On the streets of New York ...

(click image to enlarge)

This is what my very first camera looked like

I got a camera just like this for my first day at school. I was seven. It was in my "Zuckertüte", a colorful cardboard cone typically filled to the rim with candy and toys.

Another Image from "Critical Distance"

Unheimisch

I'm currently editing the second draft for my preface for "Critical Distance" (expanded edition). I have a hard time to decide what to keep in and what to leave out. I'm trying to create references and associations with the images of the book, and in particular with the cover image. Below is the beginning of the text. If anyone is interested in reading the full draft, please let me know. I would appreciate any feedback and proofreading.

When I was searching for a term to describe my rather ambiguous relationship to a geographically, culturally and emotionally defined home, I came across the Dutch word unheimisch. Unheimisch makes me think of “uprooted” or “not at home”, but the Dutch adapted this word from my native language, mistakenly combining unheimlich (“eerie”) and heimisch (“native”, “domestic”, “[at] home”) to describe something as “uncanny”. And even though unheimisch would be such a beautiful and befitting word, it does not exist within the German vocabulary. It is a word that migrated from one language to another without ever having been at home in the former. [...]

You can't make this stuff up ...