Archiv der Kategorie: Introspective

Orangenbaumblätter liegen auf dem Weg

It’s been a couple of months since I started streaming my World of Tanks shenanigans at Twitch.tv. In my last post I was talking about feeling awfully tired and burned out and this was meant to be a way to clear my mind, keep me busy and fight my inner demons in the darkest of times.

There is a thing Amanda Palmer said about how it feels double-y bad being a content creator of sorts going through a particularly rough patch or depression and not being able to create. It stuck with me because it felt so true. I didn’t produce a calendar for 2017, I didn’t take any photos for months, I was sitting in my bed while I felt an obligation to be out there and create. An obligation to use said darkness to make good art and produce and it felt like a horrible waste. I had time at my hands, the darkness was real but there was no vitality. So the idea was of course to use something that didn’t feel like work to gain structure and maybe even energy back.

To no one’s surprise the plan didn’t work like I thought it would. Go figure! But then again I at least managed to keep up my schedule, which impressed myself the most. It helped that a few regulars started to show up to my streams and I felt obliged to deliver to them. Remember the fraud police we were talking about? Yesterday I got my invitation to be an affiliate. #feelsGoodMan

Live-Video von RiipaHimself auf www.twitch.tv anzeigen

If you feel like following my content or even supporting it – for what ever reason that is beyond me – you now may now do so by clicking the „Subscribe“ button over at http://www.twitch.tv/riipahimself.

In June I went on a short trip with some friends from work to chill at the Baltic Sea and work – true hipster style – with our notebooks in cafés. The result is that I managed to find the energy to finish the landing page/micro site for my business portraits. I started working on this page in December but couldn’t do anything about it for months. Thanks to René and Kenny for taking me on this trip. Head over to http://headshot.mattiseidel.com/ if you are interested in seeing how this turned out.

I am in a better place than I was six months before. The change is still fragile and I need to make sure to not stop going this way of making depression my bitch. Day by day, step by step. But I am putting things out there and maybe they will come back. Maybe one of these things will be the big one. Maybe, after all there will somehow be a „Haus am See“ for me. Or maybe not. It’s not important because I am creating things again. But tob honest I am also ready for good things to find me anyway.

Quit the bitching on your blog And stop pretending art is hard

„I will be the picture of of discipline
Never fucking up anything
And I’ll be a good defensive driver
And it’s funny how I imagined
That I would be that person now
But it does not seem to have happened“
Amanda Palmer, In My Mind

Houston, we have a problem. The year is nearly gone and more and more people start to ask if there will be a calendar this year. The honest truth is that I don’t know. I don’t want to disappoint anyone – but I also don’t know what pics to put in the calendar. When people started asking I told them that I didn’t take too many photos this year (partly because of my injury, partly because of me feeling awfully tired and burned out) and I actually believed this to be true.

When I later checked the actual numbers I realized that I took more photos this year than ever before. I did portaits, a wedding, a conference, an air show, a theater premiere, a sports event, a schooling… I took thousands of pictures. Enjoyable and sometimes educative as though these shootings were, they did leave something to be desired. There is no calendar worthy shots or even art. I did so much photography but I didn’t make good art.

So I guess the positive takeaway from this year will be that I am able to genuinely enjoy the part of photography that I do strictly for business. Not being able to enjoy photography anymore if I do it in a more professional way was something that scared me a lot. Not as much as the fraud police/imposter syndrome does, but that’s a story for a different day.

Will there be calendar for 2017? I can’t promise anything but to try. Disappointing people would make me a fraud after all…

P.S. 37/56

Farewell Old Friend

Today I got one of those calls that shake and sometimes break us. Leo, one of my oldest friends is no more. He passed away from sudden cardiac death.

René Leonhardt 1976-2016

René Leonhardt 1976-2016

I forgot so many things along my way to where I am now, but for some reason I still vividly remember the first time I talked to Leo. He came to our class as an addition and in physical education we were paired for the 100m sprint. We briefly spoke about Asthma, we ran and I beat him. Now I would love to be able to ask him if he was just polite being in a new environment or if he truly lost.

At times we (a communist and a left wing liberal) had a very different world view, we even yelled at each other and we felt desperate because of each others inability to see what we thought to be the simple and obvious truth. But through all those years and all those fights we were connected by a constant friendship. We shared school desks, attended football games and pulled all-nighters with Anstoss 3, World of Warcraft, pen and paper RPGs and World of Tanks. Together we defeated the Lich King, we went out to have drinks and we talked and talked and talked.

I feel not only empty and sad with Leo’s passing but I am also scared. Leo was gone in a moment without a chance to pursue all those things he most likely wanted to do but decided to do later. I feel blessed because I have wonderful friends, a job that I genuinely enjoy and the freedom to do at least some of the things I would like to do. But I have to make good use of this freedom each and every day instead of hoping that there will enough time to do it later.

Farewell old friend! Tonight I will open a bottle of red wine and down a glass of this awful swill that you always enjoyed to your honour. Du fehlst.

On Music – It’s Those Restless Hearts That Never Mend

The end of 2015 and the first weeks of 2016 did not treat music fans very well. In these few weeks the music world lost some real giants. Lemmy Kilmister, David Bowie and Glenn Frey. Now I love Motörhead and Bowie but it was Glenn Frey’s death that stinged the most.

Why is that? Today music takes a huge part in my life. I listen to music when I am at work, I spend way too much money on concert tickets and I am constantly air drumming, tapping, conducting, whistling, singing. There’s music in my head 24/7. But I wasn’t always like that. In fact when I was a young boy I wasn’t able to keep up with my friends taste in music. At home my mum played the same old tapes with Schlager music again and again. Her preferred radio station played the same shit and there was no way for me to listen to anything else. When my friends talked about Europe, Modern Talking and whatever they listened to in the 80s I didn’t really know anything about them. Being one of the cool kids I of course couldn’t just tell my friends. So I decided to come up with grumpy explanations why I wasn’t particularly excited about the latest craze. Much to my own surprise this worked.

When I later got my first stereo set for Christmas this was some sort of deliverance from the evil that is Schlager music. I was finally able to discover music on my own. I heard Bohemian Raphsody, Brothers in Arms and Losing My Religion on the radio bought blank cassettes and did what today could get me into a lot of trouble but at the time seemed to be a reasonable choice: I copied everything I could get my hands on. From the public library I lent R.E.M., Queen, Dire Straits and was simply blown away.

A little bit later I started to build my own CD collection. One of the albums I bought in these days was „Hotel California“. Mind you this was way before the internet and I didn’t know much about the Eagles. I didn’t know anything about „Hotel California“ being a huge stylistic leap from a country sound into mainstream rock and the overwhelming success of this particular piece of music. I knew the title track from the radio, the album was on the bargain table. So why not give it a try?

Back then I didn’t understand the meaning behind the lyrics and didn’t notice the deeply rooted pessimism that borders nihilism. But I instantly fell in love with the timeless beauty of the music. Over the years I probably listened to the album hundreds of times. I discovered more and more music, I admired the one of a kind artist David Bowie and the seemingly indestructible Lemmy. But the Eagles and „Hotel California“ were there at the very beginning. Rest in peace Lemmy, rest in peace David and rest in peace Glenn! Your music will continue to live with us!

Will she still love you?
When you’re not around?

There’s so many things you should have told her
But night after night
You’re willing to hold her just hold her
Tears on your shoulder

On a completely unrelated note I did the first photo shooting of the new year and was able to pick up some followers on Facebook after posting the pics. Feels good.