Corona vs. Kultur in Hamburg

Lately I have been experimenting with rephotography, the precise reproduction of an earlier photo’s perspective to illustrate the effects of passing time. Often, historical photographs are used as the basic material, but of course you can use any photos, even your own.

Shown here are photos of the Morris column advertising “Kultur in Hamburg” in Moorweidenstraße, one taken during the first winter of Corona in early 2021, the other taken in late summer of 2022. They illustrate the effect that the pandemic had on cultural activities in the city.

Shapeshifting

reflex 08, showing the new cover design/process.

Alongside other tectonic shifts happening around the world at the moment, reflex is now produced differently, i.e. using the services of Norderstedt’s Books on Demand GmbH. This is in lieu of printing my photos with a laser printer and binding them by hand into little booklets, which is how it worked until now.

While many appreciated the handmade quality of the old booklets, perhaps their shape somewhat distracted from the content of the photos. If some part of my process could be considered to be handcraft it would be the development of the films. More important, the recent arrival of our baby made it necessary to decide how to allot the sparse time available for photo work. Long story short: handstitching booklets did not make the cut.

(The back issues will continue to be available as handmade booklets from the nachladen.)

As usual, reflex 08 is available from the glorious nachladen as of now.