Rangefinder Magazine
October 2005

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Thomas Kellner by Peter Skinner
Reconstructive Iconographer

Above: Skyline at Brooklyn Bridge, New York Left: Tower Bridge, London, England Right: Ponte 25 de Abril, Lisbon, Potugal Photographs copyright © Thomas Kellner

Trying to pigeonhole the extraordinary, unique vision and images of Thomas Kellner, a young German photogra- pher, who in a relatively short time has breathed new life into the genre of architectural photography, is virtually impossible. In truth, his work is not architectural photography by any traditional description apart from the fact that buildings and structures usually are the principal subjects of his dramatically reconstructed photographs.

Kellner, born in Bonn, Germany, in 1966, struggles a bit when asked to en- capsulate his imaginative approach. “I think I am more of an artist than a pho- tographer. At the moment I am working on architecture, but it is not classic archi- tectural photography. There are definitions in art about ‘construc- tion/deconstruction’ or ‘collage/decollage,’ but I don’t think any of it really fits what I am doing right now,” he says, adding that photo- montage might be a closer description. “Maybe my work is closer to conceptual art or conceptual photography. Many have said it is ‘very Germany,’ and that might be closer.”

Night at Times Square, 9:00–11:00 p.m., New York Photographs copyright © Thomas Kellner

Regardless of categories, Kellner’s intriguing images have grabbed the attention of connoisseurs of fine innovative photography on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Even the most familiar structural icons take on a different character as they are visually reconstructed through Kellner’s meticulous methodology that involves printing every consecutive image from each roll of film. His final images are contact prints of the films he shoots—the more film, the larger the final image. Because the frames are shot in sequence, he simply cuts the strips of film and mounts them together. The final step is a standard contact print.

Through this process he portrays great architecture in ways never imagined by the architects themselves. The familiar become scrambled and reassembled, resulting in dynamic images that make the viewer look, and then really look again. Kellner’s first reconstruction photography was of the Eiffel Tower, and when he saw what he had created, he knew he was on the verge of something special.

Kellner’s career in photography evolved from his studies to be a teacher. His father teaches music and his mother art, both at high school level. They believed Thomas would find more security as a teacher than as a photographer or artist. He followed their advice and applied to study art and social sciences at Siegen University, where basic courses in sculpture, drawing/etching, painting, design and photography/film were incorporated in the curriculum. Before long, Kellner was absorbed in the creative potential of traditional and experimental photography such as pinhole, photograms, old printing techniques with gum and oil, cyanotype and salt paper and other similar techniques.

Creativity, combined with curiosity and the courage to experiment with the venerable pinhole camera, laid the foundations for what lay ahead. He became adept in designing, building, and using the camera. Its capabilities intrigued him, and he kept looking for new challenges for pinhole photography. Kellner began to see how even the most unusual thing could become a pinhole camera.

“I could build a pinhole camera out of almost anything imaginable. It just takes imagination. Almost anything has the potential to be a camera—a room or apartment, a van, a garbage can, tins, boxes, snail shells. I made cameras out of wood or cardboard, from found objects—everything is possible, if you understand how a pinhole camera works. I used nearly all kinds of materials such as Polaroid, Cibachrome, C-print-paper, negative films and slide film of all formats from 35mm and 120 films to sheet film. I also used orthochromatic film a lot because I could process them under red light, and it was cheap. Today I build cameras mainly out of cardboard for 120 film. From start to finish it takes about four hours to make one, and the material costs about one dollar,” he says.

In 1996 he completed an ambitious final student project to photograph the German border, all 6000 kilometers of it, using a self-built pinhole camera made from cardboard, and for his efforts won Kodak Germany’s Award for Young Professionals. “Obviously, I could not do a single panorama of 6000km of the entire German border, but I was able to do a series of single images that combine to give a general idea of what the border looks like from inside Germany,” he says. Kellner adds that one of the most apt descriptions of the project (by Eric Renner from the Pinhole Resource in San Lorenzo, NM) is: “Looking out of Germany all around the country, Germany itself becomes the camera, and the single images are the pinholes around.”

Alhambra, Granada, Spain Photographs copyright © Thomas Kellner

The border project provided valuable education. “I learned that this is a way you can create a project, a strategy, a concept, a camera. Then the process and the camera teach you what you are able to do with it.” Over the years, his subject matter has included landscapes, portraits, panoramas of Venice and still lifes. In fact, nearly everything archived on his web site, apart from the monuments and photograms, is made with pinhole cameras. Significantly, Kellner’s pinhole photography was to have important ramifications when he virtually stumbled into his reconstructionist imaging style.

“At the same time I used the 11-pinhole camera, I also built a camera with 19 holes that would use a complete length of 36-exposure 35mm film, so I could photograph panoramas with 35mm film. After 1996, I started to work on the tableaus (the deconstructed architecture) with 35mm film.”

Dicker Turm, Siegen, Germany Photographs copyright © Thomas Kellner

There is an adage that an ill wind blows no good. For Kellner, the south of France’s mistral, a strong, cold wind from the north, actually boosted his career in a roundabout fashion. In the summer of 1997, a year after completing university, Kellner found himself in the south of France, attempting a series of images with 15-pinhole cameras. But mistral blew his camera around while strong sun and dark shadows contributed to unsatisfactory results. So, Kellner reverted to a normal camera, using his Mamiya 645 camera to do a series of images in much the same way as with a pinhole camera, naming the project “La Nature Provençal.” That autumn, friends invited him to Paris. While he considered using a pinhole camera in that photogenic city, for various reasons he decided to try creating a contact sheet of fragmented images of the Eiffel Tower in a cubistic style.

During his college days, Kellner had been profoundly influenced by cubists such as Braque, Picasso and Robert Delaunay. “I was very much attracted by fragmentation and wanted to do something similar in photography that would lead me in the direction of cubism, which was what I was already working on in my 11-pinhole pictures and 19-pinhole panoramas. So, I decided to try the contact sheet approach with the Eiffel Tower,” he says. The results were dramatic and pleasing. They did initially appear somewhat David Hockney-ish to Kellner, but later he was able to appreciate the difference. For example, Kellner’s photographs are calculated frame by frame and contact printed in exactly the sequence and size as shot. They are not cut and pasted into a collage; also, there is no digital manipulation.

Kellner’s modus operandi involves good planning and meticulous execution, starting by selecting subjects from a list of his favorite buildings; scouting the location to ascertain best angles, optimum time of day and direction of light; and then making sketches to frame what he is going to shoot. “I decide the final size of the image through the number of frames I am going to use. I already know how many frames there will be, and I divide the images into this number of frames by finding the right focal length. I use a scale on my tripod to match all the vertical lines since they must line up precisely,” he says. Usually he will work from the left bottom to the right top, but at times will start at the top and work down.

“Often, when people see my images published, they imagine them as giant enlargements. But of course they are not, they are contact prints, and the size is only a question of how much film I use. The bigger the image gets—that is, the more film I use—the more the building itself disappears; the more you begin to see the picture rather than an image of something,” he says.

Stonehenge, England Photographs copyright © Thomas Kellner

Kellner also sketches a storyboard to help keep the shooting process on track. It’s a pro- cess that can be interrupted by many things— weather, changes in light, and interminable questions from passersby. “As I am working in tourist places where there are lots of people, I get asked many questions in numerous lan- guages. I get interrupted in the middle of 400 exposures by questions or comments like: ‘Is there something interesting in that window or in the sky?’” Kellner explains.

Because each frame has to be exposed with the same density, consistent light is essential. Kellner prefers a plain blue sky with a small scattering of clouds or no clouds at all. Shooting can take anywhere between 30 minutes to four hours. While the methodology is complex, his equipment and film requirements are relatively simple. For years he used his first amateur camera, a Pentax ME Super, with 28mm, 50mm, 135mm and a 70–210mm lenses. Currently he uses a Pentax MZS with 24–90mm and 80–320mm zoom lenses and two tele-con- verters. He has remained loyal to Kodak because the company has supported his ef- forts for many years, and he currently favors Kodak Portrait 400UC film.

In the past four years Kellner has applied his reconstruction process to many build- ings, becoming more ambitious and making his images more complex. Along the way he realized his fragmented images mirror aspects of the human condition, a consider- ation reinforced by the attack on the World Trade Center. “Well after the attack in New York, I am still thinking about the parallels my pictures have with that tragedy. These buildings I photograph, like the Twin Tow- ers, have become metaphors for a culture in fragments,” he says.

In a relatively short career, Kellner’s work has made substantial inroads into galleries, art collections and commercial markets. In the U.S. his photographs can be found in collections at the Art Institute of Chicago; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the Pinhole Resource, San Lorenzo, NM; the North Da- kota Museum of Art, Grand Forks; and the Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts. In Germany his work is included in the Collec- tion Schuppmann; Museum of Photogra- phy, Burghausen; Oberhessisches Museum, Giessen; and the Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) Art Collection, Cologne. He has had numerous solo exhibits throughout Europe, the U.K., the U.S., South America and Asia, and exhibitions are being planned through 2008 including venues in London, Los Angeles and Boston.

Kellner’s reconstruction images have been well received by a wide audience as was a project for Porsche, shot in the same style. He has completed assignments in Wales, England and Chicago, and it’s likely other agency work will come his way. His second book, Ozymandias, with an essay by A.D. Coleman, was published by Ffotogallery, Cardiff, Wales, and his work is represented by Getty. Plans are in the works to photo- graph more buildings in Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, the U.S., Great Britain and Japan.

None of this success was aspired to when Kellner began his odyssey. As he points out, “I did not think about success—I just wanted to make beautiful pictures.” Results to date—and a bright-looking future—can be attributed to Kellner’s belief in himself, something he encourages in other photog- raphers. “One should really reflect on one’s own ideas and see where you end up,” he says, adding, “Trust in your own work, but perhaps don’t be satisfied too fast.”

To see more of Thomas Kellner’s work, visit www.tkellner.com/.