Well…that was actually last night. I just came back.

You might never have wondered what a festival photographer does. It’s a job that rarely is seen because it’s our job to see: The people of the festival, the vibes, the artists, the decoration, the little details.

But today I wanna take you on the crazy and wonderfully bizarre journey that you experience when you’re festival photographer.

3 Nights Somewhere Around Berlin

It’s 6:58pm, day 2 of the happening. The sun is setting in a breathtaking golden light behind one of the three festival stages, the Groove Garden. The haze of the stage creates the sun rays I was waiting for.

I can feel the bass of the sound system hammering in my chest. The sound itself is muted since I’m wearing my in-ear protection. Otherwise 3x 12 hour days would be unbearable for my ears and stress level. But seeing people vibing to a music I can barely hear feels surreal. I walk a bit to the side, step on a little platform and there it is: the golden shot.

The crowd.
People vibing.
Golden light.
Beautiful sun rays.

Bingo.

The sun even falls through a wale that was built for decoration above the dance floor. Nice.

The festival I do the photography for is the SHIFTED Festival – a techno & electronic music festival taking place somewhere in the secret forests of Brandenburg, 1 hour from Berlin. This year was their third edition.

If I’m lucky, this festival will grow year over year and take me as their photographer with them. Let’s see. But first, I have to do a great job.

3…2…1…BAM!

It’s later in the night, around 10:20pm. I’m at the main stage. SHIFTED isn’t that big yet, 3500 visitors this year, but they doubled since last year. But still, the main stage is where the headliners are.

I walk to the Front of House where the technicians have their seats. I greet the lighting technician, he smiles. We already met each other the past days.

I ask him if he can give me heads up when activates the flame throwers installed at the roof of the stage. He nods, and points to a drop he can see coming on the display that is connected with the DJ booth and their record players.

I get into position, wait for the drop…3…2…1…BAM! There they are! I have my camera in burst mode so I can be sure that I don’t miss anything. I look through the images. I think I got it.

I go back down, take a loop around the dance floor and go through the backstage entrance. Three steps in the dark, I try to not fall with the two expensive cameras dangling from my shoulders. I enter the DJ booth and take some photographs of the DJ.

I can see that their preparing for the next change-over – one DJ changing to the next. A set usually is about 90-120 minutes long.

Suddenly, the booth gets PACKED. The new DJ is the head liner and he brought A LOT of friends. I’ve problems walking around and feel how I’m getting stressed and worried about my cameras endangered by dripping drinks in dancing hands. I walk to the front of the booth and try to get some close-up shots of the DJ.

I’m happy that I can quickly get them, so I can leave for a quieter area. Phooo. Packed booths stress me out more than a packed dance floor or partying people. Time to get back to the container, our media office.

Selecting. Deselecting. Comparing. Narrowing down.

I still have some images left from the afternoon to edit, as well as the first pictures from the night.

During festivals, time and speed is more and more of the essence for photographers like me. In times of social media, festivals tend to ask more and more for a near real-time coverage so they can post quickly.

SHIFTED is a bit more chill, they do about one stills carousel post a day. But still, I like to be fast.

It’s about a 5-minute walk to the production area, crossing the festival compounds. I pass the security guy, smile at him and think, poor bastard.

The production area is nearly empty. I enter our container, switch on the light, get my laptop from the safety lockers and start to edit.

Selecting.
Deselecting.
Comparing.
Narrowing down.
Grading.

Usually, I like to take my time editing images.

Many people misunderstand the term editing: They confuse color grading (working on the look of a picture) with the very hard process of editing images, hence, selecting the right ones.

While color is also important for me, editing might be the most important step. I usually like to take days for it, sometimes months or even years for certain pieces.

Time I don’t have now.
That’s why I like it.
It’s so different from what i normally do.

About one hour later, the second batch of rush images from the day is ready. I already gave them 15 images during the afternoon, now 23 more of the later afternoon and evening. That makes 38 images for them ready to post.

Great! I take a sip of water, a deep breath, and get ready for another walk around. It will be the last one for tonight. If I’m lucky, I can be in bed in my camping bus by 1am.

I imagine the same is true for you – whether you’re lying on a beach somewhere or at home trying to escape it all. Which is why I’ll keep this one short!

I’ll just tell you a little story about how being childish cured my summertime sadness.

500 People in a Pool

There was a little outdoor swimming pool in the village next to the music festival I visited this weekend, so of course a lot of festival visitors made the 20-minute walk and went swimming.

But not only that: we did water aerobics together; 500 people in a pool having the time of their lives and forgetting about their day-to-day worries. Smiling, screaming. It was awesome. Adults who might be doctors or lawyers in real life went for the slides, had cute water fights or just snacked on fries for breakfast.

Not only is it smart to think back to your childhood – you have my full approval to be a child again!

Think back: what did you love to do during the summer holidays when you were 6 to 12 years old? Look for your closest outdoor swimming pool, or take your friends to a park to play board games or volleyball. Whatever it might be, do it.

And yes, I know most of us have a job and have to work (me included), but you can treat your 30 minutes of free time like a little holiday, too.

Greet Summertime Sadness Like a Good Old Friend

I think we all know these moments during summer. It’s evening, you’re coming home from a day at the lake, and you feel lonely. Or sad. Or both. Anxiety starts to cloud your mind. But don’t worry: that’s normal.

We usually like to sort our feelings into “positive” ones, like happiness, joy and satisfaction, and “negative” ones, like anger, sadness, anxiety or fear. And if a feeling is negative, we try everything we can to avoid it or get rid of it. It’s smarter to do the opposite. If you feel fear or sadness, the best thing to do is…nothing. Don’t fight it, don’t judge it, just greet it like a good old friend, saying…oh, I know you…well, welcome back. Seriously, this has helped me a lot.

High temperatures put our bodies under a lot of pressure, so there’s no sense in trying to tough anything out. It’s a great idea to seek relief wherever possible and to allow yourself little treats. Anything goes: tons of ice cubes, five bowls of ice cream a day, or a wet towel around your neck. Personally, I think this is not the time to be picky, strong or vain. It’s the time to make life as easy as possible for yourself.

And here’s a photograph of where I wish I were right now: Ireland, preferably at 18°C and rainy. Aaah, that would be so good.

And with that, I’ll leave you be for the week! See you next time.
Warmly –
Simon

My original plan was to never tell anybody about it, because I was afraid that by sharing, the delicate little plants that are the characters in my head would die before they could grow.

Writing has always been my Achilles’ heel. For as long as I can remember, whether I directed a play, made music or worked on a film, I needed source material to create from. A play that existed, a novel I would adapt for stage, a sample to start my track production with.

That’s where I thrive.

But creating something out of nothing always was and still is something I cannot do. And something I highly admire about some of my friends who are writers.

Yes, I do write this letter to you. But to me, that’s not the same as writing a fictional story.

Even more, writing was always a missing puzzle piece. After all, although I can’t write, I am a storyteller.

I think that’s what I do.

As a filmmaker.

As a photographer.

It is my practice.

So forever, my inability to write was an itch that scratched me deep down. An itch I finally decided to tackle now.

And, oh, I can tell you, it is hard. Oh my.

Right now I am thinking a lot about my characters, non-linear storylines, places. I am drawing a lot of diagrams (because that’s what my heroes do apparently, see my last episode about Christopher Nolan). One wall of mine is now covered with Post-it notes.

And yep, there is a lot of self-doubt involved.

Some time ago, I heard George R. R. Martin saying that there are two types of writers: the architects and the gardeners. The one kind carefully constructs storylines, characters, and plot points to have them all come together in the end. The gardener, which Martin considers himself to be, meanwhile plants their characters like seeds and lets them grow.

So far, I kind of seem to be more of the architect type.

Which has to do with the way I approach my script writing: Because I am unable to write, I have to learn it like every other craft I learned so far. Taking it step by step. Working. Reworking. And reworking again.

But still, this one still feels really delicate to me. It feels different than directing, photography or making music.

It kinda feels like the original art form of all.

Am I intimidated?
Might be, yeah.

Maybe I’ll come back to this topic in the future to update you about how it’s going, but so far, I’ll leave it at this little text that might be more of a journal entry this time.

I don’t know whether I’ll finish this script in a month, a year, 10, or never – but right now, I like the practice I got myself into.

Go and create something great! See you next week.

Warmly –
Simon

I don’t know about you, but I always want to know how such interesting artists work in their day-to-day life. How does someone like Christopher Nolan write? How do their desks look like? How do they stay disciplined and consistent?

Since Nolan famously does not use a smartphone, email or social media, it is definitely time for me to look closer at his style of working.

The Writer-Director-Blockbuster-Machine

Well, thankfully, in Nolan’s case, there’s at least some information available about his working process. But what if we just look at the pace and quality of his filmography?

It quickly becomes apparent that since Interstellar, Nolan has been working at an incredibly consistent 3-year-rhythm:

• Interstellar (2014)

• Dunkirk (2017)

• Tenet (2020)

• Oppenheimer (2023)

• The Odyssey (2026)

Almost all of these films were even released at the exact same month: July. So even just from the outside this release pattern speaks of consistency. Releasing a major blockbuster with an original story (no franchise, no sequel) every 3 years is not a small thing, especially if you consider that Nolan writes his own scripts.

It seems that Nolan has become a writer-director-blockbuster-machine. Comparably, other writer-directors of his generation like Quentin Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson are nowhere as consistent (while still being enormously talented filmmakers, don’t get me wrong).

Not only are the facts showing Nolan’s consistency, but so are the quality and success of his films.

A One-Of-a-Kind Case

Obviously, quality is always a subjective matter. While I could write hundreds of essays about Nolan’s films discussing their qualities and shortcomings, I think we can all agree that Nolan’s films, especially his run since Interstellar, count among the highest regarded films of the past two decades. Even if you don’t like Nolan’s films, I think you can admit that their craftsmanship spanning all departments, from cinematography to set design, special effects, visual effects, score and sound counts among the best in filmmaking.

So even if some Nolan films have their shortcomings story-wise (looking at you, Tenet), you can say that Nolan is not only consistent in quantity, but also in quality.

While box office numbers don’t make a great point in any film discussion, the consistency even in Nolan’s economic success is remarkable. Every of his films since Inception, excluding the Tenet pandemic-release, has made more than $500M at the box office.

And word is just out that The Odyssey started out with a $264M opening weekend, so it will likely follow the line of success.

That means that Nolan:

• releases an original, writer-directed film

• every 3 years

• bringing together people at the highest of their craft

• shot on revolutionary motion-picture format such as IMAX 70mm

• with consistent and remarkable box office success.

Which, in my opinion, makes him a one-of-a-kind case.

Input Consistency = Output Consistency

I think I made my point that Nolan’s consistency from the outside is obvious. But what about consistency from the inside?

Truth is, I think that his output consistency is only the logical consequence of his input consistency. Let’s have a look.

First of all, Christopher Nolan is a remarkably analog man. He famously does not use a smartphone and never has. Needless to say he does not use social media as well, and just recently admitted that he also does not have email. He literally looks at printed emails when answering his inbox.

While I think the latter is only possible in a world where you have access to a personal assistant or secretary, the overall pattern is interesting here. Nolan has consistently quoted distraction as one of the number one reasons why he never used a smartphone or social media.

For scriptwriting, he says he uses a computer without internet so he can’t get distracted, while using a second computer with internet connection for research on the subject matter.

He says he writes in his own library (aah, I wish I could say the same one day), surrounded by books, the rest of the walls tapered with notes and diagrams since he meticulously plans out his storyline before and then writes the script completely linear, even if the plot is non-linear as in many of his films.

I can only speculate on anything else, but I’d guess he writes the majority of his scripts at the beginning of the 3-year period since his last film. Probably between a break after the release and marketing run of his last film and the first announcement of the next, which usually takes place ~18 months after his last film and a couple of months before the shoot. Which leaves roughly 12-15 months for a script of that scale.

Nolan also said that he treats writing like an office job. Start in the morning, and do it every day. You see the pattern?

Consistency and discipline, everywhere.

I think that not enough has been said about how laser-focused Christopher Nolan seems to be about the filmmaking process. The complete absence of distraction is only the groundwork for his day-to-day consistency.

Not only does his discipline and focus compound in the writing and filmmaking process – it’s less time taken from studying hundreds of other films, reading books, secondary research material or thinking about and planning his next projects.

Even more, Nolan seems to take this focus and consistency to set. He regularly works with the same crew and pool of actors, phones are banned on set (and apparently, so are chairs, to make everyone focused as well, lol).

He and his wife and producer Emma Thomas famously try to put every dollar they have in front of the camera, even at a $250M budget, leading to Hollywood stars (and Nolan himself) sleeping at IBIS Budget hotels. And wonderfully enough, the actors love them for it. Many from Nolan’s cast have repeatedly said that his sets are lead like independent film sets. No fluff, no BS, just straight focus and pure filmmaking.

Consistency Compounds Over Time

So what does all of this mean for us?

Well, if I would have to put it to one sentence: Consistency and discipline compound over time. And it is something that works incredibly well together with the theme of slow growth.

What you shouldn’t take from this letter is to go ahead and measure your own self-worth by your amount of output and compare yourself to Nolan or other artists you might admire. That’s nonsense.

Consistency and discipline are a marathon, and something that never can be reached a 100%. You can just get better at it, one little step every day. And most importantly, I’d take my time. If you look at Christopher Nolan, all of his consistency has compounded over 30 years, starting with The Following and a budget of $6000, and leading to today’s the The Odyssey, a budget of $250M and the kind of filmmaker he is today.

Nolan certainly has started out like all of us, but he proves my point that slow growth and consistency over time is something dramatically underrated in a fast-paced world like ours today.

Having that said — see you next week.

Warmly,
Simon

What a great quote. To be really honest with you, I have thought a lot about the importance of play for the last 1-2 years. With every additional year I gained, I felt more uneasy about my playful side. But why is that? Why do we feel that play shouldn’t be part of our life anymore as soon as we think we’re an adult?

“At that time, I thought about creative professionals as athletes.”

There are a lot of nerdy things I do that I usually don’t tell anybody about. And they all have to do with play. For starters, I like to play video games from time to time. Not often though, but I do. I love cozy little indie games, building stuff. I already wrote about this in my last letter.

When I turned 19, playing video games started to feel like something I should hide from my friends and family. Not seriously, but I kind of felt ashamed about it. At that time, I was directing my third theater play, doing music, studying theater science. I took my creativity very seriously, since I wanted to become a director one day.

And I thought: Well, how many of the creatives you look up to do you think play video games? How can this fit together with the image of an aspiring director? I always thought that professional creatives don’t play, they read books all the time, or theater plays, or movie scripts, study films, or hone their craft as a designer or illustrator.

At that time, I thought about creative professionals as athletes. If you don’t train, if you don’t exercise, if you do anything else other than your profession, you’ll fall back.

Now I know: I couldn’t have been more wrong.

The Importance of Play

Yes, craft is important. Yes, being disciplined about your work is important. But so is play.

When reading about creative work and self discipline the past years, again and again I stumbled upon the topic of play. It took me by surprise, because of my thinking as mentioned above. I was surprised when professionals say that we should encourage play, especially when we grow old.

But why?

Well, fostering play acts as the ultimate low-stakes sandbox. It strips away the pressure to produce a “perfect” final product, allowing you to build resilience, discover unconventional ideas, prevent professional burnout, and naturally exercise your mind’s problem-solving muscles without fear of failure.

So here we are, back at the quote from George Bernard Shaw.

Turns out: encouraging play in our own free time keeps us young. Following our nerdy little hobbies is something we should enforce and enjoy instead of hiding it.

Dreaming Worlds

So I started to be a bit more honest about it. I don’t try to hide it anymore.

I became a proud nerd, weirdo, and dreamer. This newsletter is the proof, I guess.

A collection of some other nerdy things I do in my free time: I like to do board game evenings with some of my friends (gosh, I really started to enjoy this a lot), I like to go bouldering, I like to watch airplanes and read airplane news, I like sorting things, I like to think about interior design, I like to learn about web and graphic design (although it’s not my profession), and I like to make music (ok, this might not be that nerdy).

And, no joke, if I have the space, I might go back to playing with LEGO one day, haha. Right now, I’m learning everything about hosting your own web services at home, so you can replace Netflix, Spotify, Google Workspace, and so on. Nerdy stuff! I love it!

Reading all of this years later, I seriously start to believe that there might be a connection between the worlds I dreamed about when playing LEGO or Minecraft when I was 14 and the worlds I dream about today.

How about you? What do you like to do in your free time?

Having that said, I wish you a great start of the week. Big hugs!

Warmly,
Simon

But then, they said something interesting: “I always try to lean into my curiosity.” They argued that they don’t think about the future too much or about what happens tomorrow. They work one project at a time, and when deciding for which project to take on or which skill to learn next, they do it right in the moment.

No strategy. Just curiosity.

That surprised me. And it made me think deeply about how I approach things.

So far, I’ve always had a 3-5 year plan about how my life would go.

When I was 17, I had made the decision to become a director for theater plays. For over 8 years, I worked in theaters, I directed my own plays, lead productions, and worked as an assistant director, participating in over 30 plays.

But due to many and complex reasons (maybe a great topic for another letter), I never became a director. Like, a professional one that earns their money with it.

And it learned me an important lesson: The plans we make are not necessarily predestined for working out the way we imagine them.

So I switched directions by again, making plans. Now, I wanted to become a filmmaker and photographer for musicians. An art director, if you want. Like, the cool dude that is responsible for making musicians look even more cool.

So I tried for 2 more years to get into that industry. I spent huge amounts of time, energy and even money reaching out to people, attending conferences, making stuff for free.

The problem: The cool industries are also the hardest to get into.

Somewhere along that path, I heard that sentence I mentioned above: “Lean into your curiosity”.

And something inside was moved by that sentence. It made total sense to me.

So I tried.
I started to lean into my curiosity.

I tried to stop making plans about my career.

I started to do portfolio projects just because they sparked my curiosity.
I started a YouTube channel because I was curious. Well, so far that went well.
I recently joined a founder fellowship because I was curious about how you start a company.

I also started to encourage play. Something I hadn’t done before.
Now, I regularly meet with my friends for cozy board game evenings.

And I even do stuff that might not make any sense to anyone but me.

Although I deleted my Instagram account this week and always try to get away from social media, I bought a Steam Deck a week ago.

If you don’t know what that is: It’s a handheld device you can play video games on. Hah!

Well…why?

Just because I was curious. I always loved cozy little indie games and survival games, and it seemed like a nice way to calm down on my couch after a stressful day at work.

It might seem nerdy.
It might seem ridiculous.
It might not seem like a proper choice for a creative.
It might make my dad say that I will become an addict to video games now.
Or I might spend my time better reading a book.

But: I don’t give a damn. I want a silly hobby.

My life has gotten easier since I stopped worrying about the future and the past.
It has gotten easier when I started leaning into my curiosity.

Leaning into curiosity made my business more profitable, my creative projects more fruitful and my free time more delighted.

Of course, it’s a hard way to go. I still catch myself making plans from time to time, and that’s okay. But I try to let them stay an idea of what my future might be, instead of pursuing them.

Who knows where I might be tomorrow?
Who knows what I’ll do?

I for sure don’t. I’ll just follow the things that make me curious.

Hope you’re well! I wish you a wonderful week ahead.

Warmly,
Simon

From The Studio

Some autumn pics I took on analog film in October 2024. Unedited because I didn’t want to spend the time. Rawness, yes!

I might never have shared them because perfectionism, but thanks to this newsletter, I have a place to do this! <3 See you next week.

Coming back to sort some of the chaos, catching up with admin stuff and my contacts.

It feels cozy, and I really like it.

But sometimes, those calm weeks at the office correlate with one of the hardest moments of being a freelancer: The feeling of swimming towards a desert.

No new commission in sight.
Seeing how much runway (=money in your bank account) you have left.
Time is running, and you know you have to get the next contract to survive.

Don’t get me wrong, my cozy creative business as a filmmaker and photographer is running well, and I couldn’t be more happy about it.

But doesn’t matter how well it’s going, sooner or later, there’s always this moment (at least for me).

The past work is done, the pipeline is drying out.

And now you gotta act. Because if you don’t, that’s it.

To be honest with you, I always shit my pants during these moments. It took me quite some time to get used to them.

And now it’s one of these times again. I see the upcoming projects that are left, but from September on, there is a gaping hole. And although I know it happens and that it’s normal, it makes me nervous once again. So what can we do about it?

Let’s get going

So, sitting in front my laptop, staring at the screen, I know the only thing between me and the end of my business is: my discipline.

Phoooo, haha. That’s reassuring.
So – no pressure.

But over the past two years, I collected some thoughts and wisdoms about this moment, and action items I keep coming back to.

1. The swimming-towards-a-desert-moments are the trade-off you take for the unbelievable and wonderful freedom you get when working as a freelancer.

2. You can reframe them: Instead of moments of fear, take them as your motivation.

3. You are not your output or your productivity. You are human, and a human needs time, rest, mistakes to learn and kindness to survive.

4. Catch up with your contacts, talk to people you like.

5. Do cold outreach (I hate this part, but it’s necessary).

6. Take the time to think about your strategy going forward.

7. Take the time to make some passion projects. (for me, that’s usually the next YouTube video)

8. Take the time to work on your portfolio, your outreach material, your website, your marketing.

9. Be kind to yourself.

10. Patience might be hard, but it’s the integral part of this exercise.

11. You have limited control over the landscape of your business and your bookings. As long as you do what you can (the things above), you’ll be fine.

12. This moment will go by.

The last one might be the most important one. Doesn’t matter when and for how long I had these kinda moments, they always went by.

I literally had it multiple times that one client call changed the whole trajectory, and suddenly, I was busy and booked.

It’s crazy how fast things can change in this business.

Why though?

Most probably, you aren’t a freelancer (if you are, congrats! I hope this helps!).

But nevertheless, I wrote this down for you as well.

It might not be a swimming-towards-a-desert moment for you, but rather something else.
Maybe just a depressive phase, or lack of motivation. Believe me, I’ve been there too.

If you want to take one thing from this, and one thing only, I would say it should be this:

Kindness to yourself is not an afterthought of disciplined work. It’s how you start it.

If I’m not kind to myself, I can’t work well.
I tried, oh hell, yes.

But I learned this for the past years for sure. The hardest part for me now is to define kindness. Is laying on the couch, watching something on YouTube, and pushing the world away, kindness to yourself?

I wish I knew the answer. But more on that maybe in another edition of this letter!

Until then, hope you’re well and kind to yourself. See you next week.

Warmly,
Simon

In The Studio

This week, I wanted to share some analog portraits I did with Anna, an aspiring model, for her portfolio back in January. Doing analog portraits is one of my favorite things.

Hope you like them!

xoxo

this week, I wanted to do something a little different and put photography in the front and center of this letter. :)

Last week, my analog photos from Japan came back from the lab and I wanted to share 12 of those snaps as a rough expression with you. They are nowhere near perfect, mostly not even post card motives you see on Instagram all the time – but maybe you’ll like the warmth of imperfection.

I hope this enlightens your day!

#1: Let’s start in Tokyo. I took this one on my way to the Roppongi Hills Viewing Deck to have an even better view on this boy. But I have to say, the red of the tower in front of the blue sky might be a classic Tokyo color combo.

#2: At Kokyogaien in Toyko. I was fascinated by the yellow grass. This is near the imperial palace.

#3: Aaaah, the classic post card motive. I spent two nights in Fujiyoshida, the town at the bottom of Mt. Fuji. It was raining all the time. Then, the last morning, right before my departure to Kyoto, I decided to take a last chance. I woke up at 5 am, took the bike I rented the day before and drove the 20 minutes across the town to the famous pagoda. And indeed, I was lucky. Fuji was showing his face for like 30 minutes. It was marvelous!

#4: This is Osaka, seen from above. You might get better results with any digital camera (I did too), but taking this on analog has something to it. Was a beautiful sunset. I loved Osaka more than I imagined before, definitely gonna stay there longer the next time!

#5: A street scene in the famous Osaka Dotonbori District, near Shinsekai.

#6: More Osaka? Here is their castle during morning light.

#7: Yes, I travelled during Sakura season (cherry blossom). My photographer’s heart couldn’t resist the classic Japan experience. Whoops!

#8: Another post card! It’s way harder than you think to catch the gates of Fushimi Inari shrine without people. This was like one of two opportunities I saw in 4 hours of walking up and down the hill in Kyoto.

#9: A little Sakura secret tip for tourists – Sewaritei is where a lot of locals enjoy Sakura season in Kyoto. It was wonderful to walk around!

#10: A little less know, but beautiful nonetheless: Hiroshima Castle in Hiroshima. This city might have been one of my biggest surprises, it was incredibly peaceful and just a gem to walk around.

#11: This park was a cute little discovery I made in Tokyo. It was SO exquisit! Wonderful.

#12: I loved my daytrip to Kamakura. So many little shrines and temples to discover. This was at Hase-dera.

#12: The last frame I took of Japan before I departed: One last evening stroll through the former Kabuki district, Kabuki-cho, near Shinjuku Station.

Thank you to my trusted sonder film lab here in Leipzig for the development and scanning. That’s it for the week! Hope you’ll have a great week.

Warmly,
Simon

once again, a warm welcome to every new subscriber we gained since the lest edition. I just wanted to send this little note to y’all that I still exist. The reason there was no newsletter the past Sunday is that I’m currently fighting a flu.

I have to admit, I thought a moment about writing a letter anyway and just “pushing through” – and then I thought, well, I must be a goddamn hypocrite to do this with a newsletter that is about mindfulness, taking your time and slow growth.

So, I didn’t send one. And it was a good decision.

Trust me, I can’t wait to be back healthy again and sharing cute and warm thoughts and moments with you.

Oh, and this case might happen in the future as well – if I’m sick, I don’t work, as wonderful as it might be. So if there might be no newsletter, you know why. In any other case, I am intending to keep this streak. ;)

Stay healthy!

Warmly,
Simon

Before we start, I want to take a moment to welcome the many new readers who joined this week. My latest YouTube video took off over the past few days, and if that’s how you found your way here — I’m so glad you did.

Just a quick heads-up: compared to my videos, this space is messier. Less polished, less concerned with perfection. Here, I share unfiltered thoughts about slow and intentional living, creative work, and bits and pieces from my journey as a filmmaker and photographer. The kind of stuff I would otherwise probably write in my journal without thinking too much about it.

Having said that, let’s get into this week’s topic.

When Life Gets Stressful

My past three weeks have been insane. Probably the most crowded weeks since I started my freelance business two years ago.

Several demanding client projects at once, all at different stages of production. A YouTube video that needed to go out on time because it was my first one with a sponsor.

But I had so much fun. Not gonna lie.

Nevertheless, it took a very important lesson for me to be able to have that much fun while being stressed out.

I want to share that lesson with you.

It started two weeks ago.

I came home from a 13-hour shoot day on a two-day production with a fellow videographer. And, as often happens when I’m stressed, I got a severe headache.

Like, really painful.

The kind of headache where you can’t move anymore and can’t tolerate any light.

The days before, I had already noticed how thin-skinned I had become. That’s unusual for me. I rarely get angry. I don’t think I’ve ever screamed at anyone in my life.

I don’t like this version of Simon.

On top of that, there was this dark cloud I had been carrying around above my head. I couldn’t quite figure out where it came from — just a feeling deep down that kept me constantly on edge.

Until the next morning.

It Was So Obvious, I Had To Laugh

I woke up and the headache was gone. The night’s sleep had helped. My mind felt clear.

Still, I kept wondering: How did it come this far?

Where did the thin-skinned, nervous Simon come from?

And what about that dark cloud?

Almost by accident, I opened my calendar and scrolled back.

That’s when I saw the obvious thing.

And I had to laugh because it was so simple.

I hadn’t had a single free day in two weeks.

I immediately sat down and reviewed the schedule for the weeks ahead. They were going to be demanding too — at least for another two weeks.

At that exact moment, a client called.

From Stressed To State Of Emergency

They asked whether I’d be available for a well-paid project involving four shoot days, starting that very week.

So I had to make a decision:

Do I sacrifice even more energy and squeeze a well-paid project into two weeks that were already packed?

Or do I protect my freedom?

The answer is probably different from what you’d expect from someone who talks so much about slow growth and taking things step by step.

I said yes.

Partly because of the money.

But also because I knew exactly what I was getting into.

You see, two hours earlier, I probably would have declined. But now I understood the problem.

And that’s why I could say yes.

I saw an opportunity to push hard for two more weeks, then take time off and return to a more normal rhythm.

That’s when I realized there’s a world of difference between being dragged into the arena and choosing to walk into it with your head held high.

For whatever reason, I knew I could do it.

But only if I did it on my terms. And only if there was a clear end date.

There was still one problem left, though: I had to perform an organizational miracle over the next two weeks.

So I opened my calendar and declared a state of emergency. I cleared out everything I could and made space for the four shoot days and the post-production that would follow.

I know this state from my years in theater.

Usually, the last two weeks before a premiere feel exactly like this. Final rehearsals. Everyone puts their life on hold and practically moves into the theater to get the show across the finish line.

So I planned everything out. But the most important thing I did was schedule my next free days in advance.

I blocked two full days every week, just for myself, all the way through the end of July.

That cleared my mind. And it gave me the freedom to perform this little miracle.

Somehow, I had forgotten this lesson. But now, I relearned it.

The End Of The Song

Now, sitting here and writing this newsletter two weeks later, I have to smile.

Tomorrow is my first free day after three weeks of working nonstop.

And don’t get me wrong, I HATE hustle culture. I truly do, from the bottom of my heart. But even I have to admit that these past three weeks taught me something valuable.

I hope I never forget again to schedule my free days. As a full-time freelancer, it’s one of the most important things I can do for myself. And it’s what allows me to do my best work for my clients, because I know my calendar has my back.

I don’t know whether this will be helpful to anybody. But I wanted to share it anyway, because it was the defining experience of my past three weeks.

I hope you’re doing well.

And I hope you’re taking time for yourself.

Warmly,
Simon

From The Studio

One of the projects the past weeks (not the one I wrote about) was to be a photographer for the MACHN festival here in Leipzig – a festival that brings startups, media and culture together. It was so cool! I even got to photograph Robert Habeck, Germany’s former vice chancellor and one of the best thinkers I know.

That’s it for now! Hope I can share some of the projects I worked on during this exciting time in the upcoming weeks.

See you next week!

Above, you can see a picture of all my cloths. It’s quite a lot, isn’t it? So, here is the story how I decided to get rid of everything I didn’t need.

Clothes I never wore. Old technology. Subscriptions. Social media. Noise.

Over time, I realized that clutter isn’t only physical. It lives in our attention, our habits, and the endless feeling that we should always be doing more.

In this letter, I want to share how Essentialism changed the way I structure my space, my digital life, and my decisions — by focusing on less, but better. It eventually led to a decision I never thought I’d make as a creative professional: leaving Instagram.

(Tomorrow I’m releasing a full video on exactly this. More on that at the end.)

The Problem

About four years ago, during lockdown, I came across a book called Essentialism by Greg McKeown. It completely changed the way I think about attention, work, and daily life.

The core premise is simple. Most of us live by an unspoken cultural myth — that we can have it all, do it all, fit it all in. That’s a trap.

Essentialism rests on three truths:

1. Choice. We always have the power to choose where our energy goes. Most of us have simply forgotten this. We feel obliged, pressured, trapped. Reclaiming that awareness is the first step.

2. Almost everything is noise. Very few things are genuinely valuable. Our job is to find the 20% that drives the 80% — and protect it by all means.

3. Trade-off. Every yes is a no to something else. And that’s okay. By trying to do everything, we end up doing nothing well.

Put differently: “I choose to” rather than “I have to.” Only a few things matter, instead of everything matters. If it’s not a hell yes, it’s a hell no.

My inner German engineer loves this.

Decluttering My Space

So I set myself a goal: declutter my entire space without spending a single cent. The point of decluttering is not to buy something new.

I live in a small two-room apartment in the middle of the city. Space is a hard constraint, which means I need to be ruthless — and creative.

I started with my wardrobe. Since the last time I’d sorted through it, I’d accumulated far more than I needed. I put everything in one big pile on the bed, and when I stepped back and looked at it, I was shocked. I always thought I kept things lean. I was wrong.

The sheer amount made me aware of something: sorting out things because you have too many is an extraordinary privilege. Reducing what I own to only what’s essential — and donating the rest — feels like the least I can do to honor that.

For every piece, I asked three questions:

• When did I last use this?

• Do I use it regularly?

• Does it bring me joy?

If the answer was a long time ago and no — it goes.

The hardest calls are emotional ones. A jacket I wore when I used to play concerts. It even made it into my first music video. But it was time to let it go.

Next: the bookshelf. Essentialism isn’t sterile minimalism for its own sake — it’s about discovering what actually matters. And books matter to me. I could live with almost nothing, but I could never bring myself to throw away a book. Collecting them is essential to me.

But my shelf had become a mess. No space for new books, sections I’d avoided reorganizing for years.

So I pulled everything out, sketched a plan, and rebuilt the whole collection from scratch. Fiction sorted by author. Non-fiction by topic. Eventually, everything had a home.

Then came the cables. Most people have at least one box of them — cables, chargers, old adapters, forgotten electronics. I had two.

The hardest part is always starting. But once I was in it, I noticed something: I felt like I wasn’t only sorting a box, but also my mind. And having a clear mind in times of noise is a serious advantage.

The more I decluttered, the more I wanted to apply the same logic to my digital life. Because I noticed something: the cleaner my environment became, the easier it was to rest.

Leaving Instagram

Can we apply the same principle to our digital life and subscriptions as to our physical space?

My main problems were social media and digital subscriptions. The noise I deal with every day is something I’ve thought about a lot over the past months. The ability to control your attention — and what you actually give it to — might be one of the most valuable skills in modern life. I struggle with it daily. Most of us do.

The more I thought about attention control, the more I realized this philosophy had already shaped other parts of my life in quieter ways.

I haven’t had any alcohol since I was 16 — so about 11 years now. I’ve never smoked a cigarette, never taken drugs, and never drunk coffee. Not because I built some strict system around it, but because I noticed early on that I tend to function best with less external stimulation and fewer things that pull on my attention or change my state of mind. It’s something that, over time, naturally aligned with the way I try to live.

So I took inventory.

I cancelled Netflix and Amazon Prime — I wasn’t using them anyway. I replaced them with a self-hosted Jellyfin server: think of it as your own personal Netflix at home. Suddenly I had 38 extra euros every month for things I actually valued. I used that money to get a card for my local library, where I can borrow films, books, e-books, games, and even physical tools. And according to my Letterboxd, I’ve watched more films since quitting Netflix than in the six months before.

I decided to keep YouTube. It’s my number one learning platform — for obvious reasons, I’m not walking away from it.

And then the big one: I decided to leave Instagram.

I always told myself Instagram would keep me connected to friends and help me share my work. But what it actually kept me connected to was the algorithm. I used it maybe 10 to 15 minutes a day — not much. The problem wasn’t the time I spent there. It was the state of mind I left with. Nearly every time I closed the app, I felt worse than when I opened it. That was the signal I couldn’t ignore.

I already wrote about this the last week, but I thought I’d mention it here.

But I still wanted a place to share my photographs and thoughts with people who actually cared. So I replaced my Instagram with a newsletter.

Which is exactly where you’re reading this now.

More than any physical or digital declutter, Essentialism is a daily practice. A discipline. Not something you do every two years.

It’s about deliberate choice. About who gets your time and your energy — and why.

It doesn’t need to be perfect. I’m certainly not. But I’ll continue to try. Focusing on what’s essential has helped me live a more joyful, more present life. And that’s the whole point.

Maybe a meaningful life isn’t built by adding more and more.

Maybe it’s built by learning what deserves to remain.

Tomorrow, I’m releasing a full video on all of this — the physical declutter, the digital reset, the decision to leave Instagram, all of it. It’s called “The Art of Owning Less.” If any of this resonated, I think you’ll like it.

Until then!

Warmly, Simon <3

By July 1, I’ll be deleting my Instagram account.

Not deactivating. Deleting.

This isn’t a dramatic exit or a performance of independence. It’s just a decision that’s been building slowly, and that finally feels clear enough to act on. I want to share the reasons honestly — not to convince you of anything, but because I think some of it might resonate.

1. I feel worse every time I close the app.

I don’t use Instagram much, maybe 10 to 15 minutes a day. Screen time has never been the issue. The issue was what those 15 minutes did to my mood.

At some point I started noticing a pattern: I open the app feeling fine, and I close it feeling slightly worse. Not dramatically. No single thing I can point to. Just a quiet, consistent erosion — a mix of bad news I didn’t ask for, a reflex to compare myself to others, and a general sense of being overwhelmed by something I can’t quite name. I’ve thought about why this happens, and I think the reasons are complex. But the pattern is clear enough that I’ve stopped trying to explain it away.

Life is too short to spend even 15 minutes a day feeling worse for no reason.

2. Too much noise.

I’m genuinely trying to reduce the amount of noise in my life. Not just digital noise — all of it. The constant stream of takes, updates, reactions, and content that fills every available gap in the day. I’ve found that the quieter my inputs, the clearer my thinking. And Instagram is, for me, the noisiest platform of all.

Not because it’s loud in the obvious way. But because it’s forgettable. I genuinely cannot recall what I saw 10 minutes after closing the app. It leaves no trace — no thought it sparked, no image that stayed with me, no conversation it led to. Just a vague sense of having consumed something. 15-second reels and surface-level aesthetics have never been what I actually want to watch, and I’ve stopped pretending otherwise.

3. Instead of connecting to friends and artists, I connect to the algorithm.

When I joined Instagram, the idea was simple: follow people you care about, see what they’re making. That’s it. That promise — connecting you to friends, peers, and like-minded people — was why the platform felt worthwhile for a long time.

That’s gone now. 90% of my feed is accounts I don’t follow. It’s not a social network anymore; it’s a content delivery system optimised for engagement, not connection. The algorithm decides what you see, and what you see is whatever keeps you on the app longest — not whatever matters to you most. I’ve slowly stopped feeling like I’m visiting a community and started feeling like I’m being managed. That’s not something I want to participate in.

4. There are better places to share art.

Sharing my work was one of the few things I genuinely loved about Instagram. Posting a photograph and watching people respond to it — that still means something to me. But the platform has fundamentally changed what’s required to be seen.

A single image, however carefully made, doesn’t reach people anymore. You need reels. You need hooks, captions optimised for the algorithm, a posting cadence, a strategy. For some people, that’s the work — and I respect that. But I’m a photographer and a filmmaker, not a content strategist. The moment my art has to become a vehicle for platform performance, I’ve already lost the thing I was trying to do. There are other places — quieter, more intentional — where images can speak for themselves.

5. I cannot support Meta and what it stands for.

This one is harder to write, but I’d be dishonest if I left it out.

Since Mark Zuckerberg donated $1 million to the Trump inauguration — and as Meta has continued, in every meaningful way, to align itself with an autocratic, racist, and discriminatory government — I’ve been asking myself what it means to remain on the platform. Every account is a data point. Every minute of engagement is revenue. Staying is, in some small but real sense, a form of support.

I can’t reconcile that with my conscience. I’m not naive enough to think my leaving makes a dent. But I am responsible for what I choose to participate in. And I’m choosing not to participate in this.

A note before I go.

I want to be clear about something: I’m not writing this from a position of outrage, and I’m not trying to convince you to do the same. I understand how social media works — creating content for platforms is literally part of my job, and I do it for clients every week. I know the algorithm, I know the game, and I know how small my footprint is on there.

But knowing how something works doesn’t mean it’s good for you. And this place, for me, simply isn’t anymore.

I’m sharing my reasoning because I think there are probably others who feel a version of this — a quiet dissatisfaction with a platform they keep returning to out of habit. If any of this resonates, I hope it’s useful. Not as a prescription, just as a data point.

Where to find me.

If you’re reading this on Substack or in your email inbox, you already know the answer — this is the place I’m investing in instead. Long-form, unhurried, whenever I have something worth saying.

I’ll also keep making work on YouTube (long-form films and essays, every few months). And you can always write me directly at hello@simoncarlkoeber.com — I read everything. If you’d prefer actual letters, send me a DM I’ll share my postal address. Yes, really.

If you already have my number, just call. :)

Seven years on Instagram. I’m genuinely grateful for the connections it made possible — the people I found there, the work I got to share, the moments that turned into something real. But it’s time to move on.

See you on the other side.

Warmly, Simon ♥️

In The Studio

Phoooo…the current weeks are extremely demanding, I’ll be honest. I am in full production mode for my next YouTube video (release June 1), while handling a big project for the Leipzig Fair (Leipziger Messe) and the UEFA Conference League Final. Additionally, on Thursday and Friday, I had two days of shoot as an assistant for an image film for an elderly care (that was heartwarming, omg), and on Tuesday, I had another photoshoot in the evening.

But imma tell you: I’m having a blast. It makes so much fun, and I still have to realize I’m doing what I love while getting paid for it. But I also feel that soon, I have to take rest days again to get my life back in order.

So, here are some snaps from my week full of productions!

See you next week!

In it, Matsumoto describes how Buddhist monks, especially those from the tradition of Zen, clean their temples every day, and what he recommends to us non-monks. Sooo…I tried! Here are 4 lessons about what I learned from cleaning at 7 am every morning with an open window.

Lesson 1: Do It Every Day, In The Morning

Whaaaat? Really?! Yes, hear me out. Matsumoto actually recommends to clean your place every day. At least, that’s what monks do. To make it easy, he says you should start just with 10-15 minutes, and you should do it in the morning. Here are three reasons why this might be actually smart:

• Habit: When we do stuff regularly, it becomes a habit and therefore more effortless. I struggle very often to find motivation to clean.

• Ritual: It might become part of a nice morning ritual. I am still trying spend 1-2 hours without my phone or any digital noise in the morning. For the first days, this was a nice addition.

• Ease: About 75% of us are morning birds, which means that we have most of our energy in the morning. When we start to clean after a full work day, coming home stressed and depressed, of course it will be hard to do care about your place.

Later, I will tell you why this lesson was a problem for me as well, and why it stresses me out. F*ck you, self optimization! ^^

Lesson 2: Open Your Window

This was something that found to be actually really nice. Matsumoto recommends to open your window(s) before you start to clean. Even when I don’t clean in the morning (yes, more on that later), I still do this.

In Buddhism, it is a belief that this helps to let the ghosts of the old day and the night out of your space, and to be honest – inhaling the fresh and cold air coming into my apartment and listening to birds chirping, I started to believe him as well. For me, it kinda feels like a reconnection with the world as a start for your day. That’s nice.

Lesson 3: It’s About Cleaning Your Soul & Mind

What became very clear to me is that cleaning for Buddhist monks isn’t only about having a nice and tidy temple. It’s actually the practice of cleaning your soul and mind every day. A clean physical place is just the end result of mindfulness. For me, this had several benefits:

• Sorting Thoughts: I often find myself to wake up quite stressed in the morning. Well, that’s normal. During the night, your mind is going through a lot. Having a practice in the morning that is physical allows me to sort my thoughts from the night meanwhile. I think this can be true if stuff like Yoga or meditation is more up your alley.

• Initiating Focus: Cleaning in the morning also allowed me to look ahead. Doing your dishes and kneeling on the ground to clean your floor requires attention. I found to have better focus later when starting my actual work at the time I did this little experiment.

• Room to Breath: Sometimes, I don’t want to think anything at all. Focusing on the cleaning work allowed me to zone out as well, when I wanted it.

• No Distraction: Might sound simple, but when you clean, you can’t be on your phone. And no, you shouldn’t listen to a podcast or music (at least according to Shoukei) – a true Buddhist monk celebrates this as a practice of mindfulness and pure focus. And honestly: Enjoying the quiet mornings felt awesome to me. No noise, just mindful practice.

Lesson 4: Don’t Do It Every Day, In The Morning

Yep, you heard that right. Here’s why you shouldn’t.

I spoke about this phenomenon in my second YouTube video already – the one about analog mornings. I have the tendency to find new things to try – and immediately having the wish to make them my daily driver. Lol.

This poses several problems:

• I put pressure on myself. If I don’t perform, my inner critic becomes reckless, and I go hard on myself.

• Pressure becomes frustration.

• Frustration leads to overdoing – over never doing. This volatility is the contrary of what you want from a stable life.

• Volatility makes you rely on your daily form. Which is a BAD idea. IYKYK.

So…I stopped. Once again, I had to remind myself that stuff like this can’t come from pressure and the neo-liberal thought that I have to be a self-optimized super human that gets up at 5am and lives like a monk.

Instead, I’ll try to do my 10-15 minutes in the morning…from time to time. And hey, if I like it – it might become a habit anyway. :)

Oh wow, we got into deep shit here at the end. Hope you understand what I mean.

And I hope this was as helpful to you as it was to me! Please, be kind to yourself. Having said that – go out there and create something great.

Until next week!

– Simon

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In The Studio

Two weeks ago, I was able to photograph the CAGGTUS – a gaming festival with 22.000 visitors here in Leipzig. I was commissioned by Leipziger Messe. And I have to say it – it was one of my favorite crowds so far. Incredibly kind, warm and wholesome atmosphere. And look at those cool cosplays!

Aaah, this was so cool! Watching people having fun is one of the things I love most about event photography.

I’ve been thinking a lot about slower ways of creating and communicating lately.

Over the past years, so much of the internet has started to feel louder, faster, and increasingly optimized for attention. While building my YouTube channel and creative work, I noticed how much I missed quieter spaces — places for unfinished thoughts, observations, images, process, and honest reflection.

I miss posting images on Instagram and actually connecting with people. But Instagram has increasingly become a hostile place, and every time I log out after 10 minutes or so, I feel worse than when I logged in. That’s why I’ll be leaving the platform by July 1.

And that’s why I started Warmly, Simon. Soooo…a warm welcome! :)

This newsletter will be a small collection of weekly notes about creative work, filmmaking, analog photography, essentialism, discipline, and the process of building a meaningful intentional life.

Some letters may be longer essays.
Some may be a collection of some photos or videos I made recently.
Others may simply be a few thoughts and an image from the week.

Less polished.
More human.

I’m glad you’re here.

Warmly,
Simon ♥️

In the Studio

Some snaps I took in Tokyo in March. :)

Aaaah, I miss Tokyo already. Looking at these photos makes me smile.
Anyway – see you next week! <3