BERL1N - A PHOTOGRAPHIC EXPERIENCE

My photography eBook is now available!

This book is a collection of photographs, organised through seven themes, presented in such a way as to understand the city in a thematic way. As the blurb says:

'BERL1N - A Photographic Experience takes the reader through an experience of Berlin as an unknown, beginning with an Abstract look at Berlin as a completely foreign city, through to its Street presence, learning more about Berliners themselves, appreciating the Graffiti and Art of the city, appreciating more of Berlin through its Landscapes, grasping its excellent transit system and considering its past present and future through its Architecture.'

The ebook is priced at 3,99 Euros.

I chose to publish the book through the self-publishing company lulu.com, which will eventually be further distributed through to amazon and iTunes and other online sellers with its ISBN (9781291825091), though I have no control over when it is listed on those external sellers. 

A link to the lulu.com catalogue of the ebook can be found at BERL1N - A PHOTOGRAPHIC EXPERIENCE.

Lulu.com allows the user to change 'stores' to help with language and currency (i.e. purchases can be made in your local currency, EUR, USD, AUD, GBP etc).

I have also published through the Berlin self publishing house 'epubli' which lists the book only in Euros. epubli also has a UK site through which the book is also published and although the site is identical looking, it is a separate site to the German one and only lists the book in Pounds! (3.49 GBP).

One of the good things about the epubli sites is that they have created a preview of the first 10% of the book, so you can check that out at either the German store or at this link for the UK store.

The royalty structure is quite complicated, but basically as the author publishing through third party, I receive better royalties if the book is purchased through epubli or lulu.com directly rather than if the purchase is made from the third parties such as Amazon or iTunes.

The end result and look of the ebook is an ePub format which should display evenly across eReaders (as the ePub is a common format). The process of creating the book was quite a learning experience which I intend to write a little about at a later date.

For those curious about whether the book is available in hard copy, it is exclusively an eBook. A hard copy version is too cost prohibitive at this stage. 

For anyone that purchases the book, thank you! and please do leave a review of the book on the site from where you bought it :)

YAAM Berlin Closing Party 2014

Near us, in Friedrichshain and next to the East Side Gallery is a club / bar / community space called YAAM (Young African Art Market). It's one of those places that I've always though of going to but never got around to it.

Last year I thought of going a few times but never did, and once winter approached I pretty much forgot about it - it is known as a beach bar after all.

Then a couple of weeks ago, a Reggae legend I am into (Horace Andy) came to YAAM to play a gig. There were posters all over the place and this put YAAM back in my head. I didn't go to the gig but did think we should check out the place. Then I saw that it was closing down at the end of the Easter weekend! The flyers advertising this did also say it would reopen in late May, but I wanted to see the old YAAM while I had the chance.

So we went to the closing party on Easter Monday.

The weather wasn't great, and it had rained during the day, but by the time we had got there it was fine enough.

I had some expectations of what this place would be like...a little beachy bar thing on the Spree. I didn't realise it was a HUGE beach thing with quite a few bars!!

HUGE!

 Beach bar and soccer pitch...

Beach bar and food and performance shacks...

Beach bar and volleyball area...

Separate market area with African food stalls, ping pong and tiny club within club spaces...

and where Horace had played the week before....

 The best was the typical laid back Berlin style of grabbing a beer, sitting in the sand and chilling out while gazing over the river to Kreuzberg...

Being there I felt a bit sad that we couldn't come back with our friends and enjoy a nice summer day here. But then again, YAAM is opening up again in May, just a couple of doors up the road to the former Club Magdalena. (see first map image in this post). The YAAM website says there will be a 96 hour busy-bee in early May to build the beach - so that sounds like an interesting thing.

I'm looking forward to checking out the new YAAM and glad I got the chance to see the old one!

Love Lock Lost

You may recall from a previous post that we stuck a Love Lock onto the Oberbaumbrücke for Valentines Day 2014.

Now I wasn't naive enough to think that it would be there forever, but at least a year, maybe up until World War III?

But not bloody 1 month!

Yep, somewhere between 1 and 2 months is all our poor love lock lasted.

We noticed last weekend, as we walked to an event in the evening and past by where our lock should be. Now it was dark and we'd had a few beers under the belt, but we were sure it wasn't there any more. To make certain we went back this week and it's true, our poor little love lock is gone :(

Some big old sturdy locks remain that can be recognised from the previous photos, and lots of new locks.

We can only assume that the city came and cut off what it could - and given that our lock had a think locking mechanism with quite a long reach it was probably quite easy to nip it off. We had noticed that the city had gone along this main street some weeks ago cutting the locks off abandoned bikes so maybe it was just part of the cleanup.

So what does this mean....our undying love has been wrenched off the bridge by the city. What do we do? What does it mean for us? Should we break up? And now I feel stupid for wearing the key around my neck (which also means I am getting the blame for clandestinley unlocking it!).

I think we will just get another lock, or maybe a thousand locks, and put it back...here there and everywhere!

This post is in memory of our love lock. Taken too soon. :(