Hartmut Schulz

The photographer Hartmut Schulz lives in Berlin. Born in 7.4.1936 he has experienced the various phases of that city since his childhood. Perhaps that explains his fascination for urban scenes and experiences made in such a context.

Berlin - after the war and before the fall of the wall - some historical documentation from an artistic angle is captured by his photos:

Kreuzberg 1975

Kreuzberg 1976

Interestingly enough when he published a photo album under the auspices of the Mariannenpresse (usually designed to bring together a writer and an artist, but in this case Hartmut Schulz was one and the same person when covering both aspects: photo materials and text), he decided upon a cover which has the making of a photo album his father made.

Indeed, many of his photos entail aspects of what he remembers since childhood. It was the time when his father showed to him photos of his childhood.

Remarkable is one photo he took in Izmir. In the background war ships are at anchor while closer to the camera take there are young people who linger at the water front. Such a moment captures the precious equally fleeting aspect of life.

In the text Hartmut Schulz wrote about his travels that it is through photography he attempts to cope with the many impressions: a permanent thinking in various focuses, times when to close again the eyes to see what has been retained and then expressing it in black and white as a translation of the image captured at that moment. One of such moments is given when another Turkish man approaches him and speaks to him in broken German as one who had worked in Germany prior to returning home again.

There is also the cafe table in Paris. The intellectual atmosphere in the latter photo is conveyed by a book, an ash tray and some other signs present as absent when the discussion does not continue about the philosophy of mankind.

With regards to the photo series about the circus, he started out from childhood memories and in remembering how he was fascinated as a child by people working on the trapez. To him this is an art in which no tricks are possible. All have to work honestly for otherwise they would fall. Thus he undertook it to capture these moments with his camera. It became an interplay between himself and a person way up there and who was balancing the body across the trapez to reach the other platform. Always in his photos there are moments of contrast captured with light in the background illuminating not merely the body of the artist but putting a greater focus on some specific features that makes a difference in this balancing act, may that be a hand or the head.

Throughout his life he has devoted to a way of photographing which allows him to stay true to his conviction, namely that black and white photos is about retaining a honest relationship to reality.

As photographer he documented the 'Myth of the City' conference held in Crete 1995. These photos describe an imaginary voyage taken by poets and city planners.

He participated in the exhibition 'OSMOSIS' depicting how photographers perceive another culture when looking inside that culture and this compared to photographers looking outward from that specific culture, for example, of Greece.

While doing his own photographer he developed an interest in other photos and started collections covering a wide range of topics e.g. impressions from journeys, contrast between East and West Berliners while the wall was still standing, changes in modern society and especially in cities, replicas of childhood etc. He uses these collections to enter a dialog with his own photographic work.

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Hartmut Schulz