Photo 101, MFA-student paralysis, and more
A few years ago, when I was still posting my own photographs on Instagram, I posted a series of pictures where I had placed the same object somewhere in my...
When your own trash is your treasure
I might be one of the few people who's genuinely not interested in the planet Mars. I get it, it's a large planet. But realistically speaking, there's not...
Odds and Ends and the Past
The other day, I realized that I needed to advertise the fact again that I'm mentoring photographers. I'm basically doing what I used to be doing when I...
Creativity And Its Unnecessary Discontent
Creativity is such a strange beast. For the most part, it appears to remain elusive, with what writers call "writer's block" being a lot more common than one...
Books, Books, Books
I'm happy to report that the ten sets of Risograph prints are sold out. I'm deeply thankful for all those people who decided to get a set (some even asked...
Prints for Ukraine
I’m selling 10 sets of high-quality Risograph prints from my book Vaterland to raise money for Ukraine. All proceeds will go to CARE’s Ukraine Crisis Fund....
We Are The Frog
It has been a while. I had promised myself that I would send out an email when I was ready to do so, regardless of how much (or little) time had passed since...
Against Didactic Fiction
This picture has nothing to do with what I wanted to talk about. But I thought that if I started with text, then maybe I'd already lose a bunch of readers?...
Sounds and Smells and More
You might have seen Sochi Singers by Rob Hornstra and Arnold van den Bruggen when it first came out. It's portraits of these Russian restaurant singers....
The Power of Words (and Art)
My last email generated a flurry of responses, and it was shared widely. As a consequence, this Mailing List's audience has grown quite a bit. If you've...
What It Takes
This is the time when photographers are getting their materials ready to apply for a spot in an MFA program. Having spoken with a large number of...
This Is The End (Of 2021)
It's the end of another year. Looking back, 2021 appears to have been mostly filled with disappointments for me: another year of the pandemic, no traveling...
Everything, All the Time, Everywhere (incl. Tendonitis)
Stuart Jeffries is the author of Grand Hotel Abyss, a book about the Frankfurt School that I started reading, yet never finished, in part because I had...
Eros + Massacre + Composition In Photography
A while ago, I signed up with a free streaming service. Free means: you don't have to pay money, but your programming is going to be interrupted by a period...
Kylo Ren Is The Vampire
Trying to learn Japanese entails watching the occasional movie (with subtitles). My Japanese isn't very good, but I can pick up basic conversations OK....
Heroes
Yesterday, I came across a cover of David Bowie's song Heroes, performed by Berlin-based Stereo Total. I'm not a Bowie fan, but I have been listening to...
Germanicisms and "Books For Snobs"
I don't recall how Alexander Wolff's Endpapers had made its way into my Reading List. But there it was, and since I needed to start a new book I thought it...
Mundane Halloween
During my childhood in Germany, Halloween wasn't an event. I'm not even sure I had heard about it (I can't remember). These days, things are different, as...
The Protest Is Visual
The Archive of Public Protests, photo Sebastian Cichocki I got talked into doing a (German language) podcast, which was recorded today. I don't remember how...
The Inland Sea
I had read Donald Richie's The Inland Sea before, and I had not liked it. That was years, maybe a decade ago. With my interest in Japan renewed, I thought I...