After a longer break — in the meantime I was traveling for three weeks (Vogtland, Erzgebirge, Spreewald, with a side trip to the Black Forest) — with numerous exhibition visits and great conversations — I'm back.

This is the first "finished" image, created as part of my series "Necrolog" (SIC). Shot in the studio. The stem of a rose — naturally wilted over about two weeks. The theme "Necrolog" will keep me occupied for a while. It will be a eulogy for all manner of plants and their parts. The plants wilt — but their beauty remains unchanged.

But otherwise there's news. In the meantime I've been working intensively on backgrounds — partly outdoors (textures in naturally grown wood, stone, house plaster, sky images), partly in the small studio I've since set up. In my images, backgrounds will in any case be at least as important as the subject itself.
On my outdoor excursions I've already captured a few "main subjects." One of them, a staircase on the Ardetzenberg, is already being edited. A surprise is definitely in store there.
Speaking of image editing: after comparative trials of Photoshop, Photocreator, and GIMP, I've settled on the latter. I've since had several sessions with it, and slowly the results are starting to show.

With the idea and resolve to do, photographically, everything I wasn't able to do in 1983 for various reasons — which is why I threw in the towel back then.
1983? That's over 40 years ago! Seven years before that, I'd held my first own camera in my hands. My equipment grew steadily and quickly, including a darkroom of my own. Perhaps I'll come back to that another time.
For today, what matters is this: I've decided to take up the subject again. Though from day one it's clear to me that much of this will happen on my computer — image editing, that's the buzzword. I have a clear idea of what I want to do. But let's see what surprises await.
From time to time I'll show up here to record a few things that seem important to me. For now, just as a diary. But of course a website of my own is planned. There, the whole thing will continue in the form of a blog or a simple news page.
So I'll essentially be keeping a small logbook of my renewed first steps and my further development as an image-maker. After all, the technology has changed dramatically in the meantime. Even though I haven't forgotten how an aperture works or what effect exposure time has on the result, I'm basically starting again from scratch.