What we experienced at #photokina18

As the Photokina trade fair was that huge, it needs some time to handle all those new experiences and personalities. We experienced a really nice weekend in Cologne. We met wonderful people with a lot of stories to tell. Here is a short summary.

#Meetup at the Schreckenskammer with Cosyspeed and Olympus

Being in Cologne two days earlier already Achim took the opportunity to meet up with Thomas Ludwig and Stefan Eggers from Cosyspeed and some guys from Olympus at the Schreckenskammer for some beers (you have to know that cologne beers are really small ones). To his surprise amongst others Marco Larousse and Thomas Leuthard joined the meet up as well.

#SOS PHT WLK with Ricoh

Friday morning, Achim joined the photowalk with Soul of Street and Ricoh, taking the opportunity to shoot with a Ricoh GRII for his first time ever. Although Achim is not fully convinced of the Ricoh GRII, he liked the small handy size of the camera and the results are pretty good. So Achim is looking forward to test the Ricoh GRIII once it is available.

Friday afternoon Achim met up with Ralle Buzz at the Photokina for the 2nd time. Not being gear or technic freaks they decided to leave Photokina pretty early in favor of a visit of the Street Photography Cologne exhibition at Onkel Schick (see below).

#CameraRescue

We met the guys from CameraRescue.org on the photokina which was really great. Not only because we’ve got a free roll of an older Agfa Film but also and especially because of what they have done. One of us got immediately and unexpected real support. One of the small viewfinder Glasses of Ivan’s beloved Zeiss Ikon ZM broke and he just wanted to ask these guys if they have an idea where he could buy a spare part. They asked him about the details and he has showed them the broken Glas. And before he even understood what one guy of their team replied he just replaced this part and screwed his own glas from his camera on Ivan’s Zeiss camera body. We’re still amazed about this nice touch. This was indeed a camera rescue project perfectly finished!

#PhotoKlassik

We’ve met the team behind the PhotoKlassik International magazine. For all of you who don’t know what we’re talking about: PhotoKlassik International is an independent print magazine about analog photography, written by photographers for photographers and has book-quality reproductions. The German-language PhotoKlassik magazine based on these ideas has been a huge success for six years. Ivan has published some of his photographs in the 1st issue and when we met the PhotoKlassik team suddenly Ivan was asked to sign a copy of the brand new PhotoKlassik International, right beside of his article and pictures. This was an awesome feeling he said!

#Patrick Ludolph’s book „Manche Fehler muss man selber machen“

At the Compagnon booth we met Patrick Ludolph who introduced his new (german) book „Manche Fehler muss man selber machen„. It was a short 30 minute session and quite amazing to see how he explained in an easy and amusing way his own experiance and why it is sometimes necessary to make mistakes to become better and more authentical. It was such a good session that Ivan purchased the book.

Patrick Ludolph is a german photographer from Hamburg with a focus on people, reportage, and travel photography. He is the guy behind the Webblog Neunzehn72.de and is doing beside photography a lot of other interesting stuff like running the Liveshow Fotoschnack, is produsing video tutorials about photography and is organizing workshops and photo travels. Beside this latest book he published already his own magazine „Hashtag Magazine“ and his photo book „SEAFARERS“ where he was documenting the life and work on container ships.

#CineStill Demo

The CineStill folks were great! We got to see a lot of very nice prints made from CineStill negatives. They also showed us their new TCS-1000 temperature control system. The film nerds among us are particularly excited for this device as it’s fairly compact, has a waterproof ceramic heating element, and is not that expensive ($99 USD). You can choose whichever temperature you want, and within a minute or two your entire volume of water or chemicals is exactly how warm it should be. It also looks to be very easy to clean afterwards. Hopefully this will contribute to new generations of film shooters developing C41 or E6 at home!

#Zeiss ZX1 is missing

We all wanted very much to see this camera, but alas, it was nowhere to be found. Since we all shoot street photography, naturally we were interested in seeing and testing this camera. (But luckily there will be another Photokina in May 2019!)

#RodizioAndWine

Well, after a long day with a lots of impressions, we had to rest and chill. What would be better than a relaxed BBQ with nice company? So we decided to go to a Brazilian Maracana Rodizio Grill. The expectations were huge. After some quick mixed starters we had a lot of perfectly grilled meat with some sides. All in all, it was a nice experience. We ate way to much but had a great time together.
What comes after dinner? In our case #RedRedWine. So we had over to a winery. Sorgenfrei Weine in our case. A cozy location for good quelity wines. They have a great selection of French and Italien red and whites. Perfect location to talk about the day and just relax with a red wine and good company.

#SPC – Street Photography Cologne Exhibition at Onkel Schick

Over the Photokina weekend, the Street Photography Cologne guys Sven Hoffmann, Andreas Ott, David Shokoubeen, Christopher Reuter and Oliver Kühnel performed a street photography exhibition at Onkel Schick. This was a great opportunity for us to meet up with another collective and to see their work and kind of presentation.

#CE PHT WLK Cologne

On Sunday we still had plenty of time because our train back to Frankfurt would leave Cologne at 5PM first. So what would some good looking Street Photographers do on a beautiful sunny sunnday? Exactly! We had a walk through Cologne. We saw a lof of interesting places, people walking over the bridges we were on and also a lot of bicyclist of course.

Enjoy first results from the walk below. More results to come. Especially the analogue ones need some more time.

#Achim’s