jottkah

Last Friday I went to visit the Impossible Project in the Netherlands. I have known about the project pretty much since its beginning, when some people re-started the production of instant film after Polaroid closed down its business. And – although I haven’t used it recently — I do own a Polaroid camera (two, to be precise) and used to buy Impossible film. I had heard about their open factory day before and each time I thought I should go, because it’s not far and it would for sure be interesting, but I never did. Until last Friday. And: it wasn’t far (Enschede is about two hours by train from where I live) and it was incredibly interesting. I’d recommend it for everyone who ever took a Polaroid picture. Or is interested in analog photography. Or in photography in general.

At first we got an overview about what exactly happens in a Polaroid photo (I don’t know whether it’s okay to call it Polaroid, as it’s not that brand anymore, but you know what I mean). There’s a lot of chemical stuff going on, as not only a photo is taken, but it’s developed immediately, too. So it’s pretty much a complete photo lab in a very flat sheet of paper.

After that basic knowledge we met our tour guides (there are tours in Dutch and in English) who showed us around the amazing building. It’s part of the old Polaroid factory (back then they used a few more buildings, though) and walking through it mostly felt like time-hopping into another era. Of course there are computers and modern technology, but most of the machines are the ones that just stayed there after Polaroid left the site. (Some of them even have to be operated in complete darkness, by the way.)

I had never really thought about how instant film is made and was quite impressed how complicated it is, how many steps are necessary and how many problems have to be solved during the process. And now I’m really inspired to use my Polaroid camera again soon.

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More old stuff from my VSCO grid. This trip feels like ages ago. Hopefully at some point I will manage to post some of the “real photos” I took in that amazing landscape.

;-)

It’s not easy recreating a selfie version of a famous romantic painting when you don’t have a tripod or a remote shutter control. Or fog, for that matter.

In my hometown there’s this hotel. It’s right downtown and everybody knows it. Most people probably not as hotel but as a restaurant. Mostly elderly people go there for lunch, in the back there’s a large hall where people throw parties for their big birthdays, and also that’s where you go after funerals for Kaffee & Kuchen, because the hotel’s right across the street from the graveyard.
There’ve been rumors for years that the hotel is going to close any time soon, and I’ve been wanting to spend a night there before those rumors finally come true. So last year (well, I’m really behind with blogging) I checked in for one night.

P.S.: Well, okay, this is a photo blog and not meant for hotel reviews, but here you go: everythings’s a little bit old and worn out, but clean and comfortable and the hotel certainly has a unique charm – and I mean that in a good way. The staff is very friendly, the food is great, you get a huge delicious breakfast for little money, the bar is in the most beautiful room which makes you feel like it’s 1960 and you’re drinking your hard-earned beer after coming back from a tough day in the steel factory. And the cutest thing is: next to the stairs which lead up to the rooms there’s a chalkboard and every guest’s name is written down there by hand.
The hotel doesn’t have a website and is not available on booking.com or sites like that, so you have to do it the old way and give them a call. But they do have free WiFi. ;-))

P.P.S.: Ganz zufällig erfuhr ich letzte Woche, daß es neuerdings einen Dokumentarfilm über die Besitzerin des Hotels, Anneliese Werlemann, gibt. Für Menschen in der Nähe: der Film wird im Rahmen der „Tage des Provinzfilms“ am 25. September im Cinema in Münster gezeigt.

Here’s some more stuff from my VSCO grid, and it’s from 2014 still. There’s even snow! That’s what I’ve been longing for during those past really hot days.

No blogging = no VSCO Roundup. There’s still quite a lot to be posted from my grid. This is the first batch.

I’ve never been good at blogging regularly, but I’ve been especially bad at it during the past few months. Which is  strange, because I have lots of stuff to post. So, let’s start again.

I promise, this is the last post on New York. These are the photos I took with my phone and already posted in my VSCO grid.

Finally, here it is: the last day in NYC. (This doesn’t mean it’s the last post on this, though – the VSCO roundup is still to come.)

This day was like a holiday within the holidays. A little trip to the seaside. I’d been wanting to go to Coney Island for ages and was a bit disappointed when I came to know it was closed for winter already. We went anyway and it was totally worth it. The first stop was Brighton Beach, which felt strangely familiar – just from driving around Hove Beach in GTA 4. (Also, I expected Red from OINTB to jump out of a shop any second and offer us piroshkis. Well. Didn’t happen. :-()

I will hopefully come back sometime in the spring or summer and see the amusement park in action.

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