Berlin | © Lilly Schwartz 2013

I always like how a picture can be entirely transformed by a little background information. One wouldn’t know that the greenery on the other side of the street belongs to the graveyard. Apart from that this was taken through a dirty car window, so I had to edit out some smudges. Didn’t make a perfect job of it, but it’s decent enough.

Berlin | © Lilly Schwartz 2013

This was taken in a backyard not too far away from here. In this area there are fewer brick stone buildings than in my old neighbourhood, but there are still a few left nonetheless. My backyard explorations have suffered a little from living in this area, because the backyards are rather boring normally. This one was an exception though.

All pictures taken with my Olympus Pen E-PL3 and my Panasonic Lumix 20mm f/1.7 ASPH.

Yesterday I only headed out to run an errand, which involved going by car. Not many opportunities to take pictures. I was pleasantly surprised that I came back with two decent enough pictures. Apart from that I spent most of my day relaxing, because I was feeling slightly rough.

These days I do tend to spend a lot of time looking at gear. I have quite a good setup for what I’m doing, but I’m still pondering whether it’s time to get a proper setup for analog photography. I really want to spend some time learning all about analog photography now, learning to develop my own film, making prints and so on. At the moment I feel like my Zorki is actually still holding me back though. It’s beautiful, I know, but it’s a camera that is rather hard to handle. It’s fully manual with an external light meter, so taking a picture takes quite a bit of effort. One needs to get the focus right, read the light meter correctly, get the settings right, deal with the rather awkward framing because the viewfinder is more of an approximation and so on. By the time I’m done with all of that the actual picture just turns out boring, if you know what I mean. I think it would be better to use a camera with an internal light meter while still figuring out how to do all the rest. On the other hand, using one of those cameras with internal metering would be a piece of cake after figuring out the Zorki. I’m still torn.

I guess, since I’m still stuck here thanks to my health – I was planning to spend my summer in Spain – I might as well get going with the analog photography. There is a place here in Berlin that offers analog photography courses with some theory, developing film, making prints, darkroom techniques and so on. It’s a 6 week course and if I start at the next opportunity I’d be done with it by the time I feel well enough to travel. At the moment I don’t see my health improving fast enough for me to be going anywhere within the next month anyway. If I spend 6 weeks learning with my Zorki then by the end of it I should be sufficiently used to it to find any less crazy camera to be rather comfortable to use. I can still think about new gear then. In the end no matter what I do photographically it will keep my mind off the dreary subject of whether I’ll be pain free after recovery. That can only be good. I just have to keep busy and that’s what I’m planning to do. I think a course in analog photography is just what I need right now.