I’ve just spent the morning browsing my own facebook account. Out of boredom, I guess.
I discovered a new function. One can pick up to five favourite pictures to show separately somewhere in the profile. So I looked through all the pics, I published over the course of time, to consider the ones I would choose for that purpose. My facebook site covers eight years, starting out in 2008.
It was clear from start, that five images would never be enough to cover the story. Turns out it is five pairs of images, that I can reduce the hundreds of images to.
Oddly enough, the images I chose, would not mean anything to anyone. It is just my own memory, that is triggered by certain images. The story behind it, so to say. So I decided, not to use this function on facebook, at all.
Instead, you, the blog cyberlot, get the benefit of it now (just kidding). Here’s the collection, followed by the headline of the story behind it. No need to feel bad, if you’re bored already. Just skip the rest of the post.
Nr. 1: 2008 + 2011
a bird’s head washed up on the shores of Portugal 2008 – a somewhat horrid image, but to me, shot on the occasion of meeting my husband after ten years of separation (and also for the last time, so far), it represents the pointlessness of still dreaming of a headless bird roaming the sky, somewhere.Old Course, St. Andrews, 2014 – how far have I come, able to revisit Scotland for the first time since 1997. Sweetheart made it possible – shown on the far right walking off the green.
Nr. 2: 2011 + 2011
Staugrabenbach – the little stream rushing by my grandparent’s house, both long gone, revisited in 2011 at a time, where I was losing the ground under my feet, once again. A desperate attempt to remind me, who I am and where I come from, this image stands for what I like to keep in mind of my childhood. How we loved to explore this little stream when frozen over in winter or catch alpine trout out of its pools in summer. Spent countless days on its steep slopes gathering mushrooms, picking berries or looking for the cows to herd them home.Same trip home in 2011, this one was taken on the occasion of my sisters wedding, the reason for travelling back to Austria that summer. Showing the gravestone of a stranger on the graveyard next to where the wedding party celebrated. Underneath the name and dates of the deceased, the stone simply reads “owner”, to describe him. I guess, this was the reason for taking the pic in the first place, what a sorry condensate to summarize a human life. But it also shows my own reflection on the polished stone on the very day, I started to throw away my own life in Berlin with my sweetheart for the sake of the past and emotions not properly dealt with. An even sorrier chapter of my own life, I have to confess.
Nr. 3: 2009 + 2010
Schwarzes Café, Berlin, Kantstraße. This image not only represents my years as a dedicated Charlottenburger, but also the visit of an old friend from Graz and his wife to Berlin. And my love for coffee houses, idling afternoons away, watching people, reading papers and having many discussions, most of them futile, yet so stimulating.A rather bad portrait of Erzherzog Johann, hanging on a restaurant wall somewhere in Graz. This blurry image, taken 2010, when I first took my sweetheart back to my home country, comprises my connection to Styria, it’s capital and all the great times I had during the six years of living in Graz. And of course, my own pride in changing my sweetheart’s dislike for anything Austrian. Graz always works that trick on anyone.
Nr. 4: 2010 + 2011
A private moment in someone’s kitchen in Berlin, stolen in 2010.A glimpse up a wall with a bulb and a ladder at the Jewish Museum in Berlin, 2011.
These two images just stand for my ongoing love with photography. They are by no means perfect or great, but I like taking them. And some of them I also like to show. Go figure.
And, finally, picture pair Nr. 5: 2015 + 2016
RAW, Berlin Friedrichshain, 2015. Taken on the occasion of one of the many visits of circumstance to Berlin over the years, this image is showing, where my real home is now. And with whom. Here in Berlin, with my sweetheart and my longstanding friends, who came along all the way. And all the time. I am so grateful.Steam rising up on a field, a morning in February 2016. This is again back home in Austria and I just had to say goodby to my old father, most likely for good, this time.Somehow this picture represents the fleeting spirit of my father, whom I love deeply. But it also calms me, knowing that there is a friend I can turn to. After all, the picture was taken near circumstances house on my way there.
floatsome 