Blogger’s Blog: Berlin - Site Preview

 All

Since I have some spare vacation, I am going  to take a trip to Berlin. I’ll be there from August 2 to August 7, 2007. I hope to do some shooting, of course, but the weather in Europe has been terrible all summer, and Berlin doesn’t look too good at the moment either. I’ve got a good deal with a Danish travel agency. Berlin from Copenhagen is a 7 hour (bus) drive, and to me the less expensive way to go there.

I’ve already made deals with 2 major museums, that will allow me to shoot at their premises. In fact, one museum, will let me in on their weekly day closed, so I will have the whole area to myself. Both museums are now familiar with our project for next year, and their reading of the blog seems to have come down very well.

Yes, of course, I will check out some hotels, as well.

 Anything that you want me to look into, within reason, I’ll be happy to do it. Let me know as soon as possible.

BTW, could you recommend a good film for shooting architecture? The 2 museums are, apart from their obvious historical interest, also famous for their trail blazing architecture, and I’ll see if I can get the Hologon working for me. These are the museums: Jewish Museum Berlin and Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.

I have approached other museums as well, but they have not answered my mails yet. I defenitely expext to visit Helmut Newton’s site., since that is only some hundred meters from where I stay in the former West Berlin. Apart from that, I expect 5 days of walking Berlin with a couple of cameras - a G and a D .

If I get a chance, I’ll blog you from Berlin. Those posts will be tagged: Blogger’s Blog.

Best wishes

Knut

Jan Brouckaert: Blog Gallery.

Jan Brouckaert is a long time member of The Contax G Pages. He lives in Brüssel, Belgium. These pictures are from the Normandy coast in France.

Jan has held several exhibitions in his homeland. He specialized in b&w landscapes.

 

         

Mouse Over or Click images for larger view. More galleries.

Copyright 2007: Jan Brouchaert. All rights reserved.

New Call for Pictures

All

Seems that the first idea of how to get pictures to this blog did not work (I haven’t had a single).  So, I have made it much more easy.

If you intend to go to Berlin, then pick 5 of your very best pictures and send them to me to me off blog, and I’ll load them. I’ll make a 5 picture mini gallery for each participant, based on the model of my TEST Gallery.

Yesterday and the day before, I approached Fujifilm and several other parties in Germany for sponsorships, so people in Germany now visit the blog to see pictures. We had 17 google translations of the of entire blog yesterday. From English to German.

Please be aware, that the blog has a limited server capacity, so don’t send images more than 600 pixels wide or high. 

The post with your images in it will have the following title: “Your Name: Blog Gallery” and will be tagged with the following tags: your name, image, gallery, blog gallery.

There will be a copyright notice in your name, as well.

Good luck with it.

Best wishes

Knut

 Pls. note that the old post on submission on pictures has been deleted, not to make confusion.

Knut Skjærven: Blog Gallery (TESTING)

These are the first images loaded to the blog.  

I am testing how this will work and how I can “tag” images to quickly find them again. I am also testing how much space these images takes on the server. It seems to be some 4% of total free server capacity. And that should, in fact, be ok.

Please, let me know it this is an ok way to display personal galleries - on the blog. Let me know what you think . And how this works.

Click images for larger view.

Many thanks.

         

Copyright 2000 - 2007: Knut Skjærven. All images have originally been posted to The Contax G Pages.

Jerome Belthrop attends G Summit in Berlin.

Well, this is absolutely marvellous.

Jerome Belthrop, who for many years was one of the backboners of The Contax G Pages, not only has considered attending  the G Summut, but has already decided to turn up in Berlin next summer. 

Jerome has been inspired “… to crawl out from beneath my rock and polish off my monocular and G2″.

Go see his profile and his images on The Contax G Pages”.

Welcome to you, Jerome .

On Hotel Booking: (Outdated Post).

 THIS POST IS OUTDATED: PLEASE AWAIT NEW POST ON BOOKING.

Please read this very carefully.

I have sent mails to a number of hotels in Berlin. The hotels I have contacted are those recommended by Berlin Tourismus Marketing GmbH. Most of them haven’t even answered my requests, but  a couple of hotels  have.  I have taken up a dialogue with the people at Hotel am Scheunenviertel.

This is a city hotel, that seem ideal for the Summit Group. It is a small, relatively inexpensive hotel with 6 single rooms and 12 double rooms. So their website says.

The hotel is a GARNI hotel, which in this case means that there is no bar at the hotel and no restaurant.  However, I have been informed, that the first floor of the same building, is a restaurant and a bar. And that the area, by the way, is crowded with bars and restaurants.

Breakfast buffet is included in the prices. 

Group price for rooms a night, are: (Pls. see mail below)

Single room; Euro 70.00

Double room: Euro 87.00

Triple rooms: Euro 110.00

Insert: First mail from hotel

Good morning Mr. Skjaerven and thank you very much for your kindly request. We like to offer:

arrival : 21^st of June 2008                                                 departure: 24^th of June 2007

1 single room a      70,–?

1  double room a  87,–?                              

1 triple room a     110,–? /day/room

including a fine and copious breakfast also every day a bottle of water in the room as a courtesy of the hotel.

We would appreciate to have you with us.

With best wishes from Berlin

         Hotel garni

**Am Scheunenviertel**

       Thomas Linke

Insert: Second mail from hotel:

Good morning Knut and thank you very much for the e-mail.

I have offer you the rooms in a group rate.

It’s not possible to use our breakfast room (ed. for lectures). But on the first floor of our house is a Restaurant- Bar(Las Cucaracha). There is enough space for a good discussion.

We are a hotel garni. We offer a really good breakfast buffet. But we don`t have a Bar. This Area is full Bars, Clubs and so on.

We can give you an option till the 10^th of December 2007 for all the rooms.

But please write us an e- mail if you like to have them.

With best wishes from Berlin

       Hotel garni

**Am Scheunenviertel**

    Thomas Linke

……………………………….

Please note that we can have the whole hotel for ourselves. If that is what we want. We need to make up our minds about this December 10th 2007, the latest. 

If you intend to stay at Hotel am Scheunenviertel, please state that at the blog page called “Hotel am Scheunenviertel: Booking intentions“.

Be aware, that you will have to book the rooms yourself.

Booking is at your own risk.

…………………………………..

If you don’t want to stay at this hotel you yourself will have to find another place to live. You could try one of the other hotels recommended by Berlin Turismus Marketing. Here they are:

http://www.loock-hotels.com/hackeschermarkt/ (This hotel is already fully booked).

http://at.arcotel.at/document.asp?id=1249 

http://www.hotel-allegra.de/

http://www.hotel-albrechtshof.de/

 Good luck with it .

 

RENT A HOTEL.

I have started negotiating prices with hotels in Berlin.

One hotel is a very attractive one in the middle of everything. It has 12 double rooms, and 6 single rooms. We could have the whole hotel, if they permit it. With the obvious advantaged that has.

If you want one of these rooms, you should keep an eye on the new page.  I will open up for comments to that page (pre-reservation) when I have news from the hotel.

If you want to be in on this, you could also send me a mail off-blog.

Thanks

Knut

Recommendation from Berlin Tourismus Marketing GmbH

 G Gang

I originally wrote to The Goethe Institute in Copenhagen, Denmark, with a bunch of questions, but they recommended me to approach Berlin Tourismus Marketing GmbH in Berlin, directly. Since, as they said: the questions were rather specific.

And so I did.

I got the reply earlier to day. Please read it. There is a lot of good information there. But only for those who read it .

It seems that they confirm our choice of area to stay, and to shoot in. In addition there are names and addresses on printers and photo shops, that we could use.

Start reading my questions further below (original post). After that: read the answers from Berlin (reply mail).

Both the original post and the reply, have been slightly edited.

It seems, that we are taken pretty seriously.

Best wishes

Knut

……………………………………………….

Reply mail:

Dear Mr Skjærven

Our colleague Bettina Werner was so kind to forward your email to our office.

We will gladly try to answer your questions and give you some good links.

1/ The so called Scheunenviertel, the former Jewish Quarter around Hackescher Markt in the center of Berlin http://www.berlin-tourist-information.de/english/sightseeing/e_si_sehenswuerdigkeiten.php?

2/ Here some recommendations:

http://www.hotelas.com/en/tour.html

http://www.loock-hotels.com/hackeschermarkt/ 

http://at.arcotel.at/document.asp?id=1249 

http://www.hotel-allegra.de/

http://www.hotel-albrechtshof.de/

3/ Picture Point GmbH FotolaborEKZ Potsdamer Platz Arkaden10785 Berlin (Tiergarten) Alte Potsdamer Str. 7

030 - 25297405

4/ Landesverband Berliner Galerien

http://www.artfacts.net/berlin2/index.php/pageType/siteInfo

*LVBG - Kontakt*Ansprechpartnerin: Anemone VostellLandesverband Berliner GalerienMarkgrafenstr. 15D-10969 Berlinlvbg@berliner-galerien.de <mailto:lvbg@berliner-galerien.de>

Best regards

Nicole Roebel-

 i.A. Nicole Röbel Berlin Tourismus Marketing GmbHPresse- und Öffentlichkeitsarbeit

Public Relations

Original post:

 — Original-Nachricht — >

 Betreff: Photo Summit in Berlin 2008> Datum: Fri, 22 Jun 2007 14:50:14 +0200>

Von: Knut Skjærven

An: kooperation@btm.de>

 Dear Sir/Madam >>

I am arranging a photographers summit in Berlin in June 2008. An  international group of people will get together in Berlin for about a  week to portrait “Berlin - Vibrant City”.

These are all well established “amateur” photographers, and many have a  history, that includes exhibitions.

I have a couple of questions, that I hope that you will be able to help me with.

1. Could you recommend an area of Berlin with an artistic milieu where it will be convenient to stay?

2. Could you point to one or more hotels in that area, that we could stay in? (Not large business hotels, but smaller, original German  hotels?)

 3. Could you point to “a printer” that do high quality prints, that we could visit and have our prints done?

4. One or more galleries, that would be able to handle, and interested in, an exhibition on the theme “Berlin - Vibrant City”.

4. Photographic themes are: “cityscapes”, “peoplescapes”, “old and new”. Are there any areas of Berlin that you would recommend as being better for shooting such themes, then others? Please point to areas of  town.

I would appreciate if you could give me an answer in English, so I could forward it to the group.

I am looking forward to hearing from you.

 Best wishes

Knut Skjærven

NEW: Nice to Know

New Page: Nice to Know.

If you detect information about Berlin that you want everybody to know about, please let everybody hear about it by writing a comment to this new page. The first two “nice to knows” have already been posted.

Follow future “nice to knows” in the left hand blogroll, or in the top bar showing pages. Or you can catch “nice to knows” in “Recent Comments” in the left hand blogroll, as well.

…………………………………………………….. 

Knut Skjærven Says:
July 8th, 2007 at 12:37 am e 

Well, I just found out that June 21 is “Die Fete de la Musique” all over the world. And in Berlin.This means, that the city will be “vibrant” with music. You will enjoy “…MusikerInnen, Bands, Orchester, Chöre, Solisten und DJs, die an diesem Tag ohne Honorar auftreten”. More than 500 performances to greet the G group.More information here: http://lafetedelamusique.com/

Hmmm, I wonder how they knew we were coming?

Knut Skjærven Says:
July 8th, 2007 at 12:53 am e

There are three baxpax hostel hotels i Berlin. You’ll find them here: http://www.baxpax.de Prices go down to Euro 13.00 a bed, but I am not sure that you pick your room-mates yourself .

New: Print Exchange

 All

There is a new page on the blog. You’ll find “pages” in the top bar, as well as in the left hand blogroll. Just to make you aware of it . Goes like this: 

NEW: Print Exchange

Based on a slightly different idea from Diego Cantalapiedra, Peter Harris came up with the idea of having a print exchange in Berlin. And what a good idea that was.

If you intend to bring prints to Berlin, pls. prepare 3 images for print, and have them printed in a size of you own choice (preferably a4 or letter).  Don’t be surprises if you need to make 20 copies of each print, one for each participant at The Berlin G Summit (you will get the exact number at a later date).

If you think, that this is indeed a good idea, pls. state it as comments to this blog page so we can see how many “printers” there are among us . Say, if you will bring prints.

And:

If you intend to bring prints with you to Berlin, you are welcome to load previews of the prints at The Contax G Pages, right here.

3 previews each. The previews can be commented upon, but not rated.