I’ve been working pretty much every day on the scans I did in New York a few weeks ago. There are about 45 images all together, 15 each from New York, Amsterdam, and Berlin. The plan is to print these at 20×24 inches for portfolio purposes with a few, perhaps, at 40×50 inches. I will be working with Ben Diep in New York at Color Space Imaging to make the prints.

The Berlin series includes a few of the Lost Border pictures, but none from before 1989 when the Wall came down. A number of them were made in what was East Berlin and show vestiges of the former Communist regime. One picture was shot through the Iron fence in front of the Soviet embassy on Unter den Linden, a bust of Lenin staring outward. Another includes a large statue of Lenin standing on a traffic island in front of a large housing project. And I made several photographs of the Soviet war memorial in Treptow, a monumental assemblage of statues and stone sarcophagi with bas reliefs depicting the heroism of the Soviet Army. There are quotes by Stalin etched in stone, chilling to encounter in person. The memorial at Treptow still exists and is being actively maintained, but much of Communist East Germany has already disappeared. The Palast der Republik is presently being torn down (see pictures here on Flkr), and I have a photograph from the late ’90s that will be part of my Berlin series.

Communist era mural (4×5 film)

Another existing piece of pre-1989 history, a mural illustrating the supposed worker’s paradise of the German Democratic Republic, has been preserved in Berlin Mitte. My photograph was made shortly after the Wall came down. I also took some photographs of East Berlin before ’89, see below, but I found the experience unnerving, and felt that it was just a matter of time before I was detained by the East German authorities. So, I ended that mini-project after several days of work.

East Berlin, 1987, before the Wall came down (4×5 film)

Thursday I am flying to Berlin and plan to put in three or four days shooting. I no longer feel the need to stick to the former path of the Wall, though I will certainly retrace the line through the center of the city. I will see what’s left of the Palast of the Republik, and I am hoping to get a good photograph of the Holocaust memorial near Potsdamer Platz. I will also take a look at the new central train station recently completed near the Reichstag. Since I am traveling without a laptop, I won’t be able to post anything until after I return next week.