Über den Fotoblog

Jeden Monat ein anderer Experte. Wir laden bekannte Blogger und Spezialisten aus der internationalen Fotoszene ... Read more »einen Monat lang zu Diskursen und Themen der Fotografie zu schreiben. Machen Sie mit und diskutieren Sie mit uns auf fotoblog. Die Beiträge sind im monatlichen Wechsel in deutscher und englischer Sprache zu lesen.

About the Blog

Another expert every month: We invite well-known bloggers and specialists from the international photography scene... Read more »to each spend a month writing about debates and themes from the world of photography. You're welcome to join us in the discussions on fotoblog. The posts are in monthly turns to read in English and German.

Ina OtzkoWatching the light

Nov 2019

“When someone expends the least amount of motion on a given action, that’s grace.”
-Anton Chekhov, The Seagull

The mountain Montserrat is regarded as holy and the spiritual center of one of Catalonia´s patron saints, la Moreneta – the Virgin of Montserrat.

The norwegian photographer Stig Marlon Weston explored the mountain and the story of mystical lights that are said to be seen in the sky there. These cameraless photographs shows how a mountain can make it´s own portrait, telling a story that let´s us interpret the history of the place from a new vantage point. Presented here are photographs from two of his series;
Landmarks & Tears of St Lawrence.

“Landmarks” is a set of chemigrams with imprints made of the physical mountainpeaks. These are unique prints made directly on vintage photographic paper, showing the rockface on the tip of seven different peaks.

«Tears of St Lawrence» is a collection of chemigrams of pebbles taken from the top of the mountain. The title refers to the old popular name for the Perseides meteor shower, and the images shows how the rocks might have looked as meteorites when seen as lights in the sky.

These are unique prints made directly on vintage photographic paper.

Ina OtzkoPushing the distance away

Okt 2019

Making the invisible visible.

Because there is some risk involved, I wish you luck. And because the act is an act of courage, you have my admiration. I see traveling as an ongoing conversation between yourself and your chosen surroundings. Miles of brief memories are stored within your body searching for new experiences of what’s next. Always hungry for new places to explore while you keep on looking for that unknown something. Sometimes its an escape, keeping you busy and away from yourself. Journeys however, are pushing the distance away. They are of an intimate character. They are the ones that crawls under your skin and makes your heart wide open. Embracing your vulnerability, exposing your hopes and fears.
Journeys makes you endlessly brave, open and present.

Ina OtzkoIn Search of the Miraculous

Okt 2019

Years ago I bought a book by Ouspensky with the title In Search of the Miraculous. I came to live by these words: What happens or may happen, may depend on these three causes: Upon accident, upon fate, or upon our own free will. I have an unquestionable belief in subliminal messages that are presented to me; within fractions of a second there is something specific that fully grabs my attention. It can be anything. An image, a person, a word, a sound, an insect, an event. I trust each and every clue knowing that if I listen and act, in time I will be enriched by a new adventure, a new meeting, a new experience, a new perspective. Living a nomadic life I am most often somewhere else, but always here wherever I am. Photography are one of my methods of exploring time. Today is Sunday. Take your time.

“If you wait for something to pass you do not wait in vain. For in the meantime there is a kind of peace, or so it would seem. Some rely on it so much they keep their secrets until they die.
The surface becomes an idol for their sacrifice, love must be sacrificed for a picture of love. Photographers do not spend their whole lives taking photos in order to recall surfaces, but what has happened just before or long before, and what will happen immediately afterwards.”

(Hanne E. Bramness, No film in the camera)

Mathilde Helene Pettersen – Searching for Cloudberries

Mathilde Pettersen’s work can be seen as a sensitive family portrait that shows the anxiety and sincerity of motherhood. Her projects portray in a nuanced way aging and dissolving and at the same time the journey of life in photographs from birth, days by the sea, blood on a pillow and a bouquet of the early summers blooming. Mathilde’s project could even show an active feminist action when you as a woman photograph your own children and integrates the work in your artistic practise.

Thale Fastvold – Ghost of M

Thale Fastvold works with artistic research. Through her art projects she explores her subjects using various materials and methods. She is concerned with ecology, veganism and spirituality, and the new generation (iGen) in relation to internet and living at the peak of information.

“To be part of today’s global conversations about climate change, science, technology and eco feminism – how to learn from each other through dialog and collaboration between different fields, backgrounds and age groups, is a key factor in my work.”

Siri Ekker Svendsen – Presence of Things Unseen / Between Attraction and Void

Siri Ekker Svendsen works primarily with the relationship between nature, perception and consciousness, and where the distinction is drawn between the physical world and the human perception and imagination. She examine this issue through photography and video, with motives of natural phenomena, trees, plants, animals and humans, often in a state of transformation or interaction. Many of her works are based on biology, psychology and mythological material.

Her photographic practice is based on analog camera and film, where the accompanying restriction and risk is an important part of the process. She works with both staging, studies and found motifs, and uses these methods interchangeably within the same series.

Marianne Bjørnmyr – Your Penumbra

Marianne Bjørnmyr works with research based photography, concerned around our perception of the photograph’s approach to reality, where the presentation of the photograph is set up against our understanding, interpretation and generated perception of imagery. Through theoretical and practical experimentation around photographic presentation she explores phenomena and visual representation, and the photograph’s role in conveying objects and surroundings is set up against our understanding.

The work Your Penumbra (2015-2017) is communicating an inverted contemporary astronomic aspect: a claustrophobic impossibility of ever being able to see the recorded objects with the naked eye. The work displays a constellation of images where sprinkles of start dust have been exposed on photographic paper, presenting us with a starry sky, hints of foggy nebulas and empty space, leaving traces of their physical existence. Together with glass sculptures with trapped meteorites the involved elements are together and in their own way examining the fascinating and misleading specifics of the photograph.

Ina Otzko100 Norwegian Photographers

Okt 2019

Very happy and excited to be invited to take over the HC fotoblog for a month! In one week from now, October 18th, I’ll be launching the 100 Norwegian Photographers book at Fotografie Forum Frankfurt during the Frankfurt Book Fair 2019 – The dream we carry : Norway Guest of Honour. You will also find the book at the Norwegian Pavillion. The dust cover of the book is by Bård Ek.

By using artificial light Bård Ek wishes to highlight our distanced relationship to nature, as something beautiful to look at and a place for recreation. In this series he investigates the boarders between man- made and nature. To save the environment and climate we are increasingly using the latest technology to manipulate and regain control.

“We act like we are not part of nature anymore.
It becomes alienated and something we want to control.”

Img © Bård Ek

The long-term Encroachment project by Adrian Bugge explores how human intervention changes nature; meetings between the natural and the man-made. It consists of landscapes from different places in Norway where encroachment affects nature, such as wind power production at Smøla or mining in Sydvaranger. Such interventions fascinate him, not only because they are spectacular in themselves, but because they leave traces that never fade away. This series started in 2007 and is an ongoing project.

A different approach to the man made and natural landscape is found in the works of Gjert Rognli. His works address questions related to identity, religious roots, sexuality, silence and time.

Hege Dons Samsets main working method is travelling and exploring landscapes and habitats, to understand how our relationship to nature shapes people living in different parts of the world and creates her art in response to this.

Betty FinkJordis Antonia Schlösser: Garzweiler

Jul 2019

Fotoredaktion der Ostkreuzschule: Verena Dorina, Nadja Köffler, Till Rimmele, Eva-Maria Tornette

020805js13

Vor 17 Jahren dokumentierte Jordis Antonia Schlösser das Verschwinden niederrheinischer Dörfer in den Braunkohlegruben RWEs. Nun kehrt sie für eine Bestandsaufnahme in die Region um Garzweiler, Etzweiler und Inden im Auftrag von arte zurück. Schlösser setzt da an, wo sie aufhörte – bei den Menschen, die dort wohnen und nicht aus ihrer Heimat wegziehen wollen. Einfühlsam dokumentiert sie die Verwüstung einer Kulturlandschaft und die Folgen für ihre Bewohner.

Gemeinsam mit Jordis Schlösser knüpfen vier Bildredakteur*innen der Ostkreuzschule ihre Bilderstrecke von 2002/2003 an. Sie stellen vergangene Bilder denen des Hier und Jetzt gegenüber und erweiterten durch die Einbindung von Kartenmaterial die humanistische um die geografische Dimension.

Zwischenzeitlich sind Garzweiler, Etzweiler, Inden und der Hambacher Forst zu Symbolen des Klimawandels und der politischen Lethargie des Kohleausstiegs geworden. Durch den Verlust der Heimat schlägt die Apathie in Depression um.

Die Tage dieser Energiegewinnung sind gezählt. Die Inseln des Widerstands gewinnen an Zulauf: ob ein Bauer welcher seinen Familienhof nicht verlassen will, die Bewohner*innen des Hambacher Forsts oder die Fridays for future Bewegung in den Städten, die Forderung nach dem Kohleausstieg schallt durch die Gesellschaft. Die Veröffentlichung dieser Arbeit ist für das vierte Quartal 2019 geplant

Betty FinkSebastian Wells

Jul 2019

Redaktion: Ann-Kristin Ziegler, Henryc Fels, Robert Rausch, Jakob Weber (Fotoredaktion, Ostkreuzschule)

Einen Fotografen kennenzulernen, mit dessen Arbeit man sich intensiv auseinandergesetzt hat, führt oft dazu, dass man ein noch tieferes Verständnis für sein Werk entwickelt. Bei unserer ersten Begegnung überraschte Sebastian Wells uns mit seiner erfrischenden, humorvollen und authentischen Art. Ähnlich der Erfahrung, wenn man seine Bilder betrachtet. Die gezeigten Situationen wirken vertraut, der klare Aufbau der Bilder erleichtert die Orientierung. Aber immer schafft er es, etwas Unerwartetes zu zeigen, eine Perspektive, die man noch nicht gesehen hat. So hallen Sebastians’ Bilder im Kopf nach. In unserem Projekt zeigen wir seine Fotografie im Zeitungsformat, zugänglich und auf Augenhöhe, eben so, wie Sebastian den Menschen mit seiner Fotografie begegnet.

Ziel der Publikation ist es, Sebastian Wells‘ charakteristische Art vorzustellen, einen Ausschnitt aus der Vielfalt seiner Themen zu zeigen. Den Bildern zur Seite stellen wir ein Gespräch, Einblicke, wie er seine Themen findet, seine Bilder baut, es ihm gelingt zu sehen, was andere nicht sehen. Sebastian Wells ist ein Fotojournalist aus Berlin. Er wurde vielfach national und international publiziert, ausgestellt und ausgezeichnet. Seit 2018 ist er Mitglied der renommierten Fotoagentur OSTKREUZ

Finale im Wildwasser Kanuslalom, Olympische Sommerspiele. August 2016, Rio de Janeiro, Brasilien

Aus der Serie Utopia: Schule des türkischen Nizip II-Flüchtlingslagers. November 2017, Nizip, Gaziantep, Türkei

Olympiasieger Usain Bolt feiert mit seinen Fans. August 2016, Rio de Janeiro, Brasilien

Peter Crough und Lizzley Smith sitzen in ihrem Karavan im Thorney Bay Park. Canvey Island, März 2019, UK

Aus der Serie Utopia: Flüchtlingslager Kakuma, Juli 2018, Kalobeyei, Kenia

April 2019,Southampton, UK

Betty FinkSibylle Fendt „Holzbachtal. Nothing, Nothing“

Jul 2019

Redaktion: Marleen Hahn, Marit Lena Herrmann, Catherine Waibel, Max Zerrahn

In ihrer Serie „Holzbachtal. Nothing, Nothing“ beschäftigt sich die Ostkreuz Fotografin Sibylle Fendt mit einer Flüchtlingsunterkunft im Schwarzwald. Während ihrer vielen Besuche, die sich über drei Jahre erstreckten, fotografierte Sibylle Fendt die Unterkunft aber vor allen die dort lebenden Menschen, die in der Abgeschiedenheit des Schwarzwaldes untergebracht waren.

„Ich wollte das Nichts fotografieren – die Tatsache, dass nichts passierte, dass unklar war, was die Zukunft bringen wird und die Gelassenheit, mit der die Bewohner diesen Zustand aussaßen.“

Die Fotografin plant nun die entstandenen Bilder in einem Buch zu veröffentlichen. Für die Crowdfunding Kampagne erarbeiten derzeit die Bildredakteur*innen der Ostkreuzschule ein Video, welches die Idee des Projektes vorstellt.