About photography, music and friendships

Long time no read on my blog. Somehow the last weeks were busy with enjoying the winter in the UK and having lots of fun with my friends. So I completely forgot to feed you guys with some stuff about my life.

Here in England everything is fine. If anyone is wondering why I suddenly start writing in English, this is because I got a few international friends who would really like to read my content, but they can’t speak German. At least not enough to read what I am talking about. So here I am, writing in English for my new friends out there.

The past weeks were exciting and so many things happened. Just some time ago we had half term holidays and me and my friend travelled around several ‚B’s in the South of England: We’ve visited Bath, Bristol and Brighton and had an amazing time there!

And those cities offered some pretty cool places for me to take pictures of…

As you maybe know, I am studying Photography at my college here and actually, I am getting more and more into it. To be honest, I imagine my friends sometimes being annoyed by me, as I am mostly taking my camera anywhere. And, of course, when I see a good photo location I want to to take a picture of it. Sometimes they even have to pose for me, but you know, I have amazing friends that are totally fine with that. And we always have a great time doing that!

If I just think about our journeys to the Southern ‚B’s… I was mostly hunting for the best photo locations, and especially for the street art spots. With Google Maps we were going for a desperate walk around Brighton to find the Prince Albert Pub mural showing deceased musicians. That is a pretty cool piece of street art and in the middle of it there is also a replica of Banksy’s Kissing Cops. I was so happy when we finally found it, even though it was dark already. The street leading there was also loaded with other street art spots.

When you are familiar with street art, you could probably guess what we did in Bristol. Yes, exactly, Bristol is the home of Banksy and so, I was sure I wanted to see the most of his murals there as possible. Sitting in a café I was planning the best route to some of his pieces and then we started walking around in search of Banksy. I got some decent shots of street art, not only of Banksy’s pieces. I loved Bristol and I will definitely go back there. The most fascinating thing was, actually, that you could walk down a street and find a Banksy mural on one of the walls there but nobody really cares. It is just there. If I think back to when I saw my first Banksy in Shoreditch, there was quite thick glass in front of it and people came to look at it. Banksy is just ’normal‘ in Bristol…

Well, yeah, a lot of these shots I took I will keep for my final Photography project for college because I am now officially doing my AS Levels in Photography, which means that I will not just walk away without any certification after my year here in England. I am really happy about that, as I have the dream of studying something with visual communication, and a certificate in Photography can be very helpful in that case. But this also means, I have to save my best work for my final exams in a few months time. Pictures taken into the exam must not be published before. That means I cannot show you a lot of my work now, which is a shame, but after the exam, hopefully, I can just fill my blog with a whole lot of cool shots.

So stay tuned for Charlie’s photographic work!

Since I am here I am so much more creative and especially into Photography. I have visited a few universities around here and I have also been to the University of the Arts London including Central Saint Martins and I think these were moments of absolute inspiration. I walked these halls of all these famous creative minds and I’ve been to the places where some of the world’s most amazing artwork was created. That felt absolutely amazing and it showed me where I want to be in the future. I have a dream now and I will follow it. Here I might even be more ambitious than I was it in Germany.

Thanks, England, for giving this to me!

And somehow, I also got some photo jobs here. My first-ever photo jobs! The very first one was for my host family: They asked me to come to the beach with them and take some nice pictures of them. They wanted a cute, printed picture of their children to give to their grandparents. And I did it, of course. It was so much fun.

The second one was for one of my new international friends from Chile. She had an upcoming Chilean election and needed a campaign video. So, this was my first ever video job and we had so much fun recording it. Not everything went right in the first place but we did it in the end. And guess what: Her party won the elections!

Congratulations !

And then, a few weeks ago, I did my first English concert shoot. A friend of mine told me about some concerts she went to, organized by a very interesting company. They are called „We Broke Free“ and are very similar to my friends from „Wohnzimmerkonzerte/Musikkombinat Magdeburg“. They are also people who just love music and organise very cool concerts in Bournemouth. And when I researched further, I found one of their posts that was talking about „The Next Generation Festival“ with musicians and volunteers under 18. And they were also looking for photographers. That was my chance so I immediately texted them and they were happy to have me. 

So I had a really good day listening to some very good music from people in my age and took some pictures.  It was amazing to meet new people there and I just loved the atmosphere. I would love to go to all of the We Broke Free concerts but unfortunately, this was the only event for U18 people. But surely, when I am older I will come back and enjoy the good music in Sixty Million Postcards.

As you maybe know I am a huge music fan and I especially love knowing about local musicians (remember Berlin Syndrome?). That day I heard a band from Bournemouth playing in Sixty Million Postcards and I really liked it. They are called „Wave Chase“ and you should definitely give them a listen! I already went to one of their other gigs and I will probably go to more. They also seem like really sympathetic guys, being funny and having quite a lot of fun on and offstage. So, if you ever make it to the Bournemouth/Southampton region, look if Wave Chase is having a gig somewhere, you will definitely not regret it!

And there is one last important thing to tell you: I really made some incredible friends here. Most of them come from the other side of the world but we all have become so good friends and made some unbelievable memories. A few week ago we already had our first very sad goodbye when two of my friends went back to Chile. We were crying some tears but we knew, we will definitely meet again!

I can’t wait to show them Germany and I also can’t wait to see South America!

My best friend from Brazil is going to leave soon as well, but this is how life goes, isn’t it? People step into your life and you have some of the best moments together. Then they are going to leave again and it feels terrible. But it is not going to be the last time you see each other. We are so lucky that communication is so easy these days, I can easily text, phone or facetime my friends on the other half of the world.

And I also made British friends, of course. I promised to come back here as soon as possible, to see how life is going on the South Coast. It is, luckily, just about two hours to get here from Berlin, so yes, my friends, I am not gonna miss any opportunity to come back!

But let’s not forget that I still have quite a bit time left here. And next week, I am going to NYC with my Photography course. Isn’t that exciting?

So, yeah, now you know I am still alive! I really want to post more but my exams are coming up soon. So keep your fingers crossed for me and maybe then I’ll be able to bring my blog back to life. 😉