I'm a mathematician from Berlin, Germany, and I first took interest in photography many years ago in the film days with a 35 mm DSLR. I wasn't completely convinced for landscape photography by the quality and I bought a 6 * 6 medium format camera (Rollei SLR) in the 80s. Composing a photo in a light well viewfinder is a challenge. But you learn a lot through the additional abstraction. In any case, I was very enthusiastic about taking photos with this camera. I learned to take photographs primarily from my aunt Lore Bermbach. She was a very well-known theatre and portrait photographer in Germany.
My favourite film until 1990 was the PAN F from Ilford. This film has a sensitivity of only ISO 25 with the developer I used. A tripod was therefore indispensable for technical reasons alone. Looking back, I have to say that the tripod was much more important to me for another reason: it trains my eye when composing images. Since then, I've always tried to create the final composition in the viewfinder and adjust it slightly in post-processing if necessary. In the analogue era, I developed the films myself in the darkroom and also enlarged the images. Even today, the fascinating feeling I get when the image is slowly created in the developer tray is still alive in me.
Analogue photography was very time-consuming. But the main reason why I stopped doing it was another: for a long time, you could hand in used chemicals at any photo shop. The silver was recycled from the fixing bath. At some point, the shops stopped this service and it became extremely inconvenient to dispose of the used chemicals.
Around 2010 I started taking photos again - this time digitally. My requirements for the equipment were: The final images should be technically at least as good as my barite prints with the medium format camera, and the equipment should be as light as possible. I opted for the Micro Four Thirds format and am still convinced that I made the right decision.
I also take colour pictures, but my focus is still black and white photography, as you can easily see in my projects. What fascinates me most about black and white images is the reduction to the essentials.
I take a lot of photographs while travelling. You can find interesting examples via the link USA-West or Cyclades. I also like to take portraits - often with a flash system. The Portrait link will take you directly to a selection of my portrait shots.
When editing the images, I am guided by the principle: everything that was possible in the darkroom back then is also permitted in digital processing. There are rare exceptions: for example, I remove power lines if they interfere with the composition of the image.
In analog photography I regularly used colour filters (yellow, orange, red - sometimes green). In a figurative sense, I also do the same in digital photography. However, I benefit from the convenience of using a colour sensor and simulating the colour filter in post-processing.
Here I only want to present a small selection of my pictures. A typical project contains about 10 images so that a visitor can easily navigate through my website. I am not arguing against the digital representation of photos, but I much prefer a printed photo. That's the reason why I print pictures that I really like.
Jan Dieckmann
