s-bahn – IAMJPR

December 8, 2013December 8, 2013

Trains

I have always been a fan of playing with the shutter of the camera, so as to have flashy pictures, however, I have previously only taken such pictures of motorways and intersections. Today, as I went for my evening walk, I took along my camera and I’m glad I did. I walked for a good hour and by accident ran into an area between a couple of train stations; it was the perfect place to kick-start the winter, photography-wise. Obviously, the scenery is not that “winterish”, but I am still happy with the shots I got of the S-bahns that flew by the bridge where I had setup myself to shiver in the cold and lie in wait for the trains. Next time though, I’ll take an umbrella with me…

September 25, 2012September 24, 2012

Sunday Walk

In the modern world work is often associated with stress, however for me the past few months have been everything else than stress! I have enjoyed my work a lot to be honest. Now even though I cannot say I share the stress phenomenon with my fellow workers in the world, I can still say that I have become a nine to six worker, meaning that most of my days are spent at the office. Those rare days, sometimes referred to as the weekends, when I do not find myself drinking coffees at the office, I try to make the most of my free time i.e. spend it with friends and perhaps enjoy the night life of Berlin. This is a rather fun lifestyle, have to admit, however the lack of spare time has led to my camera feeling (if it felt anything) lonely on these cold autumn nights. Like a bad lover I had neglected my camera for a long time, but luckily for my Sony, I had enough energy on Sunday to actually go and take a walk in the city and try to take some decent memories of the darkening September nights.

After meeting a couple of good friends for a Sunday drink at Alexanderplatz and having a must have Döner at Mehringdamm (Mustafa’s to be precise), I took the U-Bahn towards the RingBahn which I would normally use to get home a bit quicker. This time however as I reached S-Bhf Tempelhof, I decided to walk outside the ring (funnily enough probably the first time in a month that I step outside the ring) and see if there would be anything of interest to take images of.

Having walked for 15 seemingly long minutes, I hadn’t seen anything that would have sparked my interest…that is until I saw a van, an old neglected delivery van. Perhaps it’s the fact of seeing too many shiny things that made that rusty old van seem like a cool target for snapping a couple of quick photos, or then it was just the fact that I wanted to photograph just basically anything so that I wouldn’t have to go back home empty carded (see what I did there..) . Snip Snap went the shutter and back went the camera into the bag, I was done with the van and moving forward like a determined bargain hunter at post-holiday sales destined to find something cool.

I came to a seemingly normal looking crossroad and just for the fun of it took a couple o’ images to go, before continuing to the normally crowded, but now what was like a wasteland, parking lot of Ikea. There wasn’t a lot of things to take photos of, since the tumbleweeds were moving too fast for me, but I managed to get a couple of pics of the empty lot that belonged to the Swedish Adult-Lego store.

As I came closer to the highway, I already knew that I wanted to take a couple of images having the shutter open for a longer time, and even though it is in nooooo means original to take pics like that… I still think these few highway photos turned out to be the nicest of the bunch, making my Sunday worth while. Having no other pedestrians bothering me as I set up my camera to capture this chilly September night in the form of a couple of flashing photos; it was perfect.

I could now simply put my camera back in my messenger bag and head home, knowing that I at least had one decent pic to take with me. So as to not overwork your imagination, I have attached the photos of the night in a chronological order below so that you too can take a short virtual walk between Tempelhof and Südkreuz on a fresh autumn night.

May 20, 2012

Berlinist

It’s been a while since I wrote a post, mainly because I’ve been occupied by my University studies and the seemingly never ending task of finding an internship for the second half of this year.

Although I have not written here, I have still been actively carrying my camera around with me, trying to capture pictures of this wonderful city that is the big B. aka Berlin. During the past few months I have tried to do some “tourist” stuff, usually without success, travelling around the city with a s-bahn,u-bahn, tram or bus to take me further away of the areas where normally even my own two feet would carry me. Even though I’ve spent literally weeks crisscrossing this city, I still have not seen most of the common sightseeing attractions, which might be my task for the summer. For now I’ll just consider myself as a “Berlinist”, being a tourist within this city seeing sights that no one else actually might think to see.

Without really rambling on too much in this post, I’ll just sum up one of my numerous weeks spent here in a couple of words and pictures: I went to an old Stasi prison, a football match and ended up witnessing a fire.

Phew, that was concise wasn’t it? Now for the visuals ( you can prolly link each picture to the appropriate event mentioned):

I did actually make one trip even outside of Germany during this spring already, but more on that later on.

March 11, 2012

Groceries

“I’m back!” as if to try and be some sort of movie hero, I shouted these much used words as I entered the 20 square meter room, that is my home here in Berlin for the next months to be. Even though there is only one hour time difference between the cold up north (Finland) and Germany, I still had a strange feeling of “jetlag”, falling to my bed trying to sleep for half an hour, only to realise that my attempt was a failed one.

Today I had the pleasure (strange but yes) of enjoying a flight operated by AirBerlin, a company stuck in an intersection of sorts; not being able to decide whether to turn to being a low-fare airline or premium one. On the flight of this confused airline, I was able to enjoy the “comfyish” seats and non-advertising atmosphere (not to mention having a full 3 seats to myself, being apparently too scary for anyone to sit next to). And wait there’s more! I had even the possibility of choosing my meal! Yes, I could choose the “hotdogish” creation or what I presume was an apple muffin. Now, I know, I know, I shouldn’t be complaining about the snacks, but what I’m saying is that even though the airline was nice and all, it did not quite fulfill my culinary needs, so to speak. Lucky for me I have truly wonderful roommates who suggested that they would make “Flammkuchen” a German/French specialty, which I had once before tried in Strasbourg, the runner-up capital of the EU. Needless to say, I almost cried tears of joy, receiving this kind of a welcome immediately after being back here for only a couple of minutes!

The meal was in short: superb! I had a smile on my face once again and got just the start for my second round of Germany that I needed! Being smart and all, I quickly realised that I would probably need to eat something in the morning as well, as my digestive system surely would break down every inch of the previously enjoyed delightful meal during the night, leaving my stomach rather empty. For those who don’t know, it might be good to point out that Sunday in Germany, is not a day to do your shopping. All major grocery stores, kwik-e-mart’s and you name its’ are closed, geschlossen, as the all too familiar sign says on many store doors. However, as with any major law, this one also has a loophole. Apparently IF a store is located within a railway station it may stay open even on a Sunday (somebody correct me on this if you know better). As if I was carrying a lucky rabbit’s foot in my pocket, my surprisingly good luck seemed to have no end to it. There was a local grocery store, within walking distance of my home, and more importantly within an inner city railway station. I decided to make use of this trip, by taking with me my trusty companion, my camera, in hopes of snapping some random photos on my way to the store.

As I walked in the misty outdoors, which climate wise reminded me more of mid-May in Finland, I could not help but think to myself at times, “where are the people?”. Berlin, a city of more than 3.4 Million people should be buzzing with pedestrians. Still on many streets there wasn’t a single soul in sight. Having spent the last couple of weeks in a Finnish town of 20.000 inhabitants, it was almost funny how similar some streets of Berlin seemed to be to those of Jämsä (The town), in the sense that there were no cars or people moving on them. Frankly told though, the lack of people didn’t really bother me much. I had my earphones on and was clicking my camera to the beat, trying to get at least one decent shot to have fun with on photoshop later on.

After a purposely done detour, I finally put down my camera and headed to the store, where apparently all the people that I was previously wondering about had found their way as well. Happy with my simple choices of a water bottle and some quark for the morning, I went on my merry way and headed home. To my displeasure, I was sad to notice that most of the pictures I had taken were harshly out of focus or otherwise blurred due to possibly the rain that had blessed me with its presence. After playing with photoshop for a while, I managed to “save” a couple of photos which, although are not nearly in the category of great, can be at least looked upon, without having a “frowny face”.

If someone actually had the energy to read through all of that, I tip my beanie/hat off to you, simultaneously chanting “hazaa!hazaa!hazaa!” to magnify this gesture of gratitude. That’s all for now and if you have some opinions on the photos or on life, do share!