Erstes Semester

Berlin, 2019

Today was the last day of my first semester at the Ostkreuzschule für Fotografie in Berlin. Since March, I have been gaining new experiences and gathering a lot of impressions thanks to the creative capital and photography. Already after my first semester I can say that the education spans far beyond the medium photography. Now I am curious what is more to come over the following semesters. In subjects like “design”, “technique”,  “laboratory”, “digital”, “photography” and “history of photography”, I have got to know and been shown a lot of new things. What I had already known I have now finally comprehended.

The change of surroundings, the new school and the city of Berlin with a lot of new acquaintances and impressions from different photo festivals have been the most important topics of the past months.

Starting with the very beginning of the history of photography – with light and shade, in analogous form – was the motto of the first semester. Taking one step back, becoming aware of the moment of releasing the shutter. Developing pictures and blowing them up in the darkroom until late at night. Through this time-consuming process and the extra effort – compared to digital photography –, one rather considers once more if the right moment has come to take a picture.

This first decelerated, conscious step back was most certainly one of the most important steps for my creative work in the future. Taking the story of a picture, expanding it and extending it for a series of pictures. Not only aesthetic photographing but also substantially – and soulfully. There is one thing I have learned: pictures have to tell much more than seems possible at a first glance. They only have to be read in the right context and their contents must be questioned – that is a new language that has to be learned.

Hence, in the first semester, I worked with grains instead of pixels, and in the course of recent months, I created numerous new works – only analogous and in black and white. Apprentice pieces included, e.g., recreating a famous picture, photographing a still life in different lights and taking a picture of an egg.