Saturday 7 May 2016

Claudia Rohrauer


I came across Claudia Rohrauer whilst browsing in the book shop at the Impressions Gallery in Bradford, when I picked up her small self-publication Photo Trekking.  It is a signed limited run of 50 of which mine is number 39 and was published in 2014.  It is a notebook-sized hard book with post card size pages.  The book describes both photographically and in journal form a series of walks she made in a Finnish nature reserve. This link takes one to the relevant page on her website where she displays the book.  On her site she describes the walks as a self-experiment in order to repeatedly explore a Finnish nature reserve on foot and by camera.  I was attracted to the book as her project has a lot of similarities to my own project of walking the Viking Way and exploring the remaining wilderness in Lincolnshire on foot.  Her walks, like mine for Assignment 3 take place in winter, November 2013.  Unlike me, however, she only anticipated an hour of daylight each day; it is a Finnish winter.  Like the photographs I have taken so far lighting is soft and muted.  I particularly like some of her shots as the sun is going down.  Not garish sunsets that are so prevalent on social media, but largely comprising massed silhouettes of the pines through which she is walking with the trunks lit seductively by the warm light from sunset.  She writes "All of a sudden the view cleared up abd scattered beams from the setting sun made their way into the forest.  A new interplay of light and scenery emerged and while I watched that unexpected transformation happening, with my eyes almost popping out of my head, there was this voice in the back of my head shouting - YES!  Everything seemed to be GLOWING, the forest was glowing, my eyes were glowing, the camera was glowing!"
Some of her images, like mine, display footpaths disappearing into the forest.  They look enticing and make one want to be there walking along them, anticipating what is just around the corner.
In her journal entries she describes her emotions: so on 24th November 2013, she writes, "Bad mood, gloomy sky."
I found myself mildly irritated by the mix of horizontal and vertical format prints as it necessitated constantly turning the book around.  I have nothing against the mix of formats but perhaps a different style of book would have suited better.
Rothauer is Austrian and is based in Vienna.  I have had some difficulty in finding information about her.  The link to her website is here.  She describes herself as a photographing researcher or a researching photographer.  She says that she distrusts the seemingly binding approaches and results of scientific studies.  She goes on to say that she avails herself of a sober aesthetic typical for this sphere, while provoking, emphasizing and integrating its rate of error at the same time.  This gives rise to a poetical moment that eludes any promise of proof as such.  This is a Google translation of the Austrian script and it perhaps loses something in the process.  She studied at the Academy of Fine Art in Vienna and has had exhibitions throughout Austria and Europe.

To finish I have to say that I found her book Photo Trekking inspirational.






No comments:

Post a Comment