The Amish and Allergies

For some reason I find it hard to keep my blog updates coming regularly. I apologize for this!

Anyways, here is a hybrid media piece that I have been working on for quite a while. I shot the images for the German magazine Spiegel Wissen; for the allergy issue of this popular science publication...

The process was a bit demanding as the Amish generally don't like to be photographed, but had agreed to participate as they felt the issue at hand was worthy and as a favor to the doctor involved. Dr. Marc Holbreich helped us tremendously to get the access we needed... There was a "no posing" rule in place, but it turned out that most adults were actively avoiding the camera as soon as it was pointed at them... At least the kids were curious enough to allow me to get engaging material...

As I hadn't planned on creating a hybrid media piece right then and there was only a very limited amount of time on location I hadn't recorded any original audio... (Neither background soundscapes nor interviews!) So, I decided to compose a minimalist soundtrack and employ the wonderful talent of voice over artist (& poet & woodworker) Bryan Marx. Still it took me quite a while to move the elements around to make it a coherent and strong piece. The wonderful Saki Sato helped me fine tune my edit. Thank you to all involved!

Slideshows! Not new, but new for me!

Last summer a friend suggested to play more with the combination of sound and images... Slideshows came to mind as I do not like videos that much... I mean for myself... I am a photographer after all... So, this is the first one of a series of personal slideshow projects on people that I find interesting... I feel that being able to match audio with the images gives the whole piece an added dimension...
It took me quite a while to get comfortable with this new media set up, so please forgive my lack of posts here!
I hope to post these pieces here now more regularly from now on!

I saw Daniel Robinson first when he conducted a fitness boot camp thingy in the gym where I work out... He was visually so perfect for the part of the bad drill instructor that I had to grin wildly... He was not amused! Running into each other in the neighborhood and the gym we started talking at some point... What a kind and generous soul he is! I was very happy when he agreed to take part in this piece about him, a true New York icon... Yes, indeed you can see him training outside pretty regularly... (when there is no snow that is!) ;)

You can get in touch with him via his email: Drmaxtrain@gmail.com