dhsimmonds Posted February 22, 2007 Share #41 Posted February 22, 2007 Advertisement (gone after registration) I am certainly interested............I used to work in Berlin...........that was when the wall was still up and it was an extremely exciting city.......lots to do and photograph. For those forum members living there I used to work in an office at Eichborndamn Strasse. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted February 22, 2007 Posted February 22, 2007 Hi dhsimmonds, Take a look here Numbers? Berlin Challenge 13/10/07. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
Iron Flatline Posted February 22, 2007 Share #42 Posted February 22, 2007 Regarding Berlin: I'd like to point out some things that should get people excited: First and foremost it is one of the most affordable cities in Europe right now. You can get 5-star rooms for the price of 3-stars in other cities. Please understand this is not hyperbole, I own high-end hotels (though fortunately not in Berlin.) Restaurants are equally affordable, and the overall quality for hotels and food are world-class. Berlin is a huge city, with more bridges over its canals than Venice has. Berlin is the greenest city in the World, with more trees per capita than any city in the world. Berlin (to some) has the best hip urban landscape in the world, with interesting multi-ethnic cityscapes, young hipsters in surprisingly bad hats, and tired Germans suffering the cultural malaise of not get everything for free from the State. ...fine, I'll lay off the cynicism.... Berlin is full of historical sites. Prussia, Nazi Germany, and the Cold War. The city is considered THE place where modern working architects want to be represented, so it is one of the three most thorough collections of "important" buildings (next to Shanghai and Chicago and posibly Barcelona). Schinkel, Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier, Renzo Piano, Albert Speer, Norman Foster, and of course Walter Gropius and his Bauhaus. There is NO problem photographing anything, in fact it will be quite easy to organize photo tours. Right on the south/western edge of Berlin (a 15-20 minute car ride) is Potsdam, with several palaces, manicured parks and gardens, that are not overrrun with people and offer some of the most romantic photography imaginable. I'm not trying to "sell" in my thread here, these are relatively balanced observations compared to "Meet-up" locations that have been chosen by other photo communities. I've seen people spend EU 130 on horrible rooms I wouldn't have touched as a hungry college student - and eat very expensive food - in fun towns like Amsterdam or London that have LESS to offer photographically, are more expensive to visit or move around in, and that are quite restrictive in what you may shoot. I'll be in Berlin, I'd be quite happy to help organize. I know people with hotels, we could (and should!) organize a nice tour package. Maybe we can even get a conference room and a projector, and have a little slide-show fun at some point in the afternoon. I'm still a new member here, so forgive me if I seem too brash. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
earleygallery Posted February 23, 2007 Share #43 Posted February 23, 2007 Sounds excellent, good ideas. Hotel recommendations would be very helpful - maybe even a 'corporate' rate? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
stunsworth Posted February 23, 2007 Share #44 Posted February 23, 2007 You've made some excellent suggestions, don't worry at all about being 'brash' :-). Do you work for the Berlin tourist authority by any chance, because if you don't you should :-) As James says, any advice on hotels would be very useful. In fact any advice about the ciry would be useful, I have friends who've visited Berlin and loved it. I'm looking forward to the trip immensly. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iron Flatline Posted February 23, 2007 Share #45 Posted February 23, 2007 If the Meet Up is targeted at October we should get a rough head-count by the end of May or early June at the latest. Then we can shop this to some hotels, and see what kind of group rate we can get. This should be no problem, unless there's a major convention we're not aware of. I imagine a decent hotel with a good breakfast for the morning, and a good bar for the evening. There's a lot of people who want to get to know one another, so having a good bar tends to help. It's also a nice gathering spots for groups going out for night-shooting. We should have a conference room available in case we want to do photo presentations, or maybe Leica or CaptureOne or Adobe wants to offer a little "How To" program - another thing we could ask them about, and get a sense whether this is something we would want to do. Heck, just have a big monitor or projector hooked up to the 'net to surf our various web sites might be fun. I can't make individual hotel recommendations, because I don't know every hotel in town. Also, when I travel I tend to do it two different ways: quick and low-impact whereby I really just need a clean place to sleep, some decent water pressure for a shower, and an in-room safe big enough for my documents and my camera (too much gear these days though.) The other (preferred way) is to go 5-Star Plus. It's a very expensive habit, but we all have our vices... and I always think of it as market research. A good friend of mine is opening a very hip, large, conference-targeted hotel in downtown West Berlin next month. Think of it like a W Hotel, or something like what Ian Schrager did with Philippe Starcke in the US, but sensibly priced. I don't think they have a website yet, but I'll post it when it is ready. I bet we can get a great rate there as a group. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iron Flatline Posted February 23, 2007 Share #46 Posted February 23, 2007 LOL, one more thing. We can walk over to Leica's first official Leica Boutique and lay siege to the place. We can demand firmware upgrades or obscure filter sizes for non-threaded lenses until they give us discounts! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
andybarton Posted February 23, 2007 Author Share #47 Posted February 23, 2007 Advertisement (gone after registration) LOL, one more thing. We can walk over to Leica's first official Leica Boutique and lay siege to the place. We can demand firmware upgrades or obscure filter sizes for non-threaded lenses until they give us discounts! LOL! Could be a long stay... I have an architect colleague who organised a trip round the city two years ago. I have a full 2 days itinerary seeing all the architectural sights, if anyone is interested.... I am looking forward to this "One" too, as Berlin is a city that I have never been to before. Christoph has offered to sort a restaurant for us, but the more local help we can get to organise, the better. Not sure that a block booking of a hotel is such as good idea though - there's always the temptation of "Fancy a night-cap?" Easyjet flights go on sale at the end of March, btw (for all you Brits who will be off-setting their carbon in October) Don't forget that many of us will have other halves in tow (it's the only way that we can get a weekend pass...) - I can't see my wife being too chuffed about sitting through a Capture One presentation Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
robert_parker Posted February 24, 2007 Share #48 Posted February 24, 2007 LOL! Could be a long stay... I have an architect colleague who organised a trip round the city two years ago. I have a full 2 days itinerary seeing all the architectural sights, if anyone is interested.... I am looking forward to this "One" too, as Berlin is a city that I have never been to before. Christoph has offered to sort a restaurant for us, but the more local help we can get to organise, the better. Not sure that a block booking of a hotel is such as good idea though - there's always the temptation of "Fancy a night-cap?" Easyjet flights go on sale at the end of March, btw (for all you Brits who will be off-setting their carbon in October) Don't forget that many of us will have other halves in tow (it's the only way that we can get a weekend pass...) - I can't see my wife being too chuffed about sitting through a Capture One presentation Andy That's why they invented shopping... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
robert_parker Posted February 24, 2007 Share #49 Posted February 24, 2007 ...actually booking a group rate might not be that bad an idea - it would provide somewhere reliable to stay (with photographic gear) at what might well be a reasonable rate - people can still do their own thing without being in each other's pockets... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
robert_parker Posted February 24, 2007 Share #50 Posted February 24, 2007 ...unless the pocket happens to contain a f1.0 Noctilux.... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest stnami Posted February 24, 2007 Share #51 Posted February 24, 2007 Andy are proxy photographs permitted,ie you give instructions to someone who takes the photo for you? Or does one have to resort to a surveilance camera with a leica lens? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iron Flatline Posted February 24, 2007 Share #52 Posted February 24, 2007 ...unless the pocket happens to contain a f1.0 Noctilux.... Is that a Noctilux in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ejd Posted February 24, 2007 Share #53 Posted February 24, 2007 I hope to be in Berlin in October to join you all for the 'One Challenge'. A conference room at a grand hotel sounds a far cry from the 'Frog and Rosbif'! I'd be happy to stick with the not-very-structured approach. But in any case I look forward to it. All the best, John Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
timd. Posted February 24, 2007 Share #54 Posted February 24, 2007 berlin in october? guess i'll be there... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
stunsworth Posted February 24, 2007 Share #55 Posted February 24, 2007 John, I feel the same as you. The event started as a way of getting people from the forum to meet and take some snaps - in all of the 'challenges' I think we've spent longer sitting in a bar chatting than taking photographs :-). So far I think every challenge has been better than the one before - and the very first one was very good! I doubt that Bill realised what a monster he was creating. Personally I wouldn't want it to become too structured and serious, but that's just my opinion and I'm perfectly happy to go with the flow. The important thing is getting as many of us in a room together, the competitive element is secondary IMHO. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
andybarton Posted February 25, 2007 Author Share #56 Posted February 25, 2007 I agree, Steve. Conference rooms in hotels cost big money to hire and it would all get a bit "corporate". Best to leave that sort of thing to the sponsors, IMHO. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest stnami Posted February 25, 2007 Share #57 Posted February 25, 2007 Andy are proxy photographs permitted,ie you give instructions to someone who takes the photo for you? ... too hard basket aayyee??? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dhsimmonds Posted February 25, 2007 Share #58 Posted February 25, 2007 Oh hell!! I've just realised that I shall be in Oz in October! Look forward to seeing all of your photo postings anyway. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
spylaw4 Posted February 25, 2007 Share #59 Posted February 25, 2007 May I suggest a look at Trip Advisor to get some recommendations for hotels from customers' point of view and frequently candid photos which can be very revealing. Tastes in hotels and how much one might want to pay vary greatly, so maybe a block booking has both advantages and disadvantages. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
earleygallery Posted February 26, 2007 Share #60 Posted February 26, 2007 Just a few comments.....I like to keep things simple. There's also less chance of things going wrong that way too! Given that the challenge is on a Saturday, and probably most people will travel on the Friday evening/Sat morning, and with work in mind most will probably travel home on Sunday, I think we'd be very pushed to fit in city tours, workshops etc., as well as the challenge, and I don't want to spend too much time in a hotel - I want to be out and about exploring, or sitting in a characterful bar at least! As for choice of hotel obviously peoples tastes vary as well as their budgets. My criteria for a hotel for a stay like this is that it must be very central, offer some basic facilities, have an en suite room and a reasonable price. If it's somewhere a bit special or with a bit of character/style so much the better. I'm not going to use a gym/pool/spa etc., on an overnight stay so don't see the point in 'paying' for them. If there's the chance of a 'mates rate' at a good central hotel - assuming its within the budget I'd normally expect - then I'm interested in that, local knowledge/suggestions of places to visit, and a get together in the evening would be fun (I missed the dinner in Paris). Having not been to Berlin before I'm looking forward to wandering round and getting myself lost in a strange city! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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