Uwe Ackermann

A working life in medical research has instilled in me an approach to photography that demands not settling for the obvious solution, but to push beyond what I previously thought a photograph could be. Given that we live at a time when everything that can be photographed has now been photographed, what are the options? We can tell new stories based on observations of the world around us or we can invent worlds using the possibilities offered by digital manipulation.

While I collect material by photographing subjects that fit certain themes (such as censorship, weather, couples on a last date, cohabitation, money and so on), I often stray from those themes and photograph close-ups of the material environment, landscapes, buildings or nature. When inspiration strikes then my archive of filed images, my head and a variety of software conspire to create in the digital darkroom something that is intended to transport the viewer elsewhere, emotionally, conceptually and aesthetically and elicit a reaction, a smile, an unexpected interpretation. No more than that.

http://uwe-ackermann.crevado.com