BIO

Born in Germany, I lived in the USA,Sri Lanka, Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia and now again in Germany. I am married and have a son who is a musician and a media designer and a daughter who studies photography. I am a vegetarian. I love psychology and eastern religions and philosophy, world cultures and world music. I am awed by the wonderful manifestations of consciousness in its countless life-forms. My second passion besides photography is collecting books.

Intro to the Mandala Series

Application declaration for my mandala series posted in the fractal/fractal section !!! Inspired by Miwi�s fractal mandalas, I decided (after a long absence) to share some of the results of my "creative passion" of the past year: my mandala series. As I have explained at my intro to "Shades of Grey" the images of this series are not fractals in its true sense, since they start off as photographs that I process in up to 50 different steps. Strictly speaking they thus belong to the mixed media section, where I started posting them originally. But I found, that from their appearance they had much more in common with the postings in the fractal category than anything I saw in the mixed-media section. So I took the liberty to place them there. I know that some serious fractalist will proberably take offence at this (I apologize) and if someone really strongly should object, I will stop immediately. On the other hand I have received so many positive comments on the images of this series, and I assume (or at least hope) that most comments have been made on the basis of, whether someone likes the image, irregardless in which medium it was created. Applications: Regarding the applications used: I am happy to share with anyone who is interested the techniques that I apply. My main tools are Photoshop and PhotoImpact, and the most important plugin to achieve that kaleidoscopic effect is Photo Swizzle. Transparency and glow effects are mostly achieved with a combination of "Flaming Pear" filters plus lighting effects. And my favorite tool for surface texture and 3D luminance is "Painter". Motion, twirls and whirls I do with "PowerGoo" or "SuperGoo" made by Kai Krause (Kai�s PowerTools)usually just used as a fun tool for face distortions. Besides that there are a number of other tricks and effects that I play with. Like I said, if anyone is interested, I am happy to write and mail a more detailed "how to manual". Greetings and best wishes to all of you. Peter

Intro to the "Street-Portraits" Series

Well, I am back into "Street Portraits" again. Therefore I�ll place the intro to "Street Portraits" in first place again. Below that you find the intro to the "New York Wall-Spirits" series. About "Street Portraits": In a city we see every day hundrets of people pass by that you perceive with hardly more attention than moving cars or passing clouds. The individual person leaves no impression on the mind and remains virtually nonexistent in the memory. Now imagine this: You have been stranded alone for quite some time on a remote island. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a person, that you have never met before, shows up. You would be full of joy and excitement at the chance to encounter than unknown human being. Photographing "Street Portraits", in some way, is like that to me. The encounter takes place in two steps: The first one when I take the picture, is just a brief connection. The second "meeting", is when I view the photograph. It�s that second encounter that leaves a lasting impression in my memory. "Street Portraits" are also a way to learn about myself. We all share an almost identical genetic code, as well as the same basic desires, fears, pleasures, sufferings, joys, sorrows, hopes and aspirations. Thus every man is our brother. Every woman is our sister. It is this type of kinship I try to capture with my street portraits. And to me, every portrait also tells the viewers story. I try to photograph every day, always using the same locations. This daily routine is like a zen-meditaion for me: attentive perception without the usual mental chatter. It acts as a perfect antitode to the stress of my eight hour office job. I am using a Canon Powershot A40. Post processing is done with PhotoImpact 8.  If you like you can check out my XenoDrem site on: www.zen-sation.com Thanks to everyone for viewing my pictures and giving your comments and critic. And also: Its great to see all your wonderful works of art.

Intro to the "New York Wall-Spirts" Series

From 1987 till 1991 I had the fortune to live in New York City. On one Sunday morning during that time I took a stroll down to Canal Street. On that occasion I past by an illegal sidewalk flee-market that were quite common in lower Manhattan during that period. There I purchased an old Rolleiflex SL 35 (with an excellent 50 mm Schneider lens) for $ 40. Thus equipped with my new old camera my long dormant passion for photography was gradually rekindled again. I had an apartment at a friends house in Greenpoint just at the border between Queens and Brooklyn, a mostly Polish/Puerto Rican neighbourhood. As in most other borrows in New York graffiti had left it�s colorful mark wherever possible: on walls, gates, doors, vans, sidewalks, bus-stops, subway-stations etc. Though hated by house and shop-owners (who had long given up to fight a losing battle against it) for most residents it had become an accepted, integrated part of their environment that did not bother them nor solicited their conscious attention. Perhaps due to the fact that I had only recently moved to the "Big Apple" was my perception of this unique aspect oft the New York City-landscape conditioned differently. For me, the overwhelming presence of graffiti expressed a tremendous dynamic creative energy that was finding its own unconventional public outlet for its intended self-expression, the driving force behind all true art ("I create, therefore I am!"), bypassing the restictive and elitarian limitations of the commercialised sponsor- and/or ego-driven art-scene. Being intrigued by this phenomena I started to photograph the walls of my neighbourhood in Greenpoint. My approach however was not just to document graffiti but to consciously search a personally perceived aestetic that was contained within it and that was not necessarily intended or equally perceived by its creator. According to the saying, what is "beauty is in the eye of the beholder". The photographs of that series consist however not only of graffiti but also of other wall textures, patterns and designs that due to colors and proportions lend itself to photographic compositions. After a few weeks or month however, my focus took a dramatic, sudden shift. I was walking on West Broadway from 6th Avenue towards the East-Village in Lower Manhattan. Suddenly a heavily torn poster on a traffic-light post showing bits and pieces of a portrait of a male person caught my eye. When I photographed the image I had no idea that it was to become the first in a series that would haunt me for the next two years and that in the end comprised thousands of photographs. Later I called the series "Wall-Spirits", or "Talking Walls". As indicated in the name, the impressions that I perceived from then on of New York walls, especially in the Lower East Side down from 14th Street to Canal Street and between Broadway and "Alphabeth City (Avenue A, B,m and C) took on a very different, in a true sense personal nature. In this area, especially around St. Mark�s Place, 1st Avenue, 2nd Avenue and then South of Housten in the Soho area the walls besides graffiti were covered with layer after layer of posters for concerts, theater- and dance performances, movies, political statements, personal announcements etc. etc. randomly glued, ripped, torn off, washed off by rain, faded by the sun, sprayed on by sprayers, scratched and torched etc. making it as a whole a perfect metaphor for all the promised pleasures and excitement of the city - or by the same token material life - and the reality of its transient, declining and decaying nature that must give way to yet anonther promise, yet another live. But as with the graffiti series, my attempt was, to move these images into another reality, isolating them from their chaotic environment and by consciously limiting the field of vision, increasing and creating an impact for them, that did not exist without this limitation. "Vision is the art of seeing the invisible" Jonathan Swift supposely said. Sometimes this vision is achieved by exclusion of distractions, by lifting a segment out of its context. Thus the Wall-Spirit images (at least for me) reveal, that there can be poetry and emotion even in the midst of appearant visual chaos, and again: beauty can be found where a superficial view would perhaps only see decay and ugliness. Even though these photographs do not constitute portraits in its true sense, but as myself, I think many viewers will be equally surprised by their captivating impact. At times one feels touched by their personal energy and in some strange, almost intimate way, connected to the persons that look through them at us as through only a thin veil that seperates us from their own dimension. Allowing ourselves to meet them face to face we suddenly percieve in them the different dualities of our own humanity with all its victories and defeats, its joys and sorrows, its hopes and passions, our love, our hate, our fears and death, our personal heaven and hell. (Some photographs I almost found to be prophetic as if expressing and forwarning of events to come more than a decade later). I found myself many times returning to the spot where I took a particular image. Witnessing the transitions in the course of time and at times experiencing even a sense of loss and sorrow when it finally had disappeared alltogether perhaps underneath a new, fresh poster glued on top of it. Like I said, to photograph this series became something like a daily obsession for me until I left New York in 1991. I was changed in the process of it. My sense of awareness increased considerably. So I might say the process of photographing this series became something like a zen-experience for me. As a matter of fact, in the course of "stalking" the Lower East Side for "Wall.Spirits" I made friends with a famous Japanese photographer, Shinzu Maeda, who had lived in a Buddhist monestary for 12 years and who shared with me his zen-insights in photography. He was using only a simple pocket-camera with which he captured extraordinary images of New York street life, all of which had, what he considered a good photograph: impact, simplicity and poetry. I would be happy if the viewers of "Wall-Spirit" will find this quality to some degree in at least some of my photographs. PS: I live now near Wiesbaden in Germany and have recently started a new "Wall-Spirit" series photographed with a Canon Powershot digital camera. But of course: There is no place like New York City