Photoshop Gang

Last Friday I took the S-Bahn and U-Bahn connections, then a short walk, to arrive at the community centre where my afternoon Photoshop Gang meet. We always start with coffee, biscuits/cakes and lots of chat before hitting the computers and Photoshop to make changes to the original photos.

This time we started with coffee and cakes plus a drop from a bottle given to me by Daniel. We called it having a ‘Drop of Medicine’. Having taken the medicine, we set off to explore our neighborhood. We used a range of old cameras and a couple of modern single reflex cameras so we could later show contrast photos. I used my old camera which must now be nearly 50 years old.

We needed such photos for our next project comparing images taken by old and new cameras. We did such a project a year ago but now we need new images for an exhibition of our work at the start of next year.  We are taking more this Friday before we start work on the photos to create new ‘works of art’ for our exhibition.

Our community centre is in a borough/district of Berlin called Neue Kölln. It is near the centre of the city and has a high proportion of immigrants, including those from Turkey who are now retired and support the community centre. It is also a popular place for ‘alternative’ life styles and multi-cultural events.

Unfortunately, this now includes smearing walls, eating fast food while walking, buying/selling drugs in public and sitting in cafes/restaurants such as the one in the photo called Bürgermeister. Many people buy food there and consume it nearby. You can see the couple and the rubbish bin containing packaging just across the road from the restaurant.

It is not an area I would like to live in but I do not mind visiting to have a nice time with my Photoshop Gang.