto APX100
Development + scan: ON FILM LAB

Rheingau and Rheinhessen: Wine life

I don't want to trivialise alcohol consumption. But if I want to talk about the region in which I now live, I can't avoid wine and what goes with it. Slowly but steady, I am absorbing the knowledge and information about the way of life in this region. The following are personal impressions and supplied without liability; please understand and correct if necessary.

~

I'm beginning to understand the regions (plural!) here and what they are called. I learnt that Mainz is in Rheinhessen. This is very misleading, as Mainz is also in Rhineland-Palatinate (a german state, Hesse is another state). The Rheingau is its neighbour and is actually in Hesse. Just mentioning things rarely helps me understanding and picturing things so here is a map of german wine-growing areas on Wikipedia: map. Rheinhessen and Rheingau are marked there. Maps are very helpful so I recommend taking a quick look.

When the days get longer and the temperatures rise, there are wine festivals everywhere. And when I say everywhere, I'm not exaggerating. There's one happening every weekend. There are so many wineries around!

Without being able to make a geographical mapping of what belongs where or where it comes from - important for wine or grape juice: Spundekäs. Spundekäs is made out of cream cheese and our favourite way to eat it is with crispy salted pretzels. If it is not at home but outside our home, we love to sit on an ale-bench in a Straußenwirtschaft in the warm sunlight. It does have its own charm.

I have brought along a few photos of wine events I have attended. A little insight into my wine life in the Rheingau and Rheinhessen.

Straußenwirtschaft is tidied up as it had rained shortly before

Wikipedia is great: The (german) article about Spundekäs says that it's coming from northern Rheinhessen. „Straußenwirtschaft“ seems to be a term from Rheinhessen, though I have seen it in Rheingau as well.


Photo 1+2
Camera + lens: Minolta Dynax 7000i + Minolta AF 50 mm f/1.4
Film: ILFORD FP4 PLUS
Development + scan: ON FILM LAB

Photo 3
Camera + lens: Olympus XA2
Film: Kodak Gold 200
Development + scan: ON FILM LAB