TITLE: Protective Masks

The Covid 19 virus has spread across the globe. Some countries, such as the U.S., India and Brazil, have been particularly hard hit. The U.S. Johns Hopkins University (JHU) reports 103,943,365 infected people and 2,255,091 deaths worldwide at the end of January 2021. Simple hygiene measures such as wearing protective masks can help to protect yourself and others from infection in everyday life. However, they are no guarantee of not contracting the virus.

Klimsch Process / Reproduction Camera; Apo-Ronar 1:9 f=600mm
Direct exposure on 20x24 In (50x60 cm) B&W Positive Photo-Paper

AUTHOR: Josef Dreisörner (Germany)

Josef Dreisörner (born 1967)
Living in Munich, Germany

When encountering the works of Josef Dreisörner, one discovers an artistic position in which conceptual creativity is combined with craftsmanship. Just as the act of creating a picture is an active process, so is the process that his pictures set in motion in the eye of the beholder. Seeing goes beyond simple representational recognition to become a productive process of perception. The themes of his works are immediately recognizable and immediately understandable even without a legend, as his pictures tell a clear story that is open to interpretation. His works do not express an opinion, but open up spaces for reflection that the viewer can fill with their own thoughts.

Josef Dreisörner’s analogue black-and-white photographs enable him to capture his motifs – especially the human face – with a strong authenticity far more than any color photography, and to bring socially relevant themes to the point with great conciseness in his conceptual still lifes.

His Klimsch Unikat close-up portraits create unique, visually and psychologically precise insights into the human face – an aesthetic that initially alienates the viewer, but is precisely intended in its consistency of depiction. These human faces are unadorned, direct and truthful. Josef Dreisörner’s portraits are a consistent alternative to the arbitrary images of people that have been passed through countless filters and presets, produced and shared millions of times a day, in which every mistake is corrected and every desired aesthetic result is produced retrospectively. This practice of depicting leads to an ever-increasing standardization of visual language, to a monotony of uniform visuality and to a great loss of meaning in seeing.

In Josef Dreisörner’s black-and-white still lifes, the decorative aspect tends to take a back seat. Although he himself is committed to high aesthetic standards, his conceptual still lifes are intended to draw the viewer’s attention to socially relevant themes in order to create a space for interpretation and invite discussion.

Such image statements are mainly realized using so-called large-format cameras. The Klimsch Praktika Repro Camera from 1957 is particularly noteworthy in this regard. The photographs are taken analogously on a 20×24 inches (50×60 cm) black and white negative film, or directly on a 20×24 inches special black and white positive photo paper – without the detour via a negative, resulting in unique one-offs. After exposure, the image is developed by hand in the photo lab. When using positive photographic paper, it is not possible to reproduce the photo in analog form, nor is it possible to post-process it in the photo lab. The photographs on black and white film are realized using the Palladium/Platinum Print process. Thanks to the 20×24 inches format of the Repro Camera, Josef Dreisörner is one of the few photographers who are able to produce analog negatives and thus palladium/platinum prints with a size of up 20×24 inches.

Equipment:
Klimsch Praktika Process / Reproduction Camera, Film format 50x60 cm/20×24 Inch