pb with ph

What I wrote today in the morning sun:

Again, its coming: Just to enjoy life. Don’t think about any pressure of traveling, job opportunities, money, things you need to organize. Its such a beautiful pure feeling. A goose bump goes from your toes to the tip of your hair and back into your toes. Since I experienced this feeling already I know its not a state of being for long. You get thrown back into society, into responsibility and agreements with others who surround you.

But the more you experience this state of being, the easier you get back into it. And since I know from the awesome movie “I Heart Huckabees”, its never a feeling you can come back to whenever you want. Life is ruled by cruelty, depression and pressure. And the good thing about knowing these experiences made by the devil, you can enjoy the other side (no thoughts and doubts, just watching) so much more.

Sometimes it happens:

You sit somewhere, you watch the people walk by, enjoy the staining landscape and listen to a song. And all of a sudden it throws you back in all your experiences from traveling, people you know, landscapes, situations, food and even the time before your travel time. Like your entire life runs through your vanes and happiness goes through your body, your mind. Its the most beautiful feeling I ever know.

You’re flying from thought to thought, from memory to memory … a Woah! feeling. It seems to be the same idea of a feeling people talk about who almost died and went in a second through their whole life and peace and freedom comes all over them.

Already little things are able to trigger this amazing feeling. It could be a Bird flying by, a man waving, a breeze blowing, a sun coming through clouds or even a leaf falling down from a tree. I thought about how to awake this feeling on purpose, but if I would figure out how, it wouldn’t come surprisingly anymore. And that’s another important part of it. You don’t know when you get it the next time. Like my panic attacks.

It seems to be that I need to have my panic attacks in order to get these amazing feelings. Thank you panic attacks. You take so much care of me.

Lets give it a name:
pure being accompanied with pure happiness. Very good.

The question mark is Pakistan.



Karakorum highway still on the China side

I didn’t know what me expected in this country, since I didn’t study read anything about this country. It was more a really quick decision to go to Pakistan over the Karakorum highway, which connects the west of China and the north of Pakistan. I can’t tell you incredible happy I am I took this beautiful path to beauty. To get the Visa in Pakistan at the border was no problem at all. I took with a Korean guy and Japanese guy a car down to a place called Karimabad in the Hunza valley. Unbelievable, incredible and wonderful landscape.

The people so far are even more nice as the landscape is beautiful. By the time I arrived in Sust, the Pakistani guy I met in the bus treated the Korean, the Japanese and the me, the German traveler for some decent pakistani food before he organized our trip to Karimabad for us. He gave me his number and email, so I can write him by the time I arrive in Islamabad and have dinner with him in his house.

After one day in Karimabad, I am very excited to be here longer. I just come back from 4 hours playing ckricket with the kids down in the village. The people are definitely a little more rough as the children in China. In China the kids want to practice their english. Here, they want to fight and see who is stronger. But nevertheless, they’re all very warm hearted.

I have meeting with these people in the village tomorrow again and they asked me if I will bring my camera. Of course I will. I just can’t miss the picture when the sun is shining through the trees and the dust from hitting cricket bats on the earth is everywhere in the air. It looks just awesome.

So, now I might stay here in the north of Pakistan much longer and enjoy the people and landscape for a week or so before i go down to Islamabad and India.

Thanks Pakistan, to welcome me so great and with open arms.

Nanjing – Urumqi – Kashi – ?

Residents of the old town in Kashi. Very very nice people.

Hello people, I need to tell you something. I am now traveling with Katja and its (wow) so different to travel with somebody. I didn’t expect it to be so different. The time we traveled before we came to Nanjing was different as well: We didn’t need to make any decisions together since the plan where we are going and when we are going somewhere was set. But now things have changed. I am not alone anymore and I have to deal with somebody. Wait for somebody, respect other people’s choice where to go and how long to stay there. I realized how much I am fixed only on myself and my desires and wishes where to go and what to do. Basically the fact about traveling alone its not new. The more you travel alone the more you have a hard time getting back into society. Funny though, that works actually pretty well. But I am so used to travel alone, that its really hard for me to accept somebody next to me for a long time, doesn’t matter if that is a good friend or somebody I just met. Sometimes, I could explode inside when something doesn’t start exactly in the moment I want it to start or when somebody wants to leave a place when I am not ready to leave. I am so egoistic when it comes to traveling. There is another thing. Since I practiced my Chinese with Shawnee in the states, its going really well going through China without any problems. So Katja is dependent on my Chinese and my knowledge how to get around in China. That makes it easier for her. But I actually don’t want this for her. When I thought about traveling with Katja it should be about make her a little stronger and more confident and secure. But it doesn’t seem to be this way as long as she is with me. I think she should travel alone, because its such a different experience for somebody and I want her to make her own experience. But in the same time I want to take care of her and protect her as it is not easy for alone-traveling-women in those countries. Finally I realized how much I need to be my own boss. Also in business and therefore to be a photographer seems to be the perfect choice again. Ok, sorry, I am going off topic. I have to learn to respect other people again when it comes to traveling again. Good practice for me though. I like Katja, and when it comes for example to photography, she just sits down to the people, watching them doing their handcrafts and taking pictures, damn it, I can’t do that yet. I can learn from her.

About the situation where we are right now: We are in Kashi (喀什), the very west city in China, which is not Chinese anymore and yes it is again. The old town is full of Uygure people (moslems), but the city has developed the last 15 years, because the Chinese government put a lot of money in its surrounding area: New streets, well paved, new shops for clothing and all the commercial things. Kashi is a city with two faces and this fact makes it really interesting to experience.

Our plan was to go to Tibet, Ali. But recently it seems to be almost impossible to pass the checkpoints since the Chinese Police refuse all the foreigners to get a Tibet permit (again, the Olympic Games made things more difficult instead of more easy, open minded). Sucks. Anyways, we met an Australian guy who is heading there today and will inform us about the very latest situation there. If this might not work out we are trying to get to Pakistan on the Karakorum Highway, which is well known as incredible beautiful. Lucky we are, we met a Pakistani guy in the train from Urumqi to Kashi and he couldn’t repeat himself often enough how welcome we both would be to stay in his house in Gujranwala, south of Islamabad. Since the situation in Pakistan is not the most secure one, of course I am a little worried. But hey: the truck ride from Yencheng to Ali in less than 3 days, and from 0 m to 5400 m altitude within 350 km on very dangerous roads is not less dangerous and a few people died on this journey, either from exposure or traffic accidents. So my choice: To die in a stupid traffic accident in the mountains of Tibet or in a bomb attack in Pakistan, I go for the bomb. Sounds more special to me. In the end, to get run over by a cow in India isn’t less horrifying. Don’t worry, I am not gonna die, because I booked already my flight from Madras, India, back to Germany. And the flight attendants expect me already. So far I heard only really really great things about Pakistan and its people.

So thanks for keep in touch with my life. love you all. Especially my girlfriend Shawnee, the woman I love so much, so much, so much.

The beginning of the last season.

I am finally on new roads again. This will be the first time since the beginning of June that I have traveled somewhere new. I will head towards the west of China, Tibet, Nepal and India from North to South with my beautiful travel mate Katja. Exciting, lalala.

By the way, I sold two pictures from my exhibition in Nanjing and got my payment for my photography job in Nanjing for MAP magazin, feels gooooooooood.

And here is my face again.

more people

Since I have been to the states and had a break from Asia, I decided to be a little more tough regarding the way I take pictures. I always wanted to take more pictures of people and less landscape.

I would say landscape works for me now, I know when to shoot and where to move my camera to get some great stuff out of it. But in the end its not really satisfying. Right, I don’t really want to do those pictures. Now I am back in Asia and I will work on this. Shoot way more people instead of landscape. Its so much harder to go really close to people, to deal with a situation and create a composition every second from scratch, something which is moving all the time. I know it has to work. So, today I started to take pictures of people and yes, its so much fun. I want to reach a level in people photography as I reached in landscape and I have 3 month to go. gogogo.

I also don’t want to take so much more attention on composition and sharpness in the picture. I know on one hand its important but on the other hand you are missing so many opportunities to shoot if you care about those facts all the time. More courage, more people and therefore more the way of capture a moment instead of a mood. Thanks for sharing.

Oh, one more thing: More Color, yes. I am finally sick of sick colors.