Even when I was young, photography fascinated me more than anything else. I was often on the move with the simplest cameras and looked for motifs in the area around my home. The tension was always very high until the developed films and the paper prints could be picked up at the photo retailer.

In high school I learned how to develop and enlarge black and white negatives in the school’s own photo laboratory. This required a lot of patience until the finished picture was created.

Later I was able to set up a darkroom in my own house that is still use, although very rarely.

With the increasing demands on excellent quality, the negative formats became bigger and bigger and accordingly the camera became heavier. The crowning glory was undoubtedly the large format photography with negative formats up to 8 x 10″ or 20 x 25cm.

On my first trip to Cuba at the end of 2011, there were still heavy analog medium format cameras from Fuji and countless film rolls in my photo bag, while in spring 2020 an equally heavy digital Fuji GFX 100 for color photographs and a Leica M10 monochrome for black and white photographs, which was presented on the market shortly before my departure were my companions.