My first and, to date, most extensive project, Flora obscura, is a photographic herbarium that aims to document all edible plants and now encompasses well over 1,000 species. It focuses on edible plants and highlights their diversity as a distinct foundation of nutrition and enjoyment – as aesthetic evidence of a plant-based food culture. Using the focus-stacking method from digital photography, high-resolution, precise plant studies are created that combine scientific illustrations with the pictorial tradition of old master still lifes. This ongoing project is conceived as a contemporary form of botanical collection.
In parallel, I work with lensless photographic processes. I have named these series—which I also regard as ‘herbariums’—after their light-sensitive materials and the resulting colour spaces: Silver Black (lumenprint), Iron Blue (cyanotype), Anthocyanin Red (anthotype) and Photosynthesis Green (chlorophyll print). In these processes, the plants are not merely depicted, but play a substantial role in the creation of the image. An interplay of plant substances, light and metal salts produces images that are sometimes unforeseen, resulting from living natural processes.
In addition to these photographic techniques, I also use non-photographic fine art printing techniques such as natural monotype, as well as linocut and woodcut.
The pictorial documentation of plants has a centuries-old tradition and has always made use of the techniques available at the time. I build on these historical processes whilst simultaneously experimenting with new approaches. Each work is part of a growing collection that combines botanical pictorial traditions with contemporary photography.
My photographs have been exhibited at venues including the Frankfurt Historical Museum, the Palmengarten and the Umweltfotofestival »horizonte zingst, and have been published in DIE ZEIT, the Frankfurter Rundschau and specialist literature.
My interest in plants stems from my many years of working with scientific plant collections, as well as from a personal ethical stance.