On German Photography Today

Although photography is an integral component of the visual arts in Germany, most of those working in this trade are concerned with design, which also has a greater economic significance.

Here, too, the focal points have shifted: there is no independent photography in the German design scene, but everyone works with the medium. Beyond the trade organisations and theoretical considerations, a melange of “anything goes” has established itself in design photography, which cares hardly a whit about the photographic original or about the integrity of the photographic picture. Everything is permitted which not only pleases, but also establishes brands, creates identities and, above all, arouses attention.

Here three trends are presented, which represent a very differentiated process of overlapping between design and photography: the integration of different pictorial forms into photo design, the further development of editorial design and, as an example of possible scopes of application, architectural photography.

Integration of different pictorial forms

The increasing blurring of borders between photography and other pictorial spheres, which necessitates working on picture editing programmes, now means that older pictorial forms may join forces quite naturally with photography, something they never did in the past. Thomas Mayfried, for example, in a major work has created an alphabet of photograms, which is not only amusing, but which can also actually be used to form words. Sandra Dörfler, meanwhile, is involved in an intensive discourse with colours and their effects, which is reflected among many other things in monochrome coloured Sandra Dörfler: Posters with photo motifs . And Marion Blomeyer-Bartenstein integrates depiction forms from botany and zoology, derived from copper and wood engravings, in her multi-facetted pictorial world to demonstrate scientific insights.

Editorial Design

Proclaiming the end of photo-journalism and describing its dissolution into editorial design may seem a daring thesis. In view of a flood of pictures of utterly catastrophic events throughout the world, it can certainly not be claimed that in this context outstanding photos are produced. The informative effect of those pictures, which are the first photos to convey an event, casting it in a short metaphorical form, has become irrevocably a thing of the past. Instead such disasters – as can be seen, for example, in the terror attacks in New York and Madrid and also in the aftermath of the tsunami in Christmas 2004 – now only serve as a background for image-moulding which, although often excellently designed, never lack a certain element of narcissism.

The magazine format of a series of three, four or at the most eight pictures is being replaced by the online presentation of several dozen pictures at once. The single picture in the daily newspaper, in contrast, now only stands for the cut-out of a video sequence which can also be accessed online or shown on television before the newspaper appears. Yet one can definitely say that the quality of the pictures in this context has greatly improved – that in each form, from production via processing to presentation, they have become design.

The positive nature of this development can be seen in the work of the photographer Wolfgang Tillmans: his working method complies even in details with that of a press photographer, he presents his pictures in tableaux and projections like a video jockey or in the style of an amateur, but in its entirety his work is of course highly professional design, combining fashion and lifestyle, attention economy and creative ambition. In this context art is first and foremost - citation.

Architectural photography

In architectural photography elements of design photography were always evident since the object portrayed is itself an artistic structure and, as the inspiration for a photo, usually also a laudable visual achievement. The development from classical to digital photography may be reflected most radically in architectural photography, for here aim and reality in the picture often diverge greatly. Cars are parked or driven in front of houses, the position of the sun is not optimal, and the additions of the residents are rarely an aesthetic improvement. In this field, therefore, photographers have been working for the longest time with all the tricks of the trade in picture preparation and processing. With these developments, however, the concept of beauty has also undergone a change, as exemplified in the works of three architectural photographers who, though coevals, work in very different ways.

Klemens Ortmeyer still comes closest to a traditional pictorial approach with analog methods, though he doesn’t entirely eschew digital processing of his images. His large-scale cityscapes range from small German towns like Herford in Westphalia to world cities like Shanghai or Bangkok. They are almost invariably portrayed in diptychs whose casual air is belied by a highly nuanced use of lighting and composition.

Despite all similarity with regard to Modernist precision, Lukas Roth stands for the next younger generation: he simply allows himself to change, improve and adjust pictures by means of electronic processes, often humorously livening up entire scenes with secondary figures.

With Anja Schlamann, who is a trained architect, the social relevance of such figures becomes the decisive characteristic of the picture; since 2008 she has been tracing an elegant arc to fashion photography, in which she herself poses – suitably attired – in vast interiors, thereby making herself the measure of our perception of space.