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I am fascinated by life in metropolitan areas, surrounded by millions of other people.
My Vision is to create a preview of our life in the future. Is it possible to efficiently and happily live together in a confined space for a large number of people? I say yes. I assume there are 2 ways of doing this – the right way and the wrong one. Carefully planned High Rise Apartment buildings versus makeshift slums. Hong Kong versus Mexico City.
I am most interested in density. My aspiration is to show at least a 1000 people or their traces on every picture. Be it the illuminated windows of their apartments, the light streaks of their vehicles or their clothes hung out of windows for drying. Even if you do not see people directly, you can see their footprint on the urban environment. An organism that is alive and breathing.
One shall print the pictures in a 2x3 metre scale and be able to find another story on every square centimetre. The images should provoke interest on first sight, through colour, shape and proportions. But even if you examine them more intensively, you should never be bored.
I am looking for the city from Blade Runner. One should be able to experience the images as if they were from one huge metropolis.
How can you do this on the web without putting up high rez files of the images to scroll through AND prevent people from misusing this opportunity to do their own prints? It's simple, you can't. There are only three things: 1.)pursue every misuse with vigilance 2.)convince people, that there is even greater detail in the pictures on my hard disk or in the prints I sell 3.)have good faith in people that they appreciate my dedication and hard work...
I am also kind of an information junkie, I love stock tickers, news tickers, and every other kind of seemlessly useless information.
That's the reason why I try to tag and geo tag my pictures as precisely as possible.
I want to photograph people, people in urban environments, and cities in the night.
I want to show how cities are growing and maturing and develop a live on their own throug the people living within but expressed without people neccesarily to be seen on the photographs.
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my website
www.birke.net
my blog
www.thomasbirke.com
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I do Large Format Photography, currently on a Sinar P2 8x10.

Photos of Thomas Birke (3)
Thomas Birke's favorite photos from other Flickr members (1,038)
Contacts (321)
Groups (50)
- Large Format Color 2,657 photos, 348 members
- The Velvet Cell Magazine 8,256 photos, 399 members
- 서울 | Seoul 14,215 photos, 745 members
- Kodak Ektar 100 - Large Format 4x5 / 8x10 143 photos, 92 members
- Schneider Kreuznach 4,639 photos, 419 members
- PARIS, JE T'AIME 100,957 photos, 5,113 members
- Paris Geotagged 14,312 photos, 490 members
- >> Visit Paris 49,202 photos, 4,440 members
- Large Format - Big Scans Only 2,746 photos, 312 members
- Large Format Night 623 photos, 174 members
- Skyscrapers from Skyscrapers 3,772 photos, 570 members
- Filmchemie 17,297 photos, 572 members
- New York City Large Format 206 photos, 40 members
- DIE LIEBE ZUM GROSSFORMAT 1,063 photos, 82 members
- The Urban Landscape 46,764 photos, 2,159 members
- Midnight Photo Addict 7,264 photos, 483 members
- Nocturnal Masterpiece (1000 Views or 100 Faves) 375 photos, 87 members
- Urban large format photography 1,429 photos, 283 members
- 50 faves 2,759 photos, 703 members
- *GreatPixGallery 100 Faves+ 6,447 photos, 1,010 members
- Deckard was here 217 photos, 185 members
- s h u t t R b u g: u R b a n 1,008 photos, 70 members
- Well. . . you don't see that everyday. 268 photos, 211 members
- 8x10 4,111 photos, 693 members
- Lomo's aren't just for happy snaps 1,265 photos, 431 members
- Fire Escape Photography 2,483 photos, 588 members
- ø 675 photos, 1,109 members
- I Shoot Fuji (FILM) 282,586 photos, 12,835 members
- Fuji Velvia 49,779 photos, 5,790 members
- 東京タワー千景 (1000 Views of Tokyo Tower) 2,002 photos, 508 members
- Nocturnes - Night Photography 243,497 photos, 17,847 members
- Photos from Tokyo, Japan 246,046 photos, 14,850 members
- flickr Tokyo 156,266 photos, 3,473 members
- Tokyo Images 177,182 photos, 5,816 members
- Elevated Expressways 131 photos, 20 members
- Sinar 1,883 photos, 360 members
- flexplore 5 photos, 480 members
- silver 4,903 photos, 835 members
- Studio Lighting 76,225 photos, 8,493 members
- Profoto lighting 7,451 photos, 1,236 members
- martinis 1,213 photos, 368 members
- 6x6 -COLOR- *120Film ONLY* NO Toycamera, NO X-Processed 124,147 photos, 5,383 members
- Large Format 53,493 photos, 7,838 members
- 24 hours of Flickr 5,440 photos, 17,965 members
- Berlin sky, Berlin skies 5,592 photos, 581 members
- Sky 191,047 photos, 12,478 members
- sky & clouds 587,355 photos, 43,784 members
- Now That's Sky 86,652 photos, 6,671 members
- MAX Magazine 65,835 photos, 4,219 members
- FlickrCentral 6,138,218 photos, 185,081 members
Galleries (6)
- Hail to the laundromat. 9 photos
- A tribute to Edward Hopper - Nighthawks 5 photos
- light and colour 10 photos
- elevated roads and rails 13 photos
- urban photography 14 photos
Testimonials (1)
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tokyoform says:
"my first encounter with a fellow sneaky Tokyo rooftop dweller, ML's photos fill me with jealous rage and send me screaming to google maps satellite view to see where he was tiptoeing. about the first bundle of Tokyo photos I've found that stumped me geographically, making them all the more enticing and eyeball-clawing..."
25th September, 2008
- Name:
- Thomas Birke
- Joined:
- October 2006
- Hometown:
- Berlin
- Currently:
- Berlin, Germany
- I am:
- Male
- Occupation:
- IT Consultant
- Website:
- birke.net














