Salzburg fine art photographer Werner Schnelle has devoted his work to reflecting on the process of analogue photography. The focal point of his interest is not on the photographed motifs or on an epistemological understanding of the world gained through documentary photography. Rather, in his photographs, he explores the way in which the photographic moment of image capture and recording itself proceeds. This approach encompasses photographs taken with all sorts of cameras, such as Polaroid photography, and the use of extra large-format studio cameras; also, photographic techniques that dispense with cameras altogether, producing images on photo paper simply through exposure in the darkroom, i.e. photograms and chemigrams. He even experiments with photographic methods that only use photo paper and light, in other words without photographic chemicals to produce the image. A common trait of all the works is that they are unique images in the narrowest sense – no two images can ever be the same.

Werner Schnelle, *1942 in Vienna, lives and works in Salzburg, Austria.