Exploring and observing Berlin

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2007-08-13T16:27:00.000-07:00

On Friday Bruce looked at a few of my final project’s pictures in my Picasa web album. He said that some of them were very, very far away and that I should get a little closer. He gave me the idea to take pictures by the famous clock at Alexanderplatz since quite a few Berliners meet at the clock at around 6 or 7pm to get together and go out. He argued that with this I could probably get good pictures, up close, of people meeting, the embraces, etc. So this is what I will try to do next time.

A little relieved

2007-08-13T16:11:00.000-07:00

On Thursday some of us went out to dinner with Bruce. After I told him about my difficulty of getting close to people to photograph them, he said to me that this was not necessary and that it was not so essential to get very close. This took a huge weight off my shoulders and I got a bit more relaxed.

Having a bit of a hard time

2007-08-13T15:37:00.000-07:00

After my first day sitting at Alexanderplatz , taking pictures, I found out that once again my incredible shyness has prevented me from getting something done. I wanted to take pictures of people very up close, talk to them, get to know them and listen to their stories, but since this is very hard for me to do, almost impossible, I just sat there taking pictures from afar.

Some people noticed that I was taking pictures of them without their permission and a few of them were not very happy about this. As they did not call me on it and just went on about their business, I continued with my photographing. This woman for instance looked up and noticed. I realized that she was feeling very uncomfortable, so I pretended that I was pointing my camera elsewhere.

This lady noticed but did not do anything. After putting this picture in my computer and seeing it larger, I could observe that she was looking directly at the camera and had a very angry expression on her face.

Alexanderplatz

2007-08-13T14:51:00.000-07:00

I have decided to do my final project on Alexanderplatz. I have been living in Berlin for over five months now and almost everyday I have to go through there to catch the S-Bahn, U-Bahn or Bus, since it is the closest big station to my house. I never really sympathized with the place. It is not so beautiful and little over crowded for my taste. Nevertheless, I discovered that it is a very interesting place and that at any given moment hundreds of people pass by, each one with a very peculiar purpose. Hundreds of different things happen at the same time. Punks sit around with their dogs drinking beer and talking, families and kids play around, men and women sell everything from scarves to jewelry, old people walk or ride their bikes, tourists wander around, vendors sell wurst, businessmen in suits go to work, construction workers take a break, street performers try to earn some money. All in all people from different cultures, backgrounds and countries. If you sit at Alexanderplatz even for just fifteen minutes, you will see that there will be a lot of people that will catch your attention. That is what I am doing, taking pictures of people that catch my attention at this very interesting and lively platz.