FUTURE PERFECT, BFF Aufschlag12, Hamburg 2021

 

AUFSCHLAG12 

is a group exhibition of BFF Hamburg and this is my contribution.

 

FUTURE PERFECT 

This is a prospective tribute to my son. My son Joel is 20 years old. He was born into troubled times accompanied by an uncertain future. I was born into an uncertain future as well. Everyone was. Every generation has to deal with this special situation. We actually don’t know anything about any kind of future. Are we all lost? Is there any chance of survival? Why must we survive at all? We move ourselves through hopeless dreams and we reach for unattainable goals. We waste our limited time on this planet with selfish behavior and self-destructive actions. We have to raise our awareness again and again. I took my son for a walk and we strolled around some hidden spots of my hometown. My son starts recording and thus conserving sounds from the woods with his smartphone. As if he is absorbing moments and impressions he had never experienced when he was smaller and is willing to learn about those now. And intends to save them forever. Will those sounds disappear in the near future? No more singing birds, no winds rushing through the trees, no rivers meander their way through untouched grounds, creating a natural level of noise that calms our souls? My son is hugging trees. Will they be gone in a while? What is on his mind? Does he already know what might be happening very soon? Does he know what I don’t know and probably never will? My son documents nature with his tiny analog camera that once belonged to his grandfather! Sustainable thoughts indeed. Do we need to live with prerecorded material of sights and sounds of former times in the future? How do we receive and preserve emotions, hugs and touches? My son is my future. All sons and all daughters should be our future. We should not leave them any scrap and rubbish.

 

New client R. STAHL AG

Here is my latest work for a brand new client.
R. STAHL AG is a major supplier in the field of explosion protection products and solutions (company´s own description). A medium-sized company in the south of Germany. 

I had the pleasure to portray the company´s chairman-of-the-board for the actual annual report.

Working with wagneralliance as the responsible communication agency for this job was exciting as well. They did a great performance with a modern and stylish annual report for R. STAHL AG which has been brillantly designed by creative director Almut Riebe with whom I have collaborated for many years now.

Grooming by lovely Rahel Täubert.

The pictures show an excerpt of the Annual Report 2020 and some further shots of the production. 

 

 

The story behind the story

As I mentioned before I would like to give you a short impression on how social networking definitely can work. 

I got to know Beate Finken a couple of years ago when I stumbled over her very inspiring and style-defining blog BeFifty where she talks about fashion, beauty and travels. This blog specially addresses to the 40+ women. Beate is a very heartwarming person and she really loves what she is doing. Check her portfolio on www.befifty.de and give her a big thumb.

I was talking about that agency from Hamburg that booked me for that Vapiano production in Cologne and the art director who coincidentally is a good friend of Beate. You will probably know what´s coming up now but it´s different. I got a phone call from the AD and he told me that Beate sent him a picture of a company manager I took a few years ago which she liked very much and that she had recommended me and my work to the agency.

The AD revealed that he actually kept the picture for 3 years on his desktop (and this is what makes the story really amazing) and always waited for a client request and a chance to work with me whenever a similar idea for a portrait would emerge. wow, what a praise!

Thanks again for that Beate and let´s keep networking.

For further information on Beate´s articles, click here:

Image on the left side, image on the right side.

All images courtesy of Quirin Siegert

Joachim Rehkämper for VAPIANO

I know the Vapiano story is not the very best to tell. Anyway, I would rather like to talk about this picture. I was asked by a Hamburg based advertising agency to do these images in Cologne. They asked me because I had been recommended to them by my dear friend and blogger Beate Finken. I will get back to that story in one of my upcoming posts. 

They checked my portfolio and fortunately seemed to like my way of doing portraits and then finally booked me. Yet I wasn´t sure what to expect in Cologne me and my assistant packed the car with almost every kind of equipment I could probably be using on location. When we arrived at the spot we had a short briefing with the artdirector and I asked him for his idea how the images should look like. He smiled and replied that he booked me for my ideas. Alright, I told my assistant to get the black background cloth out of the car. The rest of the stuff remained unpacked. I used the huge window in my back as a main light. That´s it. I love those jobs when really everyone is happy. I drove home with a grin on my face. My assistant fell asleep immediately from dealing with heavy equipment.

Joachim Rehkämper, Vice President Vapiano

 

CHROMFELD feature

Last week I have been featured by CHROMFELD

Chromfeld is a brand new fantastic online platform representing a mixed range of amazing colleagues coming from various genres. Alongside their features of photographers and graphic designers Chromfeld is publishing interesting interviews and talks and further on they are vending books and prints in variant editions of their artists. I am happy to participate to this admirable project.

 

 

Politicians

I spent two days with these nice people in the studio a while ago. Well, those are real local politicians, not models (although they seem to look like we did an ornate casting for that production). The images were supposed to be for their individual election campaigns. That was really great fun and good to see their posters spread all over the city.

Hair & Make up by lovely Evelyn Fay

 

Interview FOTOGLORIA

A few weeks ago I have been interviewed by Edda Fahrenhorst of FOTOGLORIA to refer to the current situation in the photography business during pandemic times. That was quite an inspiring delight and I definitely found myself in good company with other photographers from around the globe who gave statements to that issue. Thanks for that, Edda.

Find the whole interview here:  Faces Of Photography

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

Christina Maria Ringer, Frankfurt

Recently I had the great pleasure to photograph the amazing Christina Maria Ringer in a studio in Frankfurt. Christina actually is a remarkable person. She is a committed regional politician and further on she supports various social projects in her close surrounding. Christina is involved in many voluntary tasks and amongst other activities she is the child representative in Frankfurt. My deepest respect for this smart and powerful woman.

Hair & Make up by Evelyn Fay, Frankfurt

 

 

ROBECO Germany

And here´s another short story straight out of Frankfurt´s Business District, the capital of finance and investment. It´s always a great pleasure working with these lovely people of ROBECO

Maybe you notice that.

 

 

Business as usual? Same same but different.

I really love doing business portraits. They often look similar but you have to consider the details. As a photographer I am always in charge of creating the best result for my clients. Well, the client pays for that promise and definitely expects highest output.

Here are some examples of images I did for Braun & Westenberger Immobilienbewertung, located in Frankfurt.

I still like that old-fashioned white or monochromatic cardboard background. The character of your model seemingly turns out stronger and the concentration on each face makes the picture even more interesting - and in some cases indeed mysterious.

Special thanks to Nannette Römer of graurot postproduction, Hamburg.

Photographers - a personal project on colleagues

In 2019 I started a personal project on portraying my fellow photographers, all members of BFF Germany. This is really going to turn out as a long term project hopefully, with the side effect of getting to know all of the members of the BFF personally. Let´s wait and see. Great fun anyway. 

To be continued.

 

Götz Schleser, Berlin

Jens Oellermann, Berlin

Darius Ramazani, Berlin

Klaus Mellenthin, Berlin

Jens Görlich, Frankfurt

Hendrik Lüders, Hamburg

Katja Ruge, Hamburg

Florian W. Müller, Köln

Alexandra Lechner, Frankfurt

Stefan Hobmaier, München

Rui Camilo, Frankfurt

Bernd Opitz, Hamburg

Fiene Wollstadt, Berlin

Robert Garo, Frankfurt