The questions! I ask, and receive in this way answers, that I make images? On the other hand, photography is just recognition. In other words, what I don’t recognize, I don’t photograph, because I just don’t see it. Besides all the questions of what and why, what do I photograph and why, is from today’s standpoint again of critical importance. The progressive digitalisation poses the understandable question as to whether analogue photography can still be considered a contemporary medium at all.
The analogue technical process also differs from the digital with regard to content. The difference lies in the digital possibilities of monitoring the taken photographs. Whereas earlier I had to rely upon my technical and formal abilities, today with a digital camera it is possible to continuously monitor this, my skills and abilities. The saying “Trust is good, checking is better” creates a contentedness through on-site selection; I delete the photos that don’t meet my criteria. I have always understood photography simply as an accompanying media, just there to get from A to B. Photography is for me an alibi.
Photography is my collection of memories, slowly becoming full, in order to finally be able to back away. Photography is a strategy against my fear of loss. I use photography always for the same thing: to hang on, to make visible, make clear and retrievable, in the sense of memory. But I also ask with photography. Only, it, the photographed world, gives me no answer. No decisive one anyway, because through it I would merely become aware of time in the sense of speed and consequently also my transiency. I feel through photography, that I am mortal.
André Gelpke 2012