first off, i’d like to warn the readers of this post that there’s an emotional roller coaster told through the images ahead. some fun stuff, but some very somber images indeed.

this post actually only covers a few of the cities above. some, we’ll dive into a bit deeper in upcoming posts. patrick already did a teaser post about our time in provence with the red epic, and i’ll be talking a bit more about the experience at Hello Etsy in berlin in my next post.

so let’s start with LA. i departed for LA on september 11th to be a part of the Beloved Collective, a small conference that revolves around the creation of meaningful imagery. i had the pleasure of speaking among jesh de rox, samm blake, and our labor of love, and meeting some incredible new friends. my talk was called “anatomy of the meaningful image” and i got to speak about my favourite things ever!

the next morning is when the craziness began. here’s how things went from there:

sept 14th 5:30am wake > 6:30am arrive at LAX > 8:00am flight to toronto > 4:00pm land and wait for P + paul at YYZ > 7:00pm depart together for paris CDG > work/sleep/redeye > sept 15th 8:30am land in paris and wait > 11:00am train to avignon > 3:00pm get rental car and drive to provence > 5:00pm arrive and consider napping > 5:05pm start shooting amazing scenics cuz how can you not? > sleep > sept 16th more shooting, pre-wedding events start > sept 17th wedding from 9am to midnight > sept 18th 12:01am pack everything > 1:30am get 30 mins of sleep > 1:30am drive to marseille airport > 3:00am arrive at marseille airport, return car, check in > 6:00am flight departs to berlin > 11:40am land in berlin, get bags, find taxi > 12:00pm taxi to etsy convention venue > 1:00pm setup AV etc > 2:30 my talk on product + promotional photography at Hello Etsy > 4:00pm crash.

essentially from 9:00am on the 17th to 4:00pm on the 18th, we shot a 15 hour wedding, were in 3 european cities, spoke at a conference, all on 30 minutes of sleep.

…and crash we did.

from there, we spent a bit of time in berlin, saw the remnants of the wall, did some exploring, but while we’ve heard really good things about the city… perhaps we were tired, or it just felt off to us. P asked me if i wanted to go to poland. i’d always wanted to go there with him, and being polish myself and having just been in germany, i felt a certain connection with the idea.

so we drove.

while we were there, we stayed just outside of krakow in a small town called wieliczka. it’s a town known for salt mining, so naturally, we had to check out the nearby mine. photos below.

but what interested us most was our trip to oswiecim (auschwitz). after i wrote that line, i sat by my keyboard trying to figure out what i wanted to write next, but nothing came. it’s just that kind of place that silences you.

photos below.

-amina

berlin. very close to Checkpoint Charlie and our hotel.

the berlin wall. left foot in west berlin, right foot in east.

can’t figure out if that’s a good or bad business name…

the east side gallery, berlin wall, where painters from all over the world have expressed through paint.

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and then we get to the salt mine in wieliczka…

these are salt crystals (cauliflower crystals) making their way through the stone walls of the cavern.

most of the mine is supported by wooden beams. what looks like snow caked on is really just salt. if you lick pretty much anything in the mine, it’ll taste salty. trust me.

the chapel, hundreds of meters underground. entirely made of salt. those floor tiles aren’t tiles at all. it’s just a flat surface of salt that they carved lines into to make it look like tiles.  just as we arrived we found a group of nuns and priests rejoicing in song.

when i say entirely made of salt, i mean it. the chandelier is made of salt crystals, the statues are salt, the walls… everything.

small pools of water deposit crystals on the walls as the water level changes.

the “old town” (stare miasto) of wieliczka. snapped quickly on our way to get REAL pierogies.

walking off the pierogies around the neighbourhood.

small variations along our walk.

the “old town” (stare miasto) of krakow. 6-shot panorama. [click to enlarge]

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and then, auschwitz…

these are the actual tracks on which “prisoners” would arrive.

“arbeit macht frei” (“work sets you free”)

prisoners’ “accommodations”

prisoners’ beds. note, there were normally 4 people per cubicle.

another type of “accommodation” for prisoners.

inside. wooden platforms as beds, hollowed concrete as toilets.

“registration” papers.

containers of gas emitting pellets.

spectacles.

prostheses. owners of these limbs were mostly killed first, as they were not considered to be fit for work.

hair brushes, tooth brushes, shoes. no resource was wasted.

part of the registration process was to be photographed (until numbers became too large). most women depicted are nearly bald. their hair was sold to textile companies for the manufacture of products such as mattresses.

the execution wall. firing squads quickly ended lives here.

the soft light of sunset, decrepit crematorium. i hate how nice this looks.

far left: prisoners line up at the stairs. stairs lead down to a room seen in first quarter of the image, where people undress for their shower. halfway point, gas chamber. far right, crematorium. [click to enlarge]