Tom's Space from Southern Germany

In the late evening of the first day of the first competitive exhibition in Emmendingen a light show was performed on the banks of the river Elz. Hundreds of people were present and the show was, seen from the technical standpoint, really good. Good music accompanied the performance. The show - as far as I understood it - was about some Elz-beings, which were told us to come out of the river, display their brilliant clothes and after a while dissapear again. You had to use your imagination in order to see this. A few effects were really great and beautiful such as the ascending blue balloons with falling sparkles looking like sparkling robes.

 

*Photos available*

 

Movie: The Midnght Summer Elz Spectacle in Emmendingen on 14 June, 2008

At the "1. Leistungsschau", the first competitve exhibition, in Emmendingen on 15 June 2008 a conjurer and entertainer whose name is Jörg Burghardt performed a few nice tricks which were worth seeing not only for children. In one of them he changed in front of my running camera a 50-Cents coin into a 1-Euro coin. Enjoy it.

 

*Photo available*

 

Movie: Changing 50 Cents into 1 Euro on 15 July, 2008

I've taken tens of thousands of photos during the past seven years with diverse digital cameras, but never got one single of them published in a newspaper. I did publish myself many pictures and videos on the internet, all right, but I had never access to a newspaper.

 

The situation has changed completely now! On 21 May, the "Emmendinger Tor" published one of my photos - the first one ever in my life! Can you imagine my feelings? The "Emmendinger Tor" is a local weekly newspaper.

 

I'm a member of the "Schwarzwaldverein Emmendingen", a hiking club, and we are currently preparing for the 125-year jubilee. In advance to the jubilee we had the chance to do an exhibition in the window of the Volksbank for a few days. We put lots of photos, maps and other stuff together and laid them out in the window, hoping that passers-by would recognize them, read the texts, marvel at our photos and finally join the club.

 

On Saturday 17th May, I went to the market square with my camera and took a series of photos one of which is shown on the right. If your browser doesn't show the picture, search the list of photo-series under "Fotos" on the right until you find the one called "My First Newspaper Photo on 21 May, 2008", which is the same title as this article has. Click on the title and the photo will be displayed. Articles, and photos, and videos always fit together with their titles.

 

The second chairman of the club wrote the text, added my photo and e-mailed them to the "Emmendinger Tor". The result is what you see here.

 

*Photo available*

Today the small town of Waldkirch at the western edge of the Black Forest celebrated "its" sunday, namely the "Waldkircher Sonntag", that means, all shops in the old-town area were open and besides an exhibition of oldtimer cars took place. Oldtimers usually attract many people and so it was today as well, the center of the town was packed with thousands on the way. Many of them not only marvelled at the old cars but also walked into the shops. That was the idea.

 

The weather was phantastic, we had blue sky and shining sun. People gathered like bunches of grapes around each of the old cars and exchanged nice and interesting stories about the cars, their manufacturers, success and failure, the ups and downs of this and that brand. Since I was taking so many photographs I got engaged into several highly interesting stories older men told me. There was a lot to see: an old Chevrolet from 1928 with wooden (!) spokes, a roadstar by Messerschmidt with three wheels, a huge Cadillac ... and so forth. I guess at least a hundred cars and motor-bikes could be seen. 

 

I tried to catch the atmosphere during this festival and put photos and videos together in a small movie.

 

*Photos and movie available*

 

Movie: The Waldkircher Sonntag on 04 May, 2008

I'm sorry, but I just had no time to add new stuff during the past few months. I had been simply too busy with other work. Besides I needed a time-out in order to gather new ideas. Yet today I went out and took some new photos which I put together to a small slide show. The theme is "Shutters", as I like the old fashioned ones.

 

*Photos and movie available*

 

Movie: Shutters in Emmendingen on 01 May, 2008