Thomas Popp
Rheinfall
Rheinfall, 1999
C-print, 28 x 35 cm
Collection Fotomuseum Winterthur, gift Thomas Popp
2003-003-001
b. 1966 (Arbon, CH), lives and works in Chur, CH
Thomas Popp photographs landscapes with quiet intensity. At first glance, his pictures have the sobriety that might be expected, given his background as a student of the Bechers at the Düsseldorf Academy. Yet they betray a more relaxed open-mindedness (‘disinterested pleasure’) in their subject matter, while his precise, concentrated gaze, invites closer inspection and exploration.It is this remarkable blend of an ordinary place captured by an extraordinary eye that transforms the landscape into an exciting exercise in visual exploration in which the viewer becomes a participant. Popp thus escapes the accusation of idealizing of the banal that is so often levelled at contemporary documentary photography. All his images are slightly reworked at the computer, where he strengthens, modifies and changes colours until he has the picture he is looking for.