Last Updated on 01/21/2017 by Chris Gampat
Screenshot taken from video. All images by Claudius Schulze.
The Earth is an ever-changing landscape due to natural forces as well as human intervention. To get that point across, Claudius Schulze, a photographer from Germany, is publishing a photobook via Kickstarter titled “State of Nature.” He notes that it will document climate change, natural catastrophes, and to what extent disaster management became a part of our landscape.
Armed with a 4×5 large format camera, Claudius Schulze has traveled a total distance of 50,000km across Europe with one objective in mind: to capture in photographs the extent of change due to disaster management and how that has become a part of the landscape. Using the mini crane on an old cherry picker, he gained a high vantage point which added a dramatic perspective to his landscape photography with a large format camera. He has photographed dikes, dunes, and groins at the North Sea and Atlantic Coast, snow sheds, rock fall barriers, and dams in the Alps and Pyrenees, and levees along the big streams. “My photos are a visual inquiry into how these bulwarks against climate change and impending disaster have become inseparable from idyllic European landscapes as we know them,” claimed Claudius.
Nevertheless, he does not intend to explore the distinguished separation between what is natural vs artificial, as human presence has altered much of nature in huge part out of necessity in the face of managing disasters. Consequently, this integration of man-made structure and natural scenery has also resulted in some of the breathtaking landscapes that Claudius is shooting for his photobook.
Besides photography by Claudius Schulze, the book also contains contributions from various parties. Professor Dr. Thomas Glade, a renowned scholar on geomorphology and disaster prevention at Vienna University, provides an introduction to risk assessment, disaster management, and climate change. Additionally, Oskar Piegsa, writer, critic, editor for “Zeit Campus”, and author at “Die Zeit”, contributes an essay about the picturesque and misconceptions of tranquility and nature. Furthermore, the book is designed by a popular Dutch designer, Sybren Kuiper, and made by respected German publisher, the Hatmann crew.
You can check out this “State of Nature” Kickstarter project on their official page here.