W O L F G A NG   T H E   A R T I S T

i n t e r v i e w : 

Question: Wolfgang, men fear and respect you, women get nervous around you and now your worldwide success story as a photographer.
Wolfgang: What is your question?

Question: Some people may say that you are an egomaniac that hankers after self-aggrandizement.  So why are you going through the trouble of making your work available to the public?
Wolfgang: If there is anything I can be proud of, it is the beauty I have seen in my life. I have failed to document this beauty. The photos in this gallery are just my failed attempts of preserving a frame of the ever-changing reality around me.

Question: You must be using a lot of expensive equipment?
Wolfgang: Once I acted as a guide for a photographer from the German magazine "STERN". He carried 2 Leica SLRs and 4 lenses on his vest. His assistant gloated that that was more than $30.000 total. By now I have owned and handled far more expensive gear. Once I actually tossed $30.000 worth of outdated video equipment alone. I have had all the gear I ever wanted and was willing to carry around.  I shot Betacams, 35mm, 2 3/4", 4" X 5", what to speak of a large 2' x 2' repro camera.  
Nowadays I shoot with a Panasonic DMC-FZ18, which is one of those super-zoom cameras with Leica optics and a set of cheap close-up lenses. I keep it simple. On the weekends I became a giant that stalk those creepy crawlers  in my backyard. In most cases a tripod would only slow me down, so I do a lot of very slow and low squats and I hold my breath for the shot. Its more like playing  with a leg and hip work-out... not working with tripod, lights and reflectors.

Question: What brought you into photography?
Wolfgang: My mother is a sculptor and my father was a static engineer. Maybe that is why it was always easy for me to combine art and technology. My mom wanted pictures of her sculptures and that is how I got my first box camera at 8 years. And because I had criticized her sculptures, my photos of her sculptures were being criticized by my dear mother.

Question: What makes a good artist in your opinion?
Wolfgang: The perception or creation of beauty happens in the mind. When the artist wants to manifest the perceived beauty, may it be music, 2 dimensional or 3 dimensional, culinary or pertaining to our sense of smell, she has to be fluent in his technology.
For instance Picasso's drawings may look like a child's expression, but beware, Picasso knew anatomy inside out. He knew exactly how to draw a foot, an eye and so on, with him the childlike expression was a choice not ignorance.

In my personal world view I distinguish between the artist and the artisan. The artisan follows a firmly established course of action for a traditional product. The wedding photographer and the run of the mill portrait photographers come to mind. In medieval times painter businesses would crank out commonly ask for paintings like "The Madonna with Child" by copying a popular painting like an old fashioned Xerox machine.

The artist is the one that steps beyond the mediocrity of the safely trodden path and comes up with something new.
So originality with substance is one component that i like. And then there is the emotional impact of the art. Nobody will deny that music, smell and visuals have a very strong affect on the emotions. A painting or photo can be soothing, exciting and many other things to the emotions, so I judge an artist on what kind of mood their art invokes in me.