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The hidden costs of working from home

👨‍🎓 Ah, remember those vibrant days at school or university? Those unexpected lunch meetings, spontaneous coffee or tea breaks and those moments when ideas just clicked. Sometimes even sparking a collaborative project. All while sharing bits and pieces of our personal journeys. For some of us, those days feel like a lifetime ago. But for others, that kind of dynamic social buzz has found a new home in the workplace. Although, let’s face it, most offices have their downsides. Which probably explains why so many of us have been quick to embrace working from home. The comfortable solitude of the home office The home office for sure has its very own advantages: This change has undoubtedly enabled many of us to create a more personal and therefore more peaceful life in accordance with our own biorhythms. But what happens when we trade the hustle and bustle of the office for the peace and quiet of our home office for longer: How do we capture the magic of those unplanned, unscripted moments that used to enrich our working days, sparking new ideas and creating a hands-on mentality towards action? I mean, office life wasn’t my cup of tea either, but I …

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fractals

This is an artistic study of form and photography takes us around the world, from the Sinai desert to the rainforest and Caribbean. It’s a visual composition of geometric forms and photography to calm the mind and please the eye.

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label artwork for amadis

Amadis is a singer, songwriter and sensational being in front of a crowd and also a camera. He released his debut album “1979 Dig Deeper” and is on a special journey again. I had the pleasure to work with him on a creative “dig deeper” portrait session. The lead image is dedicated to his song “Freedom” and the lyrics, which intrigued me. Especially the line “Take your mask off.” made us ask ourselves which kinds of masks are we really wearing and where do we feel free. If you like to see him dance, here is a very suspicious music video: “Suspicious chicken” for you. It is only a bit crazy, but also needed in our world of normal abnormality.

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artist portraits for Caro

Carolina Sanabrias is a Colombian painter who I had the pleasure of portraying in her studio in 2019. This gave us the opportunity to shoot in her work environment and also include her technique and works in the images.

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Lookbook KenPanda Classics

Kenan who designs and producs danceable fashion pieces. We fell in love with the idea to work together and produced a shooting with four wonderful humans in front of the camera: Anja, Hannah, Carlos & Paul. Their mission was to let go, to feel the moment and to dance. We had our very own party setting with music, hot soup and everything could just flow.

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NYC

A recent trip to New York gave me the opportunity to finally get to know a city, that until then I had only seen on screen. Luckily my mission to get an interview with New Yorks premier headshot photographer “Peter Hurley” gave me a few days to soak in the city. So many friendly faces, endless alleys and high rising buildings, it gave me hurting feet. I was walking all day long, trying to breathe in the flavor, to connect and to take notes on the many occasions and inspirations. A visit to the Empire State Building brought a breathtaking view and some food for thought: only a few hundred years ago churches have been the highest buildings, now its mostly offices and media antennas that rise to the sky in these endless giants of brick, steel and concrete to cement their reach.

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musician portraits for Matthias

Matthias is an exceptional artist who also publishes his music with Pachakuti Music and enchants everyone with his tone variations on the saxophone. For his portraits, we tuned in to a warm ambience with a special location and a second shooting in the studio featuring hand-painted canvases from La Imitola. The light was accentuated laterally to play with the shadows. The results now illustrate his digital profiles, posters and albums. You can follow him on Spotify.

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Wartin Castle

The castle of Wartin is one of these gems hidden in the countryside close to Berlin. It offers a romantic and idyllic atmosphere and might just be the place, where great thoughts are born. It has turned into a privately owned seminar and wedding venue. The owners are giving a very special touch to every little corner of the place and enchant it with their taste and mix of culture and styles.

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Visiting Vancouver

The first recommendation I got for Vancouver: Bring a rain coat. I stayed in a quiet neighborhood with many small houses in the north. A ride in the ferry away was the city center. The river crossing was a special event each time. The surroundings of Vancouver, are also inviting for well-geared visitors. Most beautiful were the long stretches into the mountains, where one could once again wonderfully comprehend the beautiful vastness of the rough world around us.

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Music Video for Stereochemistry

We are proud to present our latest video: ECHO LOVE for Mrs. Stereochemistry.The story looks into the cycle of life, of loosing, trying to run away, finding peace and receiving the gift of being reborn on another day revealing the key to let the pain free. We started the production process with some scene sketching, costume ideas and drone testing. Finally after over a year of creative turn-arounds the video finally premiered. The first reviews are not as bad as the inner critique might imagine. The way was a creative journey with tons of blessings thanks to the team behind the product. Directed by: Alexander KlebeProduction: Ocean Studio Berlin / StereochemistryEditor: Karla HajmanArt Director: Joan ImitolaCostume Designer: Joan Imitola, Simone Klebe, Karla Hajman, Olga HeldweinDrone Operators: Stefan Hentschel, Ilya MorganAnimation: Julia KotowskiOrigami Artist: Clemens AhrndtFashion Consultant: Maicol HerreraDirector of Photography: Alexander Klebe

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San Andres, Colombia

Some places on earth have a beauty beyond words. San Andres has the perfect mix: colombian hospitality, the caribbean ocean all around and the feeling of having arrived to paradise.

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coffee with a view

We spent a few weeks with our family in Colombia, to be specific in the Cauca Valley close to Cali. Our neighbor invited me to visit his fields, when he learned I had an interest in the crops. We met at dawn to walk down his plantation full of avocados, banana trees, corn fields and of course coffee bushes. Impressed by the size of his crop and the fact that although he is 76 years old, he works it all by himself. But he would not like to be dependent on the coffee only. The plant is sensitive and especially last year he had lost half of the coffee cherries due to insects, as he found out after washing the red fruits and peeling of the skin.

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fruits at night

personal project – visual study about the micro cosmos of tropical fruits. Some names are even unknown to me. 🙂

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Lookbook KEN PANDA

Shooting the Lookbook for KEN PANDA – ecofashion from Berlin is always something special. When the mastermind of the label selects the models and music the setting becomes magical. Of course we had a lot of fun at set, but see yourself. The models are Adom Wieneke and Joana Karina.

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Kokohellen – brand imagery

When the designer bags from Kokohellen arrived my wife was enjoying the unique styles a lot. She could not decide which handbag was her favourite. The dozen of colourful and nicely designed handbags, clutches and backpacks had a fresh look. One that makes you want go out and swing a bag for a while. Our task was producing the brand images and the product video. Scouting a few models we found, what the client was looking for. The image of Berlin was also fitting the desired mood perfectly. We at various locations around the city in FriedrichstraĂźe, Gendarmenmarkt, Humboldt University, Unter den Linden, Museumsinsel and by the riverside of the Spree. We also had a lot of luck with the weather, our shooting days have been extraordinary sunny although it was late October already. The one last difficult task was to find the fitting music for the video. I talked to various musicians and composers but still the one track that the video needed was not in their repertoire. When I found the final track, it was like a fitting on the first listening. The editing process took us longer than usual for all the small cuts to fit the fast beat. Thanks to all …

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Hiking in Norway

It was time to leave the concrete jungle of Berlin and go hiking again. I really missed the opportunity of a good mountain walk. Because where I grew up and live, there is a saying: “we see who is going to visit us 3 days before they arrive.” Everything is so flat, a mountain is called something with 50m of height difference. So having the opportunity to hike a bit is really a great joy. First of course it takes some good shoes. I have been hiking up mountains with sneakers, but afterwards I was ready for letting them go. Second thing is food. You never really know what’s gonna happen when you are up the mountain. And of course the third thing is a good camera gear. Well, when you want to make the most of it, you learn how to see the light and adjust your timetable to it. The best light for landscape photography is probably in the morning and in the evening, before sunset and even a bit after. But then you will already need a tripod to stabilize the camera. I love those panorama shots from the top of the mountain, and of course the …

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Marek

All my life, my mother told me this one Polish saying whenever something unpleasant happened: »Nie ma tego zĹ‚ego co by na dobre nie wyszĹ‚o«. It means: There is no such bad thing that won’t turn into something good eventually.To me this bears a simple truth: everything, is just a matter of perspective. With time comes distance, and with distance it gets easier to see the same thing from yet another angle.This saying might be an affirmation for the blindly optimistic, but when I look back at my life, I can’t find anything bad that happened to me.Isn’t that quite a positive forecast for what’s left to come? –Marek Plichta

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Julius

Paradies –ist wie die Sonne die auf mir brenntdie Hingabe der eine Momentdie Suche danach immer wiederdu scheinst auf mich runter und ich knie niederGlück –los lass uns laufen entgegen dem Scheinin der Warheit zusammen zu seinLiebe –ich erwarte nicht die Vollendung oder das Gleichnis all meinerEntsprechung, sondern die Tiefsinnigkeit in all unser Romantik. – Julius Burger

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BLNgold

My dear Berlin, a city of lights, of beautiful people and places to discover. This is my kind of ‘hommage’ to a city that never sleeps and where the magical moments seem to happen to those who wait for them. When I was putting these photos online I felt like I had relived this beautiful year twice. Once, when being out there and living it and the second one selecting these photographs from a collection of series from this year in Berlin. Many myths are ranked around Berlin as being the creative capital of bliss for tourists and artists. Personally I must admit, that I don´t see as much from the nightlife, because the nighttimes are the best for post production work. Yes Berlin is crazy and has a lot to offer, a lot of contradictions and many faces. Portraying this city will never be done in one year and maybe this project is only a beginning, one that takes it first step here and becomes vividly representing the beautifil city of Berlin and its people. Thank you so much for your sugarfree sweetness: BLNgold

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origins of coffee

Ethiopia was in my focus a few years ago, when I worked on my diploma thesis, which analysed the costs and benefits of fairtrade coffee. This time my interest was dedicated to the coffee farmers themselves and their story. Having read a lot in advance about Ethiopia it helped to develop the questions and connections needed to dive deeper into the country. One conclusion can be advanced: To fight green hunger farmers need flexibility to adapt to climate change, differentiate crops for their own community and organize in cooperations to support technical and social development of agricultural exports like coffee. The development of Ethiopia could be described as in transition between tradition and industrialization. Ethiopia being one of the biggest countries in african coffee production, its natural factors offer ideal grounds for agricultural production, a sector in which 85% of the population are working in. Between wooden ploughs with oxen and high tech Learjet’s. Most of the 82 million inhabitants are farmers  in a country full of opportunities and rich in resources. As most of the developing countries the exports rely mostly on primary goods, such as coffee, livestock and khat. Ethiopia is a the most important coffee exporter in Africa, …