Archive for February, 2019

Berlin 6: Spandau Fortress

Wednesday, February 27th, 2019

Spandau, at the west of Berlin, is best known for its prison, infamous for being where seven leading Nazis sentenced to imprisonment at the Nuremburg trials were held until their release or death. The last to be held there, Rudolf Hess, died in 1987, and the prison was then demolished with everthing from it, except a single set of keys, ground to dust and either dispersed in the North Sea or buried at a German air base.

We went to Spandau, a small town now a part of Berlin to visit its well-preserved Renaissance fortress, Zitadelle Spandau, built between 1559-94, and largely well-preserved, helped by the fact that in two of its major battles, beseiged by Napoleon and later by Russian forces at the end of the Second World War it surrendered without a fight.

A very sinister site in the 1930s, when from 1935 it was home to the German Army’s In 1935, the Army’s Gas Protection Laboratory, where around 300 scientist and technicians developed and tested chemical weapons including nerve gas. Now it is a tourist attraction and also venue for a number of festivals including the open-air concerts of the Citadel Music Festival.

The Citadel is a bastion fort or ‘tracé à l’italienne‘, a design that emerged after traditional castles had shown themselves vulnerable to cannon fire. At Spandau it takes the shape of a square with at each of the four corners a projection like a short triangular spearhead, the bastions, which allow protecting fire on the main walls, while the angle makes them less vulnerable to cannon fire.

The walls were generally lower and thicker than those of earlier castles and like most such fortresses it is surrounded by a deep ditch, often as here filled with water, part of which is the River Havel.

As well as walking around the grounds we also took a guided tour of much of the interior, including some of the dungeons.

The fort offers some wide views around the surrounding country, some of which I’ll put in the next post.

More from Berlin to follow shortly.

Previous Berlin post
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My London Diary : London Photos : Hull : River Lea/Lee Valley : London’s Industrial Heritage

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

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Berlin 5: East Side Gallery

Tuesday, February 26th, 2019

No visit to Berlin could miss the wall, and we went to walk along its best-known section, the East Side Gallery, alongside the River Spree. Here are just a few of my favourite pictures from it:

It was still raining, and seemed colder in the fairly open area around the wall. This almost certainly made taking pictures rather easier, as there were relatively few others crazy enough to be out on a day like this and get in the way.

It had been a fairly tiring day, and when we reached the end of the East Side Gallery we were ready to head back to the flat, make ourselves a meal and rest.

More from Berlin to follow shortly.

Previous Berlin post

Copyright of the paintings shown in these images belongs to their creators; the photographs are my copyright
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There are no adverts on this site and it receives no sponsorship, and I like to keep it that way. But it does take a considerable amount of my time and thought, and if you enjoy reading it, a small donation – perhaps the cost of a beer – would be appreciated.

My London Diary : London Photos : Hull : River Lea/Lee Valley : London’s Industrial Heritage

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

To order prints or reproduce images

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Berlin 4: Friedrichshain

Monday, February 25th, 2019

I was with family, and their priorities didn’t exactly coincide with mine, but the route that they took on their way to the next cafe, for lunch, was an interesting one, keeping to the road at Boxhagener Platz (it was too wet to play on the swings) with various graffiti and

some finely decorated shutters for a bar. They continued making their way with determination  (and  I had to do a lot of running to catch up  after stopping to take pictures) to the Knilchbar kindercafé on Krossener Str.

I can’t say I enjoyed the kindercafé.  But then I wouldn’t enjoy any kindercafé, places where the kind of behaviour that would be frowned upon in civilised company is actively encouraged; at least it keeps children and their parents away from other establishments.  The noise level was high, and the food and drink was children’s food and drink. Of course I’m not their target audience, and it’s good that such places exist for those who so obviously delight in them, but really I should have found a nearby bar to sit in grumpily while the others played.

Of course I did take a few pictures. The kind any grandad would, but nothing I’d want to share outside the family (and parts of the family wouldn’t like if I did.) And after what seemed like several hours I had to leave and walk around a bit outside as my head was aching from the screaming. Eventually the others came out and we walked on.

Our route took us back to Boxhagener Platz  and a rather fine public toilet, though perhaps it would have been better without the graffiti. Perhaps surprisingly it seemed still to be in full working order.

Further along we came to the well graffitied Zielona Gora on Grünberger Str,

and I took a couple of closer pictures, still using the Fuji 100X.

On a street corner not far away was Paul’s Metal Eck, apparently

a well known heavy metal bar, still firmly closed and quiet. Another version of hell though for a slightly older clientele, with “relentless metal videos” apparently played at excessive volume; though one on-line customer review did hold out the promise of “Beautiful and capable waitresses” and “good bear”, certainly more welcoming than a bad bear.

More from Berlin to follow shortly.

Previous Berlin post

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There are no adverts on this site and it receives no sponsorship, and I like to keep it that way. But it does take a considerable amount of my time and thought, and if you enjoy reading it, a small donation – perhaps the cost of a beer – would be appreciated.

My London Diary : London Photos : Hull : River Lea/Lee Valley : London’s Industrial Heritage

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

To order prints or reproduce images

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Berlin 3: Café Sibylle & Karl-Marx-Allee

Sunday, February 24th, 2019

Café Sibylle is a café in the Karl-Marx-Allee in Berlin , which opened in 1953 under the name Milchtrinkhalle when the Stalinallee was being redeveloped as an impressively overdone socialist boulevard, with many of the buildings on it dating from the 1950s.

It was renamed Milchbar and in the 1960s became Café Sibylle, named for the leading East German fashion magazine, whose staff often held meetings there. After the reunification of Germany the café closed for a while, reopening around 2000, with a permanent exhibition display of the history  of the area around Karl-Marx-Allee, and reverting to some of the original decor with some original wall paintings which were discovered.

Perhaps because of the weather there were few customers when we visited, although the place is often featured in tourist guides and is worth a visit – and the the cake and coffee/beer was very welcome and reasonably priced.

A part of the café was a museum area with some genuine 1950s East German objects. The business closed briefly in 2018 as it was making a loss and there were aslo apparently problems with contracts, but it was reopened with some pomp a few months later.

Back on Karl-Marx-Allee were some rather less impressive buildings of a temporary nature and some more interesting piping. I did take rather a lot of pictures of the piping, much of which was overhead and brightly coloured, though have spared you by not posting them here. It was I think a temporary feature.

We were nearing the end of the impressively wide street. and could see one of a pair of its more impressive buildings from the Soviet era, though the foreground was rather less so.

Kosmos, along with  Kino International, both built as cinemas in the 1960s, are the only significant building on Karl-Mark-Allee not built in the Soviet Classical (‘Zuckerbäckerstil’) style but as truly modern buildings, designed in 1959 by  Josef Kaiser and Herbert Aust. Used for many years for film premieres, since 2006 it has been a conference and event centre.

We left the Karl-Marx-Allee where it ends at Frankfurter Tur, where there are two towers to form a dramatic gateway to Berlin, dating from 1953-1956 and which are perhaps the most impressive of the soviet style buildings and walked through an area where the architecture was on a more modest scale.

Two rather differently decorated vehicles were parked outside Schmuck-Klinik on Boxhagener Strasse, with Darkstore’s devil promising Clothes, boots, jewelry, CDs.

More from Berlin to follow shortly.

Previous Berlin post

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There are no adverts on this site and it receives no sponsorship, and I like to keep it that way. But it does take a considerable amount of my time and thought, and if you enjoy reading it, a small donation – perhaps the cost of a beer – would be appreciated.

My London Diary : London Photos : Hull : River Lea/Lee Valley : London’s Industrial Heritage

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

To order prints or reproduce images

________________________________________________________

Berlin 2: Karl-Marx-Allee

Saturday, February 23rd, 2019

The next day it rained. All day, though sometimes the rain was lighter and sometimes it was heavier.  It was perhaps appropriated weather to make our way down Karl-Marx-Allee, though at times the rain was a little too heavy to make photography easy, and a number of pictures were spoilt by raindrops on the filter in front of the 23mm lens of the Fuji 100x, despite wiping it before every exposure.

The street was rebuilt as a flagship monumental showcase for the East German regime in the 1950s, originally as Stalinallee, but renamed in 1961 after he fell from grace some years after his death. Moves to rename it after the wall fell have so far failed.

It is a truly massive street, roughly a hundred yards wide, and parts of it had some equally massive roadworks that we sometimes struggled around. Back in the old days it was no doubt always clear for the May Day military parade.

Both sides of the street are lined by buildings on an appropriate scale and built for a wide range of functions, including  spacious and luxurious apartments for workers, shops, restaurants, cafés, a tourist hotel, and a vast cinema, all in the rather ponderous Russian  modern classical style, not particularly to my taste.

A curious note was added by some colorful above-ground pipework.

A couple of blocks near the start of our walk on the edge of the Alexanderplatz had some interesting decoation, with a huge Mexican style mural on the Haus des Lehrers (Teacher’s House – in the second picture from the top – but I made a better picture later in the week) and on the north corner of the street a huge metallic tribute to the Russian cosmonauts.

Had the weather been better I might have lingered more, and perhaps taken the Leica out of my bag to use a wider lens, but we hurried on, keen to reach our first café of the day for morning coffee and cake, though I preferred a beer. I did take rather more pictures than appear here, a little over 50 in total , but most are either family pictures or more pictures of the various buildings.

More about the  café  in Berlin 3.

Previous Berlin Post.

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There are no adverts on this site and it receives no sponsorship, and I like to keep it that way. But it does take a considerable amount of my time and thought, and if you enjoy reading it, a small donation – perhaps the cost of a beer – would be appreciated.

My London Diary : London Photos : Hull : River Lea/Lee Valley : London’s Industrial Heritage

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

To order prints or reproduce images

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Debunking the Capa Myths

Friday, February 22nd, 2019

I’ve several times written about the lengthy and detailed researches into exactly what happened to Robert Capa on D-Day made by A D Coleman and his team and published in a long series of articles as their research developed.  It’s a case study in thorough and diligent research, involving expertise from various fields including military history as well as photography, and one that, although not changing the handful of photographs Capa made, has certainly shown some very different readings of them.

Most of what photographic histories and biographies have told us in the past about the circumstances in which these pictures were made has been shown to be false; either deliberate invention or imaginative contructions by those well removed from the situation and with little knowledge of it.

Rather than have to read all of the over 40 articles on Coleman’s own web site (some in several parts, with the latest episode, Alternate History: Robert Capa on D-Day (40b) a few days ago) you can now read his precis on Petapixel, still a fairly lengthy read, Debunking the Myths of Robert Capa on D-Day.

We can now be certain beyond any reasonable doubt that Capa went in, not with the first wave of the landing but rather later, and on the least heavily defended section of the beach, where US soldiers met relatively little opposition, and that he never quite made the beach, taking only a small number of pictures –  perhaps 10 or 12 – before rushing back to the landing craft and ship that had brought him there. Probably he made the right decision for a news photographer, to hurry back with those few pictures to meet his deadlines, but he does appear to have felt the need to support and elaborate an elaborate fiction to cover his actions. Capa was certainly a great story-teller, and bare truth seldom makes the best stories.

There was no darkroom accident that spoilt his film (and the story never made sense anyway.) Those men around the obstacles on the beach were not sheltering from enemy fire but getting on with the job of demolishing them. There were no bodies in his pictures, no bullets hitting the water. It wasn’t at all like the film version (and Capa’s published account was written as a film script.)

The research also looks at another Capa-related incident and image, the ‘Falling Soldier’ from the Spanish Civil War, where the detailed heavy lifting was done by others. It seems probable that the picture was not actually taken by Capa by by his partner Gerda Taro. The two worked as a team, and ‘Robert Capa’ was actually a joint invention of André Friedmann and Gerta Pohorylle; after her tragic death – the first woman war photographer to die in conflict – many of the pictures she had taken were attributed to Capa. It now seems to have been clearly shown that this was taken during a training exercise and that the soldier had merely tripped – and that no one was killed in its making.

The publication on PetaPixel comes at the start of the year in which the 75th anniversary of D-Day is to be celebrated, and already some authorities (including the ICP) are re-publishing the old, now totally discredited legends about Capa and his landing pictures. Let’s instead celebrate them (and the ‘Falling Soldier’) for what they are, powerfully iconic images which have become invested with a meaning that completely transcends the very different circumstances of their production.

Berlin 1: Rosa Luxemburg Strasse

Thursday, February 21st, 2019

I found Berlin a rather confusing city when I visited there for a few days in July 2011. Fortunately I was there with my wife, who speaks German, and my son who had booked the flat we were staying in and he was able to use his phone to find our way there. He also had his young daughter in a push chair. We’d flown into the city, and my first impression was how well organised the airport there was compared to Heathrow, always something of a nightmare.

The flat was large and relatively luxurious, with the kind of mod cons that we don’t have at home, though without the several thousand books and other clutter that make our place home.

It was getting dark as we made our way out from the flat and on to Rosa Luxemburg Str to look for somewhere to eat (and drink) and to do some shopping. Just a few yards up the street in Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz was the Volksbühne (People’s Theatre), described as Berlin’s most iconic theatre, coming out of and 1890s movement to provide realistic theatre for working class Berliners, with the motto ‘Die Kunst dem Volke), Art for the People.  The building from 1913-4 was heavily bombed duirng the second world war and rebuilt in 1953-4 with a very similar frontage.

On the street close to the theatre were a number of quotations from Rosa Luxemburg, who together with Karl Liebknecht was captured by the Freikorps right-wing paramilitary militias during the revolutionary struggles in Berlin in January 1919. They were questioned under torture and then ordered to be executed; she was hit on the head by a rifile butt, then shot in the head and her body thrown in a nearby canal.

We took a walk in the dark and I took a few pictures, though most were rather blurred.

The steps led into a park with a large round pond, but my pictures of that are too blurred to post.

Wir bleiben alle!  We are all staying put, a housefront against gentrification of the area.

Smokers Welcome. Though to quite what I’m not sure.

Babylon, a cinema opposite the Volksbühne. A typical ‘Neue Sachlichkeit‘ (New Objectivity) building from 1928/29, architect Hans Poelzig and is regarded as typical of its construction period, opposite to the Volksbühne. The building was erected 1928/29 according to plans of architect Hans Poelzig and is regarded as typical of its construction period, Neue Sachlichkeitand is still a cinema.

More pictures from Berlin in later posts.

I had two cameras with me, A Fuji X100, with its fixed 35mm equivalent lens and a Leica M8. As I was working in colour I had a very limited choice of lenses available for the Leica as for colour they needed to be fitted with an IR cut filter and I only had these for two lenses. The unusual 1.33x crop factor turned the 35mm f1.4 into a 47mm standard lens and the 90mm f2.8 to a perhaps more useful 120mm equivalent. Unfortunately the Leica optical viewfinder has never really been too useful for the 90mm, giving you a rather tiny but pretty accurate frame. It’s a fine lens but really needs a camera with live view rather than the optical viewfinder.
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There are no adverts on this site and it receives no sponsorship, and I like to keep it that way. But it does take a considerable amount of my time and thought, and if you enjoy reading it, a small donation – perhaps the cost of a beer – would be appreciated.

My London Diary : London Photos : Hull : River Lea/Lee Valley : London’s Industrial Heritage

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

To order prints or reproduce images

________________________________________________________

Berlin Syndikat

Wednesday, February 20th, 2019

I’ve only been to Berlin once, back in 2011, when I spent a few days their with my wife, son and rather small grandaughter, in a rather grand Airbnb flat on Rosa Luxemburg Str.  Of course, being then a relatively new grandfather, many of the pictures were simply family pictures which I don’t make public, but there were quite a few others.

But back then I had this idea that ‘My London Diary’ was just for pictures of London, something I now have a rather more relaxed idea about and so I don’t think I’ve ever put any of the pictures I took during our stay on-line. Except for some of the bears, which appeared in  a post Do Bears? in this Re>PHOTO blog inb 2011.

I was reminded of this visit in December, when people from the Berlin community centre and pub Syndikat protested with London Renters Union outside the London offices of their landlord, Global Real Estate Investors Limited, near Cavendish Square.

It’s probably a company you’ve never heard of – and certainly I hadn’t. Owned by the ultra-secretive Pears brothers, Mark, Trevor and David, who through a whole lot of front companies apparently own 6,200 properties in Berlin as well as around £6 bn worth of property in London and south-east England, including 3-4,000 properties in London, many in Notting Hill and thousands elsewhere.  The three brothers are thought to be worth around £2.1bn, not bad for a company begun by their grandfather in 1952 when he ran 3 greengrocers in North London.

They also run the Pears Foundation “an independent, British family foundation, rooted in Jewish values, that takes £15-20 million of private money every year and invests it in good causes.”

Syndikat have been running their anarcho-pub in Neukölln in Berlin for 33 years, but were recently given notice to quit for no real reason. Their lease ran out on 31st December 2018, but they were still open at the end of January 2019, and waiting for a court date for the eviction order. There have been a number of protests in Berlin, including at their landlord’s office there and the British Embassy (also thought to be owned by Pears) with another planned for the start of March.

This was a peaceful protest, standing in front of the offices and handing out flyers, as well as talking with those entering and leaving the offices, including one of the executive officers who promised to look into their case, though nothing appears to have come from this.

More pictures at Berlin Syndikat protest at London landlords.

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There are no adverts on this site and it receives no sponsorship, and I like to keep it that way. But it does take a considerable amount of my time and thought, and if you enjoy reading it, a small donation – perhaps the cost of a beer – would be appreciated.

My London Diary : London Photos : Hull : River Lea/Lee Valley : London’s Industrial Heritage

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

To order prints or reproduce images

________________________________________________________

Dhaka’s Chobi Mela Festival

Tuesday, February 19th, 2019

Shahidul Alam talks with Daniel Boetker-Smith about how his 107 days in prison has impacted the tenth Chobi Mela photography festival which opens on February 28th 2019. Because many of the partner companies in Dhaka now see it as a dangerous organisation to work with and many public spaces and government buildings are no longer available for the festival, it has been forced to return to its roots and “become much more raw and community-oriented festival” and organised more tightly around the new premises for Drik Picture Library Ltd and the Pathshala South Asian Media Institute and a few other centres.

You can read more about what is happening in There’s Power in Photography: The Undying Resilience of Dhaka’s Chobi Mela Festival, and it does sound rather exciting, and indeed encouraging to those of us who live in rather more blasé societies where cultural manipulation is very much more nuanced.

Shahidul states “We see this year’s Chobi Mela as an act of defiance. We are still working out what we are allowed and not allowed to do, and this extends to obtaining visas for our visitors and guests” and it remains to see if some of those invited to take part, including Indian writer and political activist Arundhati Roy will be allowed into the country.

One of the more interesting exhibitions will be of the work of the great Bangladeshi photojournalist Rashid Talukder, born in 1939, who gave all his work to Drik before his death in 2011.   But there are over 27 exhibitions with works from 35 artists spanning 20 countries , as well as site-specific artwork by a group of young Bangladeshi artists around the festival theme of ‘Place’.

You can find more information about the festival on the Chobi Mela web site, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

January 2019 complete

Monday, February 18th, 2019

It has been a struggle for me to get all of the events I covered last month on line on My London Diary, though I’m not entirely sure why that is. Perhaps it’s the time of the year or the weather or, more likely it’s Brexit, thinking of which is just so depressing.

And although I’m still trying to cut down on the number of things I do and have turned down several commissions I still seem to be rather busy, with a long list of things I intend to do but haven’t got around to, particularly web projects and books.

I’ve also got to think about the future of My London Diary and the other web sites I run, as the file count on my web space is fast approaching the limit. It would be good to find some other solution other than simply having to pay for another contract for web space, and any suggestions are welcome.

Jan 2019

Pro- and Anti-Brexit protests
No imperialist coup in Venezuela
End TfL Discrimination against private hire
Pro- and Anti-Brexit protests
No imperialist coup in Venezuela
End TfL Discrimination against private hire
Sudanese protest against al-Bashir


Defend Rojava from Turkish invasion
Yellow Jackets in Westminster
Balochs protest abductions by Pakistan


‘No Whaling’ rally and march
Lambeth protest Children’s Centre cuts
Marzieh Hashemi arrest protest


Stop Arming Saudi while Yemen starves
Solidarity with Russian anti-fascists
Bolivians protest against Morales


Women’s Bread & Roses protest
Bus Day of Action for disabled
Earth Strike Kickoff Protest
Brexit protest against May’s Deal
Vedanta Zambian pollution appeal
Eton Wick


Vigil marks 17 years of Guantanamo torture
Brexit Protests continue
Pro- and Anti-Brexit protests at Parliament
Solidarity with Pipeline Protesters
Stand Up for the Elephant
Tower Bridge & Shad Thames

London Images

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There are no adverts on this site and it receives no sponsorship, and I like to keep it that way. But it does take a considerable amount of my time and thought, and if you enjoy reading it, a small donation – perhaps the cost of a beer – would be appreciated.

My London Diary : London Photos : Hull : River Lea/Lee Valley : London’s Industrial Heritage

All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.

To order prints or reproduce images

________________________________________________________