dragon style vs panda style

instead of exploring the unknown life of pandas... i ended up learning the secret moves of the beijing dragon.! as i proudly joined a chinese hip hop dance crew and practiced the teachings of the dragon dance style.

but honestly... air max, dragon moves and dim sum´s are as priceless as a panda safari!

tyrannosaurus

childrens books typically feature anything from frogs or cats or pigs to dinosaurs and sometimes even people. those picture books by Tatsuya Miyanishi have all those!

in my new favourite book he tells about a tyrannosaurus.

I like it very much for two main reasons:

A.)

click here to find out!

B.)

every time i look at the book i can make up a new interpretation of the story as i bought it in chinese

harpers china / out now!

Stylist: Stevie Westgarth

Hair: Naoki Komiya @ Julian Watson

Makeup: Yin Lee @ Premier

Set design: Emma Roach

Models: Jacob Coupe and Charlie France @ MODELS 1

Photo-Assistant: James Loveday + Pau Cegarra

Digital Operator and Retouch : Studio Private

panda safari

i am leaving for china today.

panda safari!

a small panda poem by me:

躺在你的手在我的毛皮
似雪层

musik für kinder

a nice option (if not a fantastic option) of waking up... is dancing to : orff - schulwerk / musik für kinder!

try yourself:

thinking about cyprus

today i was here but thinking about there.

thinking about how we both went to the crystal healer and i asked for:

kindness, the now and courage

and how the healer laid circles of stones over my body

1 circle : shades of red stones

2 circle : shades of turquoise stones

3 circle: shades of purple stones

thinking about the white rocks we being climbing.

dreaming of our boat and how we sailed to the blue lagoon.

and thinking about our jeep and how we did a herb safari and how we stopped from time to time to plug herbs and fruits and how we ate fresh grapes, bananas and pears.

how we acquaintance a bull, turtle babies and lots of goats.

thinking of how we took pictures together

thinking about how we took a swim in adonis bath.

the myth says:

men will become stronger once they swim in adonis waters.

and if you swim together in the waters you will fall in love.

**

but then i had enough of thinking and i crawled out of my bed and went for a wander with tali and her dog mia.

sam winston

a year ago i discovered the wonderful works of sam winston.

I am happy that one year later, tomorrow - to be exactly, i will finally meet him in his studio to talk about collaborations and his works.

( click here to see his website).

Επέστρεφε

Return often and take me,
beloved sensation, return and take me --
when the memory of the body awakens,
and an old desire runs again through the blood;
when the lips and the skin remember,
and the hands feel as if they touch again.

Return often and take me at night,
when the lips and the skin remember....

Constantine P. Cavafy (1912)

(picture by ralph bonilla / click here to see more of his works)

midsummer night

on this midsummer night

everyone is sleeping

we go driving

into the moonlight

could be in a dream

our clothes are on the beach

these prints of our feet

leading up to the sea

early this morning i left with alexi in his car driving through a midsummer night

the back of our car filled with fresh collected rosemary and eucalyptus leafs and

from the garden of alexis father fresh cucumbers, pears and grapes for our journey

i always forget how much i like to drive at nights

i think its one of the things which makes me the most quiet and calm

i like to be quiet and look outside the windows

passing lights and thoughts

once i am back in london i want to buy the book alexi is reading by adam philips: on kissing, tickling and being bored.

we played kate bush's "Nocturn" while welcoming the next morning.

look at the light

at all the time it's a changing

look at the light

climbing up the aerial

Bright, white coming alive jumping off the aerial

all the time it's a changing like now

all the time it's a changing like then again

all the time it's a changing

and all the dreamers are waking

quiet

until next week wednesday ... i will be gone to climb a mountain, visit different villages and beaches, will see how farmers make fresh halloumi cheese, will sit under the stars, lay on rocks and think about the time they have been and do all the things which makes me feel quite inside.

*

the feeling i get

driving past the railroad yard

(never on purpose but on my way to somewhere)

are the feelings other men have for other things.

i see the tracks and all the boxcars

the tank cars the flat cars

all of them motionless and so many of them

perfectly lined up and not an engine anywhere

(where are all the engines?)

i drive past looking sideways at it all

a wide, still railroad yard

not a human in sight

then i am past the yard

and it wasn't just the romance of it all

that gives me what i get

but something back nameless

always making me feel better

as some men feel better looking at the open sea

or the mountains or at wild animals

or at a woman

i like those things too

especially the wild animals and the woman

but when i see those lovely old boxcars

with their faded painted lettering

and those flat cars and those fat round tankers

all lined up and waiting

i get quiet inside

i get what other men get from other things

i just feel better and it's good to feel better

whenever you can

not needing a reason.

(the railroad yard, charles bukowski)

*

talk soon.!

crown

this morning i went to a wonderful old cyprus lady to read my cards, she smoked a lot while telling me what she could see in my cards.

she saw a lot and many nice things.!

she said:

dont worry daniel! you will have a wonderful life...

you have a crown!

(how nice it is to have a crown - i was thinking)

and a big heart and so much to give with all the nice colors around you.

she also said:

you are a feather! calm and light.

( that i also liked a lot and i had to think about charlotte who calls me: pigeon.!)

she said that i will need to leave london and that my luck and future is waiting for me in new york.

( i been dreaming a lot about moving to new york lately)

she also told me that she sees that my work will develop and that it wont just stay about photography.

( i hope i will become a children book author!)

she talked about my next loves and that i will need to go through one more short relationship before i will meet my man.

he will be a bit older then me and he will wait for me in america.

.... i left quite happily her house.

colour of the day: LEEK

now and then

the time before yesterdays yesterday:

GIFT

you tell me that silence

is nearer to peace than poems

but if for my gift

I bought you silence

(for I know silence)

you would say

This is not silence

this is another poem

and you would hand it back to me.

soon:

james trimmers painting will hang soon in my new home! :

tomorrow:

the day after tomorrow:

father and son

my recent obsession are the writings of charles bukowski. i wish i could take time off in a small house somewhere in the countryside and read everything he has ever published.

today i spoke with my mother and she been very surprised about me liking bukowski.... she then told me that my fathers favourite writer was charles bukowski.

today i feel really close to my dad.

*****

what matters most is

how well you

walk through the

fire.

charles bukowski

thug work out

fanny and daniel

emma reeves (v and v men photo director) asked me a few question about my child hood:

Where did you grow up?

I grew up in the south of Germany in a tiny village. I remember that we lived in the garden house of a bigger house from a family called Wiedemann. I can't remember much of the house we stayed in but I remember that we had two big trees in the garden one with pears and another with plums. On the plum tree I had a small swing and behind the trees there was a small river in which I once lost my shoe. I stayed most of time just with my mother, as my father was often gone. It gives me a nice feeling if I think about that time. I have very vague memories; most of my memories are about certain smells or sounds and images. Around my 4th birthday we moved to the centre of Munich in a street I like until today very much:" the Klenzestrasse". A Street where a lot was happening.

We had a very small cinema that showed a very nice selection of movies for kids, a very loud but friendly Greek man and his vegetable store, a small clothing store owned by a very fat and extravagant lady who liked to be dressed in glitters and a few gay bars such as the teddy bar that I liked very much as it has a huge bear face on its darkened window.

Secretly I think that this street has been a very big inspiration to me.

Was there someone in your family who lead your interest in photography and film?

My father was a filmmaker and photographer. He committed suicide when I was very, very young, when I was 7. I didn’t really remember much about my father but I found a box when I was 12, a box that my mother had kept for me with old super 8 videos and slides of him. It was my only communication with my father. It made me realize his influences and visions. It gave me a way of communicating with him if I would also follow photography.

Did you have a vivid imagination as a child?

Very much. I was a little isolated and even in the days when my father was around he was difficult to deal with. It was really terrifying. I was not the son that he had an image of. He was very troubled. It was a difficult communication. I had a very strong relationship with my mother and apart from that I was very shy. I played always with nothing. I would be a mad scientist, inventing things!

When we moved to Munich I had a lot of friends but I didn't mind playing alone. I had two important people in my childhood, my mother and my best friend "Fanny" Franziska Roth. Fanny lived in two flats one with her father and one with her mother. The flat of her father was one street away of mine and the flat of her mother two. We were like brother and sister and my mother became hers and hers mine. We loved each other so much that one-day we got married in school. Our teacher organized a ceremony for us where I was wearing a huge hat and Fanny a white dress. In our free time we both escaped to wonderful worlds and we played for hours with nothing more than our imagination. I remember that once we both wanted to invent a flying machine to cross the ocean. We made a lot of drawings and I remember in some we drew a girl from our class hanging on a string from our flying machine and we would fly low over the ocean and feed her to the sharks.

When I got into 5th grade we both went to different schools and with it we stopped dreaming of magical worlds and adventures together.

mother and father

i was very young when my father committed suicide. after his death my mother and i lived a vagabondish life. we didn´t really had a place i would have called home. we had all our possessions in her car and we would go around asking her friends to stay over, sometimes for a night, sometimes for a month or longer.

at a certain point my mother took me on a trip to turkey in her car for some vacation. i cant remember it so well anymore but i remember it was the first vacation i was allowed to take pictures with her camera. one of the first pictures i ever took was my mother sleeping in the car. she looked so perfect to me.

i remember that at this moment she symbolised every idealistic feeling i had about a women.

i never believed that my father was dead when i was a child. back then, i promised myself that as soon as i will grow up. i will search the world to find him.

i love cyprus and cyprus loves me

this morning while eating my morning egg - i was looking outside the window and dreaming away to my journey to cyprus.

next wednesday i will start my journey with my friends alexi, nico, mel and a porsche.

we will be traveling cyprus and going to do a photo shoot in the forbidden city / the ghost city of cyprus.

oh i cant wait!

halloumi cheese makes me really happy.! and holidays with nice people in a porsche too!

we will be traveling from greece to turkey in search of the best halloumi dish.

:-)