The media of photography overwhelmed me in the spring of 1969. Unexpectedly, maybe even a little coincidentally, but definitely with all its force. This fateful encounter is still being played out 40 years later. It was a coat that I slipped into – it fitted me perfectly and I felt natural in it. Hectically I strived to master the technology of photography, orient myself in what this medium meant to me and how to utilize the tools that would enable me to express my visual ideas in a concise manner.
Back then I chose the method of extensive persistance, I photographed everything and all the time, analyzing how my intentions matched the achieved outcomes. Using this method I soon eliminated reportorial and documentary photography as a means of self-realization, as well as the whole huge field of commercial photography. I have nothing against these fields, but right from the start my way led in a different direction.
My painterly past, and the intuitive need for manual interventions into an otherwise exact media that stemmed from it, have predetermined my direction up to this day. At the Academy I was forced to carry out individual assignments and this way, in fact, I had to learn the whole spectrum of photographic disciplines. I carried out the individual assignments with greater or lesser success and looked forward to graduation, after which I would be able to devote myself fully to my own interests.