A photo series about repetition and uniqueness.
“Train rides” originated in 2002 from a snapshot. For ten years, nearly daily photographs were taken of railway tracks and passing landscapes between the respective places of residence and the workplace. The series was concluded in 2013, when the last train with opening window panes on the Buchloe-Landsberg-Munich route was replaced by more modern models. The photos were taken during the ride with a Nikon Coolpix 990.
It quickly became clear that the technical capabilities of this early digital camera were insufficient to capture the images clearly, and the chip was overwhelmed. The results were always unexpected but sometimes beautifully stunning. Due to the dynamics of the passing subjects of the “Train Route,” the images could hardly be controlled. They are representations of a borderline situation, an unpredictable “discontinuity” of the results.
They are countless snapshots, views of the tracks and the landscapes along the same railway line. Images of the same origin, yet all unique and unrepeatable. The photo series is a tribute to the aesthetics of blur. What remains is not the rapid association of motion. Rather, it is the perception of details such as the delicate decay of the tracks or the dissolution of the landscape into light and shadow. The blur renders reality unrecognizable while simultaneously suggesting transitions, new perspectives, memories, and moods. They are intimate images full of nostalgia, transience, and longing.
All motifs carry the automatically assigned numbering from the camera as a signature. I see myself in this project as a curator rather than an author. My task was to sort, select, compile, and admire the images. Over 40,000 motifs were photographed during the project. In 2015, the first leporellos and prints were created. For the exhibition “Black and White,” the motifs were printed on valuable washi mulberry paper (Awagami Kozo).