Reading · Ulrich Wollborn

At the beginning of 2024, I retired. Sounds good, right? But as life goes, personal matters suddenly took a much higher priority. So, like before, I only took a few photos here and there with my iPhone. I didn’t really get the chance to dive into photography as I had planned, until later. It wasn’t until November last year, with a lot of support from my wife and family, that things really started to take shape, and I’m truly grateful for that.

Before that, I had already spent a lot of time thinking about where I wanted my photography to go and which directions I wanted to avoid for now. Artistic photography sounds exciting and pretty ambitious. But me? I don’t have an artistic or creative background. I worked for over four decades at a tech company. My strengths lie more in the technical and analytical fields, in the development of IT systems and applications, project management, and controlling. In short: I’m more of a nerd who picks up a paintbrush intending to paint the Mona Lisa. And that’s exactly what makes it so appealing to me.

In my article “The Beginning,” I already shared how I experienced an important turning point with urban photography in Berlin. That’s why it made sense for me to continue my work here in my hometown.

Photography has been a part of my life for decades. What fascinated me most were photo series and projects I saw in exhibitions and books. The idea of telling stories, emotions, and visions not just through a single photo but through several really grabbed me. So, I defined a project for myself, and somehow, over the past few months, several series have come together almost on their own, some of which I’m still working on. You could say: once the ball starts rolling, it really picks up speed.

My actual Projects and Series:

Project: Unterbilk
Series: Museum Insel Hombroich
Series: Rough and Delicate – A Meeting in Düsseldorf
Series: Perspective on Light

Today, I want to begin by introducing my series “Perspectives on Light,” which was created in mid-December. It best shows how I currently see composition and light, and how I imagine a finished image.

The “Perspective on Light” series came about quite by chance on a day when I was out in Düsseldorf looking for new motifs for my “Unterbilk” project. Since I started late in the day and it was mid-December, the sun was already very low. The streets were bathed in diffuse light, which made it harder to find the right subject. In photography, it rarely makes sense to force something. So I just wandered until I reached the “Rheinkniebrücke” (”Rhine Knee Bridge”), often simply called the “Kniebrücke” (”Knee Bridge”). It connects the “Unterbilk” district (right bank) of the Rhine with “Oberkassel” (left bank). The low sun beautifully lit the bridge ramp from below. The concrete structure was marked by strong contrasts that irresistibly drew me to start shooting.

I’m lucky that I can visualize my thoughts and ideas quite clearly, I basically see an inner image. I’m not great at inventing or telling stories, but I’ve always been good at creating pictures in my head. So when I see a subject or composition while shooting, I have a very clear idea of how the finished image should look, usually even in black and white. For me, this means that with the camera, I’m really just trying to capture that inner image as precisely as possible. When I have enough time, I usually succeed pretty well, so I only need minimal post-processing. The downside is that I can be pretty slow sometimes. For the eight shots I’m showing here, I spent at least half an hour—I always work without a tripod and only use available light.

I really like these shots and love to look at them for a long time. At the moment, I don’t have the opportunity to print them in a large format. For me, these have become images I’d love to hang up big at home. And I already have my wife’s approval.