Josef Schulz
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The accompanying photographs were taken at a variety of locations in the Alps. They show summits, rocks, scree, lakes and valleys, areas of countryside devoid of people, irritatingly beautiful and of singularly ideal appearance.
The application of his way of working to the sphere of nature produces astonishing results.
Through the extreme reduction of image details and content-related references, but also by emphasising individual colours and contrasts, Josef Schulz provokes a heightening, a dramatisation of the settings in a way normally only found in paintings.
His photographs, shot with a plate camera, are endowed with an impressive intensification through digital editing. In this series of works the viewer experiences a fascinating sounding out of the border between photographic 'truth' and created ‘reality’. Josef Schulz’ interventions are meant to be visible: in most of the pictures, at least one element clearly points to some form of manipulation.
In some of the photographs the foreground is highly simplified and has been planted in front of the panorama like a two-dimensional plane. The mountain pictures – sections of rough cliff faces– have a painterly appearance; the artist tones down the stark contrast of their natural illumination.
The Wasser #2 picture features a promontory at Lake Lucerne which, at first glance, appears to be an island; the attenuation of the background makes it impossible to locate it. Hereby spaces open up – for Schulz’ landscapes as much as for the viewer.
Josef Schulz is interested in this momentary confusion, the moment when the line between authenticity and construction becomes blurred, when it is no longer obvious which detail in the photograph is genuine and which one has been added digitally, in order to create the artist’s subjective ideal.
In this manner Schulz gives his answer to the question about the existence of objectivity in a photographed image.
