public sleeping

This time some pictures taken in December in Berlin.

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

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

See the beer bottle? That’s the reason. He was actually swaying a little. One of those people where you dread that they sit down next to you on the train.

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

Strange travellers down in the subway station. I think the shadow coming from the table is the best part of this picture.

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

Almost holding hands. Aren’t they cute?

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

Feet.

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

One. And more hands …

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

Two. One of the hands was his.

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

We went to Potsdamer Platz to see a movie. It was snowing a lot. He was actually posing for someone else’s picture.

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

Waiting around after collecting our tickets. Around Christmas you can always get a sausage and some Glühwein there. Not me though.

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

Probably hiding from the cold. Or would you take your baby to the cinema?

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

The Cinestar in the Sony Centre is the biggest cinema in Berlin where they show original language movies. Definitely one of the perks of living there. I’m going to miss it.

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

Facepalm.

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

Pretty faces.

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

© Lilly Schwartz 2013

As always taking pictures when waiting for the next train. Palpable boredom.

 

The day before yesterday something surprising happened. Someone asked me to take down their picture! Normally it’s extremely improbable that someone finds their picture by chance. After all the internet is vast! The chances improve though if you have a common friend like it was the case here. Chemnitz is so terribly provincial that it was bound to happen, since everyone seems to know everyone else. If I hadn’t left Chemnitz many years ago I’d probably know her myself. In any case, I don’t have a problem at all with taking down a picture, even though this one was actually quite nice. If you do street photography it goes with the territory that people might object. I respect that.

Inspired by this I now added a disclaimer page that speaks a bit about what I do and why I do it. I also added a short disclaimer that is shown at the top of each post in case this happens again. I tried to add it to the general blog page as well, but so far it looks a bit strange. Incidentally I wanted to change this theme anyway, since my posts have grown a bit too long to have more than one shown at once. Since I have to set a featured image to more than a hundred posts before I can change it the way I want, this will probably take me a while. Not to mention that I will have to stitch a couple of themes together in the process, since I don’t want to lose the nice portfolio function of this theme. The work is never done. Speaking of work: 6 days worth of digital and 14 rolls of film are left in the editing queue.

Comments

  • …”Aren’t they cute?” Very good photograph ! Yes, they sure are. In India, with the authorities majorly paranoid about terrorist activity, photography is banned in most public places including Metro / railway stations, in the subway (Metro) itself, malls and movie halls foyers. One can, however, shoot in the open markets, which I do occasionally.

    • Lilly Schwartz

      Thanks Subroto! Interesting about the restrictions of photography in public spaces. It is similar in England where the law regarding taking pictures of strangers in public is more lax. Train stations are actually not public places though, but belong to companies and they restrict photography, especially after the attacks there. In Germany you can’t take a picture of synagogues without the police stopping you and writing down your personal information. This happened to me in Düsseldorf when I was living close to the synagogue. I always found this rather weird, since you don’t need a picture of a place to leave a suitcase with a bomb somewhere. We pay dearly for the illusion of security.

  • I just read your disclaimer page and I find you managed to put very clearly in words the actual “so called privacy” situation. I feel in Italy it is not very different than in Germany, probably people are more provincial here. I’m as well always surprised by the fact that so many people posting so many pictures on FB or similar complain if by accident they are in one picture taken by somebody else. The mysteries of human brain 🙂
    robert
    PS: I think main problem arose in Italy a few years ago when became easy to post photo on the net and somebody was found to be were he was not supposed to be: claiming to be sick and not going to the office and seen the same days visiting a bar during the happy hour, or even worse telling to the wife (or the husband) to be late because of extra time in office and seen later by the partner together with anyone else…you can imagine…
    Sorry for long answer.

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