Tagebilder
45 black-and-white pictures
“A picture is a secret about a secret, the more it tells you the less you know.“ – Diane Arbus
The story of my own fascination started with a friend of mine, called “Wolfgang“!
There was a time he painted every single day a picture, over a period of two years, for trying to hold on the “everyday things“. It was a competition between him and his friend while studying Arts and they both decided to create “one painting a day“.
It became so interesting to me that I was asking myself if I could associate his idea with my passion and my profession- the photography! I think there´s not a big difference between a photography and a painting because a picture is almost painted by the sun without instruction in art.
So I was asking him if I could go on with his great idea and start by taking camera pictures every day. He was happy about following his idea and told me to write some words about each day, because in the end I would be able to remember things even better.
At this time I didn´t know how difficult it would be taking every single day a picture.
I started on the first of January 1990 with a Contax Camera, not expecting to hold on for so many years. I reserved a Contax G1 analog camera for those black and white day shots and took the camera everywhere to capture my special moment of the day. Sometimes it was very funny, because I didn´t repeat the shot I took even if it was out of focus, because I think that’s what makes photography real. But to be honest it was pretty challenging to find the right moment for pulling the trigger.
Like Henri Cartier-Bresson said once: “ Your first 10.000 photographs are your worst“ and I think I went through this as well but I can say: I´d become better!
After one year I really wanted to see the time segments at a glance; 12 months, 52 weeks, 356 days and a thousand of moments all hanging on the wall added together in a monthly- and weekly grid and resulted in a variety of unforgettable and special moments. Every picture produces the memory of the day it was taken.
With this consistent “one camera shot a day“ my claim was raising to “one good shot a day“. Obviously it´s not easy to receive a visually good looking day event, because you can’t plan you´re pictures.. every day brings you different tasks and I try to make the best I can of whatever the day is giving to me.
On the one hand there are some moments which carry an important message of what happened but not the matching optical effect and on the other hand it´s impossible to reproduce something that just happened again for your “daily picture“ because you hadn’t´ the time of getting your camera out of the bag.
The changing of the digital media was in 1998, and that simplified the image archiving. I began to take pictures with a Leica D-Lux, which is small, easy to handle and makes brilliant pictures. And by the reason of the size, this camera was always in my jacket pocket and therefore “at your fingertips“.
I show just some excerpts from the many years and those extensive pictures, that mean a lot to me. There are no series, no double pictures, only one picture a day.
At the present time of the ephemeral mobile photography this passion of mine indicates to me the concentration of the essential, the daily life.
Some people think that there are everyday just the same things you are walking into; like the same coffee store you might buy your favorite coffee before heading to work, the same street you´ve to walk/drive and even at work I´m definitely the opinion that each day brings new challenges and special moments, which you can never repeat. I really believe there are things nobody would see if I didn’t photograph them.
But photography tells us our story, our story of those special kind of moments we want to think of again..because when the time passes there still our childhood memories left but photography makes us come together to revel in moments. A quote from Andy Warhol put it in a nutshell: “The best thing about a picture is that it never changes, even when the people in it do“.
Therefore I think everyone should try to capture important moments; your children or your grandmother or whatever it might see these pictures will be thankful, I´ll promise you!
My goal is to continue my “daily shot“ as long as I can handle it not just mentally but physically! – I would love seeing people proceed with this daily task and I´m available with advice and tips!
Yours sincerely
Sabine Duerichen
Deutsch
Ein Freund malte jeden Tag ein Bild während seines Kunststudiums über einen Zeitraum von 2 Jahren. Insgesamt schuf er 730 Bilder um das Alltägliche festzuhalten und jeden Tag aufs Neue ein Bild zu kreieren! Eine spannende Idee, die ich mit fotografischer Umsetzung weiter führen wollte. Ich beherzigte den Rat dies wirklich mit täglicher Konsequenz zu tun und mir Notizen zu jedem Foto zu machen.
Mit meinen “Tagebildern” begann ich am 1. Januar 1990 und fotografierte mit einer Contax G1 Kamera auf Schwarzweissfilm. Das Datum passte ich der Perforierung des Filmes an, damit ich nicht schummeln konnte und mehr als ein Bild am Tag fotografieren würde. Ich musste in Kauf nehmen missglückte Bilder zu akzeptieren. Mit dieser Tagebildkamera fotografierte ich jeden Tag ein Bild. Eine Herausforderung war und ist es immer noch den richtige Moment zu bestimmen: “wann drücke ich ab, was halte ich fest”
Nach einem Jahr Tagebilder wollte ich diese Zeitsegmente auf einen Blick sehen. 12 Monate, 52 Wochen und 365 Tage, viele Augenblicke eines Jahres, hingen an einer Wand nach einem Monats- und Wochenraster zusammengefügt und ergaben eine Vielzahl von Momenten. Jedes Bild holt die Erinnerung eines ganzen Tages ins Gedächtnis.
Mit dem konsequenten “1 Bild am Tag” stieg mein Anspruch schnell auf “1 gutes Bild am Tag”. Es gestaltet sich nicht immer leicht ein optisch gut aussehendes Tagesgeschehen zu erhalten, dann man kann wenig gestalten und nimmt das was der Tag bringt.
Manche Momente transportieren Wichtiges, haben aber keine gute optische Wirkung.
Die Umstellung auf digitale Medien erfolgte im Jahr 1998, dies vereinfachte die Bildarchivierung. Ich begann mit einer Leica D-Lux digital zu fotografieren, sie ist klein, macht brillante Fotos und hat Platz in jeder Jackentasche und ist vor allem “immer griffbereit”.
Ich zeige nur einige Auszüge aus den vielen Jahren und den umfangreichen Bildern, die für mich besonders sind. Es gibt keine Serien, keine doppelten Bilder, sondern nur 1 Foto am Tag, In der heutigen Zeit der vergänglichen Serienbild Handyfotografie bedeutet dies für mich eine Konzentration auf das Wesentliche, das tägliche Leben.
Vorgenommen habe ich mir dies bis es nicht mehr möglich ist dies zu tun, mal sehen wie weit ich komme- ich begrüsse jeden der sich dieser Sache annehmen möchte und stehe mit Rat und Tips zur Verfügung,
Sabine Duerichen.