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Eric Fichtl
<p>Fishermen sell their catch near the port in Sozopol, Bulgaria.</p>

Thanks for visiting. This website features my photography, writing, and a bit about me.

PHOTOS

Here is a random sample of my photos. Visit my galleries for many more.


<p>A beautiful view of Guanajuato, from a rather perfectly placed bar, El Gallo Pitagórico. <br /></p><p>I'm still proud of this photo from my early days shooting a manual SLR – nailing the exposure with film in this sort of light was much trickier than with modern digital cameras.</p>
<p>With the camera positioned just so, this neoclassical cupola appears to sit proportionally atop a modernist base in the heart of Potsdam. It kind of works. <br /></p> <p>They are, though, two separate buildings. The dome belongs to the St. Nicholas Church, which dates from the mid 19th Century when Potsdam was part of the Kingdom of Prussia. In the foreground is the facade of the Institut für Lehrerbildung 'Rosa Luxemburg', a teacher training academy built in the 1970s when Potsdam was part of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany).</p> <p>This view no longer exists. <br /></p> <p>A 2010 decision by Potsdam city officials ordered the dismantling of the Institut, which duly occurred in 2017. It is to be replaced by a new structure that will recreate the facade of Prussian palace while masking a contemporary interior – the rationale being to create an architecturally harmonious setting on a key central square. <br /></p> <p>Sound familiar? Berlin also recently opted to remove the DDR-era modernist Palast der Republik (itself built on the site of a Prussian palace the East German government had demolished for its symbolic associations with the imperial past) and erect a simulacrum Prussian palace (the Humboldt Forum project). </p> <p>These decisions – which evoke one history while erasing another – are a continuation of Germany's highly contested reckoning with its past, as Brian Ladd explores in his excellent book, <em>Ghosts of Berlin: Confronting German History in the Urban Landscape</em>. For some, the frequent consensus for neoclassical lines among politicians and urban planners is a canny dodge reflecting a certain conservatism – it seeks to escape the extremes of the 20th Century (including their manifestations in architecture) by locating historically safe ground in the perceived unity of the imperial Germany of the Kaisers. But that preference is a hagiographic illusion (the clue is in the word 'imperial'), and opts for an allegorical amnesia over a challenging architectural response to the complexity of the German experience. <br /></p> <p>There is something incredibly uninspired (not to say regressive) about rebuilding long-gone imperial palaces on sites where the ground is both hallowed and historically contested. And as beautiful as neoclassical facades may be (and Berlin and Potsdam have plenty of them to show off), as 21st Century new-builds they are dated symbols that fail equally at capturing nuanced historic legacy and at presenting the forward-looking aspects of contemporary German society. </p>
<p>An impeccably clean (how?!) taxi topped rather improbably by a <em>canang sari</em>. These simple baskets made of woven leaves are a ubiquitous daily offering made by Balinese Hindus.<br /></p>
<p>A breathtaking panorama from a clifftop in the Chapada dos Guimarães National Park, in western Brazil.</p>
<p>Greenhouses form an abstract pattern in a valley more than a stone's throw away.</p>
<p>The platform at Schönhauser Allee S-bahn station. </p>
<p>A boat beckons, a cottage calls... Many homes in the area come replete with a boathouse. </p>
<p>Buildings refracted through droplets of condensation in a window create a kaleidoscope.</p>
TEXTS

A lot of what I write professionally carries no byline. Here are some of the works I have put my name to.

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Washington’s Colombian Habit

Just what are U.S. taxpayers getting for the billions of dollars spent in Colombia?
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An Introduction to the Third Sector in Hong Kong: Historical Developments and Current Outlook

A brief history of Hong Kong’s nonprofit sector, examining the parallel development of Chinese and Western charities as well as local philanthropy.
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The Fair Trade Movement in Historical Perspective: Explaining the 'In and Against the Market' Predicament

Despite tensions, idealist and realist fair traders continue to build a system of trade that rejects the narrow conventional focus on “economic man”.