Gloomy Sundays

15Jan12

When I was a teenager, I got shipped off to Berlin once a year. Those couple of weeks were by far the happiest times in my young life. Theoretically I was supposed to babysit my two young cousins but practically I would spend many days roaming the city entirely unsupervised. This might strike observers as [...]

Filed under: 1980s, Berlin, Childhood, Germany, Photographers, Youth   |  Closed
Tags: 1980s, adolescence, Berlin, freedom, Michael Schmidt, nothingness, Sundays

The whisperers

14Dec11

I lived in Berlin for a year just before the wall came down, the only time I lived in Germany as an adult. It was a strange time, for many reasons.  But what stood out, unforgettably, were people’s faces. They looked distorted, like George Grosz drawings, as if they had put on a mask, but [...]

Filed under: Cemeteries, History, photography, Russia, Youth   |  Closed
Tags: 1989, Berlin, Brighton Beach, cemetery, faces, gravestones, Jewish, mortality, New York City, Orlando Figes, portrait photography, Russia, suffering, The Whisperers, Washington Cemetery (Brooklyn)