Knud Knudsen moves forward with a concentrated expression. Dressed only in shorts, he marches through the mudflats. Knudsen is the only mudflat postman in Germany. During his weekly hike from Pellworm to Hallig Süderoog, photographer Hans-Jürgen Burkard captured him in action.
In another picture, an oversized Marx head not only has to "endure" youths celebrating on its pedestal, but it also has to share the spotlight with a smiling Mickey Mouse: details like these, the unusual perspective and the closeness to his motifs characterize Hans-Jürgen Burkard's photographs.
In our subway gallery, we present selected works by Burkard. They originate from the long-term project "An Tage wie diesen" ("Days like these"), for which Burkard has been traveling in Germany for over ten years. An illustrated book on the project is in preparation.
But not only Burkard's view of the bizarre to typical moments from all over Germany is worthwhile: Burkard assigns lines of a German song to each picture. Sometimes poetic, sometimes tongue-in-cheek, photo and music comment on each other and convey the zeitgeist in which the pictures were created. Thus the punks in Chemnitz celebrate Casper's "Hinterland" and Knud Knudsen wanders through the Wadden Sea to Nenas "Lighthouse" ...
Hans-Jürgen Burkard was born in Lahnstein in 1952. After his studies, he worked as a photo journalist, among others for "Geo" magazine. From 1989 he photographed in Moscow for "Stern" magazine and documented the decay of the Sowjet Union. Burkard is a multiple prize-winner of "World Press Photo" and German prize winner of the "Infinity Award for Journalism" of the International Center of Photography.
Insights
