Blog | Jakob Berr Photography

Last week I went to Los Angeles with the other POYi graduate coordinators as part of my assistantship with Pictures of the Year International to help arrange the Awards and Education program at the Annenberg Space for Photography. We had a fabulous time there and it was a great opportunity to meet and chat with some of the most accomplished photojournalists of our time. After the daily programs, we usually hung out in the hotel lobby and grabbed a few drinks with photographers from all over the world. I truly believe there’s nothing more fun than a bunch of equally obsessed photo nerds perched together in the same place with a lot of beer. Thanks Craig Walker, Tomas van Houtryve, Paul Hansen, Tim Rasmussen and all the others who were there for an amazing week!

After our work was done, we had a day to relax and explore L.A. and decided to go to the Getty Center. Situated on a hill between Santa Monica and Beverly Hills, the Center is one of the most impressive works of architecture I’ve ever seen. The breathtaking views, beautiful gardens and the spectacular all-white stone buildings all work perfectly together. Unfortunately, I’m not a very gifted architecture photographer and the shots I have of the museum aren’t really worth showing here. But to get an impression of the place, check out some of the pictures here.

After touring the museum, we took a break on the grass in the courtyard. Calin used the opportunity to roll himself down the hill so that he could tell people at home that he rolled down Mr. Getty’s very own lawn. It didn’t take long until the rest of us followed suit, and soon we were all tumbling down the hill in every possible position.

After the Getty, we went to the Hollywood Bowl to see a string of live concerts. One of the performing bands was the legendary Buena Vista Social Club. It was an amazing experience to hear them live. I didn’t even know that they were still playing, with Ibrahim Ferrer and Compay Segundo – two of the major figures of the Buena Vista Social Club – no longer alive. But here they were, and they sounded as great as ever…

My longest lens was a 90mm, so I really didn’t get a good shot of the actual members of the band, but I still like the feel of this one.

The British band Goldfrapp was the headliner of the evening, although I still don’t understand why. Nothing against Goldfrapp, but they definitely don’t compare to the Buena Vista Social Club. But, of course, that’s just my opinion…

A couple of weeks ago, Bharat and I decided that we wanted to get away for a few days from the daily routine of student life in Columbia and go someplace where we could just relax and forget all those ethics papers, HTML codes and final projects. For a while, we thought about going to the Smokey Mountains in Tennessee, but then a few days before the Thanksgiving break, Mike Flynn called me from Oakland, Calif. Mike was my exchange partner during a high school student exchange program in 1998 and we haven’t seen each other in about eight years. Excited about the idea of visiting him in California, I went online to check flight fares and found a round trip for $250.00. Bharat didn’t need to be convinced. He was all for it and so last Saturday at 6 a.m., we left for Kansas City to catch our flight…

Sunrise at a gas station somewhere between Columbia, Mo., and Kansas City on Saturday morning.

As soon as we reached California, Bharat put on a happy smile that wouldn’t leave his face until we came back to Missouri…

Mike and his girlfriend Aliya at Fort Mason. We stayed at Mike’s place in Oakland, where he introduced us to the world of Domino and Bay Area Rap.

Mike has an orange tree growing in his back yard, and for the first time in my life, I had oranges fresh from the tree. I’m not lying when I say that these were the best I’ve ever had.

Saturday night, Mike and Aliya took us to a concert of the band Cafe Tacuba at the Fox Theater in Oakland, an amazing, palace-like theater that was recently restored. The tickets were $40.00 each, which seriously conflicted with our budget, but when we got there, Mike overheard two guys in front of the theater talking in Spanish about some tickets that they had in their hands and asked them how much they wanted for them. And sure enough they gave them to us for free! So we went to this concert and it was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. Cafe Tacuba’s music is incredibly rich and diverse and these guys pulled off one of the best live shows I’ve ever seen. Unfortunately, we couldn’t take more pictures because they wouldn’t allow us to take our cameras inside. Only when the show was almost over, we checked out our bags and went to the balcony to snap a few frames.

Early afternoon at the Port of Oakland. Urban legend has it that the cranes seen in the background inspired George Lucas to design the AT-AT snow walkers in “The Empire Strikes Back” after them, but Lucas himself denies that.

In the F-Train at Fisherman’s Wharf.

The surf at the cliffs of Fort Mason.

Dessert at the Mission Pie Cafe…

…with Vince Tong (left), a friend of Mike’s and Aliya’s, and John Bowman (who I met in SF last March).

Somewhere in the streets of the Mission, on our way to a bar…

…where I just couldn’t resist playing a few riffs on my cue stick guitar.
Photograph by John Bowman

Bharat is taking a break from our Long March from Fort Mason to the Golden Gate Bridge on Monday. The walk was my idea, and it took us about two hours to get there. Our feet were all sore afterward and when we found out that there was a bus from Fort Mason to the Bridge, Bharat seriously considered throwing me off the Bridge for a few moments.

The late afternoon light falls through a small group of trees somewhere along Marine Drive.

Sunset at the Golden Gate Bridge.

Monday night, John took us to the steepest hill in San Francisco. Time for some fun…

Tuesday afternoon on Market Street.

Evening panorama from Twin Peaks.

I know it’s a cheesy picture, but the sunset on Twin Peaks was gorgeous.

On Wednesday, we met my room mate Tim who came to see his girlfriend Autoosa in Berkeley. They took us to the Indian Rock Park, from where we got another breathtaking view of the San Francisco bay. Tim and Autoosa are on the right in the picture.

Playing with the reflections in the window of a BART train on our way to downtown San Francisco Wednesday evening.

Wednesday night we had dinner at the Chan Chan, an awesome Cuban restaurant on 18th St. I really loved the atmosphere of that place, and couldn’t stop taking pictures of Bharat and John in front of this amazing background… This one’s my favorite.

After dinner, John gave us a lift to Oakland and we stopped at Treasure Island, halfway across the Bay Bridge, to catch a last glimpse of the city at night. Once again, we had an unforgettable time in this truly magic city, and it’s just a matter of time until I will be back to the Bay…

Finally, I found a little time to post some of my San Francisco photographs. Having been there for only a few days, I don’t know if they do justice to the city’s incredible character and diversity, but I like some of them quite a lot.

I reached San Francisco on the night of Wednesday, March 4, 2009. Before my arrival, I booked a night in the Hostel in Fort Mason. It turned out to be one of the most amazing places. The next morning, I had a few hours to spare before the Fulbright Enrichment Seminar started, so I strolled down the beach along Marina Boulevard to the Golden Gate Bridge. John, a guy that I met in the hostel, joined me, and we had a hell of a time.

The old footbridge is just a few hundred yards away from the Bridge and there are dozens of starfish on its pillars. I’ve never seen so many at a time.

On the bridge head is an observation deck with telescopes, and it’s amazing how many people feed them with their hard-earned money when they could just walk on the bridge and see it “live”.

Just below the Bridge, at Fort Point, dozens of surfers wait for their wave in the ice cold water.

We later saw that woman riding her bike back down the hill to Marine Drive. Her skirt was ballooning in the fair wind like a brake parachute…

That fence just next to Redwood Highway secures the steep flank that drops from the bike path down to the sea.

The seminar was amazing. I met a lot of incredible people from all over the world, and we had a ton of fun. There was a lot of sitting around and listening to presentations, but it was pretty interesting. The guy in the picture is Damiano from Italy. He studies Journalism in New York. After the seminar was finished, we hung around in San Francisco for another day and explored China Town together with some other really amazing people.

Khurshid is a Fulbrighter from Bangladesh. Meeting him and the other Bangladeshis at the seminar kind of made me feel home sick… Shoshur bari zindabad!!!

I had a lot of fun with the hills in San Francisco…

Really. A lot of fun.

I didn’t get to ride the famous cable cars, but I rode the F Line. I just love the cars. They remind me of the Tram in Munich. Talking about home sickness…

The Hornblower Yacht in front of the Bay Bridge at Pier 3. On the last night of the seminar, Fulbright sponsored a boat cruise with dinner on the Bay. What an experience…

The skyline at night from the Bay. I know, it really is a cheesy shot, but I just couldn’t resist…

And yes, we DID have a party…

It was really a magical moment when the yacht turned around under the Bridge. Somehow, I felt like in a movie from the 1930s.

Friendships were made, birthdays were celebrated, plans were concocted, and then we had to get off the beautiful Hornblower Yacht and out into the San Francisco night…

The next day, Ali from Turkey, Evisa from Latvia, Damiano, John (the guy I met in the hostel) and I strolled through China Town had lunch outside on the deck of a nice little restaurant. We paid $15.95 each for a five-course menu and got more food than we could have ever dreamed of. The taste was ok, but not really different from the standard Chinese food in the standard Chinese restaurant. Maybe we should have invested a little more and gone for authentic Chinese, but we were hungry and broke…

Photograph by John Bowman

And no, Damiano is not flashing his middle finger in the photo above. But he sure plays his beer bottle like a trumpet…

In some ways, China Town reminded me of Italy. The laundry hanging from the balconies, that is something you might as well see in some back alley in Florence or Verona.

And here it is: the world famous Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Company in Ross Alley!!! Here’s an excerpt from their web site:

“A tiny old-world factory situated in Chinatown has produced thousands of Chinese Fortune Cookies a day since 1962. In the dim light, watching three women deftly turn dough into fortune cookies you could be forgiven for thinking you had traveled back in time.”

Who wouldn’t agree?

Some snap shots…

This one’s on Broadway and Columbus. I don’t think it needs any explanation. I just love that cutline at the bottom…

After lunch, Evisa’s friend Magda, another Fulbrighter from Slovakia, joined us and while Damiano stayed back in China Town, we went up to Twin Peaks to enjoy the view over the city. That is, those of us with short hair enjoyed the view…

Finally Magda and Evisa found a way to enjoy it, too…

The moon lit our way back down from Twin Peaks…

…to the parking lot, where a group of Buddhist monks also fell for the beauty of the scenery.

Before having our last supper (in San Francisco) in an awesome Thai restaurant, we went to Dolores Park to have a last look at the skyline by night…