Vineyards in monochrome
Landscapes of Rheinhessen, somewhere between slumber and renewal.
Nine black-and-white photographs.
Rheinhessen, 2016–2019
Anyone who has ever driven through the rolling hills of Rheinhessen will remember it. The rows of vines, the light, the vast open landscape. An image that stays with you forever.
This series was created during the months when this scene takes on a different appearance.
Between December and early March. The vineyards in their dormant phase, just before they come to life. No leaves, no greenery, no abundance.
What remains are the structures: the stakes, the vines, the silhouettes of the trees against the sky.
The landscape reveals itself in its purest form, and it is precisely there, in this simplicity, that a hidden drama lies.
Between 2016 and 2019, I walked through these vineyards and stood there. Often early in the morning, often alone.
Not to document what I see, but to capture what happens between the moments:
the awakening, the waiting, the silence: a silence that is not empty, but full.
Through intentional camera movement – deliberately moving the camera during exposure – the sharp contours of the subject become blurred.
What emerges is no longer a mere image. It is an imprint of movement, of time, of the very act of seeing.
The nine works in this series follow an internal arc:
from the vastness of the landscape, through the detail of a single vine, to a portrait. Each image is a moment of reflection in its own right.
Early March, mist hangs over the rows of vines. The stakes stand out against the horizon like notes on a stave: vertical, uniform, waiting.
What you can’t see: the wires along which the vines will eventually climb. And yet you know they’re there and that the vines will climb up them later in the year.
80 × 53 cm | 490 €
The Selztalstellung, a fortification line from World War I, near Zornheim, on a clear March day.
A solitary fruit tree stands between the rows of vines, its bare branches reaching up towards the sky. The energy of spring is still invisible, but already palpable.
A sense of anticipation just before setting off.
80 × 53 cm | 490 €
Late January. The stems from the previous harvest still hang from a vine. Fragile skeletons that once bore grapes.
Against the white background, they seem to float. Caught between what was and what is yet to come.
53 × 80 cm | 490 € | SOLD
A frosty January. The rows of vines are covered in snow.
A horizontal camera movement that interacts with the natural lines of the rows until the order of the vineyards gives way to a ghostly landscape.
Klar und verschleiert zugleich.
80 × 53 cm | 490 €
Early spring. An old vine with patches of bark peeling away, the morning still shrouded in mist.
The hanging strips of bark follow a dance-like camera movement that lends the wood and bark an ethereal quality.
On the border between reality and imagination.
120 × 80 cm | 890 €
A morning stroll through the vineyards during the dormant season.
A circular camera movement draws the rows into concentric lines. The bright path in the centre of the image becomes the axis around which everything revolves.
A pull inwards that simultaneously leads into infinity.
80 × 53 cm | 490 €
Late December. A vine with its annual shoot still fully intact, before pruning begins.
Its tentacles stretch out in all directions, a final gesture before it settles down to rest.
Strength and vulnerability in the same image.
55 × 37 cm | 220 €
Late February, with the last vestiges of winter still in the air. The path to the chapel in the Zornheim vineyards.
A solitary tree serves as a vanishing point, with the rows of vines converging upon it. A zooming movement that makes the very act of moving visible.
Moving and arriving at the same time.
55 × 37 cm | 200 €
Early March, the vineyards still in their dormant state. Three portraits of vines.
Each vine has its own personality: twisted and expressive, slender and upright, compact and serene.
The circular and spiral camera movements highlight what the eye would otherwise overlook:
individuality within an apparent uniformity.
3-piece set, each 55 × 82.5 cm | Overall dimensions from 185 × 82.5 cm | €1,500
The works in this series were created between 2015 and 2019 and were printed in 2019 as a limited first edition.
Most works are produced in an edition of 1/1, plus a maximum of 2 artist’s proofs.
The dimensions and prices for this product are fixed and cannot be customised.
All prints were produced by WhiteWall on Fuji Crystal Archive paper, as glossy gallery prints on 3 mm aluminium Dibond with an aluminium frame and 2 mm acrylic glass.
Each piece comes with a certificate of authenticity, the artist’s stamp and a personalised art passport, all hand-signed by the artist.
All the images in this series were created using Intentional Camera Movement (ICM):
deliberate camera movement during exposure.
No shaky camera work, no coincidence, but a controlled movement that follows the subject or flows around it.
Horizontal, circular, radial, dance-like.
Every movement is a decision.
I decided to go with black and white right from the very first shot. Reducing the image to black and white reveals a clarity that remains hidden in the interplay of colours.
The structures come into focus, the atmosphere thickens, and the moment becomes more tangible.
What you see was created at the moment the photograph was taken.
The vineyards in their dormant season are not the opposite of summer. They are its other side.
What this series shows is not sleep, but readiness.
Not absence, but a form of attentiveness that manifests itself in silence.
Because that is where it is most clearly felt.
Which image stands out in your memory and really speaks to you?