Encountering – Observing – Recounting
By using the medium of photography young people are able to report about encounters in different social worlds with sensitivity and with an eye for human peculiarities. In such cases it is not the technical finesse of the evolving photographs that is of particular interest, but rather what they have to say about other people. The works can best be summarized by the term social studies.
There are an enormous number of topics. Quite often they have to do with the personal situation of the young photographers. Besides this, the young people tend to approach themes, places and people that frequently do not receive much attention in everyday life.
In the first decades the young photographers took individual photos for the most part. In the last twenty years there is a distinct trend toward series, i.e. several photos about a single topic. Typical of these works is their project nature with which – using almost filmic means – they document their topic.
Often enough they focus on their motif over a longer period of time. This approach includes extensive research as well as talks with the people being portrayed. Through engaged observation the photographers can build up trust and enter into new and different areas of life both conceptually and in their photographs. This results in sociological micro-studies of unusual encounters that lead us into other worlds and make us aware of the diversity of human existence.
