Eternal spring

According to its geographic situation near the atlantic ocean, Lisboa has a moderate climate with eternal spring.

Another kind of patterns

Lisboa is the town of glazed tiles and ornaments.

Elevator

As the town has man hills, there is a big need for elevetors. Lisboa has a lot of oldfashioned maschines to move people up and down.

Nightlights

The train station Rossia.

Peace - pace

All races seem to live in peace.

Tejo II

All ways end with a view on the Tejo river. It´s everwhere.

snapshot: free rider

With a bottle of wine in one hand, it´s more comfortable to ride outside the tram on the footboard...

Old and new II

Old ans new encounter in this town.

The old luxury

Many times, you step over the testemonies of a marvellous past, old time, still alive.

Old and new

What I liked best in Lisboa was the young atmosphere in the old surroundings.

Lisboa, Belem and all the colours...

This is the story of a trip to Lisboa. Let us beginn with the colours of Belem. Yes, this was a foto. And the colours are real. You´ll find these old houses near the riverside in Belem, a western suborb of Lisbon. The ocean is near, the monotony of grey and blue. People here have the desire to add strong colours to their lifes, just the same as people in the desert or people in poverty.

Colours of Belem II

The old houses in Belem are full of coulours. They were used as boatshouses and fishmarkets. You may recognise that the blue house of this photo is the same as on the painting above.

Torre de Belem - the old Statue of Liberty

In the old days of Columbus and Vasco di Gama, the last building before the big ocean was the torre de belem. A little fortress some kilometers out of Lisboa. In that time, it was the Empire State Building and Statue of Liberty at the same time: the last landmark of civilisation on the way out into to danger and the first sign of good return on the way back. In even older times the pharos of Alexandria had that function. My interpretation of the photo wants to show the mystery and the powerfull (as well threatening as consoling) aura of that place.

Night is coming

You heart the boats and the bird of the river, you smell water, oil and fish, you feel the last warmth of the day and you see night coming... then you know how life feels.

with the boot over the river

Take the time to go on the other side of the river in the last minutes of daylight.

the Tejo

Wherever you go, a glimps of the Tejo accompanies you.

Night lights on the river

The river is not quick too, it´s lazy, oily and dirty. But still it´s showing all reflections of life. Like an old man.

town on the hills

If you want to discover Lisbon by feet, dont forget: it´s a town on seven hills.

Light and heaven

Lisboa has wonderfull lights all day long, a wonderfull heaven and lots of churches to poke their steeple into heaven.

Go around by tram

No chance to go by car through this town. You will never find a parking. Enjoy tram line 28, which leads you into the old town, which was founded in the old arabian time. In this time the name of Lisbon was Al-Aschbouna. You still feel the old atmosphere when you walk through the quarter Alfama.

crazy times slaves

In the subway you find a painting which shows, what the lisbon people hate most: to look at the watch and to ran around like a brainless timeslave.

time to say good bye

In other towns its very rare that you can study how houses are rotting. Here you can see their beautifull death and you can sob, let your tear fall down, you can feel the missery about the destroyed old beauty.

time for the important things

The old is breaking down and at the same time new things begin. Where time is not so important, you can feel the pulse of life.

Lazy afternoon

Did the Kinks invent their song here? You sit in a street café, drinking galao or sweet portwine, time goes by, an your eyes are no longer willing to open wide... its the magic of an old town.

Time to talk

All the days in Lisboa, I didn´t see an internetcafé. But that was all right, because people had something else: Time to talk!

High tech

How fast technologic systems can change! But this technic was soldid and enduring. How will the leftovers of our technology look like in 100 years?

The old tramway

Sometimes my photos just show mere reality (-:

Some days in Lisboa

Of course, not all my pictures are abstract. With some you can make quite conventional postcards. Last week, I made a tripp to Lisbon, where time seems to stand still...

Self portrait II

That was a real hard drive today. So many abstract patterns, so many theory. That´s why I say goodbye with a second self portrail, which at least has to do a little bit with reality. But even in this picture I do not want to pretend, that this is a photo. That´s why it must not be a perfect photoshop work. I like to have a spectator, who realises, that this is a painting, a creation... art. The spectator does not whant lies. I don´t tell hin, my picture shows realty. Of course it began as a photo, but in the end it was a dream, a an idea, a construction. All that means the same. Every construction began as a dream.

Small outlay, big income

With a minimum of efforts, pattern produce a maximum of interest.

The way back...

Of course, there is a way back from abstraction to reality. Patterns can be combined with elements of reality, with real photo elements.

Find the pattern in everything

The same kind of patterns, which you find with big telescopes in the far away universes, you will find in the smallest details under a microscope. The pattern is everywhere, it´s main principle of every structure. Here yiu see some knots in a textile fabric from guatemlala. shurely, some DNS probes would look just the same.

This was a newspaper print

with some investigation, even a newspaperprint can be changed into a pattern

Patterns by mirroring

Here is an example for the pattern production by mirroring

patterns are keys

patterns are keys, if you decipher them, you find the knots to understand the hidden secrets of every structure. They can tell whole storries, such as the X-ray image.

Patterns are powerfull

Patterns are powerfull and full of mysteries

The holiness of patterns

Patterns are somehow holy. It is not merely by chance, that the old islamic art is full of patterns. The patterns are pure harmony, they show the harmony of the univers, the principles of its structure. They are like music and maths formulars. They are perfect and absolute. Patterns teach us, to love colours and to praise this wonderfull univers. Even the galaxies dance in the wonderfull harmony of spiral paterns.

Many ways to produce a pattern

There are many ways to produce a pattern. By mirroring or multipication you can transform every photo into a pattern. But of course, you can also start with a object, which has pattern elements in itself, here for example a decoration element of the alhambra.

When I was a child...

When I was a child... I had a kaleidoscope. For hours I could sit and watch the mystical pattern of the colours in the glastube. That was my "you tube". Today I remind the patterns and I want to reconstruct them with special photos.

Test

Let´s make a little test: what do you see here? Cave-painting from the stone-time? Microbes under a microscope? Abstract árt? Nothing of all. A photo of the planet mars, redoubled by mirroring...

fried egg - sunny side up

Today I show you something, which seems very real. A view on sand and stones. Nevertheless it´s uncredible unreal. It´s 80 millions kilometers away. A video from mars. Check the following adress:

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/videos/mer/mer20080204/

No painter could send a better illusion in our mind than the automatic camera from the mars robots.

Unreal /real

This could abstract art. You agree? But it also shows a scientific photo from a mars mission. So what! Where is art, and where is sience?

Sorry for shocking you

Sometime people tell me, that this kind of photos is "manipulated" too much. I dont blame them, but the accusal seems ridiculous to me. First of all, also "normal" photos are "mainpulated". You "manipulate" with choise of the object, with the cut-out, with the selection what you show big and small. Sometimes you can even "manipulate" with reality. For example by eating blueberries before you make a photo of the tongue. But manipulation, is that something bad? Only if you hide it. Otherwise it just is another word for: attaching a denotation, a sense or significance to a person or a thing.

Even the horror is a significiane, a meaning, a feeling, a fantasy...

mountains

One subject, I could depict without end, are mountains. In all forms and in all stadia of abstraction.

abstraction I

Abstraction by image editing is like the transmigration of souls. A photo is changed completely, all external forms are distroyed, all measurable weight is lost, but still the concentrate of colours and feelings survive.

abstraction II

You find motifs for abstraction everyhere. Even the corner of a empty room can change into a mystic sign.

The other side

I admit, somethimes I also begin my work with brush and pen. May be that´s not my strong point. But it helps to understand, what we work on a photo.

Tapas

Tapas means cover. It covered the tea or the glas of wine. In the proper sense, a photo is a tapa too. You see it on the first look, and it covers the thing itself. The foto is a symbol, a cipher or code for the reality.

hunger

The night, that means hunger for everything, for bread, money, beer and love.

Cho.land is everywhere

The night, that means concealment and danger, quietness and agitation, the night conjuncts all these contrasts. The painter must be there. Vincent van Gogh with his "coffeehouse by night" may not be the first, but he was the most persuasive to express this.