On Saturday 8th of October we held a Mini-Fotomarathon, one of the selected events of the European Month of Photography Festival. We gathered at Fotopioniere at the Karl-Marx-Allee in Friedrichshain, one of those wonderful old-school photo shops that have become all to rare in Berlin.
It was a perfect autumm day: a bit grey, a bit rainy but not too cold and actually great to walk about and take photos. Around 70 people joined the fun, and took up the challenge of interpreting six photos in four hours, under the overall theme “Telling stories”. The options were open: one story in six photos, or six stories, each told in one single photo. Each participant could choose creatively how to go about it.
After the four hours were up, participants dropped in back at the Fotopioniere to hand in their six photos. As always, the photos could not be post-processed, they had to be taken in the sequence stipulated by the given themes, and they had to interpret the indvidual topics according to the overall theme. While the Fotomarathon team read the memory cards, everyone got comfortable in the shop, explored the items on display and had coffee and cake, baked by the friendly Fotopioniere team. We then combined all photos in a slideshow and we all watched them together. Participants were given voting cards, so they could choose their favourite series to be awarded the “People´s Choice Award”. In the end, we had four photo series who got the most votes.
We thanked Fotopioniere for their hospitality, and announced the next date for the coming events:
- the next mini-fotomarathon will take place on 29 April 2017 -this time outside of Berlin, in the Prignitz region, in cooperation with NABU Brandenburg.
- the annual summer Fotomarathon will take place on June 10th, 2017
And the winners are:
1. Place: Thomas Lewin (Startnummer 512)
2. Place: Tessa Schlese (Startnummer 430)
Here are some impressions of the day as it went by.
