Things That Kept Me Preoccupied

In which I write about a number of things that allowed me not to think about the huge political crisis in the country I'm living in

In the middle of December of last year, I spoke with Izabela Radwanska Zhang of the British Journal of Photography about Vaterland, my first photobook. I’m very grateful for her article on the work, which was just published online (it will appear in print in February).

I’m particularly grateful for the deep dive into the background. It’s a photobook, but I also see it as a political statement: this is not “just” photography. Instead, it’s something I created over the course of a few years to comment on the country I was born in.

The article says

Vaterland creates an atmosphere of uneasiness. The air is still, and the light invariable throughout, like a cold winter day when the sky remains the same, dull-white colour from dawn until dark. There is little contrast between black and white. Instead the images sink into a blend of grey tones. Each picture frames a lingering uncertainty; something out of place. It might be subtle, such as an irregularity of different bricks in a wall, or an anxious, sideways glance; or more obscure, like an unexplained yet carefully manicured patch of grass growing beneath a steel fence. The images work together to create a mood of angst.

To say that I planned this would put a simplistic interpretation on my process. I did make a lot of choices for many reasons. But in the end, there was no way of knowing whether the work would convey what I had hoped for it. It’s intensely gratifying to read that it appears to do that.

I still have copies of the book for sale. If you’re interested send me an email (jmcolberg@gmail.com).

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How it started

I grew up drinking (black) tea. There’s a long tradition of drinking tea in the region I grew up in (right at the sea in what is now northwestern Germany). In fact, there’s even a blend of tea named after it, based on the fact that tea would arrive there by ship.

So tea and not coffee would always be my drink of choice. I don’t mind coffee, but I usually only get it when no good tea is available (which means when being out and about).

At some stage, I started exploring teas, finding out about their differences once you go beyond blended tea bags. I don’t want to get into a fight with the coffee or chocolate crowd, but I think the differences between black teas are a lot more pronounced than between coffees or chocolates. What is more, now coffee and chocolate have at least partly turned into hipster foods, whereas thankfully tea has not.

Much like there are coffee and chocolate snobs, there are tea snobs. I’d like to think that I’m not one of them. It’s the proselytizing of the crowd that gets me, plus their usual blind buying into some brand (just think of the Blue Bottle coffee crowd…). You’re made to feel that you’re just some stupid rube if you don’t even know where to get the “best” coffee. In fact, you might just have better things to do, or you don’t care that much — or you prefer tea.

You run into similar things in the world of photography, when it comes to cameras or types of inkjet paper or even photobooks: “OMG, you don’t know about [XXX]? *pretend-knowing side-eye glance”. I’m not a big fan of that. I like to know about good things. But I also know that my idea of “good” is different from many other people’s idea.

Anyway, ever since I became lactose intolerant my tea drinking changed. I learned the hard way that after a very bad case of food poisoning you can become lactose intolerant from one day to the next. For a while, I relied on little pills that would provide me with the enzyme that my body had stopped making. But it was such a hassle. Plus I’d have to explain this every time I ate or drank something with dairy in it. Slowly, I started changing things out, avoiding dairy more and more: no more milk in my tea.

This meant that I had to change the the teas I was drinking, because without milk the now very bitter teas I had preferred were simply unpalatable to me. I also started to look into green teas, of which I didn’t know all that much other than that they were “good for you”. You know a type of food is iffy when that’s one of the first things you typically hear, right?

With green tea, it’s even more crucial that you avoid tea bags from a supermarket. Unless you buy your tea bags in Japan, you’ll just get the worst of the worst. If you’ve only had green tea made with a cheap tea bags, and you thought it was terrible, then, yeah, I get it. I really don’t blame you.

I ended up settling on Japanese green tea simply because with so many choices, I needed to start somewhere, and I like Japan. A real snob might tell me that there might be much better teas coming from other places. But I simply don’t care. Apart from the fact that the statement is probably debatable, I wasn’t and am not looking for the best. I’m looking for something to enjoy.

After a while, I found out that it really matters how you prepare your green tea. This sounds completely obvious for anything in the world of food, but if you prepare tea at the wrong temperature, it doesn’t taste good. The Christmas of 2019 saw the arrival of a water heater with temperature settings, which made my life a lot easier.

How it’s going

Obviously, with Japanese tea you have the idea of the tea ceremony. I love you very much, Japan, but much like my native Germany, you have the tendency to take things too far (unlike Germany, you usually get away with it).

I will prepare my tea at the right temperature and make sure the steeping time is correct (another aspect that matters for all teas). But I’m not going to spend all my time preparing tea in some ceremony. I just won’t. It’s just too much.

While I do spend a few moments with each fresh cup of tea, to savour its aroma etc., I’m not going to make a gigantic production out of the making. It’s these little moments of enjoyment that I get a lot out of. To make that its own big thing doesn’t feel right to me.

Why am I telling you all of this? Well, I have a link in the footer of these emails that takes you to my tip jar. People have very generously used it (THANK YOU!). Like it says down there, tea has been playing a large role in my work, because I tend to drink tit when I write. So I figured those of you who’re curious and/or who have supported my work might as well find out a little bit more about that aspect of it.

Plus, I just ordered some tea from Japan. This might sound crazy, but even with shipping included it was cheaper than getting the tea from a US seller (plus the selection was a lot larger).

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I’m almost done with Hiroko Oyamada’s second book, The Hole. In an earlier email, I had told you about her first, The Factory. The Hole arrived as a gift from someone, and I wasn’t going to read it so soon after the first for a variety of reasons. But then the person asked me about it, and I felt obliged.

If you haven’t read either book, I’d start with The Hole. It strikes me as a lot more interesting and touching in a variety of ways. If you want to read more about the books, this article is a very good start.

In the meantime, I also read and finished Sayaka Murata’s Earthlings. I had also told you about Convenience Store Woman before. While I really enjoyed Convenience Store Woman, I absolutely hated Earthlings. It’s just so bad. In this really interesting article, Murata is quoted as saying “The people who know me through Convenience Store Woman are disappointed. But I was a cult writer before that success. People are saying the old Murata has returned.”

I am one of those people who was disappointed. But it wasn’t because I expected something similar — it was just that the writing of the book was so bad. It is as if the author couldn’t decide whether she wanted to write a really touching and disturbing story of a young abused girl or the script for a splatter B-movie. In the end, you get both. This review is probably a lot more generous than it should be (I had the same thoughts: “While Natsuki [the main character] is vividly drawn, especially in childhood, other characters are frequently less convincing, and the story hurtles towards a lurid finale that Murata doesn’t quite pull off.”).

In many ways, The Hole shows how an author can write about very similar themes very forcefully, without resorting to cartoonish and outlandish violence. Honestly, if I want such violence I rather stick with something like Ryu Murakami’s In the Miso Soup (this is a different Murakami than the famous one). That book wasn’t necessarily my favourite, but it was developed very consistently. For something very eerie, I’d recommend Yōko Ogawa’s incredible Revenge. I bought Revenge thinking I’d indeed get a collection of unrelated short stories. But instead they’re all interlaced, with an observer in one becoming a character in another etc.

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For some odd reason, last week I announced to people following my Instagram account that if they would tag me in a picture, I would draw it. I’m not very good at drawing, but sometimes, I like doing it.

This was one of my favourite combinations.

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With that, I want to conclude this email for today. I hope it’s finding you safe and well.

As always thank you for reading!

— Jörg

I’m a freelance writer, photographer, and educator currently living and working in the US.

This Mailing List is my attempt to bring back some of the aspects that made early blogging so great -- community engagement and a more relaxed and maybe less polished approach to writing and thinking about photography. You can find the bulk of my main writing on CPhMag.com.

If you like what you read and would like to support my work, you can. Large parts of my work are fuelled by black and green tea, and I appreciate your support very much!

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