i

Berlin-based male, consultant for energy policy in daily life.

II

Some day I caught myself walking the streets with blind eyes, deeply sunken in thoughts. And I realized that this blindness against my environment had become a bas company since a long time - a too long time. So I decided to get me a cam as a kind of prothesis to open my eyes again and give my attention to all what is surrounding me. It worked out fine but now I watch the world with the selective look of a photographer on the hunt for subjects that could lead to interesting focus. It is like a filter between me and my surrounding.

III

I had some simple analogue cameras in my younger days. But it was the digital photography that grabbed me with all its possibilities. At least 50 percent of my creative work is after the shot, processing pictures with the mighty software tools that give infinite freedom to photography. A freedom that has been reserved to painters in visual art before. Tools that allow me to work with the raw material starting from pixel level. So the creation of my pictures is not happening in my cameras (this is only the medium between the starting point in my mind and the final picture) but after finishing computer work. But still I believe that all electronic tools, filters and effects have to serve the idea of the picture and should not dominate it. In general I dislike effect for effect's sake.

IV

Photographs are the best tool for documentation but they will never tell the truth. The decision what will be inside the frame includes the decision what will be left outside. Thus a picture will always be an interpretation of the reality but not the reality itself. The following decisions of what will in focus and what will be outside, the depth of field, the contrasts and so on amplify the subjective view on the visual world.

V

What we see is not the reality it is a subjective interpretation of the world. We see what our attention and our eyes allow us to see. Imagine how a falcon, a bee, a chameleon, a bat will see the same if they will watch the same scenery than you do. And now ask yourself which one is the real version of the visual world? We only see cuttings of the picture and the physical picture is additionally formed, deformed an alienated by our attention, our habits and cultural determinations. (Plus photographers have to deal with the possibilities and limits of their gear and their abilities to serve it). Two persons looking at a picture will never see the same picture. On person looking at a picture in different times will see different pictures depending on light, mood, experience, focus and surrounding.

VI Flickr Lessons

An expansive and good camera doesn't lead to good pictures automatically. Vice versa pictures taken through the tiny lens of a common smart phone may result in dramatic good photographs.

VII Flickr Lessons

Mobile internet via smart phones has become much bigger than stationary internet using a desktop computer. Pictures that don't work on a smart phone screen will not find much attention. A pity for those whose quality is build on fine details.

VIII Flickr Lessons

1. You won't find much art in groups that carry the noun "art" in their names usually. Same rule goes with the label "creativity". 2. If group demands for black & white pictures only you will find a color picture posted there very soon as long as it is not heavily moderated. The same rule goes with a group that excludes pictures showing people. So: defining rules is useless as long nobody takes care to enforce them. This true in real life too. Also: the hunger to be seen and noticed and to be admired in best case is much bigger than the willingness to follow rules.

IX Flickr Lessons

In the flood of pictures inundating us these days you need strong effects to be seen. In a system like Flickr based on admiration through "faves" and comments spectacular pictures are in advantage against quiet and reluctant ones. Flickr is fueling photography which is loud and effect-seeking mostly through stark processing like heavy contrasts and so on. But this is - in a nutshell - how pictures - no matter if still or in motion - work in our real surrounding too.