RoggenKINO's photostream

Roggen = Rye
Kino = Cinema

I am a filmmaker based in Toronto, Canada. I am originally from Winnipeg, Manitoba and I still consider Winnipeg my hometown. My immediate family is from Germany (Hamburg and Berlin).

This site is a work in progress -- it is simply an informal archive of selections of my work in photography, film and video.

I began taking pictures in 1981 using a Kodak X-15 35mm Instamatic that my parents gave to me. As an eleven year-old, flash cubes broke my budget, so I decided to stick with available light photography. The habit stuck. Virtually all of my film photographs since then have been taken using available light.

From 1985 to 2001, I relied on a sturdily built 1971 Nikon Nikkormat that my father gave to me. It was a beautiful camera with a 50mm, 1.4 Nikon lens. I never experienced a single technical problem with the camera in the 16 years that I carried it. One day, in Toronto, this beautiful camera was stolen from me. The same camera had been stolen and recovered twice before: once in Zambia and once in Ecuador. I may just get it back one day...

I shot my first film on super 8 in Winnipeg when I was twelve years old. It was a science fiction film created using LEGO bricks and brown bedding (to simulate the lunar surface). I became conscious of the art of cinema many years later when I saw Fellini's Satyricon and Werner Herzog's Nosferatu at Winnipeg's legendary Cinema 3. Shortly afterwards, I saw Fellini's Roma and local hero John Paiz's Crimewave. In 1999, I began to explore low budget motion picture production.

I am now learning to appreciate artificial light. Some of my more recent photographs were taken with a digital still camera which actually has a flash!

For the most part, my work falls into three categories:

* Social documentary
* Portrait
* Experimental

Hope you enjoy this rather informal hodge-podge collection of photos... Check in again as I may have added something new.