Steffen Diemer
„Ich bin immer auf der Suche nach dem Geheimnis, was allen Wesen und Dingen zugrunde liegt“, so lautet das Motto des 1966 in Grünstadt geborenen Fotografen.
Steffen Diemer arbeitete für international renommierte Magazine wie: Der Spiegel, FAZ, Grazia, oder The Guardian. Durch seine fotografische Tätigkeit sieht Steffen Diemer in den nachfolgenden Jahren viel von der Welt, lebt für längere Zeit in Berlin und Cape Town. Seine Liebe für den Nahen und Mittleren Osten, sowie Vorderasien bringt ihn immer wieder zum Teil für Monate in den Irak und Afghanistan. Meist waren es Reportagen in Krisen- und Kriegsgebieten. Aber auch soziale Missstände in seinem Heimatland prägten seine Bilder. Der Mensch in all seinen Facetten stand dabei meist im Zentrum seiner Bilderwelten.
Was sein Werk auszeichnet, ist nicht nur das Faible für Schönheit, sondern auch eine Faszination für die technische Entwicklung der Photographie. Diemer ist kein bedingungsloser Verfechter des digitalen Zeitalters – im Gegenteil. Er benutzt besonders gerne die Ambrotypie, die um 1850 entwickelt wurde. Heute fast vergessen, ist das Verfahren gleichermaßen aufwändig wie ästhetisch bemerkenswert.
Diemers Arbeiten bereichern Sammlungen in Deutschland, Frankreich und den USA.
Er ist Partnerkünstler von Canson Montgolfier, einer der ältesten Papiermühlen der Welt und Erfinder des Fotopapiers.
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Steffen Diemer
1966 born in Grünstadt, Germany
Lives and works in Mannheim, Germany
Steffen Diemer is a much sought-after photographer who has shot for numerous magazines and newspapers such as Le Monde, The Guardian, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Spiegel, Grazia and the Foreign Office. His reports often led him into crisis regions and war zones such as Kurdistan, Iraq, Ethiopia, Afghanistan and Swaziland. However, most of all, the social ills in his home country influenced his pictures. Thereby, man in all its facets is the core theme of Diemer’s imagery.
What distinguishes his work is not only the passion for beauty but also a fascination for the technical development of photography. Diemer is not an implicit supporter of the digital age. On contrary – his artistic work specializes in ambrotype, the collodion wet plate productions, a highly skilled traditional and special processed technique developed already around 1850/51 by Frederick Scott Archer and Gustav Le Gray. The artist´s whole passion is concentrated to this unique form of photographic work that requires a high degree of precision, endurance and a willingness to slow down.
Almost forgotten today, the process of ambrotype is equally complicated and aesthetically remarkable. It is a technique in which a collodion layer on a glass plate, which previously has been made light sensitive in a silver nitrate solution, is exposed. Most of the times, Diemer chooses high-quality espacially for him produced black opal glass plates as image carrier. Thereby, he creates unique works of art with a very special feel which carries his unmistakable signature. The result is unique in every case. In this way, Diemer takes photographs of people and objects, fish, food, and especially flowers which have fascinated him ever since his childhood. “My silver images have a unique aura with a virtually three-dimensional appeal. I am constantly fascinated by the vibration of the silver, the texture of the glass, and the rich black”, says the artist.
The Floral Still Lifes – each one unique – are Steffen Diemers exploration into floral beauty. In essence, performing a counterweight to the normally harsh world of reportage photographers.
Art collections in Germany, France, and the USA have purchased his works. Steffen Diemer is partner artist of Canson Montgolfier, one of the oldest paper mills in the world and the inventor of photo paper.