Auszeit: A start

8 billion. That’s the number of human beings living on earth at this very moment. This number is so big, we just can’t imagine it. And you are one of them. One out of 8.000.000.000.  Probably feeling a bit small now, right? It’s impossible not to.  

Every single human wakes up in the morning and faces various challenges throughout the day. And not only throughout the day, but throughout his entire life. Some of these challenges seem to be bigger than others. Their size is defined by the value we give them. What we should eat isn’t valued as much as what career we choose...or where we want to live...or who we want to spend time with. The list is endless, but I think you get my point. We give different challenges, different values and that’s totally fine. But I do believe that we tend to value a lot of problems way too much for what they are. When we look at them afterwards, it often seems like they weren’t as big. Compared to what is around us – this huge world, filled with 8 billion people – our challenges could actually be seen as insignificant. And not only our challenges but our whole life is somehow just a tiny little piece in this unbelievable huge world. But it’s so hard to see that since it’s almost impossible to catch a break from this fast-moving world.  

And that takes us to the concept of this project called ‘Auszeit’. The reason for this project is that I want to capture unique moments in people's lives where they are doing exactly that: Taking a break. I’d like to demonstrate that we humans are just a small piece of the puzzle and should take a moment to realize that. To create this kind of big world around my captured subjects I will use a Tilt-Shift-effect which will blur some parts of the fore- and background. With that it creates the look and feel of a miniature world where everything seems to be much smaller.  

I decided to illustrate this project entirely in black and white since the Canadian photograph Ted Grant once said:  

“When you photograph people in color, you photograph their clothes.

But when you photograph people in black and white, you photograph their souls!” - Ted grant

And the soul of the people is exactly what I intend to photograph! The inspiration for this project came from the photographer David duChemin. Or to be more precise: From his book ‘The Soul of the Camera’. In this book he talks about the role the photographer plays in the art of photography, how to give a photo a certain emotion or even a soul and what he believes makes a photo extraordinary.  

I hope I can take you with me on this journey of creating ‘Auszeit’ and eventually be able to help you take a tiny little break.