trabantdeluxe's photostream  

Greetings from City 17.

I am a photographer. This is my manifesto.

I am an art director, photographer and multimedia designer living in Troy, NY, USA, but would be very happy living in Berlin consuming Döner Kababs and Orange Fanta on a daily basis.

Growing up with an intense interest in photography, art and graphic design, it wasn't until after earning a degree in political science and working for nearly ten years as a train dispatcher that I realized that I could actually get paid for making cool stuff. Thus, since 1999 I've been immersed in the world of graphic and web design, along the way discovering videography, editing and motion graphics. All the while, keeping photography as a compliment to all the other creative outlets in my arsenal.

As a teenager, my photographic style could be described as falling into the constructivist style. But that was years before I ever new what constructivism was. It wasn't until years later, after discovering the works of Alexander Rodchenko that I realized I must have been doing something right the whole time. These days not only does Rodchenko provide me with inspiration, but also the work of Helmut Newton, Man Ray, Robert Frank, Robert Polidori...and many others.

I've become addicted to documenting forgotten and abandoned places in things, be they a decaying old resort in the Catskill mountains, weed-infested and neglected amusements parks in the former East Berlin, or the rusting hulks of old railroad equipment just a few miles from my house. Shooting these subjects reinforces my view that time is fleeting, and what you take for granted today may just be a fleeting memory tomorrow. Unless of course, you have a photograph.

In 1997, lulled by the siren song of "cool new digital photo thing", I swore off traditional film photography in favor of the amazing promise that digital photography presented. I sold my beloved Pentax K-1000 that I had since I was 15 and ended up with (in retrospect) a really crappy Kodak digital camera as it was the only camera at the time that I could find that was compatible with my (then top-of-the-line) PowerMac 6400.

Ten years and at least six different digital cameras later, I came to the realization that just about all my digital photography was lacking something: me. I had succumbed to the digital curse of letting the camera do the work while I just pressed the button. Oh sure, I had some good shots, but only after going through about a hundred or so crappy ones did I find them. I missed the days of using my Pentax where I told the camera what to do, and not the other way around.

In early 2007, quite by chance I discovered a little Russian Soviet-era 35mm film camera called the Lomo LCA. I knew right away that I had to have one. Thus began my journey back into the realm of traditional film photography. That one film camera has blossomed into more than thirty, and there is now more film in my freezer than food. Sure, I still have a digital camera, but I use it only on occasion, and even then only in full manual mode and with the collection of vintage Soviet and East German manual lenses I've accumulated.

Fully embracing film as my weapon of choice for photography has really made me think about shooting in ways that digital never could. Because I develop all my own black and white film, I am in total control of the entire process. I like that. I learn from that. I get fulfillment from that. After all, if you can't be fulfilled in your creative work, why bother. Right?

I love to travel and have fallen in love with Berlin. Sie ist doch meine Lieblingsstadt!

My personal website is at www.sublevel3.com

I also have a large photo collection on the Lomography.com website:
www.lomohomes.com/trabantdeluxe

Tschüß!

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