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25.11.2013 / Architektur / Biografie / Photographie / Veröffentlichung

escala

Ein Interview und Werkbericht in der brasilianischen Architekturzeitschrift revista escala über Jörg Hempel mit Beispielen verschiedener Projekt

Bahnhof Liège-Guillemins in Liege von Santiago Calatrava

Zayed University in Abu Dhabi und die Kranhäuser Rheinauhafen in Köln von Bothe, Richter, Teherani BRT, Hamburg

Textauszug: 

Exclusive

by Andrea Magalhaes

Did you take a picture of me?

“In times of automatic detection and Internet, the personal rights are an important subject. First thing you hear, when you take out a camera is ‘Did you take a picture of me?’”. In his interview to ESCALA, German photographer Jörg Hempel (1964) talks about the most serious problems and difficulties that he has been facing recently as a freelance photographer specialized in architecture. 

Hempel is accustomed to photographing projects of great architects all over the world, contracted by them, as well as photographing and writing, contracted by architectural magazines. “Being for the first time in Berlin in 1979, I discovered buildings and quickly realized that I needed better equipment. One year later, I bought a used large-format camera to photograph architecture”, he tells.  

Although Hempel starts the interview talking about people who prohibit the publishing of pictures showing them, in his opinion, this is not the main problem of his profession at the present moment. What is it? Let’s read his exclusive interview to ESCALA Magazine and see this principal difficulty through his lenses. 

ESCALA: What is the importance of people in your photos?                                                                                                                                Hempel: Architecture is my main focus. So, my pictures can have people or not. It is a choice of having “a human proportion” or not. In some pictures taken in Bahnhof Liege Guillemins, for instance, unspecified people moving inside the station gave good scale for the giant hall. 

ESCALA: Can people cause trouble?
Hempel: People can attract more attention than the building itself. Besides this, in times of automatic detection and Internet, the personal rights are an important subject. First thing you hear, when you take out a camera is ‘Did you take a picture of me?’. Even when people agree to be photographed, they are not used to the presence of the camera. The best is to have them concentrated on something, like walking from one side to the other.

ESCALA: Is this issue of personal rights the main difficulty of your profession nowadays?
Hempel: No, it isn’t.

ESCALA: So, what is it?
Hempel: Mistreating copyrights is the biggest problem in our business today. We have been living the culture of getting things for free in Internet. 

ESCALA: Another problem?
Hempel: It has been more and more difficult to get access to buildings — not only for me, but also for architects. The owner or hirer of the buildings has lots of dos and don’ts. So, there is more bureaucracy than ten years ago. Of course I understand the safety issues, but I think there is too much bureaucracy nowadays.

ESCALA: Does the owner or hirer of the building see your pictures first?
Hempel: If the owner or hirer sees the pictures first, and if he (she) can decide what is OK and what is not OK, my experience says that 100% of pictures will be given for free.

ESCALA: On the other hand, what are the best aspects of your profession?
Hempel: Travelling around the world, getting into the scene, being part of a production process, receiving good results and feedbacks, meeting people etc.

ESCALA: How is the relationship between architects and photographer nowadays?
Hempel: Some architects meet me at the building site, before I shoot. Some others prefer to see me shooting. Others send me the address by email and wait for results.

ESCALA: How do you react to these different approaches?
Hempel: In every case, I always start a project by putting myself in the place of the architect, in order to understand his (her) intention and what is important for him (her) in the project. This ignites my imagination and I start thinking about the needed pictures.

ESCALA: Have you ever imagined yourself as an architect?
Hempel: No, never. I have my profession which is enough for me. I prefer getting results in a short time and having a job that depends only on my skills. 

ESCALA: How do you see architecture?
Hempel: The possibility of creating new spaces and new impressions with architecture is a phenomenon that impresses me a lot. Every time I enter a new building, I fight to catch this with my camera.

ESCALA: What was the most beautiful thing an architect told you?
Hempel: “Your images reconcile me with my project. They gave me back the faith in what I do”. The architect told me that over the whole building process, saving money here, having unknown difficulties there, he had lost the essence of his project, but, after seeing my images of it, he realized that the concept of the beginning was present in the building.

ESCALA: How would you define your work as an architectural photographer?
Hempel: A good architectural picture is the collaboration of intuition and technical skills. We must have a good knowledge of how buildings are developed. Architectural photography is a part of documentary photography, but please do not misunderstand this definition. The creativity is not limited through that, but you have a clear mission. The work of a good architectural photographer will bring a big benefit to the architect’s work, because it communicates his (her) architecture to the world.

ESCALA: Could you give us clear examples of “documentary photography”?
Hempel: I photographed Aachen-Münchner Versicherung twice, with a gap of five years. Acting this way, I wanted to show how this project would change the city over a long period of time.

ESCALA: One more example?
Hempel: A German architectural magazine asked me to photograph Bahnhof Liege Guillemins and analyze the transformation that huge and modern building would cause to the city. Looking at my pictures, the vision is that that part of the city, with old Belgium townhouses, will disappear and there will be a new futuristic shopping quarter. I wondered about the size and the brutality they wanted to bring to the place. Our life is in motion, but I did not feel comfortable with this concept that seems to follow the wrong way. Quartier Luxembourg, also in Belgium, was totally destroyed by the new buildings of the European Union.

ESCALA: What do you want to show the beholders of your photos?
Hempel: For me, it is important that the beholder can follow my view, in order to get access to the architecture. At a second moment, the beholder will create his (her) own view.

ESCALA: Thinking about the future, how would the best market for architectural photographers be?
Hempel: Taking good pictures is the soul of the business. But nowadays the challenge is also keeping up copyrights in times of great “Internet-tycoons”. Photographers must organize themselves more than before. We should talk with each other and create a lobby which fights for copyrights. If not, photography will lose its quality. Nearly every month, I read an article about a photographer, who cannot live on what he (she) does. So, it is more and more a political question. (quadradinho final)