Sebastian Köpcke (*1967) und Volker Weinhold (*1962) | Berlin | www.sammlungsfotografen.de
We have known each other half our lives. A coincidental travel acquaintanceship became a solid friendship, occasional cooperation a trusting cooperation that has endured over decades. The trained photographer and the commercial graphic artist complement one another ideally. Both have long since also established themselves equally as photographers because we found a major common theme in photography a long time ago.
Another shared interest is historical objects of nearly all kinds. We have created exhibitions with our own collections of historical toys, which we present in museums. It is also a pleasure for us to work with museum collections. Photography is our means of creative expression. We look at things through the lens and check them for form and function. We try to make their essence visible in our photos. We prefer to arrange still lifes in which the most varied objects enter into a dialogue with one another and ideally tell an associative story.
We find the themes for our photos in the collection depots of the museums. They slumber, well-packed, in boxes on shelves, and when we notice them, we sometimes have the comforting feeling that they have waited for us there for a long time. The themes for our work are as varied as the institutions we work with.
We have created various exhibitions and book publications in natural history collections, museums of cultural history and in technical collections. All of these works are linked by the curiosity with which we look at things.
Historical objects are often marked by time – bleached, darkened and surrounded by an aura through the visible traces of use. They begin to radiate again against the black ground. In this great contrast, a dull grey once again appears as a friendly white. The dark background also allows the unconstrained use of the most varied photo lights, with which we place the objects in the right light, without concerning ourselves with the wild play of shadows. The focus is exclusively on the motif in the finished photo. There is nothing around it that might draw the gaze to it. The black background presents the objects like stage actors in the spotlight.
The miniatures of the Museum für Sächsische Volkskunst posed new challenges for us. There are appropriate lenses for close-up shots of small things. However, each exhibit should come into its own in its own right in the photos. Complex stagings are thus excluded. The result is photos of great clarity and formal stringency, in which the object bears everything spectacular within itself. Only here and there have we allowed ourselves to confront the small museum pieces with an accessory or their own reflection.