Artist statement (English)

My inspiration is my camera. It holds me, through it I can observe the world.

I observe people in urban theatre. Often, I ask myself the question. Why? What is the reason for a fast walk, a pause, a photo? Stories are created in my head that I will never know to be true. With my camera I capture these moments, through self-circulated / self-designed filters I alienate them. It’s not about reality, it’s about mental cinema. Through alienation, I approach the space between photography and painting.

I observe places. What characterizes this place, what does it stand for, what layers and stories surround it?

I observe the light, the water. Elements. Photography is painting with light.

I have ideas in my head for my photographic projects. The pictures come from the gut. The muse to get involved, wait what will happen.

Apart from my self-made filters, I work with multiple exposures and the pinhole camera principle. The images are created at the moment of release in the camera. In recent works, I weave images and create new stories from old slides.

 

A very warm welcome to my – Bettina Loppe’s – foto_art_work presentation page!

I am a Potsdam and Paris based artistic photographer and the woman behind the camera and foto_art_work. 

I got my first camera when I was a child – I can’t remember the model – but it was heavy and you had to wind the film by hand after each shot. This is not a reference to my age but a reminiscence to different technologies that accompanied me during my growing up as an artist.

An old, but still good friend is my Canon EOS 30 that I got while living in Paris. I still have, love and use it until today. In Paris I also started to do apprenticeships in analogue artistic black and white photography.

During my first Parisian years I spent hours wandering the streets of Paris, in the formative  foodsteps of the great French photographers – Robert Doisneau, Willy Ronis, Edouard Boubat, Henri Cartier Bresson.

Following these pathways, I discovered my passion to experiment with techniques, self constructed analog filters, daylight and nightlight. All my pictures are created in the moment I press the camera shutter button – and not on the computer.

All my work can be purchased in limited editions. If you are interested in my work, I would be happy to open my atelier for you and provide any additional information. Please feel invited to email or call me.
Thank you very much for your interest.

Photography is painting with light

Laszlo Moholy Nagy
The Studio …
.. with the best view!