About me

The day I was born, a song by Abba was on top of the charts. Which seems a rather random fact to start an about-me-page with, but in fact is not. I was not aware of this little piece of popmusic-trivia until three years ago, but it sure explains a lot about me. And therefore it does fit onto this page.

Before I return to that subject, a few other random facts about me: My name is Sam, I am from Germany, my lucky number is 23, i love London, the English language, the novel “Jane Eyre”, the audio-book “Framed”, coffee, British crime shows and I count steps when I climb stairs (now that is a bit too random…)

Oh and on top of it I am an amateur writer and photographer. Ever since I learned to write i did just that. Write. On whatever i could grab – paper, wrappings, old envelopes etc. There are dozens of paper-napkins filled with stories about unicorns and dragons and magic forests floating around somewhere in my past. As I got older I still wrote, but then life suddenly got dark and difficult. And that is when I lost most of my words. I still write, but it is not as easy anymore. For a while I have focused on photography now instead and somehow it gave me the chance to tell stories and visit magical places without using words.

But I am still very much a beginner as far as photography is concerned. On the road to becoming a better photographer I am accompanied by my trusty Pentax K20d and four lenses (10-20mm, 18-55mm, 70-300mm and a 70mm macro). And this is all the techno-babble you will hear from me (note: yes, i used to watch star trek, no, I don’t go to work wearing a communicator (anymore)).

“Still Another Mile” – the name of this site is not only an anagram of my name (note: pure coincidence), but also a quote from one of my favorite songs “I have a dream” by Abba. And it sums up all I have gone through (and probably still have to face):

and my destination
makes it worth the while
pushing through the darkness
still another mile

There was a time when the darkness was so complete, I thought it would defeat me. That’s when I went to see the musical “Mamma Mia” with my mum and to my astonishment it managed to lift me out of the darkness. That’s when I fell in love with the Abba-songs and particularly one called “Knowing me, knowing you” – which – and now we return to the beginning of this page – was on top of the charts the day I was born and was sung in the musical by a character named Sam (note: though this one was male, he is a lot like me in many ways*). The song moved me to tears. Still does.

There is not very much else left to say now, except that I hope you enjoy the stories and images you see here. Thank you for visiting and if you have any questions or comments, feel free to contact me. I’d love to hear from you.

_{* for those who know “Mamma Mia”, I am not talking about the mamma-mia-movie-pierce-brosnan-sam, but the one from the stage show in London, but that is another story for another day.}

Note to German readers: Übersetzung folgt bald.