Photo Haiku

Haiku photo? What is this? Perhaps you know haiku. These are small poems originating in Japan, consisting of three lines with seventeen syllables. They usually describe experiences of nature in a way that is sufficiently, but not too specifically, concrete for the reader to be able to understand them, to experience them with their senses, so to speak. Unfortunately, I don't have the talent to put such experiences into words in a concise way so that others can understand and feel my experience similarly on the basis of my text. I then tried Haiga, combining haiku and pictures with photos. But I didn't like that either. When I was taking pictures, my thoughts were already on the text and no longer on the mindful experience of the moment. And taking pictures with a text in my head meant that I was looking for photos and not free in my mind and when taking pictures.

I saw the solution in simply photographing what I was experiencing as best I could. Simple doesn't just mean capturing a moment that touches me without thought, with an open mind, but also in terms of photography. My Haiku photos were mainly taken with small, handy analogue cameras, e.g. the tiny SLR Asahi Pentax Auto 110 or the Lomography Diana Baby. Both are pocket cameras that I fill with 110 film from Lomography and can carry in my jacket pocket.

Many of my poetic photos were taken on grey winter days. I particularly like these grey days. They have a calming effect on me, a dampening effect on my restless mind. In particular, films with pronounced grain, often in black and white, help me capture what I see and feel on such days: the shapes, the weather, the subdued light, my melancholy. I like it when pictures are created that give the impression of having fallen out of time.

Some of these photos are inspired by the the visual poetry of the director and photographer Andrei Tarkovsky. The idea of putting photos together for diptychs is not new.