One Year Of Berlin Sunsets From My Window

You can say that our lives are affected by two significant components: space and time. This can be seen as a cliché from the physics books or can be seen in practice in our daily lives, the space in which we live and alongside it the time that passes in that space.

About a year ago the Corona pandemic began, which does not need to indicate all the areas in which it has majorly affected all aspects of our lives. When I went on vacation from work “without an end date” (not to use the word dismissal) I decided to start something new alongside the projects I am already working on, free time … And what about the space?

What in the world could be cooler than seeing a glimpse of the beautiful changes in nature from the bird’s-eye?

Something in the city of Berlin and the distant urban landscape was waving to me – from this balcony you can actually see most of the mythical tourist sites of Berlin: from the special TV tower in Alexanderplatz, next to the Mitte municipality, the famous Berliner Dom, Humboldt building, the Reichstag building, the city’s important churches and government towers.

The more and better the visibility is, more sites are being discovered to the eye – a spectacular panoramic piece of landscape unfolds in front of me daily.

On 20.4.2020 which is an interesting date in itself, I took a first snapshot from the balcony of my house on one of the higher floors of the tower tall building where I live (Following privacy reasons I can not reveal the exact location.) and intentionally on a simple cell phone and not a luxury camera, Why?

1. allow “fast shooting” fast upload and minimum fuss.

2. Save the raw quality — a kind of instant photo, my private digital Polaroid.

3. It’s all about the light and the content- not the technique.

I opened an Instagram page to start and share the happening.

These days a Lockdown has been announced in Berlin, the tourists have disappeared from all the shops and sites and the city changed its face. The only option to get out of the house was to the supermarket. I made efforts to make sure not to forget- catch this landscape every evening,almost.

The sunsets have become more and more spectacular, some days we went back to a kind of weird “routine”, when I wasn’t home or I missed the snap time (so there are no 365 pictures .. still I am not a machine or security camera :). It has become real fun to document the changes, whether man-made or nature’s creation.

For example: On normal days huge billboards are displayed on the walls of the buildings in front of my balcony, this area is always staffed with a relevant advertisement and is never empty. I have noticed that as the restrictions lengthens, the “offline” advertising world loses its power. The billboard was empty for many months – I saw most of the ads for the same product, but online. When an advertisement has already gone up, it was usually some government sign on the Covid subject, or for consumer goods and the big retail chains. Regular advertisers just sat and waited, or moved their budgets online.

And now for the optimistic side: Berlin in the summer is a special place, when the visibility is good – a spectacular sunset takes place every evening. it is difficult to illustrate how special the colors and cloud combinations are, a real visual candy, because the cell phone wasn’t always good enough, on particularly spectacular days I stole a photo or two also by using the lens of my big camera:)

Another positive point – The building industry has not stopped working at all . and urban development continued. Cranes are regularly deployed in front of me and there are dozens of them (sometimes they even bothered me in the frame but still, I gave it importance – I never removed them in Photoshop) and you can see some buildings that have a floor added to them every day.

Night after night, sunset after sunset, each with a different story – and today, a year after, a kind of disassembled timepiece has been created, a visual poem for the city of Berlin- Lonely but blooming, a city that has certainly known many ups and downs in its history.

A lot has changed during this period in the landscape, I kept the pictures with as few digital changes as possible, remember that we must always maintain a good mood and the joy of creation, even in difficult times not to forget that the sky’s the limit.

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