Good Vibes at the Lobster Breeding Station, AWI Helgoland

The Alfred Wegener Institute - AWI - is a biological institute for polar and ocean science (also check their general english page). There are a few stations around Germany and also, proudly to say, there is one on Helgoland! so the other half of the island inhabitants are students from all over the globe, who are somehow not often to be seen anywhere around, but they are young, fresh, full of energy and - at least it's my impression - positively loaded people. A few weeks ago the institute had an open door day and I took the chance to finally look around (and finally see those cheerful people all in one building, magically lowering the average age of the already mentioned inhabitants of the island).when i was in school i had a great biology teacher and she didn't need to do a lot to force me to do any homework for her subject. I was redrawing the human blood systems voluntary of the book into my notebook, spending more hours than needed for a regular homework. for some reason though I never dreamed of a biologist career. event though I think it would have suited my soul quite a lot. Either way, the doors where open and finally one could see those crazy funny creatures in tanks and basins, or their skeletons or drawings. Lobsters and sea spiders in neon colours, all having their own names given by the workers of the station. The Lobster Breeding Station is one tour you can buy tickets for on regular days, and it's booming for it's popularity. Because lobsters are facing difficulties in the raising temperature of the north sea, here scientists grow the lobsters to a certain size and once in a year they let them out into the wild to continue on grow in their natural habitat in there. Here are some quick and very positive impressions of a place that is worth coming back to.

That's Valentine, the Hugh Hefner of the Lobster Breeding Station. He's here to get laid with as many female lobsters as possible. As it is a breeding station... remember.

This above - one of my favourite photos i had taken.

All this warehouse style space full of water and life - good energy, good vibe, good colour for the day and more. It reminded me of some good.

Photography Adventure #3: Meadow Magic

From my left way up to the dark sky and down on my right I see the borders of our galaxy. The milky way all blooming in an August nights gloom. I live my dream - I live at the sea. Not only at the sea - I live IN the sea. Helgoland isn’t set at the water, it is far away in the north sea and contains out of sea shores as it is such a tiny piece of land. Often I make a late night run or walk around the island just to remember where I am and what my personal paradise feels like. while letting some music on my earphones give the rhythm to my steps, with my hips I start invisibly dancing. The beauty and whole sense of living here is to have the treasure just seconds away from the home door. It is above fantastic to be able to reach the beach and escape to the meditation zone within minutes.

When I go out past sunset it is like going to my very own personal Church. Here is where in my mind I pray in positive vibrations rather than thoughts, and above all I sense gratefulness. Here I sense - God remembers what I crave for, and I don’t really need to think in sentences. Stars replace candles, last bits of the setting sun replace all the golden framed imagery and the the smell of salted waves seals the whole deal of sacredness.

My Church feels more like a safety zone that way. I remember my own dreams and my real me doesn’t have to hide anymore neither fit in some kind of shapes.

The lighthouse scans the sky in ever same steps reminding us of how far away we actually are. The windmills in the far north join my earphone music with their collectively blinking red lights.

When I start heading home I am clean and free again. Super free, filled with air and freedom for the eye in such a tiny closed pinch of land miles and miles away from mainland. No real place to escape, and yet feeling more free and connected than ever.

How ever life goes on and no matter how much longer I stay here, this island will always stay the place for me, where I found peace and for a few seconds there decoded the sense of life.

Photos underneath of when Indre Winterrain was visiting and we went out for more photographic adventure.

Photography Adventure #2: Sparkles and Sunset

Photography Adventure #1: Blue Smoke

a few years ago i discovered Tumblr (for those who don't know - it's a blogging platform for all sorts of media, but mostly used for images. this platform is used a lot to re-blog other people's images on the own tumblr blog; and so at the end you have a blog mainly with a collection of images from anyone who once shared an image on the web or on another tumblr blog). those image collecting tumbler blogs - which offer an on-growing collection of images dedicated to a certain theme, or colour, or mood.. - those are addicting. since i was writing my Bachelor theses, and then later my Master thesis, i kept on looking for tumbler blogs like this on the web just to distract myself and get lifted up a little bit from the grey studying monotony. i would say around 60% of the time that i actually had dedicated for my studies that day went on jumping from one image blog to another. just watching, scrolling, getting one inspiring moment after another. at that time i was admiring and observing and thinking 'oh wow! oh wow!.. oh wow....'. there were photographies and drawings i had never seen in any album, in any exhibition, any photography book. it would be images of dreamy meadows, girly things, flowers, witchcrafty details, mountains.. its hard to just describe.  today i can say this activity pretty much shaped my eye for what i want my photography to look like. the aesthetics, the compositions, the mood and colour combinations. at the end of this post i will put a few link examples for what i mean.now after have said all of this i am very happy to say that since recently i started creating more and more images on my own. usually in the past and of course still with a pleasure today i captured images on my travels and weddings the way i found them or the way i saw them. today more and more i try to put things and people in a scene and challenge myself with certain uncontrollable conditions. these images bellow are a result of one recent experiment: putting a person in a scene in a pre-defined outfit in a pre-chosen location at a certain time of a day. adding a requisite to all of that, like a colourful smoke torch that i don't know anything about but had seen it on many of the tumbler blogs mentioned above . i am starting to feel deeper satisfied with the fact that i am getting closer to the image aesthetics which i have admired so much once. i can actually be a creator of one of those dreamy image.

now these are a few of the images i created together with Indre when she recently visited me on my current home - the island Helgoland.

as promised i am sharing a few of my most influential imagery blogs:

http://fiebre.tumblr.com/ http://shawnlowe.tumblr.com/ http://www.carissagallo.com/ http://juliatrotti.tumblr.com/ http://cabinporn.com/ http://madfuture.com/

now of course todays Pinterest and Instagram had made it a bit different and i mainly scroll through those sites today instead of Tumblr. yet it's just a little tribute and a thankful thought that i dedicate the creators and participants of Tumblr ,-)

"Lord Arlen's Wife"

this one shot above is one of my very favourite shots i've done. it is so mysterious, so full of witchcraft and feminine magic, and yet so childlike, simple, dreamy. back in september after months of traveling i was finally in Bochum and spontaneously decided to use the still green trees and bright sun around. gladly my friend Tinki had some time and so we could play around.

yet it took me a bit of a time to finally set the right colours and give a kind of a name to this series. once i heard this beautiful folk song called "Matty Groves" sung by one of my favourite singers Alela Diane. when you listen to the words you can sense a kind of a dark passion of a woman who is slightly immature yet very aware of her power of attraction. after singing the lyrics and melody myself it was kind of set - meet Tinki incorporating Lord Arlen's Wife from the song.

thank you very much Tinki - you are so photogenic, so patient and so transformative in your body expression! i'd so go for another shooting if i wasn't that far away over seas right now "_"