Last sunday I travelled to  the city of Darmstadt where the “Darmstadt days of photography” took place for the 5th time.
I had never been there before and I need to say that it’s really a great festival which combines interesting locations, sympathic organizers and international photography with lots of new stuff to discover (though I heard that not all lectures on saturday where that interesting.)

See some photos and installations shots here.

My friends Patrick Hamilton’s and Mark Ansorg’s photographs where selected for the exhibition, but didn’t win the “Merck Price” (5000 Euro). The winner was Nils Klinger with his series “Demarkation” that is about the former inner-german border and about people who tried to escape the socialistic East Germany. In his presenation, Nils Klinger connected photographs of places (e.g. a tunnel in Berlin that was used to reach West-Berlin through the undergroud) with text that gives some background information on the people who escaped then (not all had sucess – some where shot during the escape).This work totally deserved the price, it was among the best in the show.

I also liked the work of Michelle Sank very much. There’s a lot to discover on her website – big talent.