The Südzentrale is a former power plant in Wilhelmshaven, Germany. Built in the Art Nouveau Style it forms a townscape defining building ensemble together with the Kaiser-Wilhelm Bridge. Since it was closed down in 1993 it's left to decay. Despite protests and even citizens' movements people didn't manage to save the beautiful old building. Demolition will start in two weeks. What a shame!

I didn't have my big camera with me but I managed to take some photos with my little point & shoot camera that captured the building quite nicely.

Sad it's going to disappear soon ...

KIKI

Black sheep - Südstrand Wilhelmshaven

KIKI

Didgeridoo artist impressing the crowd at Eberswalder Straße

KIKI

Weinbergspark by night

You don't need a big camera, often your smartphone is enough. The reason I love to shoot big cameras is the shallow depth of field. You can blur backgrounds, even in distant shots. That way you can emphasise special parts of the image. BUT, it is also cheating a bit, you can make average photos look much more dramatic or interesting that way. Really powerful photos don't need blurring to emphasise, they are strong enough by themselves. So, when you're a great photographer you can make beautiful photos even with your cellphone. The above image was taken with a Panasonic LX7. I bought it two years ago as my new pocket camera. To be honest the Canon S90 I had before and its successors are much more fun because they are even smaller, but the LX7 has a special sensor that let's you switch between different aspect ratios, like 4:3, 3:2 or 16:9, with a twist of the slide bar around the lens. It's super handy when you want to take a portrait or capture really wide shots. Because of it's unique sensor the focal length really becomes the widest when you switch to 16:9.

And the LX7 has a wonderfully bright f/1.4 lens. Paired with the image stabilizer you can create great images in literally any light. You couldn't have taken the above shot with a smartphone, it was way too dark, but with this 300 € pocket camera it's possible.

This is another example of the LX7 from the other day. Gallery at night with only the door letting in the street light. Good little camera ...

Happy shooting!

KIKI

I've been to Munich last weekend to find some more organic shops interested in my clothes.

I also visited the "Playtime" exhibition at Lenbachhaus. It's about work in modern industrial nations. It's pretty critical as most works focus on how workers are exploited for big companies, especially in capitalist countries. The exhibition has a pretty good e-book available which gets you a great overview here.

I liked the artwork of Henrik Olesen. He has completely disassembled a notebook into all its individual parts, it's also here. It's a critique of modern work and the dependancy of us modern workers of our notebooks. The disassembled computer reveals that it's only a machine, put in a state never able to work again like it was designed. It's broken forever. I liked that, especially as most of the day I'm sitting in front of a computer, too, and spend a lot of time being angry about defective software and problems that should have been solved by 2014.

I also liked the big wall with all the intelligent and critical slogans referring to work in our modern world. I liked the expression "The Jobbit" in this context, in the style of the very popular fantasy book by J.R.R. Tolkien.

Anyway, art is a step further often and gives you a lot to think about and to change in your own world, your own behaviors in particular.

Happy Sunday! Go vote by the way!

KIKI