Collected notes
Bio Diary
A few of my texts, my attitude, my vibe. It is still a little collected and loose; for a compact about me I still need to formulate it more, but there is already a lot inside.
Maybe these texts are also good for the portfolio when paired with the right pictures.
01 / Why I love photography
Photography opened a new door inside myself.
I got to know myself better. When I started to dive deeper into photography, I realized so many things I like, that fascinate me, or that I want to explore. It is like photography and everything around it opened a new door inside myself that leads me closer to what truly feels good and authentic to me, and keeps opening more and more doors every time.
I also got to see sides in people I had not seen before. Looking through the lens is kind of magic, it is like a zoom into different parts of a person’s personality and can work as a mirror.
For me, photography is like a therapy session and my camera is the tool, in different ways. The easiest way to explain it is probably that I often had and have to get involved in probably unpleasant situations to take my pictures. Which is good to do, it is overcoming uncomfortable situations. It is overcoming fears. It is growing.
I found a fascination I did not know I had before and was always searching for. For years I felt like I was missing a creative outlet, which I then found in photography and where I finally feel I belong.
I started to see Berlin, or big cities in general, with different eyes. I look at and am looking for little things, invisible moments and dirt in funny constellations. And with that, it became much easier and also enjoyable to deal with the dirt, the crowded places and the noise.
02 / My perspective on life and creativity in a poem
My perspective on life and creativity in a poem
- Fall in love with understanding people.
- Fall in love with presence.
- Fall in love with trying to figure out who you are.
- Fall in love with seeing who someone really is.
- Fall in love with seeing different realities.
- Fall in love with exploring yourself.
- Fall in love with failing.
- Fall in love with falling in love.
- Fall in love with life.
Fall in love with life.
A diary note about looking closer, staying soft, and finding yourself through images.
Continue to Berlin thoughts03 / Thoughts about Berlin
I love Berlin. And sometimes I cannot stand it.
With photography I started to see Berlin, or big cities in general, with different eyes. I look at and am looking for little things, invisible moments and dirt in funny constellations. And with that, it became much easier and also enjoyable to deal with the dirt, the crowded places and the noise.
I came here about four or five years ago, because I felt like I needed a new challenge and a new place to grow. It was a very intuitive and quick decision, although I always said I could never live in Berlin. Well, it turned out differently. But still, it was not easy for me to find my own path here.
The city is loud, it is crowded, it is A LOT. It offers so many different opportunities, whether it is about people, jobs, culture, or whatever. But for me, at the same time, it felt like it offered just one very specific way of thinking and living.
It took me some time to find people who truly match with the real me, and almost three years to feel like I had arrived. In the beginning, I often felt like I was boring and that I would disappear in this city full of, let’s say, “special” people. But now, I am actually grateful for that feeling, because it pushed me to think about who I am, what I need, and what I want.
There are still a lot of things that annoy me or drain my energy in a way that does not feel good, but everything has become a lot easier as I have gotten closer to myself. It is easy to get lost here, but this place is also a really beautiful chance to figure out who you are. At least it was like this for me.
04 / About my way to creativity and photography
I needed to stop following a plan that no longer felt true.
After school, I felt overwhelmed by options but still stuck in a limited mindset, like, yes, I could study anything, but it was still just studying. I loved my bachelor’s in Educational Science and I am really grateful for it, and I was excited to start my master’s in social science in Berlin. But from the very beginning, something felt off about the master’s.
I did not really want to be there, and it felt like I was forcing myself to follow a plan that no longer made me happy. My mindset changed, and I guess I became more focused on what I truly want, also because of photography.
In the first moment, that realization was exhausting. It meant questioning a lot of what I thought defined me, but was not true anymore. And I did not have a perfect plan B. It was more like: I needed to stop.
As that feeling grew stronger, I got frustrated with myself because I was not changing anything. Finally, I decided to quit university, and it felt amazing. Even almost one year later, I still feel the same. I allowed myself to follow my inner feeling, and photography and my growing love for cyanotypes led me there.
Through a deep fascination with photography and cyanotype that I did not even know I had, I finally found a creative outlet that inspires me again and again and makes me feel so much more like myself. Apart from my part-time job, I now spend most of my time doing things I love: creating, thinking, also doubting, but always checking in with myself about what I really want.
05 / Thoughts about traveling to other cities
Places can become warm memories instead of active homes.
When traveling to other cities, I often start thinking about the places I used to live in, places that meant a lot to me. Before I moved to Berlin, I lived in Augsburg for my bachelor’s degree.
It used to be the place I lived, the place my life happened, the place where I found new friends. The place where I started my journey of becoming an “adult.” But now it is somehow just one station in my vita, a place I used to live. A lot of nice memories, but gone.
Thinking about the fact that the place I live now, with the people I share my time with, could also turn into something like that someday, it scares me a bit. It does not mean it has to be this way, or that I am not thankful for my time in Bavaria, that time is still super positive in my mind. But it is, well, just a little scary, I guess.
06 / How photography changed the way I look at my family and hometown
A page still waiting for words.
This thought is still open, saved here like an unfinished page in the diary.
07 / Thoughts about home
Home is a place, a memory, and sometimes just a calm feeling.
The idea of home is incredibly complex and multi-layered to me. For me, there are two, or maybe even more, different kinds of home. There is the place I grew up in, the place where most of my family members live. That place has changed a lot over time and so have I.
I do not feel like the best or most authentic version of myself when I am there, but I still enjoy this other side or feeling that I am able to access when I go back. At the same time, this home makes me quite sentimental or emotional from time to time, because it is connected to so many memories. Some of them are sad, and others are beautiful but will not ever come back, which can also make me feel a bit sad.
Then there is this other kind of home: the home I have built for myself over the years, especially after moving away from my hometown. It is not just connected to a place, but more to a feeling. I think it is the calm feeling of knowing that I have people around me who understand me and who I can always reach out to.
Still, when it comes to a physical place, I feel at home in Berlin, in my apartment, and in the places I genuinely like to go to. I have also felt at home in other places where I lived for a longer time, and I still carry these feelings inside of me, but more like a warm memory, not as an active feeling of being home anymore.
Bannchen
From notes back to pictures.
The diary continues inside the image archive, in prints, cyanotypes and small conversations around work that stays with you.