Jurgen Dopatka
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My interest in photography, I believe, has its origin in the fact that my father used to work in a commercial photo lab in my very early days. Later as young kids, we used to make photograms on left-over rolls of large-size photo paper that we found in the attic, even in the absence of developer and fixer. The final spark was provided by a friend of mine in high school. While I have been pursuing both black & white and color photography since my early days into this art form from the late 70’s, I have clearly drifted towards a very strong focus on black & white photography due to its unique possibilityies of artistic expression. This is the zone where my conscious effort fades away and is taken over by a force coming from within. Our world offers an infinite variety of shapes, form, surface, contour, lighting, reflection and texture. One of the most interesting part of my work is the way I discover these characteristics in a variety of seemingly mondane subjects that would elude most casual observers. It is an intuitive thing that comes from years of wandering and observing. I typically don’t go searching for any specific subject matter, but I know immediately when I have found it. Those discoveries are preserved in my prints to convey and share the fascination I have experienced when composing the image. Many times the image maintains a sense of mystery. My strongest images originate from unusual views of modern architecture and nature, followed by more traditional nature and landscapes images. All images offered were taken on traditional film, and archivally printed on classical, proven papers, without any digital manipulation or digital processing anywhere in the process chain. Prints are offered in strictly limited edition of 50 per image. Prints have been archivally dry-mounted onto 100% rag mats, with a window mat of equal material, ready for framing or archival storage, or framed.