Meine Anfänge in Fotografie 1974

Auszug aus meinem Duo - Biografischen Buchprojekt mit Siu Ding 小丁

Es war das Jahr 1974, ein Sommer bei dem die Hitze vom Asphalt reflektierte und Barfusslaufen unmöglich war. Mein Vater war damit beschäftigt an den Kundenautos herum zu schrauben und mich plagte die Langeweile.

Spontan hatte ich die Idee, ein paar Fotos von der Garage mit all den coolen Autos zu machen. Die Kamera mit der ich ab und an herum knipsen durfte war eine Kodak Instamatic mit 127er Filmen, welche ich übrigens immer noch besitze. Mein Vater fand die Idee gut und nahm sich die Mühe zusammen mit unserem türkisch stämmigen Mechaniker Metin, alle Autos vor der Garage in Pose zu bringen. Alle Boliden wurden aneinander gereiht und sahen einfach genial aus. Es waren Jaguar, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Corvette, Mercedes, MG und so weiter, ich platzte beinahe vor Freude und Stolz. Brachte mir nicht viele Freundschaften in der Schule ein, eher Neid und Missgunst.

Damals war an der Obermattstrasse 27 in Pfäffikon wenig Verkehr so konnte ich ungestört von der Strasse aus Fotografieren. An dem Tag noch bevor ich fertig war, erschien mein Onkel Teddy (der jüngster Bruder meines Vaters) mit seiner Freundin Babs und dem VW Bus um daran herum zu schrauben, denn sie wollte ja schon bald die Schweiz verlassen um nach Südafrika zu fahren. Nach einer Weile erzählte ich Onkel Teddy von meinen Fotoaktivitäten und er brachte spontan die Idee, auf seinen VW Bus zu klettern um bessere Fotos zu machen. Das fand ich natürlich sensationell "Läss" und so parkte er sein künftiges "Zuhause" auf Rädern auf der Strasse und ich kletterte mit seiner Hilfe auf das Fahrzeugdach und knipste weiter.

Foto: Marcel Sauder 1974 - Garage Sauder

Der Film bot lediglich 24 Bilder von denen ich Heute noch die Negative besitze und so war das Shooting schnell fertig.

Als ein paar Wochen später der Film entwickelt war und die quadratischen Abzüge mit den gerundetet Ecken mit der Post kamen, war meine Freude enorm und ich liess keine Gelegenheit aus, die Bilder allen zu zeigen. Auch mein Vater fand Freude daran und so bekamen die Fotos viele zu Gesicht, selbst im Familienfotoalbum wurden sie eingeklebt. Dann verblassten sie im Laufe der Zeit, tauchten so alle 20 Jahre mal irgendwo auf, bis ich die Negative 2015 wieder fand und damit mein Scanner fütterte.

Mein Vater im Overall 1974

Everything forbidden, the rest is obligatory

Everything forbidden the rest is obligatory!

The idea for this series came due to the fact, that all around me is regulated and ruled by trillions of laws and rules everywhere. Many rules and laws makes sense, while other are just nonsense or in purposes to make profit. From listen to the people around me, i learned that more and more people getting invisible forced to spend more time with think about rules and how to be conform, than to enjoy their lifes and work on their development.

The traffic signs and rules give us a good example. Don"t you feel distracted in save driving by figure out doing all legal? A stressful yes and the government know that so well. Behind the next corner is the police allready waiting in expectation you did not know or respect the "no turn left" sign in middle of a confusing and crowded junction.

Since it has become a profitable part of the city budget, the politicians develop scientific creativity in creating new rules and catalogs of fines. It goes into the thre digits of millions in switzerland, which they can earn and squeeze it out of the people. Exactely the same mechanism is used by the industries world wide, marketing and advertisers use the obeyend and devote customers to get lost in how to"s and complicated price plans. People really spend a lot of time with decoding all this stuff and they get used to and some are well trained in that.

The young generation of today know in excellence how to get the cheapest mobile flatrate and when is time to change provider, how to get out the maximun on eBay, AirBNB, Tripadvisor, Coop Supercard, trilloins of benefit programs and so on. But do they have a idea about the real life out there?

Switzerland seems to be an expert country of regulations and laws for everything until it driftes to the absurdity.

[caption id="attachment_798" align="alignnone" width="294"] Photographer: Marcel Sauder Photography - sauder.ch[/caption]

Tons of signs and disclaimers are everywhere you go, from the top of a mountain to every small lane in the city, just everywhere you can find them. If they are not visible you should know. It becomes an lifestyle to spend lot of time to learn all rules and regulations about our daily life. People fears to do something against the regulations and get prosecuted, fined and punished. If you didn"t know it doesn"t protect you from geting punished is a well known saying in switzerland.

Over the years i collected pictures i took around this topic and i find it interesting to stack them up and turn it to a series which probably everybody around the world feel familiar too.

There will be a Exhibition in 2017 in which i prsent my work, i will inform about the details here soon.

I found it enjoynable and funny... You?

Btw. If you find typos or any other "wrongs" you are allowd to keep it. :-)

Beyond the Light

Light is life and life is good. Everything can have multiple appearance depending on the light. You go somewhere and nobody recognise you, because the light. Having a nightmare and wake up, you missing the light. Struggling with your daily life, someone brings you the light. Trapped in a cave without light, you craving for it. Suffering you work, your Hobby brings the light.

Endless emotions made of light, telling the story in photographs. My camera catches the light, the dancer Kuan-Ling Tsai reflecting the lights and forming the emotions.

The whole series of this work, soon in the Solo Exhibition.

Taking pictures is a crime?

Since i take pictures, is most about people. My first pictures from around 1974 shows my little Brother, my family and friends. Later on around 1978 i took pictures in public places like streets, trainstations and demonstrations. My first documentary was about the "AJZ Krawalle" in Zuerich. Later 1980 the "Grundsteinlegung" of the Childrenhome in Elgg. Allwais about people, their life, their happiness, their struggles.

All those years i took a lot of pictures of people everywhere, really a lot and never someone feel ofended or bothered by me.

By the time my geological radius of action become bigger and i experienced aversions against my photography in countries like Cambodia, China, Philippines, Korea and so on. What changes that some people dislike my Camera? Thats easy to explain i was on assignment in charge of a News agency and shot spot news. Of course not everybody was happy to realize i just took a picture of him.

Now in the present time i often have to face difficulties especially in europe about pseudo privacy and other weird stuff.

Let me explain few things. The pictures i usually take are often called "Streetphotography" but i"am not a great fan of such categorizing descriptions, i took such pictures long time before everybody use this therm.

The last few years i travelled around in the USA, China, Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan, i took tons of pictures and most are about People. Never ever i had any negative discussions until i"am back to europe and guess what happened. Few days in Belgium and i had an encounter with a raging middle east guy, which yelling and gesticulates in a language which i was not familiar to. It ends up that he called the police and they appear with an translator which helps out with arabic and english. This guy insist i delete the picture which isn"t that easy if you shoot film. After approx  30 minutes of a very noisy conversation he gave up and i promised the policmen that i won"t use this particular pictures for anything. Let me tell you, i didn"t took a picture of him but his shop. Something positive? I learned what "Kaffer" means.

Not even better in Zuerich, nearly everytime i go for a photowalk i encounter troubles with agressive people which feel very ofended by my action, even if i didn"t even took a picture of them. Hard to proof if you shoot film. At the fleamarket in Zuerich Bürkliplatz an middle east guy freaked out and grab my Rolleiflex, what let me answer violently in a selfdefense manner to stop him.

What is wrong in our european society, is taking pictures a crime? Europe quo vadis?

Btw. If someone ask me kindly not to take a photograph, i will respect that.