The Beginning

In the summer of 2023, I spent about three weeks in Berlin for personal reasons. It was a pretty intense time, the heat didn’t make it any easier, and I was out and about in the city for several hours every day, just to clear my head. At some point, I pulled my old iPhone out of my pocket and started casually taking photos. This combination of walking and photographing did me a world of good. It felt almost meditative and opened up new perspectives in my mind.

Anyone who knows Berlin understands how endlessly inspiring this city is for photographers, there’s really no such thing as a “no.”

During that time, I made a decision to change some fundamental things in my life. I chose to retire, to finally create space and time for new things, for change, and for personal growth. Honestly, I’m not a big fan of the word “retirement” because it often feels like an ending, but for me, it was more like a starting point for something completely new.

Photography has been a part of my life for almost as long as I can remember, sometimes more intensely, sometimes less, with phases where I didn’t pick up a camera at all. I rarely approached it creatively. Most of my photos were taken on vacation, at parties, or other social events, snapshots, mostly documentary, rarely just for the fun of experimenting.

This time, I wanted to do it differently: to dive deeper, engage more with my inner dialogue, and work more artistically. That’s when my personal label, “Wollborn.Art,” was born.

Photography fascinates me not only from behind the camera but also when viewing it, in books, exhibitions, or as images on a wall. I also follow discussions and debates about photography with great interest.

For years, really, decades, it’s been debated whether photography is craft or art, and especially who gets to decide that. I usually watch these debates with a shake of my head because they don’t really move people or photography forward. They feel more backward-looking.

For me, there’s only one thing that matters: photographing. Doing it the way I feel it, with my own vision, perspective, and personality. In short: in my own way, in my art. And here I allow myself a little wordplay: in German, the term “Art” can have different meanings. Used in the sense of “in my own way,” it also corresponds to the English word “art,” which of course means “art.”
This is, of course, pure coincidence. Honestly!

That’s how Wollborn.Art came to be: a simple, personal name that reflects exactly who I am and what I do.

From those weeks in Berlin, I selected twelve images that, for me, capture this phase most strongly. They were taken with my old iPhone, technically far from perfect, compositionally not always ideal, but they mean a lot to me nonetheless.

Because meaningful images don’t have to be perfect!

So if you’re interested in seeing more of my journey or just want to chat about photography, I’d love to hear from you. After all, it’s about discovering the world together through different eyes, each in our own unique Art.

See you soon, Ulrich