Es ist soweit

Unsere neue Webseite ist jetzt online. Prost!

via Instagram https://ift.tt/2MdoFxD

Und noch ein kleines Detail unserer neuen Webseite. Altes Logo – neuer Look.

Bunte Flecken im Paradies

Florian Manz fährt für ZEIT ONLINE mit Gregor Scheiffarth (Naturschützer), Thomas Clemens (Mellumrat) und Karsten Krogmann (Text) auf die Wattenmeer Insel Mellum. Menschen ist der Zutritt im Vogelschutzgebiet verboten, es sei denn, sie haben eine Ausnahmegenehmigung. Auf der Insel wird auf einem Stück Strand der Müll studiert.

G20

Was passiert wenn sich die Politiker der 19 selbsternannten wichtigsten Industrie- und Schwellenländer des Planeten in Hamburg treffen, um den Kapitalismus zu optimieren?

Kollektiv25 on Tour:-)

Julius Schrank macht Buch für National Geographic

Julius ist aus New York zurück. Drei Wochen hat er dort für das neue National Geographic Buch »LINIE 7 – DIE KULTSTRECKE DURCH NEW YORK CITY« gearbeitet.

In dem Buch wird es neben mehr als 200 Fotografien von Julius, Texte von Bruce Northam, der unter anderem Reisereportagen für »New York Times« und »Huffington Post« schreibt, zu lesen geben.

LINIE 7 – DIE KULTSTRECKE DURCH NEW YORK CITY

Das Buch wird im Oktober erscheinen.
ISBN-13: 978-3-86690-630-3

A »sweet« assignment

For the swedish customer magazine »Smarter Packaging« by BILLERUDKORSNÄS Lene was assigned to take still images of sweets and a portrait of the product designer Katrin Warneke who invented them.

»I never shot products before, but I kind of liked that job a lot.«

isso – Lene Muench
isso – Lene Muench
isso – Lene Muench
isso – Lene Muench
isso – Lene Muench
isso – Lene Muench

NPD dominiert Pegida Ableger in Schwerin

Sorry this article is only available in german…

»Je suis Charlie« stand nicht auf ihren Schildern. Die etwa 400 MVgida-Teilnehmer, die sich am Montagabend an der Schweriner Siegessäule versammelten, solidarisierten sich keinesfalls mit den Pariser Terroropfern und dem damit verbundenen Angriff auf die Pressefreiheit: »Lügenpresse – auf die Fresse« skandierten sie stattdessen lauthals. Mit Strahlern blendeten sie Kameras, Journalisten wurde sich in den Weg gestellt, auch schon mal kräftig geschubst. Die Redner bei den Zwischenkundgebungen wurden abgeschirmt, so dass sie kaum fotografiert werden konnten. Die Stimmung war aggressiv.

Ganz offensichtlich wurde die Veranstaltung von NPD und freien Kräften dominiert. Neben der fast kompletten NPD Landtagsfraktion und deren Anhängern waren viele Kammeradschaftler, Dynamo Hooligans und rechtsextreme Rocker gekommen. Nur einige wenige ältere Herren und ein paar Familien gesellten sich zu den MVgida-Anhängern. Nur wenige Polizisten, teilweise waren es gerade mal etwas über ein Dutzend, schützten die Medienvertreter, deren Arbeit unter diesen Bedingungen schwierig wurden. Außer dem NDR und Vertretern der Lokalzeitungen folgten nur Fachjournalisten und wenige Beobachter dem gruseligen Aufzug. Später räumte die Einsatzleitung gegenüber einem Journalisten ein, dass es tatsächlich zeitweilig zu wenig Beamte gewesen seien.

MVGIDA 3

MVGIDA 4

Interesting GEO Assignement

Bildschirmfoto 2014-12-18 um 12.05.35I was recently assigned to do a very unusual job for GEO magazine – half assistent half photographer. The job was to photograph schools that are using innovative tools in their teaching. One example being a so called SteveJobs School in Amsterdam. Every student there has an Ipad on which they do their tasks individually. It was completely different to the kind of school i went to. The story can be read in GEO germany’s current issue.

The whole operation involved american photographer Gail Albert Halaban, a lot of technology and myself. The idea was for Gail to take photos in Europe without leaving her desk in New York City. This is how it worked: I went to the schools, set up a camera, lighting and two computers. I connected one of the computers to my camera and allowed Gail to take control over this computer with a program called LogMeIn. This way she could release the shutter of the camera in CaptureOne. The other computer was used to communicate via Skype. Once everything was running, Gail was able to talk to me and the students, capture images and look at them instantly, „almost“ as if she was there.
The editors asked me to shoot some pictures myself if had the time. I had little but was happy to see that one of my pictures ended up as the opening spread for the story.
I wouldn’t say that this is the most effective way to take pictures, but it was nevertheless very interseting to see what is possible using modern technology these days.
Another good thing was that Florian was assigned to do a making of video of the Amsterdam shoot. This resulted in a nice little Kollektiv25 get together with Julius in Amsterdam. The video is unfortunately only available for clients that buy the Ipad version of the magazine, therefore i can’t link it here…

Lene Münch: Exhibition – Monat der Fotografie Off – Berlin 2014

Lene Muench – Galerie am Nest

As part of the Monat der Fotografie Off my series about american fraternities »One man is no man« will be shown in this years group exhibition of ParisBerlin:

ÜBERGANG

with pictures of Claudia Balsters, Holger Biermann, Chiara Dazi, Hannah Goldstein, Amélie Losier, Marie Lukasiewicz, Albin Millot, Lene Münch, Frédérique Plas und Sebastian Rosenberg

Galerie am Café Nest | Görlitzer Str. 52 | 10997 Berlin | Germany
October 25 – November 13, 2014

Opening: Saturday, October 25, at 7 pm

Pass by if you are in Berlin!!!

Upcoming: KLEISTER in Berlin

Lene Münch – KLEISTER
On Friday, September 27 KLEISTER is again taking place at Görlitzer Park in Berlin and Lene Münch is gonna be part of this great event.

Opening Sept. 27, 2 pm
Where along the wall of Görlitzer Park at Görlitzer Strasse in Berlin

Finissage same day, 9 pm
Where Mysliwska, Schlesische Straße 35

Participating photographers Danny Aldred / Emilie Arfeuil / Frederico Azevedo / Claudia Balsters / Göksu Baysal / Wolfgang Bellwinkel / Karoline Bofinger / Sabine von Breunig / Michele Caliari / Tine Casper / Alexine Chanel / Max Cramer / Lia Darjes / Damien Daufresne / Chiara Dazi / Emilie Delugeau / Francis Ducreau / Boris Eldagsen / Patricia Escriche / Florian G. M. Fischer / April Gertler / hannah goldstein / Toums Gosset / Anne Kathrin Greiner / Katja Haustein / Anastasia Hermann / Britta Isenrath / Muhammed Lamin Jadama / Charlie Jouvet / Anna K.O. / Tan Kadam / Birte Kaufmann / Kim Keibel / Billy Kenrick / Isabel Kiesewetter / Dagmar Kolatschny /Birgit Krause / Sebastian Laraia / Claire Laude / Maslowski/Grenzhaeuser / Philipp Meise / Marga van den Meydenberg / Lene Münch / Florian Oellers / Lukas Olfe / Piotr Pietrus / Lucy Powell / Barbara Proschak / Nadja Ritter / Richard Rocholl / Gilles Roudière / Corinna Sauer / Anja Schaffner / Christian Schlicht / Ulrike Schmitz / Ina Schoenenburg / Linn Schröder / Torsten Schumann / Anke Schüttler / Sophie Schwarz / Cameron Scott / Kamil Sobolewski / Nora Ströbel / Sonja Trabandt / Constanze Vielgosz / Dorothee Waldenmaier / Matthias Walendy / Anna Simone Wallinger / Jonas Ludwig Walter / Janina Wick / Kai Wiedenhoefer / Jan Zappner / Kerstin Zillmer

»Darko & Scum« published in Zeit Campus

Caterina Lobenstein and me have published a story about Darko & Scum from Yangon, Burma. It’s a story about friendship, about music and about growing up in a dictatorship. You can find an online version of the the story (in german language only) here.

The music of Darko’s band „Side Effect“ can be found on MySpace or – even better – be purchased on Itunes.

Scum’s Facebook page is this one.

darko_scum001

darko_scum002

darko_scum003

darko_scum004

darko_scum005

One-Night Slideshow Exhibition »Crossing the Bridge« in Berlin

Lene Münch Crossing the Bridge

One picture of Lene Münch is gonna be included in a one-night slideshow exhibition organized by Kaetha & The Photographic Salon as part of the International PICTURE BERLIN Festival in Berlin.

The slideshow is gonna be screened on Friday, August 15, starting at 7 pm at LEHRTERSIEBZEHN

Exhibiting photographers:
Frederico Azevedo | Christine Bachmann | Lia Darjes | Damien Daufresne | Chiara Dazi | Dorothee Deiss | Émilie Delugeau | Patricia Escriche | Torben Geeck | April
Gertler | Ismini Goula | Fred Hüning | Thorsten Kirchhoff | Amélie Losier | Henrik
Malmström | Jan Michalko | Lene Münch | Ethna O‘ Regan | Piotr Pietrus | Richard Rocholl | Gilles Roudière | Rebecca Sampson | Corinna Sauer | Ulrike Schmitz | Ina Schoenenburg | Sarah Steffen | Judith Stenneken | Kamil Sobolewski | Christian Tiefensee | Mathias Völcker | Luca Vecoli | Sylvie Weiss

Crossing the Bridge
LEHRTERSIEBZEHN
Lehrter Str. 17, HH, 3rd floor
10557 Berlin

Lene Münch: Exhibition – Voies Off Festival at Les Rencontres d’Arles 2014

Photo by Andreas B. Krueger

Photo by Andreas B. Krueger

Unfortunately I won’t make it to Les Rencontres d’Arles in person this year, but my pictures will!

As part of the Voies Off Festival 2014 my series about american fraternities »One man is no man« will be shown in this years group exhibition of ParisBerlin:

ÜBERGANG
July 7-13, 11 am to 9 pm
Atelier Galerie | 22 Rue Porte de Laure | 13200 Arles | France

Opening: Wednesday, July 9, at 6 pm
Finissage: Saturday, July 12, at 6 pm

Pass by if you are in Arles!!!

Julius Schrank wins World Press Photo Award

We are very proud to announce that Julius Schrank’s image »Kachin fighters« has won 1st prize in the Daily Life Singles Category in the World Press Photo Contest 2014.

The image shows Kachin Independence Army fighters who are drinking and celebrating at a funeral of one of their commanders who died the day before.

Julius Schrank – World Press Photo Award

The image is part of an ongoing long term project on the conflicts in Burma. Julius Schrank is right now continuing this work and is currently in the Burmese Jungle.

See the awarded picture and all other award-winning images here.

Exhibition »Fernweh« in Berlin

Fernweh by Lene Münch

from the series »One man is no man«

One image from my new series »One man is no man« on American Eastcoast Fraternities is gonna be included in a slideshow, curated by Kaetha.

Kaetha is a curatorial collaboration between hannah goldstein and Katja Haustein.

The slideshow is gonna be screened at the exhibition »Fernweh« at gallery tête in Berlin, which is showing work by Carla Åhlander, Jörg Brüggemann, Birgit Krause, Andreas Seibert & Constanze Vielgosz.

Opening: January 3rd at 7 pm

The exhibition is open on January, 4th & 5th 2014 from 2 – 6 pm

Fernweh at Gallery Tête
Schönhauser Allee 161A
10435 Berlin
Germany

Upcoming exhibition: Hotel Bogota

one man is no man by Lene Münch

from the series »One man is no man – Einer ist Keiner« by Lene Münch

Hotel Bogota is a very special and historical place in Berlin which used to be a meeting point for artists and especially photographers such as YVA, Helmut Newton and many more.

It is very sad that Hotel Bogota is forced to close its doors in the end of this month, but as much more I am thrilled about being part of the KLEISTER exhibition which will take place on its 4th floor before its closure.

KLEISTER »blue monday«
from Dec. 9th until Dec. 14th, 2013

Hotel Bogota
Schlüterstraße 45
10707 Berlin

The opening will be on Sunday, December 8th at 7 pm.
Come by to celebrate with us this amazing and unique place!

New home for Iveta Jaslová

Four month ago we visited the family of Iveta Jaslová in Usti Nad Labem in the Czech Republic. They were forced to leave the building they had lived in. The owner evicted the people – most of them Roma – by cutting off the water and electricity supply. Luckily the lawyer of Iveta found a new flat for the family. Now she lives in a better neighborhood in which not only Roma but also Czech and Vietnamese people are living. She pays much less rent then before and the apartment is in a way better condition.

JasloviUstiNadLabem

Royal Madness

it came as a nice surprise when we found out that we’d be covering the crowning of the new dutch King, Willem Alexander, together. Julius for De Volkskrant and Lucas for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
So it happened that we hit Amsterdam’s streets together during these days of orange madness. Hundreds of thousands of spectators came to witness the event. Security was tight because the events of Beatrix‘ crowning 33 years ago were not forgotten. Back than the protest against the monarchy ended up with war like scenes on the Dam Square. In 2013 however, the anti monarchy protests in the capital were limited to a few dozen people.
Most people dressed up in orange, got pissed and partied like a bunch of lunatics. The two of us pushed ourselves through the jammed streets of the center as good as possible trying to capture the mood of the celebration. It was good fun but exhausting and after two days of it we were also glad to not only see orange anymore.

Koninginnendag_01

Koninginnendag_02

Koninginnedag - Den Holländischen Nationalfeiertag feiern viele Niederländer in orangefarbener Kleidung auf ausgelassenen Strassenpartys die Nacht hindurch in den Geburtstag von Königin Beatrix, die in diesem Jahr ihr Amt an ihren Sohn Willem übergibt

Koninginnendag_04

Koninginnedag - Den Holländischen Nationalfeiertag feiern viele Niederländer in orangefarbener Kleidung auf ausgelassenen Strassenpartys die Nacht hindurch in den Geburtstag von Königin Beatrix, die in diesem Jahr ihr Amt an ihren Sohn Willem übergibt

Koninginnedag - Den Holländischen Nationalfeiertag feiern viele Niederländer in orangefarbener Kleidung auf ausgelassenen Strassenpartys die Nacht hindurch in den Geburtstag von Königin Beatrix, die in diesem Jahr ihr Amt an ihren Sohn Willem übergibt

Koninginnedag - Den Holländischen Nationalfeiertag feiern viele Niederländer in orangefarbener Kleidung auf ausgelassenen Strassenpartys die Nacht hindurch in den Geburtstag von Königin Beatrix, die in diesem Jahr ihr Amt an ihren Sohn Willem übergibt

Koninginnedag - Den Holländischen Nationalfeiertag feiern viele Niederländer in orangefarbener Kleidung auf ausgelassenen Strassenpartys die Nacht hindurch in den Geburtstag von Königin Beatrix, die in diesem Jahr ihr Amt an ihren Sohn Willem übergibt

Koninginnendag_09

Koninginnedag - Den Holländischen Nationalfeiertag feiern viele Niederländer in orangefarbener Kleidung auf ausgelassenen Strassenpartys die Nacht hindurch in den Geburtstag von Königin Beatrix, die in diesem Jahr ihr Amt an ihren Sohn Willem übergibt

Friday-Project: No place for Roma

Iveta Jaslová stands with her back against the wall in her flat in Czech Ústí nad Labem. In a few hours she has to leave the building. ”I am scared of losing my children. I don’t know what to do” says the 45 year old Roma. The police wants to evict her and her four daughters and 13 grandchildren from her flat.
The resitential manager hired by the company Czech Propert Investments charget too much rent for the appartments. Iveta and her family had to pay twice as much as Czech citizens are paying for flats in a way better condidition. Now the company has to decorate the building. They decided to throw the residents out of the building instead. ”We don’t want such people here” says the speaker of the company Michaela Winklerova.
The landlords don’t want Romas in their buildings. The prejudices – they are dirty; they would steal and destroy the facilities – are wide spread. Social flats are rare. The few landlords in the north of the Czech Republic who offer flats for Roma take advantage of their sorrow. They charge high rents for flats in an unacceptable condition.
Eventually the police decides not to evict the building. Czech Property Investments cuts off the water and electricity supply. Many families already left the building. Iveta and their children are going to stay one more night in their appartment. Where they will stay tomorrow is yet uncertain.

Text: Timo Robben/ Sebastian Heidelberger
Foto: Gustav Pursche, Florian Manz

Friday-Project: Yangon Street

People were saying that before the »change« it was difficult to get in touch with locals in Yangon because many people were afraid to be seen talking to foreigners. I haven’t been there during those times however. The first time I went was during the by-elections in april 2012. Taxis would be full of stickers of the NLD, Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, and many people seemed full of hope for a better future. I felt the place was vibrating, something was in the air.
The NLD won 43 out of 45 vacant seats and Aung San Suu Kyi entered the parliament.
Reforms started after that but it is a slow process and the military and their crownies still control many relevant sectors. During my second trip about half a year later many people said they were unsatisfied with the progress of the reform process.
I have had many interesting conversations with locals there. Many people are well educated and would want to talk to me about the finacial crisis in europe for example (a field I couldn’t tell them much about). I’d see people sitting in tea shops reading books, something I hadn’t seen in neighbouring Laos at all.
Yangon is a harbour city there are many former or still active seafarers that have been around the world. Many had been to my hometown Hamburg and their eyes would widen when remembering the »Reeperbahn« (a famous redlight district).

A young boy sucks his thumb in an elevator at the Shwedagon Pagoda.

A young boy sucks his thumb in an elevator at the Shwedagon Pagoda.


View of an appartement building in downtown.

View of an appartement building in downtown.


Young NLD supporters are seen in front of NLD's Yangon headquarters.

Young NLD supporters are seen in front of NLD’s Yangon headquarters.


A railway running through a poor neighbourhood in eastern Yangon.

A railway running through a poor neighbourhood in eastern Yangon.


Youths are jamming on the streets in downtown Yangon.

Youths are jamming on the streets in downtown Yangon.


View of the Shwedagon Pagoda during a heavy monsoon downpour.

View of the Shwedagon Pagoda during a heavy monsoon downpour.


A young boy is feeding seagulls at the Yangon river.

A young boy is feeding seagulls at the Yangon river.


An employee of the Yangon railway station is taking a nap in his office.

An employee of the Yangon railway station is taking a nap in his office.


A woman is seen begging with her children on a stairway in downtown Yangon.

A woman is seen begging with her children on a stairway in downtown Yangon.


View of an appartement buildinng in downtown Yangon.

View of an appartement buildinng in downtown Yangon.

Upcoming exhibition in Stuttgart, Germany

My story The Apparatus will be shown in an exhibition organised by the BFF, the German Association of Freelance Photographers, from march 23 – april 14, 2013 in Stuttgart, Germany at the »Haus der Wirtschaft Baden-Württemberg«.

From the series »The Apparatus« by Lene Münch

From the series »The Apparatus« by Lene Münch

The opening of the exhibition Sternstunden der Fotografie will take place on Friday, march 22 at 7 pm during the legendary »night of the photographs«.

Next to the pictures of world famous photographers such as Anton Stankowski, David Douglas Duncan, Miles Aldridge, Reinhart Wolf, Werner Pawlok, Dietmar Henneka and Ralph Gibson the five winning series of the 24th international BFF promotion award by Helen Sobiralski »Cockaignesque«, Liang Gao »Einblicke.China«, Paula Markert »Die Verhältnisse«, Lene Münch »Der Apparat« and Philipp Peter Wülfing »Alzheimer« will be on show.

Sternstunden der Fotografie
the exhibition runs from march 23 until april 14, 2013
Haus der Wirtschaft Baden-Württemberg
Willi Bleicher-Straße 19
70174 Stuttgart, Germany

Opening hours daily from 11 am to 8 pm.
No entrance fee.

New York Edited – On the streets and beyond

»New York Edited« is the result of a cooperation between the International Center of Photography in New York and the Ostkreuzschule für Fotografie in Berlin. Every year the photo editor students from Berlin choose 12 stories that were shot by the ICP photojournalism and documentary photography students in New York, sequence it and layout a book or a magazine.

»New York Edited. On the streets and beyond« gives us an insight into the city that never runs out of interesting stories and fascinating people: beautiful, paralyzed, depressed, curious, blind, vivid, dangerous, busy, colorful, isolated, peaceful, precarious, divided, and proud are only some of the words to describe the diversity of people and places documented in this book. (From the foreword of the magazine, written by Nadja Masri, Head of the photo editors‘ program at Ostkreuzschule für Fotografie, Berlin)

I’m thrilled to have my picture chosen as the cover image of this really beautiful magazine.


Run over the pages of the whole magazine here. My series starts at minute 1:27

Friday-Project: The deal in misery

The deal in misery

Iveta Jaslová stands with her back against the wall in her flat in Czech Ústí nad Labem. In a few hours she has to leave the building. “I am scared of losing my children. I don’t know what to do“ says the 45 year old Roma. The police wants to evict her and her four daughters and 13 grandchildren from her flat.
The resitential manager hired by the company Czech Propert Investments charget too much rent for the appartments. Iveta and her family had to pay twice as much as Czech citizens are paying for flats in a way better condidition. Now the company has to decorate the building. They decided to throw the residents out of the building instead. “We don’t want such people here“ says the speaker of the company Michaela Winklerova.
The landlords don’t want Romas in their buildings. The prejudices – they are dirty; they would steal and destroy the facilities – are wide spread. Social flats are rare. The few landlords in the north of the Czech Republic who offer flats for Roma take advantage of their sorrow. They charge high rents for flats in an unacceptable condition.
Eventually the police decides not to evict the building. Czech Property Investments cuts off the water and electricity supply. Many families already left the building. Iveta and their children are going to stay one more night in their appartment. Where they will stay tomorrow is yet uncertain.

Text: Timo Robben/ Sebastian Heidelberger








Friday-Project: Flip-Flop Ocean

We are living in a world full of plastic. Plastic surrounds us everywhere and if not properly disposed it poses a threat to our environment. A lot of our plastic eventually ends up in the ocean. Millions of tons float around our waters and birds, fish and reptiles mistake it for food, eat it and die a slow death. Hundreds of thousands of animals are estimated to die because of plastic every year. There are places in the ocean that contain six times more plastic than plancton.

I spend a little time on an island in Indonesia recently and the amount of plastic pollution on the beaches and in the water is enormous. Flip-Flops seem to float especially well and do therefore end up on beaches in high numbers. On a stretch of beach only a few hundred meters long there were hundreds of them. Many were boring „normal“ flip-flops but some looked interesting either due to their design or to the amount of time they’ve been in the water. So i decided to collect a good number with the help of my (plastic) bag.
Here are some of them:

Friday-Project: Dog-Portraits

This portrait series of dogs and their owners in DUMBO, Brooklyn was a result of one of our self-given Friday-Portrait assignments from last year – you might remember…

For me it was interesting to see all those people walking their dogs in DUMBO, which for me is a neighborhood that seems almost a bit surreal. Without any signs of people living there, the dogs and their owners form kind of a weird contrast to this neatness.









Self publishing

The freshly printed newspapers of my project »Don’t you think I will look like a ghost in front of this wall« just arrived! Here is a small preview.



Friday-Project: Christchurch Earthquake – 2 years later

Traveling to Christchurch, New Zealand recently, i was surprised to see in what bad shape the city still is almost two years after the february 2011 earthquake. The magnitude 6.3 quake killed 185 people and resulted in the 3rd largest insurance claim worldwide. The central area was most heavily affected and over 80% of all buildings in this so called „Red Zone“ can’t be fixed but must be taken down. It is said to be another 10 years before the city will be rebuild. I had not previously been to an earthquake desaster area and seeing how slow the rebuilding process is, especially since New Zealand is a first world country, made me think of what such a desaster must really mean for places like Haiti or Pakistan.

The remains of a downtown Building.

A worker hanging from the Pacific Tower overlooks downtown Christchurch.

View of a destroyed downtown appartement building.

Workers are transforming a former building to small rubble.

A man walks his dog past a heavily damaged house in a residential area.

Damaged thomb stones on a graveyard.

Friday-Project: Bus stops

I have been taking pictures of bus stops all over Germany for the last few years.
Unfortunately all the old bus stops are gradually being replaced by new ones,
that are made out of glass and metal and look all the same. What a shame…

Here is a small edit of my pictures.

Misplaced plant pictures in »Project M«

Some of my plant pictures have just been used to illustrate an article on the present economic situation in »Project M« Magazine. Taking pictures of misplaced plants in public spaces has been a small personal side project for the past 5 years.


Friday-Project: Gleason’s Gym

Earlier this year in New York I startet shooting a project on boxing at the famous Gleason’s Gym in Brooklyn. Unfortunately I never finished this project, cause the gym wanted me to pay a sort of a membership fee, which I think isn’t the right way to gain access to shoot a reportage…

Golden Gloves Tournament, Flushing, NY


Gleason’s Gym, DUMBO, NY


Golden Gloves Tournament, Brooklyn, NY


Gleason’s Gym, DUMBO, NY


Golden Gloves Tournament, Brooklyn, NY

But a pretty nice side effect was, that one of the trainers asked me to shoot some advertising images for his fitness website. That was fun and I could earn some money.



Friday-Project: Everything for the Summit

Just days before I left Laos, the 9th ASEM Summit took place in Vientiane. More than 30 heads of government took part in the event and slept on land grabbed from a farming community in central Vientiane. The europeans remained quiet and missed a big chance to speak out against the growing problem of land grabbing in Laos.

Together with a friend I covered the event. An english version of the text will follow soon. The names of most people have been changed to ensure they’re safe from government persecution.

Photos: Lucas Wahl, Text: Sibut

A sandstorm is hitting the construction site of the ASEM villas. The Don Chan palace hotel in the background was constructed to host visitors of the 2009 SEA Games but is already in need of renovation.

Don Chan residents are saving worthy materials from the remains of their home as it is being destroyed to make place for the ASEM construction site.

A young Don Chan resident is watching the destruction of her home which is removed to make place for the ASEM construction site.

An overview of Don Chan Island with the ASEM villas and the Landmark Mekong Riverside Hotel in the back. 500 farmers were evicted from their fertile island to make way for the infrastructure project. The communist government of Laos said the development was necessary to be able to succesfully host the ASEM summit 2012.

A lao military police is blocking reporting on a protest against the Xayaburi dam in Laos. Thai protesters were using the occasion of the ASEM Summit to get attention from international media covering the 9th ASEM summit taking place in Vientiane. Even accredited Journalists were blocked from any form of reporting. Laos ranks 165th on the freedom of the press index of reporters without borders.

German minister of foreign affairs, Guido Westerwelle, is reading a paper in his private ASEM Villa. 100 families were evicted from their land to give space for the 50 Villas heads of state were using during their visit to Vientiane.

Resettled villagers from Don Chan Island are seen on the construction site of their new home 26 km from Vientiane. They never finished the new house since the promised compensation money was only partially given to them.

A view of the resettlement village for former Don Chan inhabitants. The new village is located 26 km out of town and many inhabitants have lost their jobs due to the resettlement.

A resettled villager from Don Chan island that does not want to be indentified (she fears to be harassed by the government) poses for a portrait in her new home. She claims that she never received compensation money as promised.

Alles für den Gipfel

Die etwa 30 Staats- und Regierungschefs, die zum Asien-Europa-Treffen (ASEM) am 5. und 6. November nach Vientiane kamen, nächtigten auf einem Stück Land, von dem etwa 500 Bauern eigens vertrieben worden waren. Die Europäer verhielten sich dabei erschreckend still – und verpassten damit eine große Chance, sich gegen das grassierende Land Grabbing in Laos einzusetzen.

Und plötzlich ging alles ganz schnell.

Frau Lar und den anderen Bauern der fruchtbaren Halbinsel Don Chan im Herzen von Vientiane wurde gesagt, sie müssten weichen für ein wichtiges politisches Treffen. Sie bekamen ein paar Monate, um sich in einem ausgewiesenen Gebiet etwa 26 km außerhalb der Stadt ein neues Haus zu bauen und umzuziehen.

Dann kamen die Bagger.

Während die Bewohner noch ihre letzten Eigentümer zu retten versuchten, rissen die Baufahrzeuge schon alles ab. Wenige Monate später stehen an jener Stelle 50 von chinesisch-laotischen Investoren gebaute Villen für die Staats- und Regierungschefs des Asien-Europa-Treffens; und nebenan das gigantische Landmark Mekong Riverside Hotel für die anderen Gipfel-Teilnehmer.

Frau Lar sitzt währenddessen in ihrem neuen Haus im Niemandsland und weiß nicht, was sie tun soll. Wie die meisten Anderen ist sie Landwirtin, doch auf der roten Lehmerde wächst nichts. Ihren Zusatz-Job als Hausangestellte in Vientiane musste sie auch aufgeben. Zu weit waren die Wege, zu teuer der Transport.

Sie fragt, »warum mussten wir hier rausziehen, warum kann dieses Treffen nicht hier draußen stattfinden? Die Politiker gehen doch nach zwei Tagen eh wieder nach Hause.«

Diese Frage stellen sich die anderen Bewohner des Dorfs auch. Zwar haben sie Angst mit Ausländern zu reden – es wurde ihnen ausdrücklich verboten – doch einige sprechen aus Verzweiflung trotzdem.

Sie beschweren sich über deutlich weniger Land und Kompensation als versprochen. Viele Häuser stünden nur als Gerippe, weil das Geld nicht mal für diese gereicht habe. Es gäbe keinen Tempel und keine Schule. Und nie habe mal jemand mit ihnen gesprochen, was sie denn eigentlich bräuchten, um trotz Umsiedlung gut leben zu können.

In der Tat gleicht der Ort einer Geisterstadt. Von laotischer Lebensfreude und Miteinander ist nichts zu spüren. Das gesellschaftliche Leben scheint still zu stehen. Und Alles liegt unter rotem Staub.

Für diesen sind die vielen Lastwagen verantwortlich, die Baumaterial für eine 110-Hektar große Chinesisch-geführte Sonderwirtschaftszone ranschaffen, den Vita-Park.

Der Betreiber sagt, die Regierung habe ihnen versichert, dass Investoren auch dort, 26 km außerhalb der Stadt, ausreichend Arbeitskräfte finden würden. Es scheint kein Zufall zu sein, dass die letzten drei umgesiedelten Dörfer aus Vientiane allesamt in diese abgelegene Gegend verlegt wurden.

Die ersten Fabriken sind bereits fertig. Sie zahlen $65 im Monat für 10 Stunden Arbeit am Tag, 7 Tage die Woche. Solche Bedingungen sind selbst nach laotischen Standards inakzeptabel.

Das ist die traurige Realität von Land Grabbing in Laos; Investitionen in große Ländereien, die praktisch ausschließlich den Investoren und korrupten Offiziellen dienen und die Interessen der betroffenen Bevölkerung völlig unberücksichtigt lassen.

Etwa 18% aller Dörfer und Tausende Menschen im Land hätten solche Formen von Vertreibung bereits erfahren müssen, schätzt die Organisation Global Witness. Weil Land Grabbing aber so schwer zu identifizieren ist, könnte der tatsächliche Umfang deutlich höher liegen.

Die Regierung selbst nimmt an, dass bis 2011 etwa 5.000.000 Hektar – oder 21% der gesamten Landesfläche – als Konzessionen an Investoren gegangen sind. Einige 10.000 Menschen in Laos sind nach einer Studie von SOGES auf Grund von solchen und anderen Maßnahmen umgesiedelt worden.

Vor diesem Hintergrund geht eine Entwicklungorganisation mit Projekten vor Ort so weit zu sagen: »Laos wird zunehmend zu einem Land von internen Vertriebenen.«

Und wie stehen die europäischen ASEM-Partner zu land grabbing im Land und den Umständen, unter denen der ASEM-Gipfel stattfand?

Erst im Februar 2012 hat sich der deutsche Entwicklungsminister, Dirk Niebel, während seines Aufenthaltes in Laos gegen das Problem stark gemacht. Und nun hat sein Kabinettskollege, Guido Westerwelle, beim Asien-Europe-Treffen in einer Villa genächtigt, die nur durch einen land grab hatte entstehen können.

Aber die europäischen Partner sehen das anders.

Sie halten das Umsiedlungsprojekt für ASEM für das wahrscheinlich transparenteste und am besten gemanagte im gesamten Land, und gehen davon aus, dass alles im Einklang mit den relevanten Gesetzen abgelaufen ist. Zweimal haben sie das Dorf zudem selbst besucht, ihr Ergebnis: die neuen Häuser sahen gut aus, die Bewohner waren zufrieden.

Leider waren die Europäer in ihrer Rolle als Diplomaten und in Begleitung von hochrangigen Regierungsoffiziellen in das Dorf gefahren. Wer da glaubt, er habe im autoritären Ein-Parteien-Staat Laos Einblicke bekommen, wie es den Menschen wirklich geht, der will zu keinem ehrlichen Ergebnis kommen.

Für den ASEM-Gipfel schauten die Europäer weg.

Friday-Project: Senegal Artisan Portraits

Florian and I are still in Africa, participating the Amsterdam Dakar challenge. We just arrived in Dakar and had a day off yesterday.

We used the time to start shooting a portrait series about craftsmen working along the streets or in their little shops.

Today we will head on towards The Gambia where our car will be auctioned to support a health-care project.

Here the foundations website: http://www.kambengo.nl

Omar Faye, 19, Mechanic

Ousman Sarr, 20, Engine fitter

Ada Faye, 15, Painter

Lale Seck, 23, Butcher

Mamadou Nihllo, 22, Car-cleaner

Djeneba Beyei, 40, melon-dealer

Daouda Faye, 25, Car-mechanic

Mamadou Diallo, 31, Tailor

Friday-Project: New York Street Portraits

The search for subtle visual interest is a guiding force for me when I take pictures. It has never been more exciting for me to watch people passing by than it was in New York City. Sometimes it was a gesture, sometimes it was their appearance, which made me want to photograph these people and watch them more closely.

The following pictures are actually not new – I took all of them in July, when I was still living in New York. I just developed the rolls of film now and scanned the negatives yesterday and wanted to share the pictures with you.
These images are part of my series »Set & Setting«. You can find the whole project here.

Wall Street, NYC, USA


Upper East Side, NYC, USA


Midtown, NYC, USA


Spanish Harlem, NYC, USA

Friday-Project: Amsterdam Dakar Challenge

Together with Julius, I’m doing a rally from Amsterdam to Dakar at the moment. After Dakar we will head on to Gambia where our car will be auctioned. The winst will be donated to a humanitarian Organasation in Gambia. At the moment we are in eastern Marocco at the edge to the Sahara. We have constant problems with our car, but so far we were always able to fix the problem. We hope to reach Banjul, the Gambian capital, by the 26th of november. After that the Friday-project will continue as usual.

Charity Exhibition

»Good Photos – Good Cause« is the title of the charity exhibition that will take place from November 8, 2012 to January 17, 2013 at the FREELENS Gallery in Hamburg. In favour of the FREELENS Foundation pictures of photographers such as Peter Bialobrzeski, Thomas Hoepker, Eva Leitolf, Gerd Ludwig, Rudi Meisel, Marco van Duyvendijk and many more will be shown and sold at the FREELENS Gallery in Hamburg.

Lene Münch donated a framed picture of her New York series »Set & Setting«.

Kathmandu – City of Kings

Lucas Wahl donated a picture from his Kathmandu series.

Visitors will have the unique opportunity to attend a multi-faceted exhibition of contemporary photography and buy their favourite images right away – freely based on the motto »Do good and take good things home«. Additionally the exhibition will be shown online. The entire proceeds will go to the FREELENS Foundation.

Opening
Thursday, November 8, 2012 at 7 pm at the FREELENS Gallery in Hamburg.

Friday-Project: Airports

The Friday-Project is the new Friday-Portrait at www.kollektiv25.de. The game has changed though: Each Friday one of us is going to show a small project of a self chosen topic. Be it portraiture, reportage, fashion, landscape or whatever else. There are no restrictions and no limits, but enough room for creativity and fun for us to have.

I am starting this week with a little series of iphone pictures taken on airports over the past year. I have been travelling quite a bit and during the long hours of waiting i’d oftenly wander around snapping a few shots here and there. Using a phone is great because people hardly notice that you are taking a picture at all.

I find that there is almost always something interesting going on at airports. There are a whole lot of veeery boring things going on there as well of course. Anyways, one time something happened i’d never seen before and i DO NOT have pictures from. It went like this: My girlfriend and me were flying into Kunming in China. So we come down to the immigration counter and suddenly about three camera men and five photographers appear behind the immigration ladies and start taking pictures of us and filming the whole process. They later stopped us at the security checks using us as photo models and showing off their fancy security stuff. It turned out to be the opening day of their new airport they had just built. The thing is immense – Kunming is a city about twice the size of Berlin, yet it was impossible to either get any money there nor was it easy to get a taxi, it was a complete chaos. But i’ll long remember my 15 minutes of fame i got out there in Kunming, being the first westerner to arrive at their Airport.

Well, pictures now:

On the bus to the plane. Bangkok, Thailand

Domestic terminal. Vientiane, Laos

Ashtray. Helsinki, Finnland.

Waiting for departure. Bangkok, Thailand.

Smoking room. Kunming, China.

Transit. Dubai, UAE.

Kollektiv25 at Visa pour l’image in Perpignan

From today on the Photofestival Visa pour l’image/Visa Off is exhibiting work from Julius Schrank and Lene Münch. Julius is showing different pictures from his work at the dutch newspaper deVolkskrant and Lenes work about German Fraternities is part of a group show of the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Hanover.


»DAILY PRESS«, Julius Schrank, Visa pour l’image
Arsenal des Carmes, Rue Jean Vieilledent, Perpignan
September 1 to September 16, 2012
open daily from 10 am to 8 pm
free of charge


»AWARDED«, Lene Münch, Visa off
La Salle des Libertés, 3 Rue Edmont Bartissol, Perpignan
September 1 to September 8, 2012
open daily from 10 am to 6 pm
free of charge

Julius and Lene will both be in Perpignan and we would be happy to see you at the opening of »AWARDED« on Tuesday, September 4 at 6 pm. There will be wine!

Lene Münch wins BFF Promotion Award

Lene Münchs photobook »Der Apparat« (The Apparatus) has been awarded with the BFF Promotion Award 2012. Every year the BFF Promotion Award is bestowed on the 5 best degree works in the field of photography by the German Association of Freelance Photographers (BFF – Bund Freischaffender Foto-Designer) and sponsored by the Kodak Cultural Program, the magazine stern, NEON, Leica Camera AG, the foundation Reinhart-Wolf-Stiftung and the Ministry of Finance and Economics of the German State of Baden-Wuerttemberg.

The Jury:

Jutta Buer (Board of Directors / Reinhart-Wolf-Stiftung)
Andrea Gothe (photo director / stern)
Anna Gripp (Editor / Photonews)
Gisela Kayser (Artistic Director / Freundeskreis Willy-Brandt-Haus e.V.)
Jochen Rädeker (President / ADC Germany)
Prof. Manfred Schmalriede (Berlin / Pforzheim)
Dr. Claude W. Sui (Director and Curator / Forum Internationale Fotografie der Reiss-Engelhorn-Museen)

About the book:

»The Apparatus« focuses on a theme of our time and tells a story apart from sensations. Offices and institutions are in themselves boring places that evoke a feeling of unease and anxiety, when getting in touch with them.

It was clear from the outset that I didn’t want to reproduce the classic stereotypes when dealing with this subject. Full waiting rooms, long corridors and annoyed faces simply didn’t interest me in this story. These images are somehow already known too well. I was rather interested in the nature of the offices and institutions themselves. In the apparatus itself.

I was not only interested in the typical offices and institutions, but also in scenes beside. This is why I was not only in offices and administrative buildings but have also had a look at the former home of the former chancellors, have been underground in the mine Asse II, where the Federal Office for Radiation Protection investigates for solutions to the local problem of final disposal of nuclear waste and have been told that there is a kind of TÜV for plants (Federal Office of Plant Varieties). Also new to me was, that a chimney sweep is, as a single person, as well an institution for himself.

Friday-Portrait: STREET PORTRAIT

It’s friday again. And Friday used to be portrait day on our blog. STREET PORTRAIT is our last theme in this series. For one year every Friday each of us was uploading
one portrait to a given theme. On facebook you were able to vote for the next weeks theme.

Here is our last Friday-Portrait: STREET PORTRAIT

William

Lene Münch

Yarsagumba Dealer

The man with the phone is a Yarsagumba-Dealer in Dzato, Qinghai, China. Yarsagumba is a rare fungus that parasites on the body of a caterpillar of a moth. It is found in altitudes of around 5000 meters and up. It is known as himalayan viagra and mainly used in chinese medicine. One kilo can cost up to 25.000 USD. In Dzato hundreds of men can be seen dealing yarsagumba on the mainroad every day.

Lucas Wahl

Sarah

I met Sarah in Berlin, she is a singer.

Florian Manz

Lene on assignment for chinese ELLE MEN

In the newest issue of ELLE MEN (China) there is a big feature story on big wheels around the world. Mid may they sent me on assignment to photograph the owners of the world famous »Wonder Wheel« in Coney Island. Some days ago a copy of the magazine arrived at my place.




Friday-Portrait: EXHAUSTED

It’s friday again. And Friday is portrait day on our blog. EXHAUSTED is on this week.
Every Friday each of us is going to upload one portrait to a given theme. On facebook you are now able to vote for the next weeks theme. You name what you wish to see – we go out and get it.

Here is last weeks theme: EXHAUSTED

Boxer at Gleason’s Gym

This guy was just having a break from his boxing training, when I took this picture and he seemed to be pretty exhausted.

Lene Münch

Tashi

Tashi was my fixer on my trip to the source of the Mekong, or Zachu as it is called in Tibetan. On the picture he is waiting for breakfast after a bumpy 27 hour ride from Xining to the cowboy town of Dzato. I’ll blog a bit more about the trip later on.

Lucas Wahl

ICP End-of-Year-Exhibition

PICTURE DEPT – a tumblr by the Newsweek & The Daily Beast photo editors featured my work to promote the End-of-Year-Exhibition of ICP’s fulltime students. The opening reception is gonna be tonight. There will be wine and food!

»My Truth, Your Truth«
Full-Time Student 2012 Exhibition Opening Reception
Friday, June 22, 6 p.m. – 9 p.m.
School at ICP, 1114 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY

on view through August 12

Friday-Portrait: NYC: 11:00, HAN: 17:00, VTE: 22:00

This week we all shot a portrait at the same time in three different locations in the world: New York City, Hannover and Vientiane.

Here it is:

Kirsten & Laurence

I took this photograph at Kirstens birthday party in Vientiane on thursday night. I wonder what they’re talking about, they wouldn’t tell me.

Lucas Wahl

Marion in Red Hook

Marion, a friend of mine from Germany, has been visiting me in New York for the past 9 days. This picture was taken at 11 am in my apartment in Red Hook. She headed back to Germany the same day…

It was actually a funny feeling to know, that Julius, Lucas and Florian were also taking their pictures in the exact same moment.

Lene Münch

Hermann

5 pm in Hanover, Germany: Hermann Völxen on his pasture.
His story is one of my long-term projects.

Florian Manz

The Italian waiter

I took this picture yesterday in the Italian city of Bologna whilst on assignment. The guy was a waiter in a little Coffee bar.

Julius Schrank

Friday-Portrait: The Final Countdown

We’re sorry that it’s been a little slow on this blog lately. We were a bit busy with some preparations for the Lumix Festival in Hannover, the Euro-Cup and summer vacations. But our batteries are fully charged now and we’re ready to go!
It has now almost been one year since we’ve started the Friday-Portrait project. In fact there is three fridays left. Three more pictures before we will start editing and putting together something exciting. To get back on track we will try an idea that „Sebastian Nix“ submitted through facebook: Today we will all shoot a portrait where ever we are at the same time. That means: 11 am NYC time, 5 pm in Germany and 10 pm in Asia.
There is also a new vote up on facebook that will be open till Friday, go for it!

We’re already thinking of something new that will happen here after the friday portrait is finished. We’ll let you know!

Summer

Friday-Portrait: FAR

It’s friday again. And Friday is portrait day on our blog. FAR is on this week.
Every Friday each of us is going to upload one portrait to a given theme. On facebook you are now able to vote for the next weeks theme. You name what you wish to see – we go out and get it.

Here is last weeks theme: FAR

Boxing spectator

I saw this boy at the intermission of a Golden Gloves boxing tournament at a highschool in Queens. He was so far away with his thoughts, that he didn’t even realise that I took his picture.

Lene Münch

Carlos, Old Friend from Far Away

When i was younger and spending a year as an exchange student in Ecuador, carlos and his family let me live in their house. It’s been eight years since we’d seen each other. He is now doing his masters in the Netherlands where i visited him last weekend.

Lucas Wahl

Friday-Portrait: SECRET

It’s friday again. And Friday is portrait day on our blog. SECRET is on this week.
Every Friday each of us is going to upload one portrait to a given theme. On facebook you are now able to vote for the next weeks theme. You name what you wish to see – we go out and get it.

Here is last weeks theme: SECRET

unknown woman

I saw this woman some time ago standing in front of a bank talking on the phone somewhere in midtown, but when I wanted to take a picture, she suddenly went away. Because I thought she was interesting to photograph I started to follow her for a while, but lost her after a few minutes… Too bad… But then, 6 blocks later I saw her again on Broadway lighting her cigarette secretly having her face turned towards the wall and I took this picture.

Lene Münch

Friday-Portrait: WIG

It’s friday again. And Friday is portrait day on our blog. WIG is on this week.
Every Friday each of us is going to upload one portrait to a given theme. On facebook you are now able to vote for the next weeks theme. You name what you wish to see – we go out and get it.

Here is last weeks theme: WIG

Peggy

This is Peggy. I met her in the streets of Red Hook, the neighborhood where I live in. The picture was taken with a 4×5″ large format camera.

Lene Münch

Boris Becker

This is a Dutch guy during carneval in Maastricht. I have lived there some years ago. The town got all excited about the whole thing and just partied without taking a break for a few days.

Lucas Wahl

Friday Portrait: :-)

It’s friday again. And Friday is portrait day on our blog. 🙂 is on this week.
Every Friday each of us is going to upload one portrait to a given theme. On facebook you are now able to vote for the next weeks theme. You name what you wish to see – we go out and get it.

Here is last weeks theme: 🙂

Farmer, Hin Nam No National Park

I photographed this guy in a small village inside the Hin Nam No NP in southern Laos while working there for GIZ.

Lucas Wahl

Big John Douglas

Big John is a two time Golden Gloves Champion who has now been training boxers at the famous Gleason’s Gym in DUMBO for the last 7 years.
I shot this picture of Big John (whose incisors are golden) with a 4×5″ large format camera.

Lene Münch

Julius logging-story in National Geographic

After almost 6 months of travelling in Asia, Julius is back home in Holland / Germany!
»The best surprise was, when I arrived on Amsterdam Airport, I found my logging story from Canada in the current issue of the Benelux National Geographic Magazine.«
Next to that, there is also a portrait of the Dutch scientist »Tom Bade« in the same edition. It is part of a portrait series about leading scientists, which Julius shoots monthly for National Geographic.

Friday Portrait: AVOCADO

It’s friday again. And Friday is portrait day on our blog. AVOCADO (!) is on this week.
Every Friday each of us is going to upload one portrait to a given theme. On facebook you are now able to vote for the next weeks theme. You name what you wish to see – we go out and get it.

Here is last weeks theme: AVOCADO

Avocado Eater

This is my new roommate whom, as the new guy, I forced to bite this avocado. I would have gone for a market woman but there are only imported avocados at the moment.

Lucas Wahl

Hi, my name is Avo!

Florian Manz

Shoot for GQ Germany

Some weeks ago I shot a small story for the current issue of GQ Germany. I went to Pittsburgh, Pensilvania to photograph Paul C. Mawhinney, the man with the largest record collection in the world. Paul owns more than 3,5 Million records. Due to his diabetes he became half blind and therefore decided to sell all his records. The new owner will turn the collection into a museum.

Friday-Portrait: SICK

It’s friday again. And Friday is portrait day on our blog. SICK is on this week.
Every Friday each of us is going to upload one portrait to a given theme. On facebook you are now able to vote for the next weeks theme. You name what you wish to see – we go out and get it.

Here is last weeks theme: SICK

Sick man

Florian Manz

Florian Manz

Lao Amputees

These ladies lost their legs in different types of accidents. They were incredibly positiv and determined to get back on track and learn to walk again with their prothesises.

Lucas Wahl

Friday-Portrait: CHAOTIC

It’s friday again. And Friday is portrait day on our blog. CHAOTIC is on this week.
Every Friday each of us is going to upload one portrait to a given theme. On facebook you are now able to vote for the next weeks theme. You name what you wish to see – we go out and get it.

Here is last weeks theme: CHAOTIC

The World of Suits

Joseph is the owner of »The World of Suits« in Tribeca in New York City. It is really chaotic in his shop, but nevertheless, he knows where everything is.

Lene Münch

Customs Officer

This is the customs chief at a Lao-Thai border crossing. He is trying to figure out if i have enough stamps and signatures to take pictures there. (After a few hours it was ok…) I liked the way he tried to preserve order in his chaotic office.

Lucas Wahl

Friday-Portrait: KITCHEN

It’s friday again. And Friday is portrait day on our blog. KITCHEN is on this week.
Every Friday each of us is going to upload one portrait to a given theme. On facebook you are now able to vote for the next weeks theme. You name what you wish to see – we go out and get it.

Here is last weeks theme: KITCHEN

Michael Frank

Slow Food chef Michel Frank with a fish in a hand in his restaurant.

Florian Manz

Florian Manz

Bounmy

This is twelve year old Bounmy in her kitchen preparing breakfast. I photographed her, in her village a few hours north of Vientiane, for GEOlino magazine a little while ago.

Lucas Wahl

Story published in »chrismon plus«

In the current issue of „chrismon plus“ magazine you can see a story about a music school in „Karosta“ a former soviet war harbor. Written by Catherine Lobenstein and photographed by Florian. Take a look!

Friday-Portrait: INTIMACY

It’s friday again. And Friday is portrait day on our blog. INTIMACY is on this week.
Every Friday each of us is going to upload one portrait to a given theme. On facebook you are now able to vote for the next weeks theme. You name what you wish to see – we go out and get it.

Here is last weeks theme: INTIMACY

Nap

Peter takes a nap with a stray dog.

Lucas Wahl

Lisa

This is Lisa in her apartment in Washington, DC. The picture was taken with a 4×5″ camera.

Lene Münch

Mae Tao Clinic / Thailand

This two wounded guys are Burmese refugees at the »Mae Tao Clinic« in western Thailand. The clinic provides health care for thousands of people that fled the unrest’s in eastern Burma.

Julius Schrank

Refugee camp Mae La

These two guys are Burmese refugees, they life with 60 000 more refugees in a camp near Mae Sot.

Florian Manz

Florian Manz

Friday-Portrait: ANIMAL

It’s friday again. And Friday is portrait day on our blog. ANIMAL is on this week.
Every Friday each of us is going to upload one portrait to a given theme. On facebook you are now able to vote for the next weeks theme. You name what you wish to see – we go out and get it.

Here is last weeks theme: ANIMAL

Tiger

Lene Münch

Mani and his pig

Mani, connoisseur and passionate cook, barbecues a pig for a housewarming party.

Lucas Wahl

Logging Elephent

This Elephent lost his leg in Burma, he stept on a landmine.

Florian Manz

Florian Manz

Lao family portrait

A old Lao woman with her granddaughter and her young cow.

Julius Schrank

Friday-Portrait: FLASH

It’s friday again. And Friday is portrait day on our blog. FLASH is on this week.
Every Friday each of us is going to upload one portrait to a given theme. On facebook you are now able to vote for the next weeks theme. You name what you wish to see – we go out and get it.

Here is last weeks theme: FLASH

Up and Coming Photographer

I made this picture for my portraiture-class at ICP. The assignment was to photograph one of our class mates for an imaginary article with the title »Up and Coming Photographer«. I decided to take this picture of John Milano only dressed with an apron for the darkroom.

Lene Münch

Hai Hai in Shanghai

This is Hai Hai from Inner Mongolia whom i met at Shanghai Airport. I’m sorry things have been a bit slow on this blog lately. It should get better now as i finally managed to buy something with a flash…

Lucas Wahl

Three Guys, One Truck And A Long Way To Go….

Three of us (Florian, Julius and Lucas) teamed up in Laos to work on a project together. Julius who is currently traveling around SEA brought up with his Landrover that he shipped into Singapore a few month ago. We have just been on a research trip to northern Laos. The trip included: A lot of time in the car, interesting roads, broken shock absorbers, beautiful landscapes, unbelievable amounts of sticky rice and the same funky green vegetable everyday. It also means drinking a lot of LaoLao (rice whiskey) with village elders and others; the rule here is to drink doubles, double rounds of doubles and triple rounds of doubles… after that it is hard to keep counting. We watched a local Akha tribe marriage, saw pigs getting slaughtered, been drinking and eating at a funeral, took icy showers, met unbelievably welcoming and generous people, met very desperate and helpless people, met chinese people spitting all over the place, met people wondering why we didn’t have at least two wifes, met people from at least 5 different tribes, met shamans, were surrounded by good and evil spirits BUT: We did manage not to eat bamboo rats and their babies. We are now in Vientiane waiting to interview some more people and working on our material. Lucas is off to China next week while Julius and Florian head on to Thailand.

Friday-Portrait: PROVOCATIVE

It’s friday again. And Friday is portrait day on our blog. PROVOCATIVE is on this week.
Every Friday each of us is going to upload one portrait to a given theme. On facebook you are now able to vote for the next weeks theme. You name what you wish to see – we go out and get it.

Here is last weeks theme: PROVOCATIVE

Fuck you!

Lene Münch

Ananaay

Ananaay showing off his dancing skills at Puck Luck Pub in Vientiane.

Lucas Wahl

NAZI

Florian Manz

Florian Manz

Friday-Portrait: HAIRY

It’s friday again. And Friday is portrait day on our blog. HAIRY is on this week.
Every Friday each of us is going to upload one portrait to a given theme. On facebook you are now able to vote for the next weeks theme. You name what you wish to see – we go out and get it.

Here is last weeks theme: HAIRY

Anonymous portrait

Maybe this picture is a little bit too »arty« and not enough »hairy«, but I like it anyway.

Lene Münch

Peter

Peter is a homeless man living in the forests around Frankfurt, Germany.
He’s been outside for many years and says that he has little intention of moving into an appartement again.
It’s not a new Portrait but i decided to go for it anyways.

Lucas Wahl

Lao Hairdresser

A lao hairdresser waiting for customers in his shop along the highway.

Julius Schrank

Friday-Portrait: FOG

It’s friday again. And Friday is portrait day on our blog. FOG is on this week.
Every Friday each of us is going to upload one portrait to a given theme. On facebook you are now able to vote for the next weeks theme. You name what you wish to see – we go out and get it.

Here is last weeks theme: FOG

Lao No. 1

I photographed this guy in the early morning in a little town in northern Laos.

Florian Manz

Florian Manz

Lao No. 2

A farmer in northern Laos.

Julius Schrank

Lao No. 3

Maody is a policeman in a small town in northern Laos. Fortunately there’s a lot of fog here every morning…

Lucas Wahl

Friday-Portrait: DOG

It’s friday again. And Friday is portrait day on our blog. DOG is on this week.
Every Friday each of us is going to upload one portrait to a given theme. On facebook you are now able to vote for the next weeks theme. You name what you wish to see – we go out and get it.

Here is last weeks theme: DOG

The woman with the red gloves

It was early in the morning and the sun just rised, when I met Julia with her cattle-dog mix in DUMBO in Brooklyn. She was heading to the park on the riverside and the dog couldn’t await getting there.

Lene Münch

Ugly & Tian

Ugly and Tian are two dogs of friends of mine. Little Ugly is one of the smallest dogs in town while Tian is about 50 times heavier. They’re not the brightest dogs but surely among the funniest.
THX to Kirsten and Laurence for having enough bacon in the house.

Lucas Wahl

Pug style

»A life without a pug is possible, but meaningless.«
Loriot

Florian Manz

Florian Manz

The temple dog of Angkor Wat

This dog is a temple-dog hanging out at Cambodia’s tourist attraction number one »Angkor Wat«.

Julius Schrank

Friday-Portrait: Delicious

It’s friday again. And Friday is portrait day on our blog. DELICIOUS is on this week.
Every Friday each of us is going to upload one portrait to a given theme. On facebook you are now able to vote for the next weeks theme. You name what you wish to see – we go out and get it.

Here is last weeks theme: DELICIOUS

René Redzepi

Two Michelin-star chef René Redzepi in his Restaurant »Noma« in Copenhagen. In the past two years, the restaurant was ranked »Best restaurant in the World«.

Julius Schrank

Kim

Kim enjoys a delicious Beerlao

Lucas Wahl

Vincent Klink

TV chef Vincent Klink cooks in his restaurant »Wielandshöhe« in Stuttgart Degerloch.

Florian Manz

Florian Manz

emerge book

The guys from emerge-mag.com have just published their first book. We are very happy to be part of it with two stories of Kollektiv25 members.

The book covers 276 pages with reportages from 26 German photographers such as Christian Pankratz, Gesche Jäger, Daniel Pilar, Anne Lass, Nicole Strasser, Lene Münch, Mareike Günsche, Jan Windszus, Frederic Lezmi, Anikka Bauer, Tine Casper, Daniel Etter, Mischa Christen, Kirill Golovchenko, Hannes Jung, Heinrich Völkel, Jan Brandes, Gordon Welters, Florian Manz, Judith Stenneken, Rebecca Sampson, Jonas Ludwig Walter, Andy Spyra, Dawin Meckel, Anna-Kristina Bauer and Felix Seuffert.






The book can be ordered here:
emerge 011 – Young Photojournalism and Documentary Photography
20 x 25 cm
Softcover
Language: German
229 Color- und B/W-images
276 pages

ISBN 978-3-00-036295-8
39€ + shipping

Lene Münch – Exhibition at C/O Berlin

Until January 15th, 2012 Lene Münchs series on german fraternities »Ewig treu« will be exhibited in a group show at C/O Berlin – International Forum for Visual Dialogues. Other participating photographers are Malte Wandel, Michael Disqué and Toby Binder.

Opening hours daily: 11 am – 8 pm
Admission: free
Place: C/O Berlin, Atelier (in the courtyard of the Postfuhramt), Auguststraße 5a, 10117 Berlin, Germany

Friday-Portrait: ITCHY

It’s friday again. And Friday is portrait day on our blog. ITCHY is on this week.
Every Friday each of us is going to upload one portrait to a given theme. On facebook you are now able to vote for the next weeks theme. You name what you wish to see – we go out and get it.

Here is last weeks theme: ITCHY

Unknown New Yorker

Lene Münch

Jaume Plensa

He is a great Spanish painter and sculptor.

Florian Manz

Florian Manz

Friday-Portrait: ARTISAN

It’s friday again. And Friday is portrait day on our blog. »Artisan« is on this week.
Every Friday each of us is going to upload one portrait to a given theme. On facebook you are now able to vote for the next weeks theme. You name what you wish to see – we go out and get it.

Here is last weeks theme: ARTISAN

Tim

Tim is a 22 year old weaver from southern Laos. She weaves mostly scarfs since she is 13 years old. She learned her art from her mother Pim. They both live at a Resort where the scarfs are being sold. Tim doesn’t like her job much. She says it’s tough to sit in this one position all day long. She’d rather work in some government office because she expects the work there to be less tiring. If she could, she’d move back to her village which is a few hours away, but the only work there would be in the rice fields. That isn’t an option for her right now.

Lucas Wahl

Juan Perez

Juan Perez is working as an assembler at the Trophy World in Brooklyn, where they make Awards, Trophies, Plaques and Medals for more than 50 years now.

Lene Münch

The old radiator brazer

I saw this old man in his workshop in the town center of »Mersing«, a village on the east coast of the Malaysian peninsular. His technique of brazing radiators was quite old-school…

Julius Schrank

butcher

The butcher stands with the current shocker in his hand and the tongue between the lips, behind the door, waiting for the pig to kill it.

Florian Manz

Florian Manz

Friday-Portrait: DREAM

It’s friday again. And Friday is portrait day on our blog. »DREAM« is on this week.
Every Friday each of us is going to upload one portrait to a given theme. On facebook you are now able to vote for the next weeks theme. You name what you wish to see – we go out and get it.

Here is last weeks theme: DREAM

Saiphon’s dream last night

Well not quite last night. I got struck by one of those funky tropical viruses and decided to take this picture from august – it was his last nights dream then. The birth of human being nr. 7.000.000.000 was soon to take place and german »Geolino« magazine wanted to portrait 7 children all over the world. It was called »Childrens Dreams«. I photographed 11 year old Saiphon, a passionate hunter and fisherman from the Lao countryside. I had to ask him a whole catalogue of questions such as: Who is your biggest hero? What is your biggest wish? What should change in your country? and: »what did you dream off last night?«
Here’s his answer: »I went to the forest to hunt when suddenly a giant elephant came angrily running towards me. I ran as fast as I could and from one moment to the other I was able to fly. I got away from the elephant but there where many evil spirits in the air. So I flew into a lake and dove all the way to my village but there were no people in the village. I got so scared that I woke up.«

Lucas Wahl

White Christmas

This is Vittoria standing under the Brooklyn-Bridge in DUMBO. She is dreaming of a white christmas.

Lene Münch

Interior Minister Uwe Schünemann

The German CDU politician Uwe Schünemann dreams about:
more video surveillance, shackles electronic, more phone monitoring, more military missions in Germany, more unmanned missiles video surveillance for anti-fascist demonstrations, more migrant deportation, etc. …

Subwaydreaming

Some dreaming on the way to Manhattan.
[caption id="attachment_4121" align="alignnone" width="540" caption="Julius Schrank"]Julius Schrank

Friday-Portrait: EMOTION

It’s friday again. And Friday is portrait day on our blog. „Emotion“ is on this week.
Every Friday each of us is going to upload one portrait to a given theme. On facebook you are now able to vote for the next weeks theme. You name what you wish to see – we go out and get it.

Here is last weeks theme: EMOTION

Autistic Boy

This is an autistic boy in laos‘ only autism center. They were training for a fashion show to be performed on christmas. Everytime this guy looked at himself in the mirror he started cracking up on himself. What a great way of having fun!

Lucas Wahl

Albert

Albert grew up in my neighborhood »Red Hook« and was living here for most of the time of his life. He seems to know everyone who is living here and had some interesting stories to tell. Some years ago, the neighborhood started to change and is now called one of the up and coming neighborhoods of Brooklyn. As the rent was getting higher and unaffordable for him he had to move away. He loves this neighborhood and it was obvious, that he was a little bit nostalgic, but still he was not complaining and seems to be a happy person.

Lene Münch

Angry monkey

I photographed this monkey in a park in Kuala Lumpur. At first he seemed to be quite friendly but when I moved closer towards him, he obviously didn’t like it to much…

julius schrank

Julius Schrak

Friday-Portrait: MAN WITH LONG HAIR

It’s friday again. And Friday is portrait day on our blog. „Emotion“ is on this week.
Every Friday each of us is going to upload one portrait to a given theme. On facebook you are now able to vote for the next weeks theme. You name what you wish to see – we go out and get it.

Here is last weeks theme: MAN WITH LONG HAIR

Hans-Peter

For 25 years „Dr. Hans-Peter Greb“ has researched the human gait. He has developed a new way of walking, which he calls GODO, and of course he also sells the perfect shoe for that.

Florian Manz

Florian Manz

Chao

This is „Chao“. He paints Oil canvases for the tourists in the town of „Khao Lak“ in southern Thailand.

Julius Schrank

Julius Schrank

Friday-Portrait: SUPERFLUOUS

It’s friday again. And Friday is portrait day on our blog. Superfluous this week – not easy…
Every Friday each of us is going to upload one portrait to a given theme. On facebook you are now able to vote for the next weeks theme. You name what you wish to see – we go out and get it.

Here is last weeks theme: SUPERFLUOUS

He Cheng Fei

He Cheng Fei is a chinese business man who has been living in Vientiane for 2 years. He moved here together with his wife. He owns a superfluous electronics shop in a superfluous new shopping mall. The »Talatsao Mall« which is the first american style mall in Laos, opened 2 weeks ago. But so far there are only a handfull of shops in it. It doesn’t seem to become a big success. He Cheng Fei says he is paying 12.000 USD rent for his little shop in the basement of the building and sees extremely few customers. He seemed quite desperate to me (he tried to sell me a Sony charger for my Canon batteries…).

Lucas Wahl

Spiderman

This weeks theme was a hard task… For me people in disguise, who pose for touristpictures around Times Square are quite superfluous.

Lene Münch

Racist

superfluous racist in the Czech Republic.

Florian Manz

Florian Manz

Wintercoat-girl

This is a girl who’s working on a retro-fashion market stand in Bangkok. If you consider that it more than 30 degrees plus and a high humidity, it is quite superfluous to sell fur coats

Julius Schrank

Julius Schrank

Friday-Portrait: Drunken

It’s friday again. And Friday is portrait day on our blog. A shiny, golden one this week.
Every Friday each of us is going to upload one portrait to a given theme. On facebook you are now able to vote for the next weeks theme. You name what you wish to see – we go out and get it.

Here is last weeks theme: DRUNKEN

Drunken sleeper

I shot this picture in the summer during a festival. The man sleeps conveniently right before the bar of the festival. 🙂

Florian Manz

Florian Manz

Drunken in Red Hook

Lene Münch

Drunk in Freetown Christiania

I took this photo while I was on assignment in Copenhagen / Denmark. The alternative urban quarter of Christiania celebrated it’s reopening after they closed their gates for 2 weeks for the public. Freetown Christiania is threatened of getting finally closed by the government, even though it became the second biggest tourist attraction in the city. For this guy the party was already over before it began.

Julius Schrank

Julius Schrank

Drunk Vientiane, Lao PDR

This drunk bunch was hanging out around a festival in Vientiane recently. The Lady in the middle performed a interesting little dance for me when i lifted up my camera. They were all already pretty wasted when i passed by.

Lucas Wahl

Friday-Portrait: Golden

It’s friday again. And Friday is portrait day on our blog. A shiny, golden one this week.
Every Friday each of us is going to upload one portrait to a given theme. On facebook you are now able to vote for the next weeks theme. You name what you wish to see – we go out and get it.

Here is last weeks theme: GOLDEN

Elephant Painter

This young man paints elephants, pegasuses and spirithouses golden. Even though i wonder who the people are that put these elephants in their living rooms, i find this workshop to be a interesting place.

Lucas Wahl

Michel Kiryakos

Michel in his small beautiful goldsmithin Hanover. He just soldered a gold ring.

Florian Manz

Florian Manz

Golden Bike

I don’t know, whether I want to consider this image a portrait or not. Sure, it is a picture of a person, but it was more a crappy snapshot than anything else. Actually I met this guy today on Delancey Street in Lower Eastside and as I didn’t have my camera on me, I took this picture with my iPhone. It was just such a nice coincidence, that he had a completely golden painted bike, I couldn’t resist…

Lene Münch

The golden Buddha

This is a „portrait“ of the standing Buddha in Bangkok. The statue is 31,5 meters high and a famous tourist attraction in Bangkok.

Julius Schrank

Bangkok Flood


I just came back from Bangkok where i covered the flood for german newspaper FAZ with their correspondend Jochen Buchsteiner. It were to become three pretty wet days. When i was flying in i could see large areas outside of bangkok under water. Bangkok itself is protected by large dykes and a system of canals and underground drainage pipes. The problem this weekend was that the highest tides of the month were coming up the Chao Phraya river as well. Water was basically trying to push into the city from two sides. It was a strange situation as life seemed to go on pretty much normal in most of the center. On the other side areas in the north had experienced flooding for weeks and there was no way the water could run off. Thousands of people had already left the city. There was reports of water and food shortages. The Don Mueang airport had to close and was used as a refugee camp for flood victims. Hundreds of volunteers helped with the distribution of water, foodstuffs and medicine in centers around the city. And prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra was put under a lot of pressure from the opposition and media about her crisis management.


On the second day i was wading around the airport when suddenly there was no more ground and i found myself in a water hole with water up over my had. All my gear broke but luckily the CF cards survived. Aela Callan of Al Jazeera was so kind to lend me a camera so that i could continue to work.


The biggest thread seems to be over now and in Bangkok the worst case scenario did not take place. But it is still the worst flooding in Thailand since more than 50 years. And people in more remote areas continue to suffer as their homelands have been flooded for weeks now.

Check out more images here!

Friday-Portrait: WAIT

It’s friday again. And Friday is portrait day on our blog.
Every Friday each of us is going to upload one portrait to a given theme. On facebook you are now able to vote for the next weeks theme. You name what you wish to see – we go out and get it.

Here is last weeks theme: WAIT

Olga Pak

Olga is living and working as a musician in Berlin. She is playing the violin quite well, e.g., as a soloist in the Philharmony of Berlin. I photographed her during a break on an old bank.

Florian Manz

Florian Manz

Unknown

I saw this guy during the Halloween Parade in Greenwich Village in New York City. He was waiting for someone outside a Pizza-Restaurant and didn’t stop making quite scary faces for me.

Lene Münch

Mrs. Airport awaits her flight

I’m on my iphone now, because everything else is broken. Anyways, Hipstamatic can be a lot of fun too. I saw this lady at Bangkok Airport recently.

Lucas Wahl

The mechanic

I photographed this migrant from South America in „Willets Point“ in New York. Willets Point is a huge multicultural car mechanic community in Queens/NYC. He was waiting for customers.

Julius Schrank

Friday-Portrait: MOUSTACHE

It’s friday again. And Friday is portrait day on our blog.
Every Friday each of us is going to upload one portrait to a given theme. On facebook you are now able to vote for the next weeks theme. You name what you wish to see – we go out and get it.

Here is last weeks theme: MOUSTACHE

Biker

I photographed this man on a moped race. Men and women ride mopeds for 6 hours on an acre. The winner is who has driven the most laps.

Florian Manz

Florian Manz

Jürgen Schrank

No, I’m not in Russia at the moment. This sympatic guy is my father… On the photo he looks a bit grumpy, but actually he’s a nice guy. I bought the hat in a second hand store in Amsterdam.

Julius Schrank

Jeffrey Eugenides

Jeffrey Eugenides is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning writer. He is most known for his novels »The Virgin Suicides« (1993) and »Middlesex« (2002). His new book »The Marriage Plot«, was published in October 2011. I photographed him here in New York for the german newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung one and a half weeks ago.

Lene Münch

End of Buddhist Lent

Recently the end of Buddhist Lent was celebrated in Laos. Buddhist Lent is a three month period in which monks retreat and many locals quit drinking and smoking. It’s end marks the end of the rainy season as well. At night, it was clebrated with people sending beautifully illuminated ‘boats’ made of banana stems or banana leaves decorated with candles and flowers down the mekong. These are said to pay respect to the Buddha and to thank the mother of rivers for providing water for our lives. Some believe that the lai heua fai procession is an act to pay respect to nagas that lives in the rivers, while others send the lighted boats down the river to ask for blessing and to float bad luck of the past year away enabling the good luck to flow in.




Friday-Portrait: DIRTY

It’s friday again. And Friday is portrait day on our blog.
Every Friday each of us is going to upload one portrait to a given theme. On facebook you are now able to vote for the next weeks theme. You name what you wish to see – we go out and get it.

Here is last weeks theme: DIRTY

Hermann

Hermann Völxen is the last farmer in Hanover.
I visit him every few weeks and watch him through my camera.

Florian Manz

Florian Manz

Soeredj Gokoel

Originally from Suriname in northern South America, Soeredj has been living in New York City for almost five years now. He is working at the solid waste services companies IESI in an recycling facility in Red Hook. The whole place smells pretty acrid and is quite dirty, but Soeredj seems to love his job.

Lene Münch

Moet

Moet is a 48 year old lao working on Vientianes dump site. He’s been doing his job for 13 years already. He says that he can make about 100 USD per month. The dump site is of course a very smelly place and full of flies. But Moet says that he doesn’t smell it anymore after so many years.

Lucas Wahl

Polish coal diggerl

The portrait is part of a reportage about illegal coal mining in Poland. I photographed the story in Spring 2011. It was puplished in „De Volkskrant“.

Julius Schrank

Julius Schrank

Friday-Portrait: SMOKE

It’s friday again. And Friday is portrait day on our blog.
Every Friday each of us is going to upload one portrait to a given theme. On facebook you are now able to vote for the next weeks theme. You name what you wish to see – we go out and get it.

Here is last weeks theme: SMOKE

Fabian Brennecke

Fabian is a friend and classmate from university. He really enjoys smoking cigarettes – he says it brings him down from the daily stress. His work is viewable on www.fabianbrennecke.com.

Florian Manz

Florian Manz

Plastic Bottle Collector

I met this guy after an festival celebrating the end of buddhist lent here in Vientiane. He had just finished work and we shared a couple of smokes and beers. Not sure why he needed shades in the middle of the night…

Lucas Wahl

Jenni Cusveller

This is Jenni and she lives and studies in Amsterdam. She smoked three cigarettes in a row for me.

Julius Schrank

Julius Schrank

Vittoria Mentasti

Vittoria is an Italian photographer living in New York City. She startet smoking, when she was fourteen and just likes it. Some of her work can be seen on her blog.

Lene Münch

Self Portrait

It’s friday again. And Friday is portrait day on our blog.
Every Friday each of us is going to upload one portrait to a given theme. On facebook you are now able to vote for the next weeks theme. You name what you wish to see – we go out and get it.

Here is last weeks theme: Self Portrait

Same Same But Different

The one on the left was taken by my father when i was 4 years old. Now, 22 years later, some things have changed – some haven’t.

Lucas Wahl

Land ahoy

On all 7 Oceans

Florian Manz

Florian Manz

Lene

Lene Münch

Julius

Jep, thats me.

Julius Schrank

Julius Schrank

Friday-Portrait: OUT OF FOCUS

It’s friday again. And Friday is portrait day on our blog.
Every Friday each of us is going to upload one portrait to a given theme. On facebook you are now able to vote for the next weeks theme. You name what you wish to see – we go out and get it.

Here is last weeks theme: OUT OF FOCUS

Moa

This is my girlfriend Moa naked in her bedroom… Kind of arty, isn’t it?

Julius Schrank

Julius Schrank

Sukhreet with Parrot Baya

I crossed Sukhreet in the streets of New York and found it quite weird that she was walking around with a parrot sitting on her shoulder. First I just kept on walking, but than I realised that I have to go back to talk to her and to take a picture.
Sukhreet herself is an artist who was born in New York and has been living here for most of her life. The parrot, whose name is Baya, is from the Amazonas and is 18 years old. Parrots can achieve an average age of 40 – 60 years, so he is still quite young…
To take this picture I used a digital pinhole camera, that I made by myself, in combination with a flash.

Lene Münch

Lina

Lina is a Latvian interior designer and just in Germany to visit friends.

Florian Manz

Florian Manz

Phongsavath

Phongsavath is a 20 year old man. He got blinded and lost both his hands when he picked up a cluster bomb on his 16th birthday. He is now staying at the National Rehabilitation Center in Vientiane. He moves around quite safely using a cane and becomes more and more independent. He learns english and is member of a dancing group in which he shows off some pretty amazing breakdancing skills. Phongsavath is also a member of the Ban Advocates.

Lucas Wahl

Friday-Portrait: BLUE EYES

It’s friday again. And Friday is portrait day on our blog.
Every Friday each of us is going to upload one portrait to a given theme. On facebook you are now able to vote for the next weeks theme. You name what you wish to see – we go out and get it.

Here is last weeks theme: BLUE EYES

Unknown cop

I photographed this cop on september 11th close to Ground Zero in New York City.

Lene Münch

Ilze Rumniece

Ilze Rumniece, Dean of the Faculty of Philology at the Riga Latvijas Universitāte.

Florian Manz

Florian Manz

Sara

Sara is a swedish intern with COPE, an organisation working closely with the National Rehabilitation Center in Vientiane.

Lucas Wahl

Gerrit-jan van Ek

This is Gerrit-jan van Ek, Chief of the photodesk at the Dutch daily „De Volkskrant“. The fact that I work for the paper, makes him my boss and I had to get him a lot of coffee in the last year 😉
Julius SchrankJulius Schrank

Friday-Portrait: HIPSTER

It’s friday again. And Friday is portrait day on our blog.
Every Friday each of us is going to upload one portrait to a given theme. On facebook you are now able to vote for the next weeks theme. You name what you wish to see – we go out and get it.

Here is last weeks theme: HIPSTER

Tom Kogut

Tom Kogut is an artist living in Wiliamsburg, New York. In the picture he is sitting in front of the Pizza Restaurant where he works to earn money. Tom is living in New York for 5 years now and is a really nice guy. Check out his work here.

Lene Münch

Unknown DJ

I forgot the name of this guy. I saw him DJ’ing at a private afterparty around 5 am here in Vientiane.

Lucas Wahl

Westerwelle

Sorry Guido Westerwelle is not a hipster! But I thought the colors are a bit hip.

Florian Manz

Florian Manz

Sterre & Haroon

Sterre and Haroon are two very hip colleagues of mine! They work as journalists for De Volkskrant and in the past I’ve had the pleasure to work with both of them. I took the portrait in the building in Amsterdam were the newspaper is based.

Julius Schrank

Julius Schrank

Friday-Portrait: DANGEROUS

It’s friday again. And Friday is portrait day on our blog.
Every Friday each of us is going to upload one portrait to a given theme. On facebook you are now able to vote for the next weeks theme. You name what you wish to see – we go out and get it.

Here is last weeks theme: DANGEROUS

Udo Pastörs

Udo Pastörs is a German politician of the extreme-right NPD. Last weekend the jeweler, watchmaker and former professional soldier has been elected into the Schwerin State Parliament.
The NPD has received 6% of the vote, so about 50 000 people in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern have given their voice to this right-wing extremists even though the NPD has not even tried to hide their cynical view of the world.

Florian Manz

Mike Flanagan

Mike Flanagan is a New York fire fighter for almost 10 years now. He started his first class at the academy just one month after 9/11 and is now working at Engine 54, Ladder 16. Although the job of a fire fighter is quite dangerous he has never been seriously in danger within his carreer.

Lene Münch

Ozzi

Ozzi is a pretty dangerous looking guy. He is very ambitious about boxing and traines every day. The portrait is part of a story about the oldest, still existing boxing gym in the world. The gym is based in Brooklyn, NY, just next to the Manhattan bridge. I just finished photographing and the story will soon be published in De Volkskrant.

Julius Schrank

Vieng Xay

Vieng is a 14 year old boy from southern Laos and a so called „scrap metal hunter“. He goes into the forests around his village carrying a cheap vietnamese metal detector. When it starts beeping he digs for the remains of bombs from the „secret war“ the americans conducted in Laos during the 60’s and 70’s. Since Vieng lives along the former Ho Chi Minh trail, which was heavily bombed, it beeps almost everywhere. He said that until some years ago there were villagers who knew how to dismantle live bombs but that they have all pushed their luck too far. The bomb seen in the picture was still alive and he later tried to burn sticks and leaves on top of it to blow it up. He didn’t succeed though and luckily he is too afraid to try and dismantle it himself. He can sell one kilo of scrap metal for about 0,20 €. That explains, why the temptation for a poor villager, is quite big to try and dismantle a 500 kg bomb.

Lucas Wahl

Friday-Portrait: CAR DRIVER

It’s friday again. And Friday is portrait day on our blog.
Every Friday each of us is going to upload one portrait to a given theme. On facebook you are now able to vote for the next weeks theme. You name what you wish to see – we go out and get it.

Here is last weeks theme: car driver

Jerome

Jerome driving a beautiful old Porsche 911, he restored the car in a small garage in France.

Florian Manz

Thongdi

Thongdi is a 62 year old TukTuk driver from Vientiane. He first drove Taxi for 25 years before switching to his TukTuk 15 years ago. He likes his job he says but if it was up to him he’d make more money with it. He usually waits next to the biggest market in town and carries mostly women and their groceries.

Lucas Wahl

The Timesquare Cop

This is a NYPD cop in his car on the Timesquare in Manhattan. I was wondering if it is a punishment for a police officer to be send on patrol in the area around the Timesquare. They are pretty much all the time busy with posing for the tourists. I was lucky to get him in a vacant moment.

Julius Schrank

Mr. Shadow

This portrait I also shot in the streets of Manhattan in New York. A very photogenic place. The photo is more or less a snapshot, the guy was looking at me, so I pulled up the camera and took the photo.

Lene Münch

Friday-Portrait: Teenager

It’s friday again. And Friday is portrait day on our blog.
Every Friday each of us is going to upload one portrait to a given theme. On facebook you are now able to vote for the next weeks theme. You name what you wish to see – we go out and get it.

Here is last weeks theme: TEENAGER

German screen teen

The German population watches appr. 223 minutes TV per day. That means in average every German spends arround 10 years of his live in front of a TV-screen.

Florian Manz

Florian Manz

Philippe

Philippe is a 15 year old teenager from Montréal, Canada. I met him with his friends in the streets of Rosemont.

Lene Münch

Anne-Marie

This is Anne-Marie Gagné. She is 17 years old, likes Punkmusic and lives in a sharehouse in Montreal. I met her on the street and asked if I can take her portrait. We than went into a church close by and had a sexy photoshoot.

Julius Schrank

Planket 2011 – Stockholm and Berlin

»Ewig treu« is one of the 60 works, that have been curated for the swedish show Planket 2011. Planket is a one-day out-door photography exhibition that hangs on a fence (»planket« means »fence« in Swedish). The format of the show has always been the same since it first started in 1982.

2011 is the first year in Planket’s history that the exhibition will travel. After Stockholm the exhibition will be shown in Berlin as well.

The dates for the shows are:
Stockholm (Lilla Mejtens Gränd): August 20th and
Berlin (Görlitzer Strasse): September 10th

A catalogue accompanies the show with one image per artist. The catalogue is for sale on the day of the exhibitions and at various bookstores and museum shops worldwide.

Photos by Antonia Zennaro

Friday-Portrait: RICH

It’s friday again. And Friday is portrait day on our blog.
Every Friday each of us is going to upload one portrait to a given theme. On facebook you are now able to vote for the next weeks theme. You name what you wish to see – we go out and get it.

Here is last weeks theme: RICH

Hardy

Hardy is a 68 year old guy from Denmark. His parents were very poor, but he worked his way up and is now a millionaire. He owns several Rolls Royces, a Harley Davidson and a Piper Cherokee, a single-engine airplane. When I asked him about women he just said: »No, you can’t buy women. Love you can’t buy. Love is from the heart and you can’t buy it. Love is the most expensive in the world and you can’t buy it.«

Lene Münch

Ralf Schnoor

Ralf is a sympathic man, cafe owner for 25 years and „Wer wird Millionär“ winner. He won 1 million but he has not changed his life.

Florian Manz

Somsavath Khemsouliyajack

„Do good – receive good“ Vath says about her way of doing business. She is a young business woman from Vientiane, Laos. In the past ten years she has set up a real estate business, a business consultancy and she also runs a popular online shop for fashion. As if that wasn’t enough work she is also the Hungarian honorary consul to Laos. Together with her sister, her maid, two rabbits, 3 dogs and 18 cats she lives in an impressive house facing the Mekong.

Lucas Wahl

Friday-Portrait: SUMMER

It’s friday again. And Friday is portrait day on our blog.
Every Friday each of us is going to upload one portrait to a given theme. On facebook you are now able to vote for the next weeks theme. You name what you wish to see – we go out and get it.

Here is last weeks theme: SUMMER

Peroni Alex

Summer is…
when it’s warm outside at four o’clock in the morning and you have cool beer.

Florian Manz

Oune Tuang

This man with his stylish summer hat is Oune Tuang, 60. He holds up a granade near his property. He owns a cole producing business on near the former Ho Chi Minh Trail and claims that he cannot expand his production facilities because his property is on an old ammunition bunker from the former royal lao army. He says that nobody told him about it when he bought the land. It is rainy season in Laos right now so it doesn’t feel very much like summer. I took the portrait in may when temperatures rose up to 38°C and walking around in shadeless places wasn’t much fun really. The guy scared me shitless when he first picked up that bomb. Upon seeing my face he laughed and ensured me it wouldn’t blow off unless he’d drop it on it’s top. It didn’t make me feel too much better I must admit…

Lucas Wahl

Taro

Taro is 8 years old and on summer holidays right now.

Lene Münch

Marlouke Theeuwen

Marlouke Theeuwen at the studio in Amsterdam where she teaches nia. Nia comes from the USA and is a mixture of classical martial arts, yoga and dance.

Julius Schrank

Friday-Portrait: CAPTAIN

Here is last weeks theme: CAPTAIN

Sebastian Adler

More than 300 skippers had to wait for the recovery of the cargo ship TMS Waldhof, which sunk in the river Rhine near the Loreley in February 2011. Some boatmen had to wait 4 weeks before they could continue their journey. Sebastian Adler was one of those waiting. He spent his time in a pub in the port of Mainz. He was losing about 6000 € a day. I just got back to Germany, so sorry it is no new picture.

Florian Manz

Mekong Captain

Khampheng is a 52 year old captain and his boat is the „Tong Tiaw Lane Xang“. It is a cruiseship carrying passengers From the lao capital Vientiane to Savannakhet in the south. 2 days downstream, 3 back up. Khampheng has been working on the boat for more than 20 years.

Lucas Wahl

Christiane

Actually facebook played a joke on us. When I checked what this weeks topic was it showed to me that the »54 year old woman« was the most voted topic. So I took a picture of a 54 year old woman. Her name is Christiane and she is crazy about riding her bike. In 2009 she sold her car for environmental reasons and is since doing everything by bike. 2 years ago she made a tour from Germany to Great Britain all alone. Back home she is biking 500 km every month. A bicycle helmet and glasses may not be missing.

Lene Münch

Paul Watson

Paul Watson is founder of the „Sea Shepherd Conservation Society“ and Captain of a whole anti waling fleet. Every year they go on a three month expedition to the Antarctic to chase the Japanese harpoon boats. I took the portrait just before they started the campaign in the harbor of Hobart, Australia.

Friday-Portrait: PROSTITUTE

It is friday again. On facebook you are now able to vote for the next weeks theme. You name what you wish to see – we go out and get it.

Here is last weeks theme: PROSTITUTE

Sex Inn

I walked into 7 brothels in Hanovers Red-light district and talked to more than 20 girls, but none of them wanted to be photographed. One prostitute offered me to pose in front of the camera, when I pay $150. This seems to be the only way to get a picture of a prostitute. So in the end I have to admit that I failed, but it was a new experience to me to get in contact with this milieu. At least I could take a picture of the staircase in one of the etablissemnts called »Sex Inn«.

Lene Münch

Prostitution? What prostitution?

Prostitution is illegal in Laos. It therefore doesn’t exist. Anyone reporting about it or showing pictures risks to get on the »red list«. So I was warned by a government official that I know. For this reason I’ve decided not to show a portrait on the subject in this place at this time. Sorry.
The picture underneath I took while working in the northern Lao city of Xiengkhouang last week. It shows a very empty nightclub. No girls inside – only two drunk guys practising their karaoke skills…

Lucas Wahl

Big Momma

Even in Amsterdam it’s not easy to photograph a prostitute! I asked arround 20 girls in the red-lite district until one said »Yes«. I still had to pay 20 € for exactly one(!) photo. Anyways, I’m proud to have accomplished to job…

Julius Schrank

Julius Schrank

Friday-Portrait: ARTIST

It is friday again. And Friday is portrait day on www.kollektiv25.de.
Every Friday each of us is going to upload one portrait to a given theme. On facebook you are now able to vote for the next weeks theme. You name what you wish to see – we go out and get it.

Here is last weeks theme: ARTIST

Jo

Jo is a fire artist from Lonely Beach, Koh Chang island in Thailand. I photographed him at the mekong riverbank in Vientiane where he is currently based. Jo is 32 years old and first started playing the »poi poi’s« 10 years ago after seeing a tourist practicing on his home beach. Nowadays it’s him who voluntarily teaches younger kids from his village how to play. Besides working as a bartender he is able to make money playing at Hotels and Parties.

Lucas Wahl

Martin Funda

Martin Funda is a young emerging violinist from Berlin. This picture was taken to promote his concerts on his website and on billboards in the city.

Florian Manz

Joep van Lieshout

Joep van Lieshout is one of the most important contemporary artists of The Netherlands. He mainly works with materials like polyurethane foam and polyester. His work often combines art with design and architecture. His artworks are exhibited in many international exhibitions, among others, at the MOMA New York. I photographed him at the »Atelier van Lieshout«, a artists-collective, that he has founded in 1995.

Julius Schrank

Eugen Posin

Eugen is one of the three Russian brothers who paint copies of famous masterpieces in Berlin. Only artists who have been dead for over 70 years are allowed to be copied legally. Their works are so perfect that the three brothers became somehow famous around the world for their reproductions of Rembrandt, da Vinci, van Gogh and other Old Masters. Read more about them here and here. And here you can see a multimedia story by 2470media about Eugen Posin.

Lene Münch

Finally I have my bachelor degree!

My final project deals with german bureaucracy and I realised a photobook with the german title »Der Apparat« (english translation: The Apparatus).

The Apparatus focuses on a theme of our time and tells a story apart from sensations. Offices and institutions are in themselves barren boring places that evoke a feeling of unease and anxiety, when getting in touch with them.

It was clear from the outset that I didn’t want to reproduce the classic stereotypes when dealing with this subject. Full waiting rooms, long corridors and annoyed faces simply didn’t interest me in this story. These images are somehow already known too well. I was rather interested in the nature of the offices and institutions themselves. In the apparatus itself. I wanted to convey a mood and encourage the viewer to pause and reflect.

Documentary photography aims, different than the purely journalistic photography, not the capture of highlights of an event, but focuses more on casual, trivial or subtle image content.

I was not only interested in the typical offices and institutions, but I have also searched specifically for scenes beside. This is why I was not only in offices and administrative buildings but have also had a look at the former home of the former chancellors, have been underground in the mine Asse II, where the Federal Office for Radiation Protection investigates for solutions to the local problem of final disposal of nuclear waste and have been told that there is a kind of TÜV for plants (Federal Office of Plant Varieties). Also new to me was, that a chimney sweep is, as a single person, as well an institution for himself.

With my pictures I don’t want to force meanings or messages to the viewer, but rather to encourage in a subtle way to look critically at our society, to question structures and prescribed paths and to form an opinion about it by themselves.

Evicting a squatter stronghold.

Last week I got the assignment to photograph the eviction of a squattered house in central Amsterdam. The place was called »Schijnheilig«, which means something like »sanctimonious« and can be considered as a kind of stronghold of the squatter scene in Amsterdam. I reached the place at sunrise at around 5:30 am, shortly before the police arrived. The demonstrators set up some barricades from tables and benches which they had anchored on the street. Four or five guys were chained onto huge concrete-blocs and also a bunch of black-block guys were there.

The police cleared the scene pretty quickly and forced the demonstrators back onto a slightly bigger street. Here they were closed in from two sides. After some undercover-police-thugs picked out a few »badboys« of the crowd, the whole bunch of around 200 remaining demonstrators were told to be arrested. Unfortunately they didn’t really care, that I’m a press photographer and so finally me and my writing college were arrested too. Handcuffed and a bit angry we were brought to a cell complex, were they took the beautiful Polaroid photo of me, which they plugged onto the cell door. At least I was allowed to keep it.

Friday-Portrait: FREAK

Here is last weeks theme: FREAK

Daniel Gun

Daniel Gun is a rapper from Hanover, Germany and a member of Goodfellas Mafia. He got his first tattoo aged 17 and has since tattoed 60 % of his body.

Florian Manz

Emile Moustachi

Emile is an artist from Perpignan in the South of France. He’s quite a freak. As soon as he is in public places he doesn’t stop making faces, but once he is at home, he’s quite a normal old man, who likes reading comics.

Lene Münch

Chinese Playback Performer. Penang, Malaysia

I was sitting at a so called Hawker Center in Penang this week. A Hawker Center is basically an open air place with plastic chairs lots of stalls with delicious cheap food and beer, and in this case really bad, loud music. The guy on the pictures was performing some hilarious playback – freaky but cool.

Lucas Wahl

Adam Pearson

Adam Pearson is known from the English TV-Show „Beauty and the Beast“. In this show a good looking girl which is very much focused on her outer appearance is living together with a „beast“ for a certain period. The so called beast in this case is Adam Pearson………….

More info here

Julius Schrank

Julius Schrank

Friday-Portrait: SIBLINGS

It is friday again. And Friday is portrait day on www.kollektiv25.de.
Every Friday each of us is going to upload one portrait to a given theme. On facebook you are now able to vote for the next weeks theme. You name what you wish to see – we go out and get it.

Here is last weeks theme: SIBLINGS

Dengkam & Kaikeo

Dengkam (44) and Kaikeo (55) are two good-hearted neighbours of mine and obviously sisters. They run a little noodle soup shop on their yard.

Lucas Wahl

The Kreie-brothers

The father of these two brothers was burning dirty straw from the coop and they really loved to play in the smoke.

Lene Münch

Paula & Julia

Paula and Julia Mateyawa both work in 11A, a small restaurant in Hanover.

Florian Manz

Mr. Black & Mr. White

Well, these two guys are obviously not really siblings….. but when I asked them about the story of their shirts, they just anwered: „We are brothers“. So I thought it fits anyhow. I photographed them last Saturday night at around 4:00 am on a huge techno event in the football-stadium of Ajax Amsterdam.

Julius Schrank

Julius Schrank

Friday-Portrait: WATER

It is friday again. And Friday is portrait day on www.kollektiv25.de.
Every Friday each of us is going to upload one portrait to a given theme. On facebook you are now able to vote for the next weeks theme. You name what you wish to see – we go out and get it.

Here is last weeks theme: WATER

Marion

Marion is a good friend of mine and I took this photo of her drinking water in a café in Berlin Friedrichshain.

Lene Münch

Dr. Wieskotten

The biologist Dr. Sven Wieskotten works in Warnemünde for the Marine-Science-Center, the largest Pinniped research center in the world.

Florian Manz

Bao, Sea Gipsy

Bao, 31 is a »Sea Gipsy« from southern Thailand. His ancestors moved from island to island but his people are nowadays mostly staying in one place. Bao lives in Chao Lae Village on the island of Ko Phi Phi. Ko Phi Phi is a major holiday destination in Thailand. Until 24 years ago the bay was inhabited only by the people of Chao Lae village. Then the first Hotel was build. Residents claim that they were tricked by the investors into signing contracts they couldn’t understand because of their lack of education. They sold most of their beach and the village now occupies only a small part of it. They say they sold their beach for 10 bags of rice per family – it’s worth millions of dollars now. Most villagers are happy that they can make money with the hotel guests but always have to think about how much money they could make if the land would still belong to them.

Lucas Wahl

Lifeguard in France, alias »Mr. Beach« 😉

I have to admit, that this portrait isn’t a brand-new one. I was just to busy this week…
The guy is a lifeguard on a beach in southern France. I photographed him whilst Florian and I were working on an assignment for the travel magazine »Geo Saison«.

Actually I just asked him if we could photograph him in his working-outfit, the idea of taking of his shirt and to pose for the camera was his…

Julius Schrank

Julius Schrank

Friday-Portrait: RED-HAIRED

It is friday again. Last week we went out to find you some gingers. According to Wikipedia only 2% of the worlds population is blessed with red hair. While Scotland has the highest proportion of redheads (up to 14%), there are very few in places like Papua New Guinea (only 0,03%).
On facebook you are now able to vote for the next weeks theme.

You name what you wish to see – we go out and get it.

Here is last weeks theme: RED-HAIRED

Dorothea Hoffmann

Dorothea is a stage designer, she lives and works in Hanover.

Florian Manz

Bonnie Wright

Bonnie Wright is an English actress known for playing Ginny Weasley in the Harry Potter movies.

Lene Münch

Lotte

This is Lotte, a neighbor from Rotterdam. I saw her for the first time in the little Kiosk in front of my girlfriends house. She is 26 and lives in her cozy little flat just around the corner. That’s also where I photographed her this evening. Unfortunately I forgot to ask for her last name… I always forget about asking people for their personal data… need to get better in that!


Julius Schrank

Navid & Ava Leyla

Navid and Ava Leyla are twins and almost five years old. They’re the children of friends of mine and members of the very exclusive club of red-haired people in Lao PDR. I had a lot of fun but was also challenged with photographing these super active kids. They just don’t care about instructions 🙂

Lucas Wahl

Just another reason a collectiv makes sense

Since we’ve founded Kollektiv25 we’re very happy with the way things are going.
Just recently it showed to us again, that it also makes a lot of sense economically.
It started with a call from »Yuno«. Yuno is the youngster version of Stern magazine. It is made for kids in the age from 10-15. They called up Julius, asking if he could do a job near Hannover. Julius couldn’t do it because he was in Amsterdam. He could recommend Manz though because he was back in Hannover by then. So Manz was able to help them out with photographing a school newspaper. After that they must have checked this website and found out that i’m currently in Laos. They asked me to come up with some ideas about a picture showing children on their way to school. Since Laos is the most heavily bombed country on earth, I proposed a picture with kids passing by a fence made out of bomb shells. They wanted it. That means that Manz and I both got jobs because Julius wasn’t available. Without this collectiv, what would have happened? Most probably the editors at Yuno would have just called somebody else after talking to Julius. The chances that it were Manz and later me would have been rather small.
So, connect yourself! It’s not only a good thing, it fills your frigdes too!

Friday-Portrait: KIDS

Friday is from now on gonna be portrait day at www.kollektiv25.de. Each Friday each of us is going to upload one portrait to a given theme. On facebook you are able to vote for the next weeks theme. So, you name what you wish to see and we go out and take the pictures.

Here is this weeks theme: KIDS

Melchior Tamms

Melchior is a funny young man, he lives in a small village near Bremen.

Florian Manz

Kids in Denmark

I have met these two kids some time ago in Århus, Denmark. I think when I was in their age, I didn’t care at all about my cloths. But time is changing…

Lene Münch

Thys

This little fellow in his baseball-dress is »Thys«. I photographed him at a baseball-tryout in Haarlem / Netherlands. At the events young talents could show there skills under the critical eyes of professional trainers and talent scouts.

Julius Schrank

Teng

Teng, 11, hangs out at his neighbour’s furniture shop in Vientiane/Laos. It is his vacation and he spends a lot of his time in the shop watching videos with his friends.

Lucas Wahl

Friday is gonna be »Portrait Day«

Friday is from now on gonna be portrait day at www.kollektiv25.de. Each Friday each of us is going to upload one portrait to a given theme. In the future you are gonna be able to vote for the next weeks theme on our facebook profile. So, you name what you wish to see and we go out and take the pictures.

Here is our first theme: PHOTOGRAPHER

Thongthang Inthavong

Wedding photographer Thongthang Inthavong in his »Venus Studio« in Vientiane, Lao PDR. He is 39 years old and started to work as a photographer at the age of 10. He started working with his father who first opened the studio but who is now retired. A shoot with Thongthang costs 10 $ for an hour. In his studio he has got over a 100 different dresses that people can put on for their photo. He does wedding photography in his studio and on location. In his 30 working years he has done more than 500 weddings. One of the most memorable for him has been one with members of the former royal family of Laos.

Lucas Wahl

Stephan Vanfleteren

Stephan Vanfleteren is a Belgium portrait and reportage photographer. I portrait him in his house in Vilvoorde / Belgium, where he lives with his family. The house used to be a monastery, the photo shown him in his bedroom which once was the altar-room. Vanfleteren has won several international photo awards like the »World press photo Award« the »“European Fuji Award« or most recently the German »Henri Nannen Preis«. He has published several books and his work has been shown in numerous exhibitions across Europe. At first, it felt a bit wired to photograph such a experienced portrait-photographer, but actually it was not much different than portraying anybody else. Here you find his website.

Julius Schrank

René Burri

René Burri is one of the most famous Magnum photographers, born in Switzerland. Actually I have to admit that this picture has been taken some time ago in France at the photofestival »Les Rencontres d’Arles« and it’s rather a snapshot than a real portrait, but it’s funny. I like it!

Lene Münch

Tim Schaarschmidt

Tim Schaarschmidt is a German photographer, he works at the newspaper Neue Presse in Hanover. His main focus has everything to do with lights flashing, accidents, murder, etc… I photographed him in his apartment.

Florian Manz

The Beatsteaks

For the german daily »Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung« (FAZ) i spent one day with the german rock band »The Beatsteaks«. I was just heading to another job as the editor called me saying it was cancelled and i should portray the Beatsteaks instead. I had seen the band performing at the Hurricane festival a couple of years ago but i could neither remember how many of them stood on stage nor in which language they sang.

I thought of crazy, wild rock n‘ roll life. I pictured myself right in it.

The Beatsteaks didn’t fit in that cliche. Instead of Jack Daniels, loud music and hot groupies i found very clean tour buses, friends of the band members cooking delicious food and no liquor. The writer and i did an interview with Torsten Scholz, the bands bass player, a couple of hours before the gig. He was a very relaxed and sympathetic guy from berlin with some pretty colorful tattoos on his arms. After that the writer left and i stayed with the band until after the show. The only thing that fit into the rockstar life i expected was their manager taking care that the journalists wouldn’t harass the band members too much.
It has been a very interesting day.

New York Photo Awards: Lene wins the student category »Photographic Book«

Last night, at the award ceremony, photographers from around the world have been awarded with the »New York Photo Awards«, one winner and two honorable mentions in each of the seven general categories and five student categories.

I’m very happy to announce, that I am the winner of the student category »Photographic Book«. I applied with my book »Ewig treu«, which portrays the lifestyle of student fraternities in Germany.

The New York Photo Awards 2011 are part of the New York Photo Festival, which takes place in NYC right now (may 11th until 15th).

Lucas now based in Asia

Two weeks ago I’ve moved to Vientiane, the capital of Laos together with my girlfriend. I’ll be staying here for quite a while now. The past weeks have been a rush. We had to get rid of our appartment in Frankfurt, write tons of mails, say goodbye to friends and so on. Once we got here, organizing went on. But it’s a much nicer kind of orga now. We’ve already found a nice place to live and even internet is working.

The people living in Vientiane complain about their city becoming noisy, dirty and hectic but compaired to other cities around Asia, Vientiane really feels more like a village. I must admit though that I’ve seen a traffic jam once.
And just to sit outside on my terrace writing these lines while listening to cicadas and watching geckos munching moskitos feels mighty good.

My neighbourhood is mostly local and the people are kind. The trees are packed with ripe mangos and people share them together with sticky rice over some beerlao. There are so many invitations for dinners from the neighbours that it’s gonna be a tough time to eat all that food;-)

I’m gonna work on personal projects here and I am available for assignments. I can easily reach places in China, Vietnam, Cambodia and Burma. And Thailand is just across the river. So if you need something to get done in Southeast Asia, just let me know.

Statue of King Anouvong, last ruler of the Lan Xang (million elephants) empire, situated on the Mekong riverbank in Vientiane.Statue of King Anouvong, last ruler of the Lan Xang (million elephants) empire, situated on the Mekong riverbank in Vientiane.

Portrait of a young monk in his monastery, Vientiane.
Portrait of a young monk in his monastery, Vientiane.

Family walking on a sandbar on the Mekong river in front of Vientiane.Family walking on a sandbar on the Mekong river in front of Vientiane.

Young man watching dawn at the Mekong.Young man watching dawn at the Mekong.

Young women knee down in front of a statue of King Anouvong lighting candles as a sacrificial offering.Young women knee down in front of a statue of King Anouvong lighting candles as a sacrificial offering.

Gecko: the moskito haters best friend.Gecko: the moskito haters best friend.

Meeting the »Seashepherds« on Tasmania.

End of last year, I travelled to Australia for a story about the »Seashepherd conservation society«. Every year the group of marine and wildlife activists launches a huge campain to the Antarctica to chase the Japanese Whaling-fleet. This year the campain contained 3 vessels: The »Steve Irwin«, the »Bob Barker« and their new top gun, the stealth boat »Gojira«. Their big goal was to detain the Japanese fleet from killing any whales throughout the hunting-season. The campain usually takes about 3 months and was lounged for the 7th time. From the perspective of the Sea Shepherds, this year’s campain was a big success, as after a few days of chasing the »Nisshin Maru« factory ship, the Japanese returned home. With this retreat, the Japanese officially ended the 2011 hunting season in the southern ocean. After information of the Sea Shepherds, the whaler’s didn’t even take 10% of their quota. Anyways, I think at the moment the Japanese have much bigger problems to deal with!

Together with a college I travelled to Hobart on Tasmania, to cover the campaines preparation and to interview the founder of the society, Captain Paul Watson.

Top 10 emerging photographers from Germany

Florian Manz, Lene Münch and Julius Schrank are three of the TOP TEN UNTER 30 emerging photographers from Germany selected by »flare« magazine.

The jury consisted of the gallery owner Robert Morat, the art director Matthias Ballmann, the photographer Sebastian Bolesch and a Representative of the photoeditors of Spiegel Online. To see the other 7 photographers who have been selected click here.



Exhibition »Explaining man to man«

»When I first became interested in photography… my idea was to have it recognized as one of the fine arts. Today I don’t give a hoot in hell about that. The mission of photography is to explain man to man and each to himself.« said Edward Steichen quite a while ago. Based on this credo of the famous photographer the photo exhibition at our University in Hanover got its title »explaining man to man«. The exhibition is meant as an anthology to report on the photo-journalistic work that originated here in the last ten years. Among the 63 works that are shown in the exhibition there are 5 reportages made by Kollektiv25-members.

Until April 8th 2011 the exhibition will be on display during the opening hours of the Design Center in Hanover.

The catalogue »Den Menschen den Menschen erklären« has been published by Rasch Verlag and can be ordered for 24 Euro, ISBN 978-3-89946-160-2.